TCB Dec. 2, 2015 — Block by Block

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com December 2 – 8, 2015

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The annual asses downtown growthsment of

PAGE 16

Burr, in the saddle PAGE 10

Landlocked yacht club PAGE 21

Anthony’s first buck PAGE 26

Dec. 2 — 8, 2015

GREENSBORO

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I remember

by Brian Clarey

UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

NEWS 8 Weaponized noise 10 Burr makes re-election bid 12 HPJ: Gifting open space

OPINION 14 Editorial: The power of the lie 14 Citizen Green: Citizen Trump

15 IJMW: Public shunning 15 Fresh Eyes: ‘Blame it on Aristotle!’

GAMES

COVER

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

16 Block by block

28 West Lewis Street, Greensboro

CULTURE 20 Food: Boned 21 Barstool: Beached yacht 22 Music: Possum party 24 Stage & Screen: Lane on Beautiful Star

27 Jonesin’ Crossword

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Start spreading the news

GOOD SPORT 26 My first buck

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “He earns his paycheck playing with Donna the Buffalo, but we’re going to put him on retainer. Which means we’re going to take him to an old house out in the county and lock him up until the next gig.”

— Possum Jenkins’ David Brewer, on guest keyboardist David McCracken

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St., Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING INTERN Nicole Zelniker

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

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SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green jordan@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com

NEST EDITOR Alex Klein

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EDITORIAL INTERNS Daniel Wirtheim intern@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING & SALES Dick Gray dick@triad-city-beat.com

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CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

Cover photography by Eric “Bunny” Ginsburg Elsewhere facillitated art on the side of ReAligned.

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In Eric Ginsburg’s cover story this week, Block by Block beginning on page 16, the author bemoans the pace of change in downtown Greensboro, which he perceives as too slow.

I can understand that — for someone his age, a couple of years can seem like a lifetime. And I too feel like I’ve been looking at the scaffolding on the Southeastern Building, the fenced-off site for the performing arts center and Roy Carroll’s dirt pit since I was a much younger man.

But really, when I actually was a much younger man, downtown Greensboro was one of the saddest business districts I’d ever encountered in my life.

I got here 15 years ago, at the age 30, and I had never seen such wasted potential as I did in the sprawl, dilapidated buildings and outdated storefronts — there was once an appliance store on South Elm Street, as if anyone would ever buy a washing machine from a mom-and-pop concern, even way back in the year 2000.

I worked in the building that once stood on the corner that now holds Center City Park back in 2001, not too long after Pete Schroth took a chance on the Green Bean, the only cultural light in the blighted corner of Hamburger Square besides the Paisley Pineapple and the upstairs Sofa Bar in a building that once caught fire twice in the same night. It became Natty Greene’s not too long afterwards.

The stretch of South Elm Street known as the Medaloni District, a string of clubs overseen by nightlife doyenne Joey Medaloni, presented the only action after dark on the main strip, and the Rhinoceros Club gave life to what is now a quieter stretch of Greene Street. The old Rhinoceros Times faithfully documented the scene with party pics that, to look at them now — the fashions, the hairdos, the pervading mood of optimism — seem almost charmingly provincial.

Erik Beerbower and a crew of young artists intended to turn what is now the Railyard and South End into an Arts & Antiques District, a burst of optimism before the closing of Jules Antiques. It was but one of a dozen ideas swirling around the potential of downtown Greensboro.

There was talk back then of digging a waterfront, building a baseball stadium, attracting a grocery store, allowing hotdog vendors to operate on the sidewalks past 9 p.m. Mayor Keith Holliday finally pushed that last one through after realizing in 2004, following the opening of Natty’s, that there were more people on the streets of downtown at night than there were during daylight hours.

I thought that was the tipping point, way back in my early thirties, which would finally bring some life into that sprawling wasteland. And in some ways it was. Downtown today is unrecognizable from that pupal stage I encountered when I first got here, and in a couple more years it will have moved even further away from those quiet days in the city.

I’m more patient now that I was then. But still, it’s not happening fast enough for me either.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015

CITY LIFE December 2 – 8 WEDNESDAY Autism in Love @ Salem College (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

RiverRun International Film Festival and the positive-thinking foundation iCan House present a documentary film following the romantic lives of four individuals with autism. Autism in Love sets out to prove that genuine romance can happen in the lives of people diagnosed with autism. The film is a part of the Indie Lens Pop Up screenings and is followed by a discussion. Visit riverrunfilm.com for more information.

FRIDAY

THURSDAY Holiday decorating lecture @ Muddy Creek Music Hall (W-S), 10:30 a.m.

Michael Ausbon, the decorative arts curator of the NC Museum of History, speaks about the history of decorative traditions in Bethania and North Carolina as a whole.

He’s demonstrating how he makes his fantastic historically inspired Christmas wreaths so that you can put the cheesy Christmas décor back in the garage. Visit townofbethania.org for more information.

Art in Odd Places/LAB @ Downtown (GSO), 5 p.m.

UNCG students who studied the New York version of Art in Odd Places are bringing their installations, performances and interactive art to downtown Greensboro. They also hint that you should turn on your radio as you approach to participate in some interactive sound art. Find the Facebook page by searching “aiopLab.” First Friday @ (GSO), 6 p.m.

Festival of Lights is hosting this First Friday, which brings the holiday spirit to the monthly self-guided tour of downtown. Christmas carolers and lights are part of the scenery. Visit downtowngreensboro.net for more information.

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by Daniel Wirtheim

Gallery Hop @ Downtown Arts District (W-S), 7 p.m.

Streets are closed for the monthly gallery hop. The arts district is alive with the sound of street performers and shoes on the asphalt as Winston-Salem galleries show off their best.

Visit dadaws.org for more information.

Miracle on 5th Street @ the Millennium Center (W-S), 7 p.m.

You’ll need a toy to get into this party. Drink beer or wine, snack on hors d’oeuvres listen to live music hosted by the Garage while you help Twin City Santa get a toy into the hands of every child this Christmas. Find more information at twincitysanta.org.

Holiday parade @ Downtown (GSO), noon A giant balloon parade with marching bands, drill teams and floats hit the streets of downtown as part of a Greensboro holiday tradition. If parading is not your thing, at least beware of street closures. Visit gsoholidayparade.com for more information.

Holiday Stroll @ Uptowne (HP), 10 a.m.

Children make crafts, community performers do their thing and the historic homes and churches of Uptowne High Point are open for your viewing pleasure at this holiday festival. Horse-drawn carriages take visitors through the streets of Uptowne as the word on the street is that Santa Claus himself is planning an appearance. Visit uptownehighpoint. org for more information.

Candlefest @ Greensboro Arboretum (GSO), 6 p.m.

Luminaries light the paths of Greensboro’s Arboretum as walkers sip hot chocolate and stroll the grounds to the sound of Christmas carolers and horsedrawn carriages. Santa Claus (who’s scheduled for a busy week) is there as well.

Bring a can of food for the food for the Urban Ministry and get more details at greensboro-nc.gov.

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SATURDAY

Spirit World @ the Marshall Free House (GSO), 3 p.m.

Sarah Poole, an ambassador from spirit makers Beam Suntory, leads the first part of an educational series on spirits. She enlightens listeners to the nuances between small batch and single barrel bourbon, and more. Find the page on Facebook for more details.

Community Cultural Market @ Bethel AME. Church (GSO), noon “Market” might be a misnomer. Maybe “festival” is a better way to describe the group of African drummers, spoken-word poets and African clothing vendors along with speakers and various black businesses that are holding it down at the Bethel AME Church. You’ll have to find the Facebook page for more details.

Collector’s Choice @ Greenhill Center (GSO), 7 p.m.

You’re spending more time indoors, where it’s warm. So why not get a good winter-themed piece of art for your home? The Winter Show exhibition is going up and here is a chance to take something home and talk with the exhibiting artists. Visit greenhillnc.org for more details.

SUNDAY

Winter Walk @ UNCG (GSO), 1 p.m.

To commemorate World AIDS day, which was Tuesday, Triad Health Project hosts a 5K walk and run on the UNCG campus. Free and confidential HIV testing is available and the running or walking is optional. Email winterwalk@triadhealthproject.com for more information.

Holiday Open House @ High Point Museum (HP), 1 p.m.

High Point Museum hosts historical reenactments, music and other hands-on activities at their 43rd Annual Holiday Open House. Glenn Chavis, historian and author of Our Roots, Our Branches, Our Fruits of Knowledge — Black Schools of High Point & Surrounding Area… 1868-1968 is signing books. Santa Claus is scheduled to make an appearance. Visit highpointmuseum.org for more information.

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport

Dear white people

I agree with you, Chelsea: As Latina that studies intercultural communication in southern Illinois, I get oppressed for advocating to better our world [“Fresh Eyes: Why colleges are not neutral spaces”;

by Chelsea Yarborough; Nov. 15, 2015]. My attempts to improve public pedagogy are sometimes denied because of my skin color. This is applied as colorism. If I advocate for my Latino community and for social justice, but I do not appear to look “ethnic,”, then “I have nothing to complain about” and “I have no struggles.” This is absolute nonsense. We all have the space to educate our community with the correct neutral pedagogy.

Great job expressing this issue, as we must all act against it.

Dominique Crespo, via triad-city-beat.com In my view, powers-that-be — almost inevitably white — believe that the solution to oppression in higher ed (systemic racism, social injustice, unfairness, etc.) rests in sitting through lengthy discussions, formation of subcommittees, collection of “data” and of course, a succinct “definition of the problem.” This devotion to process is supposed to indicate how much the institution cares, when really what people of color want, whether they’re students or employees, is for the oppression to stop.

“Tears of white guilt” are about as useful as subcommittees and data collection are when a house is on fire. Brown University just announced it’s going to spend $100 million over 10 years to improve race relations, which sounds like a good start to me.

Andrew J. Young, via triad-city-beat.com

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Setting the record straight

6

I usually always enjoy and appreciate your work but I especially enjoyed your opinion piece about the Community-City Working Group meeting on Nov. 19 [“Citizen Green: Nelson Johnson: The agitator becomes the conciliator”; by Jordan Green; Nov. 25, 2015]. Not only did it do justice to Nelson Johnson, it helps settle the record about whether the CCWG fully endorsed the purported proposals of BLM, which we did not. We did agree to collaborate to further discuss those items and others.

We are lucky to have you in this area as we all struggle to make a better world. I really believe Greensboro has the history and talent to become a national leader for a progressive city.

Cheers and thanks, Lewis Pitts, via email

8 songs about downtown

by Daniel Wirtheim

1. Petula Clark — “Downtown”

With an orchestra playing one of the most infectious melodies ever written, Petula Clark’s telling of the endless possibilities within a flourishing downtown make this the quintessential downtown song. English writer and producer Tony Hatch wrote the melody to the international hit when he mistook Times Square for downtown NYC. But whatever, because he really nailed what a good downtown is all about.

2. The Pretenders — “Downtown (Akron)”

The Pretenders channel the raw, primitive stimulation that is downtown on a Saturday night. With a driving punkrock rhythm and the aggressive whispering vocals of frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders command listeners to “get to the heart, baby, the heart of the city.”

3. Tom Waits — “Downtown Train”

Sometimes downtown is the place of longing, like in Tom Wait’s night-time ride on a downtown train, a yearning journey in which he hopes to run into the woman who’s captured his heart. Probably the most accessible and affectionate track from Wait’s Rain Dogs, a cover version of “Downtown Train” became an immensely popular hit for Rod Stewart.

4. Raveonettes — “Downtown”

Danish noise-pop band the Raveonettes prove that the key to a great downtown is collaboration, especially when it comes to vocal harmonies.

8. K EM (featuring Snoop Dogg) — “Downtown”

Borrowing the hook from Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” KEM visit downtown as the master of classic R&B with the perfect windows-down cruising sound. Snoop Dogg is also on board for this sensual drift through the heart of the city.

HIRING Triad City Beat is hiring motivated full and part-time sales people for commission based advertising sales.

5. Hall & Oates — “Downtown Life”

In the daytime, downtown is only a mess of wound-up sexual energy ready to burst into the night with Hall & Oates’ “Downtown Life.” It’s a bass-driven love note to the part of the city that keeps these soulful guys hanging on.

6. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — “Downtown”

The Seattle-based hip-hop duo explores the downtown-theme by moped in their song “Downtown,” which dropped in August. With plenty of horns and musical changes, it’s an exhilarating ride through the part of the city concerned with speed, style and romance.

7. Neil Young & Crazy Horse — “Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown,”

Neil Young shares a songwriting credit with Danny Whitten on this one. It’s a sort of joyful tune accompanying lyrics about scoring heroin when the night comes around. It goes to show that sometimes a good downtown song comes from the seedy underbelly.

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60 50

30

10

18%

Tanglewood Festival of Lights

16%

WinstonSalem Jaycees Holiday Parade

11%

Piedmont Wind Symphony’s concert

5%

Other

3%

Downtown Greensboro attractions

All She Wrote

47%

Sunset Hills holiday lights

Shot in the Triad

20

Games

40

Good Sport

70

Culture

90

Cover Story

Readers: The Sunset Hills holiday lights came out on top (47 percent) trailed by the Tanglewood Festival of Lights (18 percent) and Winston-Salem Jaycees Holiday Parade (16 percent). Down a little lower in the ranks, Piedmont Wind Symphony’s concert (11 percent), Other (5 percent) and the downtown Greensboro attractions (3 percent) didn’t register much support. Rebecca Post-May explained her position: “I voted ‘other.’ Candle tea at First Moravian Church in Greensboro is my favorite holiday tradition. It doesn’t feel like the Advent/Christmas season until candle tea! Me second vote would be for the Sunset Hills lights. So beautiful and spirit lifting :).”

Perhaps no television show ever endured so successfully on such a simple premise.

The obtusely-named “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” or “MST3K,” championed the notion, “It’s so bad, it’s good,” by making fun of terrible movies — mostly cheesy horror and science-fiction films from the Atomic Age. That’s all they did. But they did it well.

Despite humble beginnings, MST3K ran for 11 seasons comprising nearly 200 episodes, spawned a feature film and nurtured a devout cult following which survives to this day.

Fans may not have to rely on reruns any longer.

Joel Hodgson, “MST3K”’s creator and original host, launched a Kickstarter campaign intending to crowdfund a reboot of the series.

In the Kickstarter video, Hodgson muses, “We can send ‘MST3K’ back into the wild… [on cable] or an online platform.”

After first viewing the spiel, I did three things almost immediately: I said aloud, “Holy hell — Netflix,” pledged enough to receive a metric ton of memorabilia and shared the link with friends.

The campaign didn’t excite me alone: The effort raised over $1 million in a single day, nearly half of its $2 million goal to shoot three new episodes. Now all the producers need is an appropriate outlet. And more money.

Reaching the minimum was practically a given; this landmark was met within a week.

But, considering the quick ascent, the campaign slowed. And they aim to make a full, 12-episode season.

The interest and audience must exceed the thousands who have already contributed. And I’m sure some of you, dear readers, may be “MST3K” fans.

As of this writing, the Kickstarter raised $3,437,471; the amount changes steadily but slowly. They’ll shoot at least six episodes, which already makes me ecstatically happy. But for a full reboot of the series, they need $5.5 million.

Support from as many pledges as possible sends a strong message to producers and executives.

And it’s in the nature of “MST3K” to rely on word-of-mouth; after all, this endorsement is simply “circulating the tapes.”

MST3K influenced me as much as the Beatles, Ernest Hemingway, Calvin and Hobbes, the Velvet Underground and Steven Spielberg movies.

It’s one of the reasons I am who I am.

If we raise enough, “MST3K” could resurrect for everyone in the not too distant future.

Opinion

Jordan Green: The Sunset Hills holiday balls are really cool, but I think my favorite Triad holiday tradition might be one the survey didn’t include as an option: First Moravian Church’s annual candle tea on South Elam Street in Greens-

Eric Ginsburg: I’m with you, dear readers. The Sunset Hills holiday balls/lights are totally awesome. I take out-of-towners through it, and drive through meditatively a few times on my own as well. Tanglewood sounds great (I’ve never been) but I hear it’s a real hassle to get in.

by Anthony Harrison

News

Brian Clarey: I grew up the Northeast, where every city, village and town has a holiday wardrobe it brings out of storage when the weather gets cold. Skating rink? Seen it a million times. The lighting of the big tree? Old hat.

Christmas concerts and parades and elaborate light displays, too, are common in every part of the country. But I’ve never seen anything quite like the Christmas balls that take over Greensboro’s Sunset Hills neighborhood, 100 houses or more each festooned with these glowing, cheery orbs suspended from the trees. It’s freaking magical. And that the people of this neighborhood took this on all by themselves, with no official decree or organization, makes it all the more amazing — that, and the fact that it’s free to behold.

boro. Scheduled for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., it combines crafts vendors, hot cider and cookies, and caroling.

Up Front

It is definitely that time of year again. With Thanksgiving behind us, Christmas music blaring and Hanukkah around the corner, we asked folks about their favorite holiday traditions around here. There were way too many to list them all as options, but a clear winner did emerge.

MST3K Kickstarter

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Best Triad holiday tradition?

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

A crowd-control device flies under the radar, on purpose

by Eric Ginsburg

When the Greensboro Police Department publicly rolled out a new piece of technology, it intentionally downplayed one of the equipment’s primary uses: crowd control.

After more than a year of discussing it, the Greensboro Police Department acquired a long-range acoustic device — or LRAD — in July. When the department publicly announced the $13,000 purchase a month ago, it hadn’t yet developed protocols for the equipment’s use, according to emails obtained

by Triad City Beat through a public-records request, but it did have a plan for how to talk about the device.

In a Sept. 30 email to Chief Wayne Scott, department spokesperson Susan Danielsen wrote: “May I publicize the LARP, LERP or whatever the big bullhorn thing is?” Scott’s response was short, but telling.

“It’s the LRAD…” he wrote. “I want to concentrate on the communication features… not crowd control… if you know what I [am] getting at…”

Danielsen responded a few minutes later, saying she’d work with Capt. Jonathan Franks to set up a demonstration of the tool, and would “stress the utility of the device in crisis management (e.g. barricaded subject) and looking for missing persons.”

Franks, who championed the department’s purchase of the LRAD, appeared to be relieved by Danielsen’s response. He forwarded her email to retired police captain Robbie Flynt, and wrote, “Just an FYI — She knows better.” Franks couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday, and it is unclear exactly what he meant by the comment. But Flynt said via email that Franks mistakenly emailed him, adding that he retired in 2008 before buying an LRAD came up.

In a Nov. 2 press release, Danielsen emphasized the ability to broadcast messages and make public addresses, though it does mention crowd control as one of the machine’s functions.

The LRAD 300 purchased by the department in July is indeed designed for communicating messages in vari-

ous scenarios, as Scott and Danielsen discussed. But it can also broadcast a “deterrent tone” for crowd control purposes, a component highlighted in a sales brochure supplied to the department.

On July 31, 2014, Bill Rankin, a Raleigh-based representative of equipment company Safeware, presented the LRAD to Greensboro police officers at the department’s Swing Road station.

The next day, he emailed a brochure that explains the device’s uses.

“When SWAT officers arrive one scene, notifying the surrounding neighborhood quickly and effectively that an operation is underway is paramount for public safety,” it reads, going on to extol the benefits of communicating with an armed suspect from farther away than a bullhorn would allow and giving examples of scenarios in which the LRAD is useful, like talking a subject down from a bridge.

But an important component of the device’s function, stressed in the brochure, is subduing volatile protestors or crowds.

“LRAD can create standoff and safety zones, support the resolution of uncertain situations, and potentially prevent the use of non-lethal and lethal weapons,” it reads. “In hostile situations, unlike tear gas, Tasers, rubber bullets, pepper spray and other non-lethal and lethal responses, LRAD can be modulated in response to a subject’s actions.

When LRAD’s deterrent tone is used at close range, protesters sense audible discomfort, cover their ears and move away.

“Just the act of covering ears with hands reduces the sound pressure level by approximately 25dB and could prevent protesters from throwing projectiles,” it continues. “LRAD can be quickly modulated in response to protestors actions by controlling audio output through a prominently positioned volume control knob.”

The text is accompanied by an image of Pittsburgh police in riot gear, using an LRAD to “communicate with and disperse unruly crowds during the 2009

The LRAD mounted on a police cruiser in a photo obtained as part of the public-records request.

G20 Summit.”

The short brochure ends with a quote from Raymond DeMichiei, Pittsburgh’s deputy director of emergency management and homeland security: “Every police officer I talked to thought it worked famously, the bottom line is we could maintain order with the protesters without hurting them.”

The brochure isn’t the only explicit reference to using an LRAD in a protest or civil unrest scenario in the lead up to the department’s purchase. Communication between Rankin and department employees continued throughout 2014, and two days before Christmas last year, he forwarded an email composed by the LRAD Corp. a few days earlier.

“Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring police in Ferguson, Mo. from using tear gas and other agents to disperse peaceful protesters without first issuing ‘clear and unambiguous warnings,’” the original message reads. “Activists are pushing for similar measures in other cities.”

In his email, which is copied to an employee of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, Rankin wrote: “In light of what has been going on FYI. Happy Holidays.”

Rankin visited Greensboro to demonstrate the device’s use repeatedly, including a cheaper LRAD 100x model that is smaller and cheaper than the version the department ultimately bought. An

COURTESY PHOTO

April 20, 2015 quote listed the LRAD 300x and associated equipment at $20,620 and the smaller alternative and gear at $9,662.

In an April 24 email to Franks, Lt. Leslie A. Holder expressed her support for the LRAD 300, which she described as “exponentially superior for both sound quality and distance,” among other benefits.

The device’s use in protest and unrest scenarios wasn’t lost on her.

“The LRAD could be used in a multitude of situations and by multiple special teams/units for enhanced communication in events such as civil unrest, crowd control/dispersal, barricaded subjects/hostage situations, evacuations, and missing/lost persons,” Holder wrote.

Rankin returned for another demonstration of the LRAD on May 20, and Franks requested to hold it in a new location.

“Can we do the demo down at GTCC on their driving area — we will be teaching another Crowd Control class at that time there,” he wrote.

“Good large area for a demo.”

A month later, on June 19, it appears as though Chief Scott was unconvinced.

In an email to Franks, another employee wrote, “Get Wayne onboard that you need one. He’s the one that put the kibosh on it.”

But by that point, Rankin was selling

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Everyone who votes will be entered into a drawing for a free pair of glasses from Oscar Oglethorpe! December 30th, we will award Brian his new specs (that the readers picked) and also announce the three winners of new glasses. Voting will be on our website, or can be done in person at the store.

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1st Friday Bake Sale • Friday, December 4th, 2015 6pm–9pm

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Crawford’s Creations • 604 South Elm St, Greensboro, NC (across from the Mellow Mushroom) Please join us for our 1st holiday bake sale! Don’t miss this opportunity to buy some sweet treats and support our food drive and fill the purse community projects for the homeless.

Contact Latoya Taylor for more information at buttercream2011@gmail.com Bring in non-perishable food items or toiletry items and win some really cool gifts!

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LRAD to Greensboro police.

Smith worried about the device’s actual uses and protocol.

“Although this press release briefly mentions the use of this device for crowd control, it does not convey the extent of its capabilities to cause pain and permanent injury when deployed as a weapon,” he wrote. “Is city leadership aware of why this has been acquired and the intentions for its deployment? Is there some policy governing its use that can be shared with the public?”

Wesley Reid, the assistant city manager who oversees public safety, responded.

“In this case, I was unaware of the purchase of the LRAD system but have spent some time with Chief Scott discussing its use,” he said. “Our intent is to use LRAD as stated in the press release for search and rescue, crowd control, natural and man-made disasters, hostage situations, active shooter, or missing persons searches… I believe all of us share similar concerns about how LRAD systems have been used in other cities and we are incorporating those concerns into our use of the system.

There is no policy in place yet.”

triad-city-beat.com

his LRAD 300 and 100 demo units for 25 percent off. When Franks emailed Scott, asking, “Anyway we can look at this?” Scott replied: “How much…? I would only consider the larger unit…

Let me know.”

The cost for the demo unit of the LRAD 300x, with tax, came out to just above $11,200, and the city jumped on the offer, purchasing the device with operational funds in July once the current fiscal year began.

The request for public-record emails related to the long-range acoustic device turned up other messages too, including a May 6 email directly from the LRAD Corp. to Mayor Nancy Vaughan that was almost identical to the company’s earlier message regarding Ferguson protests. An unrelated June 22 email to Capt. David Robinette included various news articles including one titled “NYPD uses LRAD-sonic weapon on Eric Garner protesters.” By then, the purchasing plan was already underway.

After the Nov. 2 press release, internal emails between Danielsen and other officers involved in the buy welcomed news coverage stressing the equipment’s communication functions, including a Time Warner Cable News piece titled “Greensboro Police Department is now loud and clear” and another in the News & Record with the headline “New device designed to help Greensboro police shorten search times, find missing people.”

But not everyone was impressed.

Blogger Roch Smith emailed the mayor, city council, city manager and others with a link to a Slate article bearing the headline: “This is the sound cannon used against protestors in Ferguson” about an incident less than two weeks after Rankin’s first demonstration of the

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Burr plays up national security experience ahead of reelection bid

by Jordan Green

US Sen. Richard Burr touts his national security experience as he prepares for what looks to be a smooth reelection bid.

Richard Burr had considered retiring from the US Senate, but last December made the decision to seek a third term.

What swayed him, the Republican lawmaker told a group of conservative citizens at a Golden Corral luncheon in Winston-Salem on Monday, was the realization that he was one of only two people whose membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee predates Sept. 11, 2011. The other is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California.

“I realized that with what we were faced with in this world, if people who had the knowledge decided not to stay but to run, that that was sort of selling out the next generation,” he said.

As chairman of the intelligence committee, Burr has played an increasingly significant role in national affairs, from dealing with the fallout of National Security Administration whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about domestic surveillance to gauging the threat posed by the Islamic State. He recently returned from a whirlwind, two-day visit to four countries in the Middle East.

As North Carolina’s senior senator, Burr holds a stature that would seem to insulate him against the tumult of what promises to be a closely-fought election next year in 2016, with races for president and governor also on the ballot.

With evident relish, he handicapped the election, predicting that Republicans will retain control of the Senate while ticking off five key races across the country. He didn’t bother to mention his own race or either of his potential challengers. Deborah Ross, a former member of the state House, and Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey, both Democrats, have said they plan to run for the seat.

Burr said in an interview with Triad City Beat after the talk that he is undaunted by the prospect of running for re-election in a year when Democratic voters will be activated by the opportunity to vote in a presidential contest.

“I’ve actually run best every time

I’ve been in a presidential election,” Burr said. “If people believe that you’re doing a good job, then the more people that turn out, the better you should do.

If you’re not doing a good job, then it doesn’t matter what turnout is; you’re not going to get re-elected. So I actually look at this as an opportunity to grow my margin.”

After serving 10 years in the US House, Burr won his first race for US Senate against Democrat Erskine Bowles, in the seat once held by John Edwards, by a margin of 52.3 percent to 47.7 percent in 2004. Six years later, he expanded his percentage to 54.8 percent in a mid-term bout with Democratic challenger Elaine Marshall.

The relative security of Burr’s position also insulates him against the polarization driving politics in North Carolina and other battleground states.

During the question-and-answer session of the luncheon on Monday, the senator passed up an opportunity to stoke fear about what might happen under a Hillary Clinton administration. He chose his words slowly and deliberately.

“I’ll just be real frank: The division in the country has become much more pronounced and I’m not sure that there is a comfortable middle for leaders to go to,” Burr said. “Someone will have to create that ground again because the country can’t continue like this. I don’t see her being the one to do that.”

He added: “I would not take it to the bank yet that she’s the nominee.”

During an exchange with a young voter in the audience, Burr acknowledged significant division in his party over the balance between security and liberty.

Pattie Curran, who is challenging US Rep. Virginia Foxx for the House seat Burr held from 1995 to 2004, assailed the National Security Administration’s domestic surveillance program as an violation of constitutional safeguards against warrantless searches in the same forum in June.

Burr steadfastly defended the program on Monday, arguing that if not for Snowden’s revelations “this program would still be ticking along, and Americans would be safer, and nobody’s

US Sen. Richard Burr spoke to conservative voters at the Golden Corral in Winston-Salem on Monday.

privacy would have been breached.

“We collected telephone numbers — no content, just telephone numbers,” he continued. “And if we got the telephone numbers of a known terrorist in Syria, we would take that number and test it against every number in the database. If it hit on one, meaning, let’s say your telephone number was in there and it hit on your telephone number, then the NSA would go to court and ask a judge — say, ‘We’ve got reason to believe this person is trying to reach someone in America.’ And get a court order to go in and try to figure out who it is, number one, and what the conversation was about.”

While the senator has struck a moderate tone compared to some in his party, he criticized the Obama administration’s track record in Syria, as would be expected coming from a leader in the opposing party. Burr charged that the administration holds no strategy to defeat the Islamic State, and mocked Obama’s emphasis on containment, arguing that the United States needs project leadership to eliminate the threat.

“Leadership does not mean necessarily boots on the ground,” he said during the talk. “But I think everybody in the room knows that to provide leadership that is effective it means some element of the United States military has to be there to aid those countries that are committed to putting boots on the

JORDAN GREEN

ground.”

Afterwards, he elaborated that he believes the United States needs to arm the Kurds and establish a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians from attacks by the government of President Bashar al-Assad as a foundation for assembling a global military coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

Also consistent with majority sentiment his party, Burr reminded the conservative voters at the Golden Corral on Monday that he called for the suspension of the US refugee program, drawing applause. He said his reason for doing so was so that officials could lay out for the American people the process for vetting refugees before they are resettled.

He went on to say that it takes the average refugee 18 months to get into the United States and that from a national security standpoint he is far more concerned about the Visa waiver program.

“If I’m a radical in France and I’m a French citizen and I want to travel to the United States and commit a terrorist act, I’m just going to go the Visa waiver program,” Burr said. “If I’m not on the no-fly list and I’m not on the watch list, I can fly right into the United States, no questions asked.”

Rather than conclude his remarks with a swipe against President Obama, Burr took a rhetorical tack rare in Washington these days: He talked about

the passport.” It will take time, he said, quickly adding that the last thing he and his Democratic counterpart want to do is hurt the US hospitality industry by making it more difficult for European tourists to visit.

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working across the aisle with a member of the opposing party to solve a problem. Burr said he and Sen. Feinstein are looking at ways to tighten up the Visa waiver program to ensure “the individual flying is the individual that’s on

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Committee pushes back against gifting open space

by Jordan Green

Talk of transferring the Rich Fork Preserve from Guilford County to the YMCA of High Point reopens a disagreement over whether mountain biking should be allowed on the property.

The proposal has drawn quick opposition from members of the defunct open space committee, along with a High Point group that was formed at the request of the open space committee to develop a stewardship plan for Talk between leadership of the the Rich Fork Preserve. Dot Kearns, a Guilford County Commission and the former Democratic county commissionYMCA of High Point about potentially er and school board member from High transferring the Rich Fork Preserve to Point, chairs the local committee. the nonprofit agency is causing conster“It seems to me that if the intent of nation among a group of High Point the referendum, which was passed, is citizens and a larger cohort of natunot carried out according to the inforral preservation advocates across the mation that was given to voters, then county. the voters it seems to me have very little The latest eruption of bad feeling trust that the next one will be carried builds on a deadlocked disagreement out,” Kearns said. “It seems to me unover whether the public land should acwise to change the format of what was commodate mountain biking as well as approved.” frayed trust coming out of the RepubliHenning attempted to allay concan commissioners’ decision to dissolve cerns about a potential transfer of the the open space committee, which had property in a recent interview with Triad guided acquisition and stewardship of City Beat. several properties.

“We can’t just give it to them; we Guilford County Commission Chaircould do a stewardship agreement,” he man Hank Henning, who lives in High said. “They would have to honor the Point, said he initially reached out to the deed restrictions and honor the open YMCA because he thought the agency space restriction. If they wanted to get could help resolve a challenge over acrid of it or develop it, it would revert to cess for mountain bikers to the property. us anyway.”

The YMCA is located at the north end Henning said he doesn’t understand of the preserve why anyone just across West would oppose GET INVOLVED: The Guilford Hartley Drive; a collaboration County Commission discusses the preserve between the stretches down county and the options for long-term manageto Northwood YMCA. ment and ownership of the Rich Elementary on “I was conFork Preserve on Thursday at West Lexingcerned about 5:30 p.m. when it meets on the ton Avenue at the neighbors,” second floor of the Old County the south end. he said. “We Under the talked about Courthouse, located at 301 W. most recent the access, Market St. in Greensboro. draft of the but also the master plan for budget. Look the preserve, mountain bikers would at the master plan: There’s speculation have access from Homestead Avenue of spending anywhere to $1 million on at the east side of the property, which this. If someone else wants to manage it alarmed residents on the street. and they want to develop the trails, why “They didn’t want droves of mounnot do that? The cost is taken off the tain bikers coming through to access the taxpayers.” park,” Henning said. “I can sympathize The point about saving taxpayer with that. We don’t want to make the money by outsourcing stewardship is park intrusive for the neighbors.” likely to strike open space advocates

The Hedgecock farmstead is part of a 116-acre nature preserve in High Point that is owned by Guilford County.

and their allies on the local Rich Fork committee as a supreme irony: They’ve always opposed mountain biking on the preserve and advocated that it be limited to low-impact recreational activities like hiking.

The local committee embraced the advice of outside experts brought in to visit the preserve, including Preservation North Carolina President Myrick Howard, Kearns said. She added that Howard counseled: “Don’t spend a lot of money on it. Keep it like it is.”

Henning said the latest draft of the master plan for Rich Fork Preserve, which has yet to be approved by the county commission, allows mountain biking on 15 acres of the 116-acre tract.

A potential transfer of the property to the YMCA would have no bearing on whether mountain biking is allowed or not, he said.

“Since that is a board of commissioners’ decision, that’s almost moot,” Henning said. “We could put in an agreement that they definitely have to allow mountain bikes or not. That topic has nothing to do with the YMCA.” Kara Millonzi, an associate professor of public law and government at the UNC School of Government in Chapel Hill, said it’s generally legal for the county to transfer land to a nonprofit entity for less than market value. The biggest potential legal hurdle, she said, is that if the debt on the bond has not been paid off, the lender might want the county to keep the property as security.

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Under state law, Millonzi said, the county can convey property to a nonprofit agency with restrictions spelling out that the agency must use the property for certain public purposes.

Beyond the question of whether mountain biking should be allowed, Kearns’ group and the county’s Republican leadership have expressed similar aspirations for the preserve.

“The property is wedged between Northwood Elementary and the YMCA,” Henning said. “What better opportunity do we have to engage the community for the benefit of High Point? Having youth activities in there to experience nature, if you want to preserve something you’ve got to teach it to the next generation. I don’t see anything negative about this.”

Although she does not agree with transferring the property to the YMCA, Kearns said her group has never opposed bringing in an outside group to act as a steward of the preserve. She added that she’s always recognized that the county commission holds the ultimate decision-making authority, but that she thought the Rich Fork committee had been working on the county’s behalf.

“We came with great joy and with hope that it would be a wonderful place,” Kearns said. “We thought that the history was a little unusual for a preserve like that, but we hoped it would be a boon for citizens and students throughout the years.”

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

The power of the lie It’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain, but the sentiment is as old as the human race.

A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on.

That’s especially the case when the lie is something that people want to believe. All good con jobs start with a lie that the mark desperately wishes were true.

It becomes particularly problematic when the lie itself is so despicable, and so many are willing to take it as truth.

That’s the case right now in North Carolina, where our governor — and his strongest opponent in the coming election — are both embracing the notion that the frightened, nearly starving Syrian refugees pose a serious terrorist threat to the people of this state.

About half of Americans feel the same way, with a few points leaning either way depending on which poll you cite.

More interesting is the Gallup poll that found only 6 percent of the 4 million or so people who have fled that war-torn nation have any desire to come to North America. Europe, 39 percent, and the Middle East, 35 percent, were much more desirable destinations among those polled.

The other truth is that Syrian refugees pose about as much a threat to North Carolina as Montagnards — which is to say none at all, unless what we fear is a new infusion of authentic restaurants and markets. And the Syrian Menace is nothing when compared to the actual residents of North Carolina, born and bred, who have unleashed a wave of domestic terrorism on this nation dating back to 1996, when Eric Rudolph of Macon County set off a bomb during the Olympics in Atlanta, and even further back if you count the Klan.

Slate has a neat accounting of five violent terrorists from the Old North State, culminating with the most recent offender, Robert Lewis Dear, a white man who moved from Black Mountain to Colorado Springs, Colo., apparently for the express purpose of shooting up a Planned Parenthood clinic.

He left three dead, including a 44-year-old police officer, and 10 injured. But more chilling than even the blood spilled after the five-hour standoff was the lie repeated by Dear after he was apprehended — alive, for those of us who keep track of such things.

“No more baby parts,” he said, alluding to a debunked video that accused Planned Parenthood of selling aborted tissue.

But while the lie was discredited almost immediately upon being uploaded to the internet, it has become a talking point among those who wish to represent the Republican Party in the presidential election and has echoed through the low-information ranks, gaining traction and gravity as it did.

It is likely the truth has not yet found its way to Dear. Nor has the truth made contact with GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, who described the overtly religious Dear as a “transgendered leftist activist,” which is a lie so big that even Dear himself might not believe it.

CITIZEN GREEN

A keeper of High Point’s black education history When Glenn Chavis and I talk on the phone, the conversation usually veers to some or other inaccuracy in the historical record as it pertains to African Americans in High Point. As often as not, the perpetrator is a

by Jordan Green lazy reporter.

Probably the most egregious is the fiction that jazz luminaries Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstein performed at the club attached to the Kilby Hotel, which collapsed during a storm in 2014 while under a condemnation order from the city of High Point.

It’s nothing more than fanciful speculation, a rumor elevated to gospel through repetition by credulous reporters. Despite Chavis’ tireless efforts to correct the record, it is a myth that refuses to die. The inaccuracy has been dignified with publication as recently as September, when it cropped up in a News & Record article about the loss of another building important to the history of black High Point — First Baptist Church.

Chavis challenged me when I was writing about efforts to save the Kilby in October 2013. Didn’t I think that if such famous entertainers had performed at the club, someone would at least be able to produce a newspaper advertisement, he asked at the time, adding that there’s not one shred of evidence to back up the claim? Chavis did discover through his research that Geechee Robinson & his Band and Hartley Toots & his Orchestra played at the hotel club.

Now, that sounds like a story.

A High Point native who went to work as a fingerprint technician for the FBI after graduating with a bachelor’s in English from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, Chavis brought a forensic approach to history when he took up the avocation after retiring from Abbott Laboratories in 2000. His historical research is comprehensive with an emphasis on the many strands of human endeavors that have shaped the black community in High Point, as opposed to a series of highlights on great men and women. The result of that work was Our Roots, Our Branches, Our Fruit, High Point’s Black History… 1859-1960, published in 2010.

Chavis has written that his mission is “to find, document, and make known the history and contributions of High Point’s African-American community that has been long overlooked.”

Over the weekend, I picked up a copy of his most recent volume that he left for me at the Heritage Research Center at the High Point Public Library.

Similar in format to the first volume but with a focus on education, the title of the book is Our Roots, Our

Branches, Our Fruit, Black Schools of High Point & Surrounding Area… 1868-1968. The story begins with the founding of one or more freedmen’s schools — the historical record is unclear on the exact number — after the Civil War and ends with the closing of William Penn High School when public schools across the state finally desegregated.

For someone looking for a reference to an ancestor who taught at or attended one of the freedmen schools, High Point Normal & Industrial Institute, William Penn High School or Fairview School, the granular detail of this book, including rosters of names and details of commencement exercises, will be invaluable.

Beyond any personal connection readers may have with the teachers and students, stray details provide an experiential texture of black education in High Point. For example, the commencement program for High Point Normal & Industrial Institute in May 1901 included a talk by Nathan R. Roberts on the topic of “Agriculture as a Base” and vocal solo of “The Amorous Gold Fish” by Nettie L. Brown. The following year, according to Chavis’ research, Gov. Charles B. Aycock and Charles McIver, the president of what is now UNCG, visited the school. That Aycock was both an architect of white supremacy and a champion of public education goes unremarked in Chavis’ account.

He’s less sparing in discussing educational discrimination by the city of High Point. Drawing from city council minutes, Chavis reports that city council voted in 1915 to pay teachers at High Point Colored School $12.50 to $15 per month, while Principal Ossie Davis received $5. Yes, you read that right: $5 per month.

In contrast, teachers at four white schools received salaries ranging from $45 to $55 per month while their principals earned from $70 to $150. With supplemental pay from the Society of Friends of New York, the black teachers still received only $25-$27.50 per month, with Principal Davis earning $30 per month — less than half of what their white counterparts earned.

“To add insult to injury,” Chavis writes, the city council “even contracted to pay an allowance of $5 per month to cover a janitor’s salary. It is hard to fathom that sworn officials would place the same value on the education of High Point’s black youth at the same level of someone hired to clean the school. This showed a total disrespect for educated blacks that were trying to help educate a people that had been denied what their hard-earned tax dollars entitled them to receive — an education.”

Blame it on Aristotle!

Public shunning

Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

wanting.

In our rush to be right, largely focused on ourselves and how we think and do things as the only way of thinking and being, we often miss out on opportunities to build something with others who are, by definition, different from us. We miss out on all kinds of opportunities to grow and support others’ growth.

The early 20th Century Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky put it best when he said that we relate to children as a “head taller” than who they are when it comes to them learning language. Language speakers (parents, older siblings and teachers, for instance) relate to young children as if they are already language speakers (when they are not yet). By doing so, those children become language speakers. Vygotsky and the work of the American developmental psychologist Lois Holzman, who takes play (performing, pretending) as fundamental to development, points to a powerful methodology that we can practice in order to develop ourselves and our world.

A practical way of doing so is to do what improv theater performers do on stage: “Yes, and.…” In improv, “Yes, and” is acknowledging (no matter what) what another person gives you (“an offer”) and then creatively building on that (whether it is a phrase or a gesture). In contrast to “real life” where we are mostly organized around notions of “truth,” “Yes, and” offers us a performative, playful way of relating to each other as ever growing and ever developing beings.

So I say let’s engage in the playfulness of “Yes, and” — a way of building community across all kinds of perceived differences and divides. Things are too dire, too serious, for us not to use this powerful approach to cultivating learning, development and growing environments. We have each other, even if we don’t agree with each other. So, as Newman wrote, “Let’s develop!” How? By relating to each other — even Aristotle — as if we are becoming.

So, come play the becoming game with me, your loved ones... and total strangers.

It’s a way for all of us to build community, develop and help make a better world.

Omar H. Ali is the 2016 Carnegie Foundation North Carolina professor of the year and interim dean of Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG.

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anymore.

Trump’s fascist tendencies are beyond dispute at this point. Other media outlets have done the heavy lifting of laying out the evidence, but let’s consider some salient factors.

There is his exploitation of fear and scapegoating of outsiders, as exemplified by his defamatory characterization of Mexican immigrants as “rapists.”

There’s his openness to suspending due process and registering Muslims citizens in a national database. There’s his mockery of a reporter with a physical disability. And, again scapegoating the marginalized and exploiting race as a tool of division, there’s the tweet Trump sent out with the outright lie that blacks are responsible for 81 percent of the homicides against white victims. Not least, there is his statement condoning the thuggery of supporters who punched and kicked a Black Lives Matter activist at a rally in Alabama.

As a political reporter whose livelihood depends on the ability to hold mutually respectful conversations with people whose political beliefs might be diametrically opposite of my own, I know it’s perilous to close the door on dialogue with anyone. But, as with the Klan and — sorry — Adolph Hitler, there are certain people who so brazenly cross the line of bullying, lying and demagoguery that dialogue is no longer possible. While you to reason with them and accord them due respect, they bulldoze past you, all while consolidating power.

It’s time for peaceful protest outside Trump’s rallies and for brave souls, if they feel so moved, to go inside and speak truth to the mob. It’s time for all of us when we go back home for Christmas to tell old friends, uncles, aunts and cousins that it’s not okay for them to support Trump. The threat is so serious that we may have to force people to choose between our friendship and their misguided ideology.

Nothing less than the survival of the republic and our very humanity is at stake.

Given the state of our world, it seems we to want to blame or accuse others for whatever is happening. And when

by Omar H. Ali we do, many of us do so in the broadest of strokes — Muslims are terrorists, the police are racists, Syrian refugees are suspect, you always leave the light on in the kitchen! Whatever the case may be — big or small — however true or untrue, the blame-game is largely our modus operandi.

But if we’re going to blame someone, I say we blame Aristotle — for everything.

The philosopher of Greek antiquity, tutor of Alexander (the Great), and supposedly the first person to classify all living things, is also the person who came up with the “law of the excluded middle” — the idea and approach which has come to dominate much of how we think about ourselves and the world. This philosophical tenet purports that things can only be “A” or “not A.” Unfortunately, this binary approach to logic (and life) limits our development.

Why? Because it is anti-becoming, it is anti-emerging. As any parent, caretaker or teacher displays through their actions, we relate to children as if they are growing, as if they are developing; but we stop doing this with each other as we get older. We literally say, “Stop playing around and get to work!”

But what if some of our most important work now, at this historic moment, is to become more playful, more philosophical — that is, to relate to each other in more developmental ways as a way of moving forward?

The notion that we are either this or that — that we’re either smart or not, racist or not, sexist or not, good or not — not only lacks nuance in its bifurcation and rigidity, but is fundamentally undevelopmental.

By thinking of ourselves and others in such constricted and (largely) ungenerous ways, we undermine our power to develop environments where everyone can grow.

And we desperately need to grow. Indeed, we must develop — that is, increase our capacity to recognize opportunities and do something with them — in order to make a better world. Why? Because justice without development will only continue to leave us

Up Front

by Jordan Green When I was a teenager I had a friend, two years younger than me, who began a flirtation with white supremacy. After being bullied by a black student in eighth grade, he observed — rightly or wrongly — that black students tended to stick up for each other while the same was not true for whites.

The racial solidarity demonstrated by white power groups appealed to him.

Around that time, in 1992, a coalition of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis held a rally at the state capitol in Frankfort, Ky. Armed with two cartons of eggs, my friends and I showed up at the rally to shout profanity, ridicule and laugh at them. I can’t say my own aim was true, but I have a newspaper clipping with a photograph of a skinhead with egg yolk dripping down his cheek to prove that at least one of the projectiles we distributed found its mark.

My friend who was toying with white supremacy went along with us to the rally, although he tried to talk us out of it, saying he didn’t know what it would accomplish and that the Klan had the right to free speech just like everyone else.

In hindsight, I feel that our stand probably made a greater impression on my friend than the organized racists in robes and paramilitary uniforms. When I visited with him in Lexington, Ky. a couple years ago, my old friend was dating a Chinese woman and remarked to me that the more he experienced life the more his politics drifted to the left. In that light, I think we staged a pretty effective intervention on a kid who at one time was at risk of being recruited into the white-supremacist movement.

I’ve been thinking about the militant tactics we employed to drive a wedge between white supremacists and their potential supporters in light of the frightening political rise of Donald Trump. Maybe it’s time for people to forcefully denounce Trump and make it clear in no uncertain terms to those who are attracted to his message that it’s not cool. In other words, if you’re supporting Trump we can’t be friends

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015

The annual assessment of downtown growth

by Eric Ginsburg

welcoming committee for strangers, a sort of compass or table of contents for what the place is all about.

That’s why for the last two years around this time of year, I’ve attempted to compile a comprehensive list of what’s changing in downtown Greensboro, and what else is coming down the pipe. Part of that process demands thinking about

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A city’s downtown is both its doormat and its heart. It’s the throbbing core that pumps life into the veins of culture throughout the surrounding neighborhoods as well as the

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A new, colorful mural decorates the wall of Showfety’s on East Market Street in downtown Greensboro.

the things we still need.

And so after a strong reception in November 2014, I’m doing it again, taking a close look at the shifts happening in the city’s core and what remains to be done.

What happens downtown reverberates in the rest of the city — political power, cultural currency, historical memory and economic vibrancy emanate from these blocks. So regardless of whether or not you live, work or play in downtown Greensboro, if you live in the city, what happens there affects you.

• This time last year, we still didn’t know the theme for the second Crafted restaurant. In the spring of 2015, the street-food restaurant and adjacent Preyer Brewing opened and were welcomed like a first grandchild into the north end of downtown.

• Though a mixed-use development had been planned nearby across the Eugene Street intersection, it stalled out and never materialized. But then in October, Triad City Beat broke the news that the city’s latest brewery, Joymongers, would open on the empty lot. Construction began almost immediately.

• A short block of Battleground Avenue in front of the planned Joymongers brewery closed this fall as part of the planned Downtown Greenway and a pocket park.

• Construction of the greenway nearby, including the area between Prescott and Spring streets along Smith Street, is behind schedule. The construction had to be re-bid in

October 2015 due to a high cost from an initial bidder.

• But design for the greenway “innovation cornerstone” at Lindsay Street and Murrow Boulevard was also approved in October, with work slated for the coming months.

• The Greenway at Stadium Park apartments, owned in part by Jim Jones who is opening Joymongers brewery with his son as well as former Natty Greene’s brewmaster Mike Rollinson, opened during the last year. Following the model Jones created with his brother with the Greenway at Fisher Park apartments across the street, the apartments add residential units that help create density downtown.

• Two downtown churches played a little musical chairs in 2015, as Center City Church took over the former Christ Church building next to Local House Bar on Smith Street. The newer tenant is renovating, emulating the style of Crafted and Preyer around the corner, and members say it will include a small coffeeshop and gallery. Christ Church relocated to North Church Street.

• Triad City Beat’s Brian Clarey has dubbed the area transformed by apartments, breweries, Crafted and Deep Roots as LoFi. We’re using the nickname — which derives from Lower Fisher in reference to Fisher Avenue and the Fisher Park neighborhood — to describe the formerly blighted corner that suddenly is one of the city’s most promising areas. The Elsewhere area is called the South End in some circles, and we argue LoFi’s unique identity should be reflected with a hip name.

• By this time last year, we knew about the planned complex run by Iron Hen owner Lee Comer on Spring Garden Street. Nothing’s happened outwardly since then, save for some recent suggestions that things are now starting to get underway.

• As planned, 1618 opened its third location downtown.

The building owned by developer Dawn Chaney also contains residential units upstairs, similar to Scuppernong Books a couple doors down South Elm Street.

• That 300 block of South Elm saw other considerable change this year. Though the folks behind Josephine’s Bistro (the Lindley Park restaurant that has since closed and reopened as Scrambled) planned a restaurant and raw bar one door down from 1618 Downtown, things fell through. But Harlem Express restaurant opened in the space. Across the street, Cheesecakes by Alex expanded and underwent a redesign that makes it feel much more modern.

• Loaf Bakery closed in May. The bakery operated where Simple Kneads used to stand, and in November, Triad City Beat broke the news that the Table Farm Bakery in Asheboro plans to reopen the area in 2016. The folks at the Table are already using the building as a satellite baking location, but no retail as of yet.

ERIC GINSBURG

• While we’re on the subject of restaurants, a few more opened in downtown within the last year, most notably LaRue, a French restaurant across from the Carolina Theatre, and PB & Java – a coffee shop with sandwich-

es, soups and a pay-it-forward option. The café’s owners have plans for a future community theater space in the back of the building.

• A couple restaurants shut their doors, including the longstanding Thai Pan. But in that case, former Fincastle’s proprietor Jody Morphis opened a new joint, Blue Denim, in the space a few weeks ago. Try the seafood beignets.

triad-city-beat.com

What’s new, and planned • Outwardly, almost nothing has changed at the former Cascade Saloon building at the train tracks crossing South Elm Street by Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in two years. The city gave it to Preservation Greensboro to restore, and though the organization announced a construction company as the main tenant, progress is far behind initial projections.

• Great Balls of Fire, a dueling piano bar, opened, upping the number of entertainment venues downtown. Cone Denim Entertainment Center just hit its one-year anniversary, but the total number of entertainment-oriented spaces dropped downtown in the last year thanks to the closing of Lotus Lounge and nearby Vybz Nation in the South End. • Developer Andy Zimmerman closed on the former Lotus building this year after a shooting near the club, which was across the street from a line of buildings he already owns. HQ Greensboro, a co-working space, opened this summer in one of these West Lewis Street storefronts (and speaking of co-work spaces, Collab on the other end of downtown just marked one year in operation).

• Zimmerman plans to move the Forge, a maker space where people buy memberships primarily for access to expensive, advanced machinery, to the former Flying Anvil building, he said this year. The site had housed Vybz Nation, a nightclub that played hip hop and reggae music.

• Triad City Beat broke the news in late October that Greensboro Distilling signed a lease for the Forge’s current space on West Lewis Street. The distillery — which will be the only one in the city — plans to move into the building at the start of 2016.

• Zimmerman nixed plans to purchase the former Gate City Motors building across from the Greensboro Children’s Museum. Wise Man Brewing intended to move into part of the property, but after the deal fell apart, Wise Man announced it would be opening on the north side of downtown Winston-Salem instead. Zimmerman also owns the building where Crafted: the Art of Street Food and Preyer Brewing are located.

• Developer Marty Kotis had hinted at plans for a beer garden, possibly in town, at this time last year. Since then, Triad City Beat broke the news that Kotis intends to open one on the former Carolina Tours property off Federal Place, complete with a restaurant and maybe a speakeasy-type feature. Kotis said the venue might also welcome live music, and in February 2015, he said he’d like to open it that summer or next. Guess it’ll be 2016.

• Growth at CityView apartments in Southside near the Depot continues, most notably a change in ownership giving developer Roy Carroll a firmer hold on downtown residential properties.

• A planned medium-sized performance and rehearsal space at the Greensboro Cultural Center quickly came

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015

to fruition thanks to a generous gift from Jan Van Dyke. The choreographer passed away this summer, according to the News & Record.

• LeBauer Park broke ground, and the area is still under construction, though slightly behind schedule due to weather, according to Downtown Greensboro Inc. head Zack Matheny. He said it’s scheduled to open in May, but may be a little later.

• The National Folk Fest in Greensboro was just a glint in Tom Philion’s eye at this time last year, but in September, the ArtsGreensboro leader enjoyed the massive festival with tens of thousands of other residents and visitors. It’d be hard to see the folk festival as anything but a gigantic success, and it will return in late 2016 and 2017.

Cover Story

• Downtown Greensboro Inc. scuttled plans for a parklet program that would put little pop-ups in parking spots, activating more public space.

But the organization’s new president, former city councilman Zack Matheny, said he’s bringing it back, though he prefers the name “streateries.”

• Remember all that talk about hotels downtown?

Well the only one with visible progress is Roy Carroll’s over at the corner of Bellemeade and Eugene streets. And calling that progress is pretty generous — the property barely looks any different than it did a year ago at this time, save for the closure of a block of Lindsay Street. Better luck next year.

• Here’s a sentence lifted directly from last year’s article, because it still rings true: “Construction continues on the Southeastern building at the corner of Market and Elm streets, though it is not clear when the project will be completed and tenants will move in.”

• Anybody seen the new Charles Aris building?

Greensboro’s starting to look more like a real city!

• Construction is much more evident at the Union Square campus on the southern edge of downtown by Gate City Boulevard. The development will house joint programming between several area colleges and Cone Health.

• In the last year, two things happened across Elm Street from Union Square at the Mill run by Eric Robert — a controversy about a beloved mural being replaced by a Duck Head logo, representing the lone business occupying the renovated space, and further development of a lawsuit by Robert against the city relating to the investment.

That’s still working its way through the courts.

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• The former Showfety’s building on East Market Street sold to a new owner, and Downtown Greensboro Inc. head Zack Matheny said he’s trying to lure a breakfast place into the building.

• DGI itself is moving to a storefront location,

something the organization intended to do long ago, leaving its office space in the Self Help building downtown. No news yet on exactly where it will be located.

• Stir Creative Group, a small design firm currently located near Elon Law School, is buying a building around the corner from its existing office and will make some serious beautification upgrades to the spot on John Wesley Way. • Jules Antiques, run by DGI board chair Gary Brame, announced it would be closing before too long. That area of South Elm Street used to brim with antique stores, but another on the corner of South Elm and Lewis streets is for sale and another across the street closed (and has been bought

by Eric Robert, mentioned above, who is fixing up the roof and looking for a tenant).

• Around the corner on East Lewis Street, a new business called ReAligned tilts the scales the other way, suggesting that maybe antique and vintage items aren’t on the way out. But, Nosilla Vintage did close in July after a brief stand near the tracks.

The business still operates an online store and booths at both Design Archives locations, including in downtown Greensboro.

HQ Greensboro, a co-working space, opened earlier this year.

ERIC GINSBURG

It’s almost hard to believe, but Preyer Brewing just opened in the spring of 2015.

ERIC GINSBURG

Developer Marty Kotis plans to turn an unused lot into a beer garden.

ERIC GINSBURG

• Area Modern Home & Lighting hopped to a different storefront, just a few doors closer to where Nosilla used to be.

• Urban Grinders, a café and art gallery (in a truer sense than most coffeeshops in the area which more accurately display some art), welcomed its first customers this year in its storefront a little ways down from Center City Park.

• The folks behind Suite 300 and Kress Terrace announced their plans to open the W on Elm, another event space — and this time, a restaurant — where Ham’s used to be located not far from the Green Bean.

• More than a year ago, Elsewhere Artist Collaborative received a grant to transform several public places in downtown — check out the side of ReAligned, the corner of the unit above Table 16 restaurant a stone’s throw away and in particular the functional yet artistic picnic tables built on Bragg Street near the Mill.

• Thanks to a $6,000 grant from SunTrust, there are plans to add some sort of public art feature to Collab or the area immediately surrounding the co-working space — something bright, eye-catching and three dimensional, if Matheny has his way.

On the same front, Wrangler plans to place iconic public sculptures throughout downtown, and the Janet Echelman piece planned for LeBauer Park is quite promising. And if Ryan Saunders’ outfit No Blank Walls makes some headway, murals will adorn a downtown wall or two before next year is over (see page 16).

ERIC GINSBURG

ReAligned fits with some of the existing quirk in downtown’s South End.

ERIC GINSBURG

Urban Grinders coffeeshop and art gallery is quickly growing in popularity.

ERIC GINSBURG

triad-city-beat.com

The vibrant door on PB & Java, one of the city’s newest and most unique food ventures.

The wish list Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 30 and feeling a sense of urgency, or it could be the short amount of time since my last detailed accounting of development in downtown Greensboro, but even with the long list of changes above, progress feels slower in some regards this year.

The initial excitement, which seemed to burst from so many mouths 12-18 months ago, has waned. When news comes about a planned brewery, instead of celebrating like Carolina Panthers’ fans this season, people are more inclined to ask if the market is already oversaturated here. Several businesses closed in the last year, and some of the city’s bigger projects — most notably the downtown performing arts center — show minimal progress.

Some of that will change by next year; think of LeBauer Park and Union Square Campus, and with any luck, some genuine movement on the Downtown Greenway. But other big projects, like turning Greene Street into a two-way stretch, have been forgotten as far as the public is concerned (though Matheny swears that one is nearing the final approval stages and is imminent).

Maybe we’ll see Lee Comer’s Spring Garden Street plans, Roy Carroll’s Bellemeade Village and Marty Kotis’ beer garden come to fruition in 2016. And it may be wishful thinking, but there’s at least a chance we’ll see some action on the Cascade Saloon as well.

Yet downtown Greensboro is not without its victories. It would be hard to argue that the biggest coup d’état is the National Folk Festival, a thoroughly enjoyable experience that showcased dozens of artists as well as the city’s core.

One of the festival’s accomplishments was its ability to spread people out throughout downtown rather than clogging the main thoroughfare, something that the center city needs more of in general. For the same reason, I’m particularly stoked on LaRue and the LoFi sub-neighborhood for helping to expand the pockets of culture in downtown.

The same is true of the much-heralded changes on West Lewis Street. And though I’m partial to plans for a distillery there, if Andy Zimmerman can convince Bestway or another grocer to open in the former Lotus Lounge, or if a midsized music venue winds up in the building (something he’d like to see happen), either would be a true game-changer.

There are a few specific things I called for in previous years, including some that are happening besides the aforementioned growth off South Elm. More vacant storefronts on the crucial 300 block of South Elm Street are occupied, including increased residential upstairs, and that’s huge. Downtown boasts more public art, and more is on the way. And though I still want a burrito place like Cosmic Cantina, I realized that the Korean burrito at El Nuevo Mexican Grill near Urban Grinders is fantastic and cannot be overlooked.

Some ideas almost came to fruition, but stopped short — something at Gate City Motors, as I suggested in 2013, or a possible skatepark downtown (it’s going in the Latham Park area, so not too far away). DGI had talked about a possible culinary school downtown that didn’t pan out, and more significantly, the organization went through so many roster changes I doubt most readers can keep track.

Several specific suggestions pitched last go-round continue to be ignored; there’s too many surface parking lots, too many vacant storefronts with absentee landlords and nowhere near enough affordable housing. But the most glaring difference between downtown Greensboro today in the place it could be, needs to be, is something else I raised last year — nobody is learning from downtown Winston-Salem.

In the last few years, downtown Winston-Salem has only continued to raise the bar. It beat Greensboro in attracting a distillery, not to mention a chocolate factory, as well as Wise Man Brewing. And though we called for a barcade at least three times in the last year, the one that opened — Camel City BBQ Factory — is in Winston-Salem, too. There’s Bailey Park now, and restaurants like the Honey Pot and Side Bar, not to mention a bunch of awesome recurring festivals.

It’s not that Winston-Salem is better; don’t get me started down that road. It’s that Greensboro, much as I love this city that I’ve made my home, seems to be lagging behind.

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE The bone-broth resurgence has arrived

by Eric Ginsburg

one broth might be the symbol of hipsterdom in Brooklyn, but at Winstead Farm, it’s a sign of practicality.

Gwen Roach and her husband Graham implemented new eating habits when she started dealing with some health issues a few years ago. The process led them to farmers markets and away from processed foods, and when the couple moved to Winston-Salem from the Houston suburbs, they took another jump: They started a farm.

The 11-acre family farm, where they live with their children, Ephraim and Emily, primarily sustains itself by raising meat chickens. With about 900 sold last year and a huge jump to about 1,700 for 2015, it’s not surprising that the Roach family has an excess of chicken backbones, necks, feet and wingtips.

And that’s where the bone broth comes in.

There’s nothing new about the concept of dropping bones in a pot of water and letting them simmer, but in the pursuit of convenience, that cross-cultural cooking practice apparently fell out of favor. It sounds easy enough, but when Gwen spells out the process for people, folks will often ask if they can just buy her finished product.

And now they can.

Gwen Roach sold her first batch of Caldero Nourishing Bone Broth on Nov. 14, but there’s already a pool of people in Winston-Salem who turn to her homecooking for health and flavor. Her broth, which comes in 32-ounce containers, doesn’t contain MSG or high sodium levels like a store-bought alternative, she said.

ERIC GINSBURG Gwen Roach stirs a big pot of turkey-bone broth made with leftovers from a recent There’s usually a bone broth going in the Roach Friendsgiving dinner. family kitchen at their home on the farm, not far from Winston-Salem city limits. On a recent Friday, Gwen entrepreneurial foray.

Plus, it tastes delicious. The difference between what Roach stood over a deep pot filled with turkey bones “Great job, mom!” he said, almost theatrically after Roach cooks up and the soups I’m used to — be it in a from a Friendsgiving celebration accompanied by sipping some of the Friendsgiving broth. “Best bone restaurant or prepared at home from pre-made stocks carrots and onions. She generally uses the broths as a broth ever!”

— is astounding. It’s enough to make you wonder why base for soup, but this time she strained the mix and Winstead Farm, a name that intentionally sounds we ever allowed ourselves to accept substitutes for poured the flavorful concoction into coffee mugs, to like “Winston” and “homestead” this long-standing and rich tradition. be sipped like hot tea. combined, has been selling meat But now with Roach’s help, we can put the “grandma The most common Caldero at the Cobblestone Farmers Marlove process” as she calls it back into our soups, and Find Winstead Farm (4235 bone broth consists of a simple ket in Winston-Salem for several just in time for winter. recipe — chicken bones, vegetaThomasville Road, W-S) on years, but just recently spun off bles and apple cider vinegar — Facebook or buy Caldero Caldero bone broth for sale at the brought to a boil, skimmed and market, Let It Grow Produce on Pick of the Week Nourishing Bone Broth at left to simmer for about 24 hours, Country Club Road and eventually Let It Grow Produce (4825 Soul searching Roach said. Beef or lamb would online and at more businesses.

Spirit World @ The Marshall Free House (GSO), take even longer, she added.

Country Club Road, W-S).

Roach uses a commercial kitchen Saturday 3 p.m.

Ephraim — who is inclined to up in King to prepare the broth, An ambassador from Beam Suntory, the popular eagerly show off his Legos, plastic she said. bourbon makers behind brands such as Maker’s basketball hoop in the driveway or the family donkey The transition to running a farm hasn’t been an Mark and Knob Creek, take drinkers through a tour to strangers — interrupted his parents’ story about easy one; Gwen has run a kiosk at the mall during the of the bourbon world. Don’t just drink, understand bringing chickens to a meat processor to proclaim his holidays to bring in some extra income, and Graham is the nuances between single-barrel bourbon and the joy when they stop for doughnuts along the way. But considering the pros and cons of pursuing an unrelated small-batch variety, while enjoying some fried food though it isn’t surprising that he may not buy into the part-time job. In that environment in particular, findcourtesy of the Marshall Free House. Search for the healthy eating principles of his parents, Ephraim still ing a way to utilize the leftover chicken parts and turn page on Facebook for more details. loudly proclaimed his enthusiasm for his mom’s latest a habit into an enterprise makes sense.

B

triad-city-beat.com

by Eric Ginsburg

A yacht club in Greensboro?

News Opinion The beached boat at the landlocked bar says something about the vibe ERIC GINSBURG inside the West Market Street Yacht Club, I’m just not sure what.

Culture Good Sport Games

Eventually Jeff politely excused himhadn’t occurred yet, something that self to go talk to a friend about hunting, added to our overall sense of disbelief and I decided I had seen it all. By then I and wonderment. knew that the yacht club began about As our bartender — who seemed to 20 years ago, and the clientele generknow Jeff and everyone else like family ally looks like this, — closed out our tabs, though at that point she handed each of Visit the West Market the male/female ratio us a poker chip. In the Street Yacht Club at 290 center, under a picwas closer to equilibEdwardia Drive (GSO) rium. I’d learned that ture of a sailing yacht, Jeff likes dining at and say hi to Jeff for me. it said: “YACHT CLUB Salvinos on BattleGood for 1 Beer.” ground, and that a Come back and use portion of the bar’s former patrons now this next time, she said, and as we said drank around the corner at some place goodbye in the parking lot, Bekah and I called the Sawmill. promised each other we would.

The yacht club had won us over, but the most unusual part of our night

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actual place. Adorned in NASCAR memorabilia, a Marines flag, televisions playing golf and football and posters of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, the yacht club is the sort of place you can overhear conversations about women serving in combat roles, the bartender’s grandma and duck hunting. I heard all three.

Want to try a drink you haven’t had before? Well, there’s ChocoVine chocolate wine. Actually, just go somewhere else.

I felt more uncomfortable than I’d expected, and I could only imagine what Bekah might’ve be thinking, so I suggested we check out the back patio I’d seen when pulling up. Through a small but open rear room in the bar, we opened a door to a porch with what I later compared to a back-room Mafia table, and the only two men sitting there stopped their conversation until we passed through to a picnic table out back.

As the sun dipped behind the treeline, cold set in, and we made our way back to the end of the bar. And then, partially thanks to the two Coronas in me, I started looking at the West Market Street Yacht Club differently.

Bekah, who like me is in her twenties, pointed out that this is exactly the sort of place she would want to drink if it were populated with regulars and friends who more closely aligned with our demographic. Just as we were discussing the beauty of a community hangout like this where everyone seemed to know each other and get along, the inevitable happened.

It didn’t surprise me that a whitehaired gent named Jeff walked over to us and asked what the deal was; I’m just surprised it didn’t happen as soon as I walked in the door.

Jeff is one of the bar’s unofficial ambassadors, a good-natured guy who lives nearby but works in Winston-Salem. The more we chatted, the more we realized that although we were outsiders, we weren’t unwelcome. I still felt like I’d pulled over to a hole-in-the-wall on a road trip through Arkansas rather than a bar in the city I’ve made my home for almost a decade. But that’s Greensboro for you — just when you think you’ve seen it all….

Up Front

I thought I had adequately prepared myself for the West Market Street Yacht Club.

I knew, for instance, that there would be a boat parked outside, beached in front of the house-like building, and that this would be where the similarities to a real yacht club could end.

College had prepared me well for this; the geek squad, some of whom lived in “Pirate House” which had an S&M dungeon in the basement, formed an official student group called the Yachting Club, though it wouldn’t surprise me if none of these “indoor kids” had ever been on a stately sea vessel.

I knew, too, that the West Market Street Yacht Club wasn’t actually on the Greensboro thoroughfare that shared its name — I found out later the bar moved back off the street where it began years ago. And I figured that I’d look wildly out of place, rightly assuming everyone else would probably be a regular and a few decades my senior.

But despite steeling myself for what the yacht club might be like, I never could’ve guessed what the next two hours would hold.

And worse yet, I had invited a friend to join me.

The West Market Street Yacht Club is invisible unless you know where to look, past Southern Firearms and American Flag Storage on a side street out past Super G Mart. But if you drive back far enough, the white boat pointed at the street is impossible to miss. When I pulled into the parking lot at 5 p.m. on a recent Friday, cars and trucks filled half of the gravel side lot.

As soon as I walked into the Good Ship, I realized most of the people around me could probably remember when Shirley Temple first sang the classic lollipop song. By the time my friend Bekah walked in a couple minutes later, everyone in the place had sized me up and the only two women in the bar seemed to have vanished.

“There were two women over there a minute ago,” I said to Bekah almost immediately, already feeling self conscious about the environment I’d invited her into without checking it out myself first.

When people say “the Good Ol’ Boy Club,” I don’t think they realize it’s an

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Possum Jenkins goes long at the Garage

by Jordan Green

bout halfway through Possum Jenkins’ annual post-Thanksgiving show at the Garage in Winston-Salem, Molly McGinn took the stage with an acoustic guitar. She played a couple songs, accompanied only by electric guitarist David Willis as the rest of the band took a break.

They tried out some covers — “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers” and “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round” by John Prine — more as a concession to the sentimentality of the holiday season than as an artistic statement, and then moved through a triad of tunes written by McGinn. By the third number, a song called “John Cash Jeans,” all but two of the players had returned to the stage.

“I’ve been severely pining to be an honorary member of Possum Jenkins since I saw them at a battle of the bands at the old Ziggy’s about 10 years ago,” McGinn confided, before bandleader David Brewer and guest keyboardist David McCracken returned to the stage to join her for a bluesy rendition of the civil rights anthem “Eyes on the Prize.”

With more than a decade of playing in and around northwest North Carolina and handful of albums worth of original material, Possum Jenkins has become more of an extended family gathering than a self-contained unit. It’s no wonder McGinn never received an official invitation to join the band as a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist: Brewer, Willis and Nathan Turner all sing and play guitar, with each rotating through drum duties. Willis’ restrained honky-tonk vocals complement Brewer’s gospel-leaning soul-singer approach, while Turner delivers straight on, heart-tugging country. As the most developed guitarist in the group, Willis accents the songs with tasteful licks and atmospheric texture, but the band’s lead instrumentalist is clearly harmonica player Brent Buckner.

It’s a perilous exercise to try to categorize Possum Jenkins’ music. They draw as much from the outlaw country of Confederate Railroad as the punk-inspired alt-country of Son Volt, both of whom they covered at their Nov. 27 show at the Garage. Much of the band’s music carries an overlay of twang. Their vocal hollers and stomping rhythm proudly represent Appalachia, while they’re also capable of delivering a sinuous country-funk sound that could place them in northern Mississippi hill country as easily as the southern Louisiana bayou. Buckner’s high, piercing harmonica playing, which would sound just as at home with George Jones as with the Staple Singers, is the special ingredient that holds everything together.

While the drums were stationed forward onstage, Buckner projected his big sound from the background, positioned side by side with bassist Jared Church, while peering over Willis’ shoulder. Buckner frequently riffed off Church’s monster groove, with the two sharing a strong musical and personal chemistry.

McCracken, who plays Hammond organ and piano

A

with Donna the Buffalo, joined Possum Jenkins for their annual Winston-Salem Thanksgiving show — past concerts have taken place at Ziggy’s and the defunct Rubber Soul — for the second year in a row.

A Greensboro resident now based in upstate New York, McCracken said after the show that Possum Jenkins exemplifies North Carolina music to him. His reverb-heavy piano and ecstatic, going-to-church flair made a perfect complement, drawing out the band’s funky side.

“He earns his paycheck playing with Donna the Buffalo, but we’re going to put him on retainer,” BrewJORDAN GREEN David Brewer, left, and David Willis of Possum Jenkins, trade er joked from the stage. licks during a homecoming concert at the Garage.

“Which means we’re going to take him to an old house ston-Salem & Forsyth County. out in the county and lock him up until the next gig.”

As a collaborator, McGinn brought a different As the night wore on, the Possum Jenkins’ set bechemistry, particularly with Willis. She played percuscame increasingly raucous and loose. Starting around sive rhythm guitar as a handshake to Willis’ mercurial 9:15 p.m., they played until just after midnight. In conlead electric guitar on her song “Overtime.” Losing all trast to the current indie-rock paradigm of hour-long the tentativeness of her two cover selections, she fully sets tightly curated to put across a signature sound, committed to the vocal on “Does Your Man Drink?”, a Possum Jenkins went long, providing ample space for deep classic country song that brings to mind Loretta stylistic exploration and permutations of the lineup.

Lynn or early Dolly Parton.

The format also fits the time-honored tradition of And when the band fumbled to get the music right holding the crowd in thrall to keep them going back for “John Cash Jeans,” the rough faith implied in the to the bar for more. Both Brewer and McGinn made song’s refrain made a certain kind of sense: “Seems a point of exhorting the crowd to tip the bartender these days I’ve been skimming more than I’ve been generously, displaying an old-fashioned sense of their sliding/ Oh, without even trying/ Seems these days I’ve function as entertainers. been quitting more than I’ve been trying/ Oh, you just McGinn’s talent as a songwriter and vocal stylist is keep driving.” estimable, and she is a spare but effective guitarist.

For various reasons, it made more sense to create an offshoot than to officially incorporate her into Possum Jenkins. She started performing with members of the band, with the exception of Brewer, several years ago at an open mic at Old Winston Social Club. Thus was born Wurlitzer Prize, a band that showcases McGinn’s material. It’s the same lineup — adding McGinn while subtracting Brewer. The lineup of Wurlitzer Prize also makes sense geographically and logistically, as all the members of Possum Jenkins live in Winston-Salem, while Brewer resides in Boone.

As McGinn was leaving the stage at the end of her interlude, Brewer magnanimously talked up Wurlitzer Prize’s forthcoming album, which will be produced next year with funding from the Arts Council of Win-

Pick of the Week Homecoming Ben Folds with the Piedmont Wind Symphony @ LJVM Coliseum (W-S), Tuesday 7:30 p.m.

Probably the most successful power-pop piano player ever born in Winston-Salem, Ben Folds returns for the holidays with the full force of the Piedmont Wind Symphony to guide him through his greatest hits, tunes from his newest album So There, and a handful of Christmas classics. Seats are still open to see one of the Triad’s biggest stars on his homecoming night. Find tickets and more information at piedmontwindsymphony.com.

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24

CULTURE On making an Appalachian Christmas classic

by Daniel Wirtheim

reston Lane is the writer and director of Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity, a heart-warming play imagining the nativity as if it had happened in Appalachian country. Folk singer-songwriter Laurelyn Dossett composed the score.

P

Triad City Beat: What is it that keeps people coming back to Beautiful Star? I mean you’ve been doing this since 2006 and it’s still a big hit.

Preston Lane: When Laurelyn and I decided to write the play I don’t think either of us had imagined that it would have found the love that it’s found in this community. We just wanted to write a play for the holidays that used great music that we loved.

TCB: So how do you keep the material fresh?

PL: I have noticed particularly in this 15th anniversary year, looking back at the past years at Triad [Stage], how much I have changed as an artist, as a director, as a writer and as a person. And I couldn’t go back and direct the production I did back in 2006 or whenever it was. I just simply couldn’t do that because I wouldn’t know how to do that and it wouldn’t feel right to me.

So I brought in different designers than I had originally COURTESY PHOTO A series of traveling English folk dramas were inspiration for Beautiful Star. and we imagined the play from a different perspective.

TCB: You’ve said that English mystery plays inspired your writing. Which plays are you referring to? that what I really wanted to do was to direct and so PL: “English mystery plays” makes them sound like I shifted my focus to directing and that took me into they’re by Agatha Christie, but they were actually grad school [at] Yale and to work in New York and to performed by a trade union or guild [during the English Texas and other states and cities across the country.

Renaissance]. The shipbuilders would often be charged And through it all I didn’t foresee myself as a North with doing Noah and the Ark and the carpenters would Carolinian artist, except that I felt a tug to come home. be charged with doing the play Jesus on the Cross.…

I love the state, I love the Appalachian Mountains and They would do a daylong procession of plays, they every time I came home the more I thought, “This is would be performed on wagons and they would travel really where I want to make my work.”… What I feel through the city and stop at different locations and is there is a really big absence of you would see the entire story of great work about the Appalachian the Bible brought to life by the Graphic • Web • Illustration Mountains and so my work is Beautiful Star opens on community members of your city.

Custom Leather Tooling increasingly rooted in the AppalaThursday at the Pyrle in They were really extraordinary chian Mountains. pieces of theatrical history… and Greensboro. Visit triadstage.

TCB: So what are the elements the way they dealt with Bible org for more information. that make a really good Appalastories not as these reverential chian Mountain story? religious things that happened in PL: I think there’s a sense of old days, but they made them very place and that, to me, is most important. We live in real to the life they understood. I wanted that, that a world in which places are so easily avoided by our Pick of the Week feel of people taking the Bible and trying to undercell phones and computers and tablets. And we are Ballooning it stand it in the context of their own lives. For me it connecting globally, we can go to Wendover Avenue Holiday Parade @ Downtown (GSO), Saturday, really is that sense that the stories in the Appalachian and eat in the same restaurants and shop in the same noon Mountains came over from those regions in England stores as people all over the country. And I think the Greensboro hosts a surprisingly large holiday and in Scotland where all of this was happening. So thing that I’ve learned and is so incredibly important parade. Drill teams, marching bands and fullthat sense of oral tradition made the journey over in in my work, and what really excites me about Greenssized floats parade downtown in what was the the 17th and 18th centuries. boro, are those things that are really infused with a state’s first giant-balloon parade. The Macy’s-style TCB: What made you want to write about Appalachia, strong sense of place; they are authentic, they belong. I balloons are still a huge part of this parade while though? I know you were born in Boone but you also think that my work can sometimes be critical of things the crowd and excitement has only grown. Visit studied and lived in New York City. in the Appalachian region and things in the Piedmont gsoholidayparade.com for more information.

PL: I wanted to be an actor from my earliest memregion. But at the same time it’s written with a great ories. I studied acting in college and then I realized love and respect for the place itself.

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Dec. 2 — 8, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

The rut is a beautiful thing,” my cousin Madison told me.

“Bucks’ll come in with their nose down, lookin’ for that pussy, and sometimes you gotta say somethin’ to ’em to get ’em to stop.”

by Anthony Harrison “Say something?” I asked.

“Yeah, just make a noise, like, ‘Ey,’ a sound that’ll get their attention. ’Cause they got a one-track mind.”

We were flying down Interstate 85 in his mom’s SUV at around midnight after Thanksgiving, heading down to his home in Gold Hill, a tiny town in Rowan County halfway between Salisbury and Albemarle. We were fulfilling the second year of what’s become a new tradition: Gorge ourselves and watch football with the family in Beaufort, then drive halfway across the state to hunt deer in the morning.

This would be my fourth deer hunt, and I’d only ever seen does. And I didn’t want to kill Bambi’s Mom for my first deer.

Our alarms failed to stir us on Friday morning, so we woke up late — 7:30 a.m. We saw nothing.

We went out again at about 3:30 p.m. and stayed in the woods until dark. Still nothing.

And then, under my own power, I somehow woke up at 6:50 a.m. the next morning. I practically shouted at Madison to rouse him. Things aren’t looking up when you have to wake up your guide.

Again, no dice.

I’d been out three times in two days and not seen even a doe. And while the weather was cooler and

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GOOD SPORT My first buck cloudier than originally forecast, it was still unseasonably warm for late November.

My chances at punching my big-game tag were not good.

After lunch, I had a conversation with my uncle Darrius outside the town antique shop.

“I figure I might go out there again, just myself,” I told him.

“Yeah, they’ll be moving,” he said. “You just gotta keep going out there ’til you get lucky.”

“Right. The law of averages.”

He laughed and returned to the shop.

I struck out around 2:30 p.m. Despite the clearing clouds, the temperature was slated to drop starting around 4 p.m. Heading out in the midafternoon granted me plenty of time to prep and settle.

It would be my seventh time out for deer this weekend.

I drove the Gator — Madison’s decrepit ATV — out to a meadow behind a farmhouse across the street. Along the meadow’s left side was thick hardwood forest surrounding a creek bottom. Madison had installed a two-man stand 15 feet high on an oak, overlooking a game trail leading into the woods which served as a shooting lane. One of his buddies said he’d seen a large spike — a young buck with single-tined antlers — pass right under the stand a few days prior.

I spread estrus — doe piss — in a 50-yard radius around the stand, then climbed the ladder to the stand, a narrow, metal seat with arm rails.

Under my camouflage, I was sweating in the relative warmth. Estrus stank all over my hands. I rubbed it in my hair, beard and chest. The rank, musky stench caused a headache, but I was desperate to remain concealed.

I waited.

Deer hunting is counter-meditation.

Your mind clears, sure, but you become hyper-sensitized to the point of paranoia. Every stirring leaf, every cracking branch, every rustle in the woods might be your deer, so you move in extreme slow motion and mute every sound.

Even turning a rifle’s safety latch turns

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into a four-second ordeal.

I sat in absolute silence for an hour before I heard crashing to my left. I began slowly craning my neck over until five does literally high-tailed from the meadow into the woods, bounding with reckless grace towards the creek bottom.

I certainly hadn’t spooked them. So I figured a buck must be on their tails.

Back in sniper mode, I scanned the meadow periodically.

About 45 minutes after the does’ dramatic entrance, I looked left 90 degrees and halted when I spotted movement about 100 yards away, at the crest of the hill.

A lone deer. Likely a buck… maybe a buck.

I’m unashamed to admit I was so nervous I could barely zoom in my scope. I breathed sharp and heavy through my nose. I could barely keep a steady view for shaking.

But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Pine needles obscured the deer’s head and shoulders, so I could neither confirm it was a buck nor take a clean shot.

Eventually, I lost track of it in the treeline across the meadow, disappointed yet glad I stuck to my principles.

I breathed easy for another 45 minutes.

Then, I heard a clack like a muted clave tap, slightly behind me to my left.

I watched through the oaks, pines and hickories as the spike buck re-entered the meadow about 50 yards away, nose down, just like Madison said.

The geometry proved difficult. The buck was quartering toward me, but heading behind me.

I unlatched the rifle’s safety and brought the scope to my eye, following the deer’s path through tree trunks.

When I spied the buck’s left shoulder through a few trees, I was turned about 135 degrees left, my back and core muscles aching after holding this position minute after minute.

He wasn’t stopping. So I said something.

“Yo.” The buck stopped.

I took the shot.

Sorry, Bambi. Sorry, PETA. Hello, meat.

ANTHONY HARRISON

Elite Deacs NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship Quarterfinals Game @ Wake Forest University (W-S), Saturday No Deacon blues for the Wake Forest men’s soccer team. With wins against UNC-Charlotte and Indiana University in the Round of 32 and the Sweet 16, the No. 1 seed looks strong as nine rows of onions. This will be the last chance to catch them at Spry Stadium before possibly heading to Kansas City, if they beat visiting Stanford University. The game starts at 7 p.m.; tickets are on sale now at wakeforestsports.com.

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Cheerful “Airplane!” star Robert Letters on a toothpaste tube Window alternative, on a flight “Out of the way!”

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 18 23 25

26 Irwin who won this season of “Dancing With the Stars” 27 Work the bar 28 Name yelled at the end of “The Flintstones” 30 Tel ___, Israel 31 Marks a ballot, maybe 32 “Felicity” star Russell 33 Narration work 34 Bring up 35 Made a tapestry, e.g.

36 Org. of Niners, but not Sixers 40 2012 Affleck film 41 Game played with five dice 42 Tiny Willy Wonka candies 43 Solid caustic 48 Steel girder 49 “The People’s Princess” 50 Like most “Peanuts” soundtracks 51 Dog slobber 52 Mold particle 53 “___ just me ...”

54 Zen garden tool 55 “Dear” group 56 Winged pest 59 “Batman Forever” star Kilmer 60 Apr. 15 addressee

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55 PBS’s “Science Kid” 56 “The World According to ___” (1982 film) 57 Spend fewer bucks 58 Economist Bodie at an animal attraction?

61 Company whose product names are in all caps 62 Collect from work 63 Barbershop tool 64 Presidential run?

65 “Let It Go” singer 66 Fashion sense

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1 Tyler of “Archer” 6 “Omnia vincit ___” 10 “Pygmalion” playwright 14 Athletic team 15 The 29th state 16 When repeated, a Billy Idol hit 17 Chinese leader born in Norway?

19 “This is for,” on an env.

20 One in Wiesbaden 21 “Yes way, Jose!”

22 Elton John collaborator Bernie 24 Messy digs 25 Chopping tool 26 “Free Space” game 27 Prefix for pod or corn 28 Subtle signal 29 April 15 payment 32 Complaining when you have to stand during that stadium thing?

36 Gas used in signs 37 Like a fossil 38 Elevator pioneer Elisha 39 Part of my Ukraine itinerary, maybe?

44 Card issued by the DMV 45 Tabula ___ 46 Bud on a tuber 47 Number of legs on a daddy longlegs 49 Beats by ___ (headphones brand) 50 Law school grads, for short 53 1950 Isaac Asimov book

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ALL SHE WROTE e (stamping my foot Marisa Tomei-style from My Cousin Vinny): Why? Why? Why are you selling the New York apartment? I’m just getting old enough to use it!

Mother: You just answered your own question, Socrates.

M

by Nicole Crews

My family has a long and dubious history of bad real estate decisions. They begin brilliantly with the acquisition of an underpriced and up-and-coming piece of pie only to be sold when there’s a crusty downturn.

My mother’s cooperatively owned, two-bedroom apartment off Central Park is a case in point. An airy, rent-controlled, parquet-floored, pre-war pied a terre optioned by my mother’s cousin for decades went condo, and with it so did my mother and two of her furniture-industry colleagues.

“It’s an investment,” she told my father, sitting cozily in the den of our Davidson County, North Carolina home, “I can write it off.”

This announcement didn’t seem to evoke any marital discord. Mother was a sought-after furniture and interior designer with much business in Manhattan that brought her to the city on a monthly basis. Where she hung her hat didn’t seem to be an issue. Dad was happy to “fly his little airplanes,” live in his renovated ancestral home, raise his quirky daughter, have Miss Ruby Mae Wilson run the house with an iron fist and cook collards with fatback when mother was out of town.

None of this arrangement struck me as odd until I introduced an elementary school friend to mother and she whispered in my ear: “I thought your mother was that black lady.”

To a degree she was right, but this story is about my other mother, Joann.

So from then on, mother eschewed the big luggage (she had a closet in the city now) and packed her luscious suede carry on and headed to Manhattan every three weeks. Often, under the guise of culture and “exposure” to my elementary and junior high teachers,

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she dragged me along. Yes, she took me to MOMA, the theater, galleries and exhibits, but more often it was restaurants, cocktail bars, nightclubs and boozy business meetings where I spent my time obnoxiously fanning away the cigarette smoke and surreptitiously sipping cocktails.

The first time I was ever passed a joint I was in line for the ladies room at a now defunct cowboy bar (it was the era of Urban Cowboy and that sort of thing was in vogue) that claimed itself to be “the biggest honky tonk this side of Abilene.” I behaved like any sophisticated 11-year-old would. I took a puff and kept on passing.

Mother: Well it looks like you had fun tonight in your new Stetson.

Me: Yeah, I like that place.

Mother: Why are your eyes so glassy? Did you sneak some of my wine?

Me: I have better taste in wine than that.

Mother: I think it’s time to get you back to North Carolina young lady.

Yes, I was a brat — and an idiot. Had I played my cards right I could have had a high school and collegiate crash pad in Manhattan that would crush the living daylights out of any Myrtle Beach getaway my contemporaries had on hand.

She held on for a few more years, but about the time that Billy Idol was rumored to be buying in the building, mother sold her share in that glorious space and went back to hotelling it.

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I could feel the leash tightening around my neck — and it wasn’t the Madonna choker I had bought in Soho. Probably a good parenting move, but it changed the course of my destiny.

So this week, on the six-month mark of mother’s deathiversary I’m heading back to the city.

I’ve got a thimbleful of her ashes socked away in my carry-on and, barring any interference from TSA — or the doorman — I’m dropping off a piece of her in the city that has informed both of our lives. Once again, she’s “going to be a part of it, New York, New York.”

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