TCB June 7, 2018 — The Grand Ole Uproar

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point June 7 - 13, 2018 triad-city-beat.com

On and off the road with

The Grand Ole Uproar PAGE 12

Bibliophilia PAGE 13 Greensboro’s nude PAGE 6 Participation trophy PAGE 8

FREE

June 7-13, 2018

G r e e n s b o r o Fa s h i o n W e e k p r e s e n t s

The Preview

June 23 816 S Elm Street (mill entertainment complex) Doors open at 5pm

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

The rock journalist They all want to be rock journalists, or music writers, or whatever it is they do at Pitchfork.

Maybe they saw Almost Famous or got into their

by Brian Clarey parents’ old issues of Rolling Stone — the ones from the 1980s — and have visions of cover stories shot by Annie Leibovitz.

Or maybe they’re aficionados, selfproclaimed arbiters of taste who are more than willing to impose their learned views upon the rest of the less-seasoned ears.

Or they’re superfans eager to show the artists just how much they appreciate their work, how much they get it. Much more so than anyone else who merely listens to the music.

Hipsters dying to articulate why your favorite band sucks. Klosterman clones shoehorning pop-psych significance into every stupid metal lyric. True nerds who need the notebook and camera just to shield themselves from the rock-show crowds. Old farts trying to re-insert themselves into the slipstream of cool.

That last, I suppose, describes me pretty well this week as I delved into the music beat for the first time in a long time (see the results on page 12). And at times I have been every one of them. But unlike

so many of the young feature writers I encounter today, I do not want to be a rock journalist.

That wasn’t always the case. There was a time when all I wanted out of my journalism degree was to get myself backstage with the Meters.

But the truth about rock journalism, which the aspirant discovers very quickly upon beginning the venture, is that there’s no backstage — not in the sense that the young party people like to think. There’s probably more action in the public restroom of a bus station. Most of the job, if you’re doing it right, involves standing in half-empty rooms trying to get something out of music that can vary widely in terms of quality. You have to be willing to listen to everything, not just your favorite bands.

And you will not be hired to go on tour and “cover” your favorite band.

It’s publicists who cover the tours and studio sessions — and, quite often, dictate the content of published interviews and articles. Regular press got pushed to the wrong side of the velvet rope years ago, right around the time album art became irrelevant. Genres are dead. And anyone can write a review of an album, a profile of a band, a gushing assessment or blistering critique of a live performance. Except on the local level, there’s no such thing as a rock journalist anymore. And everything else is just PR.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Your city attorney, however, has a nasty scheme in mind: Letting you all vote 5-4 on a second vote to vote for an unconstitutional law and delaying implementation of the law while he solicits evidence as a legal defense,

— Marcus Hyde, in Citizen Green, page 10

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

Greensborofashionweek.com for ticket information

robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price

gayla@triad-city-beat.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

Jen Thompson

lauren@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS

STAFF WRITER Lauren Barber

2

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 Cover photo: Josh Watson of ART the Grand Ole Uproar at the ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette Ramkat on June 1.

Photo by Lauren Barber.

jennifer@triad-city-beat.com Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones, Kat Bodrie

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2018 Beat Media Inc.

June 7-13, 2018

3

June 7-13, 2018

CITY LIFE June 7 - 13, 2018

by Lauren Barber

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

Andrew Lawler @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 7 p.m.

The author of The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke presents research findings and takes questions. Learn more at scuppernongbooks.com.

A League of Their Own @ Bailey Park (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna star in this ’90s classic about a women’s baseball league during World War II, when gender dynamics began to change drastically in the public sphere. Find your spot on the lawn, grab food from Juicy Bird or Urban Street Grill Food Truck and something cold from Hoots Beer Co. before movie-themed trivia begins around 8.

The film begins at sundown. Learn more at innovationquarter.com.

News

Up Front

Third anniversary celebration @ Grove Street Peoples Market (GSO), 6 p.m.

Glenwood’s favorite market celebrates with games, live music, cake and a bike rodeo.

Find the event on Facebook.

Mavis Staples @ UNCSA Stevens Center (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Music & Mayhem Festival @ the Ramkat (W-S), 7 p.m.

Have feelings about the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission decision? Join a dozen drag performers for an evening of live music to benefit Winston-Salem’s PFLAG chapter. Find the event on Facebook.

SATURDAY Opinion

Free health screenings @ High Point Farmer’s Market, 8:30 p.m.

High Point University health sciences staff and students conduct free health screenings at this weekend’s market, alongside cooking demonstrations from volunteers with UNCG’s Recipe for Success program and opportunities to learn about community gardening.

Find the event on Facebook.

Tuesday the 9th mitch hayes and matty sheets Tuesday, June 26th Andrew Kassab Saturday, June 22nd pretty, pretty, ugly Sunday, June 23rd juju guru

Blues Hall of Famer, actress and civil rights activist Mavis Staples takes the stage. Find the event on Facebook or at uncsa.edu.

One-year anniversary celebration @ McKay’s (W-S), 9 a.m.

Games, prizes, face painting, balloon twisting, magic and food from Jazzy Daugs await, not to mention a raffle for a Nintendo Switch. Find the event on Facebook.

Gamga Con @ Greensboro Public Library, 11 a.m.

Misnomer @ Muddy Creek Café (W-S), 8 p.m.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

EVENTS

602 S Elam Ave • Greensboro

4

(336) 698-3888

Start the weekend early and unwind as this 9-piece, horn-centric ensemble channels classical, hip-hop and funk influences. Find the event on Facebook.

The Greensboro Anime Club hosts its 8th annual free anime convention featuring karaoke, trivia, panels, a speed drawing contest and a cosplay contest. Find the event on Facebook.

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee!

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •

Opinion

Jojo Abot @ LeBauer Park (GSO), 7 p.m.

News

Downtown Taste ’N Tap @ East Lewis Street (GSO), 1 p.m.

The Balkun Brothers, J. Timber and Lowborn perform as Triad breweries and downtown Greensboro restaurants pair small plates and exclusive beer samples with this year’s staple ingredient: lemons. Find the event on Facebook.

Actor, writer, producer Greg Sestero will return to Geeksboro to host the first ever screening of “The Room TRILOGY” featuring “The Room,” “The Disaster Artist” with Live Commentary, and Greg and Tommy’s final cinematic bow, “Best Friends.” Tickets available for $25 as well as extremely limited VIP Trilogy Tickets that include an exclusive meet and greet with Greg Sestero that will include a special photo op, cake, and a drink. The Screenings Take Place Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June10.

Up Front

Dunleath Porch Festival @ 114 Cypress Street (GSO), noon Neighbors’ porches become performance venues for 34 bands, musicians and storytellers. On the stroll, you’ll find food vendors and activities for children before a culminating performance at Sternberger park at 4 p.m. There is no admission fee but donating canned goods for the One Step Further food pantry is encouraged. Learn more at dunleath.org/porchfest.

June 7-13, 2018

Playing June 8-10

Board Game Night 7 p.m. Friday, June 8th. More than 100 Games FREE TO PLAY Midnight Radio Karaoke Admission is FREE with a drink purchase!

The event starts at around 11:15 p.m. Saturday, June 9th.

Totally Rad Trivia 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 12th $3 Buy-In! Up to Six Player Teams!

Dragonball FighterZ Tournament League 5 p.m. Sunday, June 10th $5 Venue Fee! $5 Entry Fee!

336-355-7180

The Ghanaian filmmaker, photographer, writer, and performance artists graces the Gate City with original music in this free outdoor concert series.

Learn more at jojoabot.com.

SUNDAY

Shot in the Triad

Lords of Mace, Wailin Storms, Drat the Luck at Monstercade (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Culture

Cowboy Mouth @ Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, 5 p.m.

The New Orleans-based band headlines the last day of the four-day Twin City RibFest featuring six rib teams from the Carolinas and Ohio. A vendor market, arcade and kid’s zone are also on site. Learn more at twincityribfest.net.

Puzzles

Lords of Mace describe their sound as “sludgy and southern with a twist of doom on the rocks.” Make of that what you will and catch doom punkers Wailin Storms and Winston-Salem’s Drat the Luck. Find the event on Facebook.

5

News

Up Front

June 7-13, 2018

The new Nils Westergard mural

by Jordan Green

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

Yep, she’s nude.

6

“Is it art?” The News & Record headline asks. “That depends.”

Ummm… Is it art? Undoubtedly.

Of course, I’m talking about the expansive mural of a reclining female nude painted

by Virginia artist Nils Westergard along the back side of AWOL Fitness. Situated in a location that’s both obscure and in the heart of the city, the painting maximizes the opportunity to surprise and delight through urban context. Viewable only from the east-bound Amtrak platform and CityView Apartments, it also showcases the iconic backdrop of the Greensboro skyline, such as it is (i.e. the Lincoln Financial Building and CenterPointe essentially).

I think the headline writer at the News & Record was really trying to ask whether the painting was appropriate for community standards in Greensboro. It’s a worthwhile question: Public art raises the stakes because it engages an involuntary audience: Good public art can add beauty and vitality to an otherwise oppressive urban landscape, while bad public art can, quite frankly, be a downer.

JORDAN GREEN

Whether the female nude form is appropriate for community standards is a question I don’t feel qualified to answer. I find it impossible to disentangle artistic depictions of the female form from the uncomfortable phenomena of objectification of women, and, for that matter, millennia of patriarchal oppression and misogyny baked into gender relations.

Although the News & Record story doesn’t say it, the community-standards question really comes down to a nipple, which is neatly elided by a strategically placed light-post in the photograph published with the story. But the nipple comes across as almost an afterthought. Westergard’s sideview perspective emphasizes the woman’s hand and foot, which project a strong, tactile quality and, more than anything else, her face, which suggests self-awareness and determination. In contrast, the woman’s buttocks are submerged, while her hips and pelvis are de-emphasized.

It’s a lovely and surprising piece that not everyone has to look at, but it’s worth going out of your way to see if you can handle it.

Up Front News Opinion

Marijuana, commonly known as “Mary Jane” or “reefer,” and a marijuana cigarette. A proposed North Carolina bill would decriminalize posession of up to four ounces of the devil’s weed.

FILE PHOTO

Culture

It makes for big news these days when a state like North Carolina toys with the idea of legalizing — or, more accurately, decriminalizing — marijuana. It’s news because a majority of states have now ended their prohibition on the plant, and an outsider might think that SB 791, which makes legal up to four ounces of weed, regardless of pedigree, or its cousin, HB 994, have a chance of bringing the Old North State in line.

But I’m here to tell you it’s never going to happen. Not here. Not today.

It’s not because of the bill itself, which makes a lot of sense: creating a quasi-legal amount of pot, in this case up to four ounces, “or one-twentieth of an ounce (avoirdupois) of the 24 extracted resin of marijuana, commonly known as “hashish” is cool, and anything up to a pound is a misdemeanor, after which it becomes a felony. And then we expunge everybody’s weed charges.

The reasons it won’t pass are right there in the language. “Commonly known as hashish”? Forsyth County DA Jim O’Neill, when discussing the bill with the Journal, used the term “marijuana cigarettes” — as in: “[F]our ounces of marijuana has a street value of $1,000 and can be broken down into about 120 marijuana cigarettes.”

It’s like something straight out of Reefer Madness, indicating that most of the people in positions of power in this state fundamentally misunderstand the nature of marijuana and its usage.

But even more important: Nowhere in either bill is the word “tax” used. And in this state of underutilized tobacco farmers, there’s no way marijuana will be legalized unless the marijuana cigarette gets passed around a bit.

June 7-13, 2018

The NC marijuana bill

by Brian Clarey

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

7

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

June 7-13, 2018

NEWS

8

Participatory budgeting quietly shifts to 2-year cycle, halves funding

by Jordan Green Greensboro residents have received little to no information about plans for the next cycle of participatory budgeting. And despite differing perceptions among both advocates and city council members, the program has effectively been expanded from a 1-year to 2-year cycle, halving the amount of money allocated to implement projects.

In October 2014, Greensboro became the first city in the South to adopt participatory budgeting, a process in which the city carves out a slice of the budget, while allowing residents to propose and vote on projects.

The amount for each funding cycle — $500,000 — was miniscule, as Wayne Abraham, a proponent acknowledged.

“What could be better than the citizens of Greensboro becoming involved in their own government and helping to decide how to spend one-tenth of 1 percent of their own money?” Abraham asked.

The project was adopted on split 5-4 vote, with Mayor Nancy Vaughan joining three other members in opposition. The other opponents, including Zack Matheny, Mike Barber and Tony Wilkins, have either retired or lost their re-election bids.

The proposal forced a debate about the nature of democracy. Vincent Russell, another proponent, posited one view: “Our democracy is based on the idea of electing representatives to make the tough decisions for us.

“But for others of you, like me, we understand that democracy is bigger than this narrow definition,” Russell said. “We understand that democracy requires an informed and engaged electorate. We know that democracy means listening to everyone’s voice, and helping foster a sense of community. For those of you like me, we know that democracy means one person, one vote. And it means empowering people to make decisions for themselves.”

As Durham, a smaller but more economically dynamic city to the east, prepares to launch its own participatorybudgeting project, implementation in Greensboro has slowed to a crawl and low participation in the first two cycles has matched the modest allocation. In the first cycle 1,123 residents voted, while 1,199 voted in the second cycle.

In comparison, 29,697 people voted in the 2017 Greensboro mayor’s race — an

anemic turnout that was itself only 14.7 percent of the electorate.

And while Greensboro has effectively halved the already small allocation of $500,000 by funding the program every two years inFILE PHOTO stead of every UNCG students get the word out about year, Durham participatory budgeting in the spring of 2017.

City Council the measure up for a vote. adopted a more ambitious project on “Personally, I would love to get to May 21, voting 7-2 to adopt a budget of the point where we can fund it every $2.4 million. year, but I don’t think the council has The current status of the Greensboro officially stated that is the way it will be participatory budgeting project has been going forward,” Councilwoman Tammi a source of confusion among both adThurm said. vocates and council members. The stagAudrey Berlowitz, an early advocate gered scheduling of public input phases for participatory budgeting who proon one hand and funding phases on moted the initiative in the run-up to the other has effectively resulted in the the 2014 vote for adoption, waited for project — at least for now — morphing word of a new cycle of idea collection as from a 1-year to a 2-year cycle. As the March, and then April and May came program’s fourth anniversary approachand went. The page for the current es, its relatively brief history is compliparticipatory budgeting cycle on the cated: Residents generated ideas and city’s website says only: “The city of voted on projects during the first cycle Greensboro is currently in the planning from the fall of 2015 through the spring stages for PB Cycle 3. Please return to of 2016. The first cycle was funded in this section for information about Cycle the fiscal year 2016-2017 fiscal budget 3 as it develops.” adopted by city council. Then the beginBerlowitz said she was disappointed to ning of the second cycle of idea generalearn that the cycle has been stretched tion and voting was pushed back six into two years with little to no public months, beginning in March 2017 and communication from the city to resiconcluding with voting in October and dents.

November of that year. Funding for the “People feel so disempowered,” second cycle is included in the proposed Berlowitz said. “It’s so hard to talk fiscal year 2018-2019 budget expected to about how to be a citizen. Citizenship be adopted this month. Jason Martin, a is considered kind of a joke. Participabudget management analyst for the city, tory budgeting is this small, little thing and Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter that could begin to engage people. It’s said the next ideal collection phase will disheartening to me that this small, little begin in spring 2019. thing — participatory budgeting — is Some council members, including disregarded. We as citizens have to hold Abuzuaiter and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne our government accountable, so it’s just Johnson, have said they want to see the as much on us.” city move to funding participatory budBerlowitz added that she worries that geting every year instead of every two by shifting the public input component years, but it remains unclear whether of the program from once a year to once there are the five votes needed to asevery two years, participation will only semble a majority and make it happen. diminish because residents will forget No council members interviewed for this about it. story were aware of any plans to bring

Thurm acknowledged the challenge.

“I’d like to keep the momentum so we can educate and build and keep things moving forward,” she said. “That’s very difficult to do on an every-other-year basis.”

Wayne Abraham, the chair of the Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee, said in statement to Triad City Beat that participatory budget “was originally discussed” with city council and staff “as being done annually.”

Councilwoman Sharon Hightower — who voted with the majority to adopt participatory budgeting in 2014, along with Yvonne Johnson, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Nancy Hoffmann — defended the 2-year funding cycle, arguing that it’s necessary to prevent implementation of projects from falling behind.

“Ideas are being generated every year,” Hightower said, despite the fact that the last idea collection took place in 2017 and the next one isn’t scheduled until 2019. “PB is an every-year engagement process; it’s just not funded every year.” Hightower and Abuzuaiter said ideas generated in years when there is no money allocated in the participatory budgeting program budget could be funded through the city’s general fund, or moved up in the capital improvement project budget if there’s a public safety justification.

“Council may choose to do it annually or bi-annually,” Abraham said, adding that the citizen steering committee would “work within the parameters council creates.”

Abraham said the steering committee “is currently working to make Round 3 even more successful than Rounds 1 and 2. We anticipate becoming a formal city commission in the near future. We are going to create benchmarks to ensure that we reach all parts of the city and that we increase participation to an even higher level. We are currently working on making online voting available and partnering with more groups in the city.”

Abuzuaiter said she frequently encounters residents who haven’t heard about participatory budgeting.

“We’re trying to get the word out to communities that may not be on social media,” she said. “A lot of it is going to be word of mouth: ‘Have you heard about participatory budgeting?’ When I talk to community groups, they’re excited about it.”

Winston-Salem City Council members plead for a rational framework to administer the city’s community-agency grants programs — and lobby for favorites.

Up Front News

Members of Winston-Salem City Council heard a staff presentation on recommended funding for community agencies on Tuesday.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

federal funds, Garrity also recommended a $65,000 grant to the SG Atkins Community Development Corp. to hire a program developer and kitchen manager for a food incubator and pop-up restaurant, and a $55,000 grant to the Parenting Path, a child-abuse prevention agency, to replace the HVAC system at its Northwest Boulevard facility.

The citizen committee and city manager proposed some tweaks to the slate of agency grants under the city’s Successful Outcomes After Release program. The initiative, which focuses on support for ex-offenders, is particularly important to Councilman Taylor, who chairs the city council’s public safety committee.

The city manager recommends cutting a $10,000 grant to Self-Empowerment Lasts Forever. The citizens committee recommends cutting grants of $5,000 each to Hoops4LYFE, an after-school program, and My Brother’s Second Chance. The citizens committee argued that both agencies have received seed funding for the past two years, and should not receive recurring monies.

Both the city manager and the citizen advisory committee recommended adding $5,000 for Beating Up Bad Habits, a boxing program that serves the Latinx community, while the citizen committee alone recommended adding $5,000 for Youth Achieving Moral Maturity.

Culture

ture Cinema, Authoring Action, Crosby Scholars, Triad Cultural Arts and LEAD Girls of NC. “We’re trying to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem here,” Joines said in his plug for Mixxer. “I would say if our [property tax] revenue comes in a little stronger than the county has projected we reconsider the Mixxer. This is a great space that creates entrepreneurial opportunity. If they have an idea, they can go and make it happen.”

Based on a recent notification that the federal government would have additional funds available through the Home Investment Partnerships Program, Garrity is recommending that Habitat for Humanity’s annual grant to develop single-family housing for occupant ownership be increased from $142,000 to $207,000.

Budget Director Patrice Toney said federal notification of additional funding through the Community Development Block Grant is also driving recommended increases. Based on the additional federal dollars, both the citizen committee and the city manager recommended funding a $100,000 request by Bethesda Center for the Homeless, where Councilman Montgomery serves as executive director, to renovate its day shelter, and a $104,143 request from the YWCA to renovate and expand its women’s residential drug treatment center. Based on further notification of additional

JORDAN GREEN

Opinion

Year after year, when Winston-Salem City Council sets the budget for grants to community agencies — an aggregate expenditure currently totaling $2.8 million — council members express a recurring desire to impose some rational framework for determining how to dole out funds to the myriad agencies.

During a budget workshop on Monday, Councilman Derwin Montgomery suggested that in the future he would like to see funding requests assessed on how well they align with core goals, such as Mayor Allen Joines’ campaign to curb poverty.

“If the organizations aren’t tying into those goals, then they may need to adjust, or we may need to adjust how we look at funding,” Montgomery said. “We can’t keep doing it the way we have been doing it.”

Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke, who has served on city council since 1977, concurred.

“We cannot continue to do business as we have been doing it,” she said.

In 2015, the city council established a Community Agency Allocation Committee to review requests and recommend funding levels for agencies.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea to provide that oversight that’s necessary to protect the taxpayer dollars,” Councilman James Taylor said at the time.

Councilwoman DD Adams said the focus of the citizen committee would be “to help us get to the next level of where our tax dollars are going.” She added, “We’ve got to see: Are they performing at the level they need to perform?”

On Monday, council members received two parallel recommendations, one from the Community Agency Allocation Committee and the other from City Manager Lee Garrity. The two sets of recommendations would increase annual spending on agency grants by $200,000 to $300,000, largely driven by an increase in federal funding.

Under the city’s Housing Finance Assistance Fund, the citizen committee recommended defunding Liberty East Redevelopment, an agency that has no website and hasn’t filed with the NC Corporations Division since 1989. Garrity parted ways with the citizen committee by recommending that the agency’s

annual grant of $31,150 be renewed.

Burke took a mild jab at the citizen committee, while remarking that she and the mayor might be the only two people fully aware of the agency’s work to provide services in LaDeara Crest Estates, a low-income community in the Northwest Ward, which she represents.

“It’s been called to my attention, Mr. City Manager, that some of the people who look at this money — some of our volunteer citizens — are not quite up on what it has done,” Burke said. “It is the oldest [community development corporation] we have in this city…. It’s important for them to know the history before they start cutting things out.”

Garrity sounded contrite. “Some of it was a communication problem — my office working with Liberty East Redevelopment — help them do a better job of writing up,” he said. “You and I know, and the mayor knows the things they did, but they didn’t put a lot of that in their application, so we’re gonna do a better job.”

Other council members lobbied their colleagues to add funding for favored projects that either didn’t make the cut or received allocations below requested levels.

Adams pleaded with her colleagues to assist Family Services with funds to help pay for renovations to its Head Start building near the struggling Rolling Hills Apartments. The agency is requesting $150,000. The citizen committee recommended no funding, while the city manager proposed $50,000 contingent on a matching grant from the county. Adams suggested that the city kick in $75,000 while asking the county to contribute the same amount.

“If we want to talk about education in Forsyth County and the people in the inner city, which has more Title I schools and the lowest performing schools in the state and in the country, and we know how important pre-K is, I feel like we need to be offering up more than $50,000,” said Adams, who is running for Congress in the 5th District.

Mayor Joines intervened on behalf of Winston-Salem Mixxer, which is seeking funding to launch a maker space. Under the citizen committee’s proposal, Mixxer would be among six first-time recipients that could take advantage of funds freed up by moving the National Black Theatre Festival to programs funded through the hotel occupancy tax. Other new potential recipients include A/per-

June 7-13, 2018

City council members go to bat for favored community agencies

by Jordan Green

9

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

June 7-13, 2018

OPINION

10

EDITORIAL

Milking the truth As the North Carolina legislative session draws to a close, we find ourselves in the season of the bad bill — those moonshots that usually don’t stand a chance of making the cut, but give us a window into what our elected officials do with their — our — time.

A near perfect example comes from a provision tucked inside the 2018 Farm Bill, SB 711, Section 6(b): The NC Department of Agriculture “shall immediately develop an enforcement plan to enforce FDA’s standard of identity for milk as adopted in the North Carolina Administrative Code to prohibit the sale of plant-based products mislabeled as milk.”

This means that we can’t call it “almond milk” anymore.

Now, it’s true “I’m a confused that the European Union has consumer. I would already enacted have bet my car that laws prohibiting the marketing of there was some non-dairy products semblance of milk in as milk, and we all know how eager those products, and the members of the NC General I would have lost my Assembly are to car.” model the state – Sen. Tom McInnis (Rafter the EU. It’s also true that the Richmond) US Food & Drug Administration has established a legal definition of milk strictly as the stuff that comes from mama cows. By that standard, goat milk, which human babies sometimes drink, and buffalo milk, from which the best mozzarella is made, is technically not milk either.

And if this passes, North Carolina would be the first state in the union to have such a law on the books.

Closer to the truth is what Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler told the Senate: that dairy farmers are losing money on their milk. Troxler and the Agriculture and Environment Committee that wrote the omnibus bill make an argument that hinges on the assumption that people think there’s milk in soy milk.

Could anybody be that dense?

“I’m a confused consumer,” said Sen. Tom McInnis, a Republican from Richmond County, during debate on the Senate floor. “I would have bet my car that there was some semblance of milk in those products, and I would have lost my car.”

CITIZEN GREEN

Greensboro stalls for time on panhandling lawsuit

The drip-drip-drip torture of this by using neutral language to try to hide the real purdelayed decision-making in local pose of this law, so the police can still target panhandling governance usually works to the without explicitly saying so.” advantage of government and Prior to the May 5 vote, several downtown restaurateurs business interests over the poor. and developers marshaled by Downtown Greensboro Elected officials are going to President Zack Matheny made the case in favor of the show up regardless; business ordinance, mostly on economic grounds, which tied to the interests are sufficiently organized perception of public safety. Notably, no one argued that

by Jordan Green and command the resources to downtown is actually unsafe. play the long game of advocacy. The poor have to make a “Panhandling in downtown is a big problem for downproportionately higher sacrifice to organize themselves and town businesses, who also struggle, maybe not to put food get in front of their elected officials to make their case. on the table, but to stay in business,” Andy Zimmerman But in the case of Greensboro’s suspended aggressive said. “I think a lot of people want to go to Friendly Shopsolicitation ordinance, the waiting game can also be seen ping Center because they are not confronted by panhanas a function of city council’s recognition that they’re about dling. I think we lose a lot of business downtown because of to walk into a legal fight they can’t win. Or, if you believe panhandling.”

Marcus Hyde, the manager of the Homeless Union of Hyde waved letters of concern from the ACLU and the Greensboro, there’s a more sinister plan afoot.

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty as he To briefly recap, city council approved an aggressive stood behind the podium addressing council. solicitation ordinance — a “repeal and replace” action in “Every aspect of this ordinance has already been stricken response to an opinion that the previous ordinance was down by the courts,” he said. “You have been warned that if unconstitutional — in a 6-3 vote on April 24. One of the this law stays in place you will get sued and you will lose. members in the majority, Councilwoman Sharon Hight“Your city attorney, however, has a nasty scheme in ower, then moved to reconsider at the next mind: Letting you all vote 5-4 business meeting on May 15, requiring on a second vote to vote for an council to take a new vote on the proposed unconstitutional law and delaying ordinance. Under the second vote, the implementation of the law while ordinance was approved by a bare majorhe solicits evidence as a legal ity of 5 to 4, but legally could not go into defense,” Hyde continued. “He immediate effect. City Attorney Tom Carand Zack Matheny have already ruthers advised council members that under solicited business owners to city code, the proposed ordinance would come out and say panhandling is require a “second reading” at the next a safety concern.” meeting on June 5. But based on “policy As a conspiracy theory, it’s not – Marcus Hyde and custom,” Carruthers also advised that all that far-fetched. Carruthers city council not take a vote at the June 5 had acknowledged that the city meeting, which is a regularly scheduled legal staff has consulted with “townhall” meeting. Hightower sought guidJudith Wegner, a retired dean ance on when the council would actually take a second vote at the University of North Carolina Law School whom he and thus put the new ordinance into effect. Sounds like a lauded as “one of the leading national experts.” Wegner totally reasonable question. provided a model panhandling ordinance at a Municipal “I actually don’t have answer to that at this time,” CarAttorneys Winter Conference that took place in Chapel ruthers responded. “It’s yet to be determined when the Hill in 2017, at which she recommended that cities host second vote will come back.” “community dialogues designed to adduce evidence Opponents charge that the now approved but not yet needed in developing panhandling policies.” To stay ahead enacted ordinance is, like its predecessor, a thinly veiled of the courts, cities need to identify objectionable conduct attempt to target panhandlers in violation of their First rather than single out classes of people they don’t like.

Amendment rights through legalese that seeks to create a Carruthers announced last month that the city has hired façade of neutrality. the Parker Poe law firm, which has also been retained by “These laws, at best, are redundant, creating new lists the city of High Point to help it craft a legal anti-picketing of laws that already exist,” Lindsey Caesar, one of the opordinance. Carruthers added that the hired lawyers were ponents, argued before council. “When someone threatens already in active discussions with the ACLU. you or you fear physical harm, that is assault. We don’t “I think that it is always more efficient to talk than litigate, need a new law for that. If someone takes your money from but now is the time because we have an opportunity now to you against your will, that is robbery. Again, we don’t need talk,” Carruthers said, “and I think the consensus of council a new law for that. We’ve covered this before. What this as that this is a good time to begin.” law really does is attempt to mask and deny poverty. It does

You have been warned that if this law stays in place you will get sued and you will lose.

CULTURE Krave Kava Bar’s plant-based oasis

F

This week June 6-9 Wednesday, June 6th. The Veldt, Your 33 Black Angels, Micah Gaugh.

Door 9pm, Show 9:30, Cover $7 Thursday, June 7th.

Hundreds Thousands Live & DJ set.

Door 9pm, Show 9:30pm, Cover $5 Friday June 8th. Jaguardini, Ships In The Night, Greenthing. Door 9pm, Show 9:30pm, Cover $5 Sunday June 9th. Lords of Mace, Wailin Storms, Drat The Luck. Door 9pm, Show 9:30 pm, Cover $5

336.893.8591

Opinion

204 W Acadia Ave, Winston-Salem

News Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Gardner says that coffees from Asia tend to contain less caffeine than varieties from Africa and the Americas, and that she’s noticed the tongkat coffee is a favorite among cops on the night Elizabeth Gardner’s kava bar and lounge space is named for the LAUREN shift because they relaxant extracted from a plant in the black pepper family.

BARBER say it helps channel focus without Gardner says. “They’re functional again, inciting jitters. they’re able to go back to work, their Krave’s clientele represents an interrelationships are better.” esting cross-section of the community; Over the years, she’s seen family on any given afternoon, you’ll find members and friends grow concerned graduate students collaborating on a when their loved ones pick up abusable project, old and new friends socializing, substances, so she tries to clarify the business partners meeting in the lounge biochemistry: kratom isn’t a “replacesection and a firefighter studying for the ment” drug for powerful synthetic opiEMT exam. ates, but it does sit on opiate receptors “There should be a place where you so that recovering addicts don’t crave. can be yourself and not worry about “It’s so mild, but so powerful,” she anything else,” Gardner says. “The says. “You have to listen to your body people you’ll meet in here, you probably when you experience plants and be in wouldn’t meet otherwise.” touch with yourself.”

You might meet them under the Gardner attends advocacy conferhanging string lights in the alleyway ences, stays up to date on the latest patio or the lounge area where natuacademic research and prioritizes reral light peters in. No breaking news sponsible, sustainable sourcing. Clinical will flash on television screens, just results are rolling in, but people in these rainbows of fish among corals to the communities have been self-managing soundscape of spa soundtracks and withdrawal symptoms and chronic pain lounge EDM. Low, blueish lighting isn’t for years. for everyone but if we’re talking décor, Esther Blessing, a psychiatrist and crashing ocean waves are certainly more researcher at New York University, soothing than talking heads and instant recently told NPR that despite mountreplays. ing evidence that suggests CBD could Some call Gardner a lobbyist, but she effectively treat inflammation, anxiety, considers herself an educator, particuaddiction and other disorders, clinilarly when she finds herself in front of cal trials beyond animal research and state legislators. short-term human-centered studies are “I’m here to give you the science necessary. Gardner points to research because the science is on our side,” she from Christopher McCurdy, an internasays. “We have 11 Ivy League scientists tionally recognized expert on kratom that wrote Congress two summers and current professor at the University ago asking the DEA not to ban kratom of Florida’s College of Pharmacy, who because it’s helpful and safe.” has studied the naturally-occurring Save the teas, coffees and spices, narcotic for more than a decade. His some products on the Krave menu exist primary interest is kratom as a solution in legal gray areas, and Gardner walks to opioid withdrawal syndrome, given a thin line when it comes to suggestthat making withdrawal more enduring any benefits of what her bars offer. able makes cessation more likely.

Anecdotal stories are stacking up by the “When I’m in a kava bar, I see hope,” day, though.

Gardner says. “When I’m here and I see “I’ve seen people blossom because people who are not drinking or doing they’ve been unable to work because drugs and being productive, I see hope.” their pain and the medication makes them groggy or they can’t focus,”

Up Front

or those abstaining from alcohol or getting off the hard stuff, it’s difficult to scope out a social scene that doesn’t reek of temptation. On a quiet side street between Federal Place and Greene Street in downtown Greensboro, though, there is a place.

It’s Elizabeth Gardner’s kava bar and lounge space, Krave Kava, which is named for the relaxant extracted from the leaves of a plant in the black-pepper family native to the islands of the South Pacific. Gardner opened her first boozefree bar in Carrboro back in March 2015 and her Greensboro location in January 2017.

“People have gotten away from nature and want convenience and an instant fix… and it’s hurting us as a nation,” Gardner says. “I’m drinking and preparing [kava] like Polynesians drink it. I want people to experience that plant in the natural way it was intended. But in America we have a tendency to want to synthesize versions of botanicals and sell it to you rather than, ‘Let’s sit down and drink this muddy water.’ But you only need four ounces to feel good.”

First things first: Neither kava nor kratom — another popular product on Krave shelves — gets you high. Rather than alter perception or cognition, the substances alter mood providing a calming, gently euphoric sensation. The swampy mixtures numb the lips, tongue and throat, though, and Gardner and Krave bartenders are frank about the taste, too (like “pulling up a plant and licking a root”) and dispense a thorough education to newcomers.

Kratom derives from an evergreen plant that flourishes in the nitrogenrich soils of Southeast Asia, and while the powder form looks and smells like green tea, it’s cousin to the coffee tree and quite bitter. Luckily for taste-averse patrons, just about any of the drinks can be prepared with milk or laced with a number of sweeteners and spices like ginger, turmeric and maca, a root vegetable associated with clarity of mind, improved energy and balancing hormone levels. Also lining the shelves behind the U-shaped counter: yerba mate teas from Brazil and Uruguay, ceremonial grade cacao, Cuban coffee, a Malaysian coffee with tongkat ali root and ginseng, and concentrated flavored and raw cannabidiol or “CBD,” a nonpsychoactive cannabis compound.

June 7-13, 2018

by Lauren Barber

11

June 7-13, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

12

CULTURE Grand Ole Uproar comes in from the road

by Brian Clarey

F

irst off, it’s Grand “Ole” Uproar — a name considered in the days before SEO made even a single letter’s difference cause a downward trend in one’s Google-ness.

Second: Their digital footprint doesn’t seem to concern them that much. Their website sucks — though bassist Sanders Davis says he’s working on it — and they’re a bit behind in their social media.

But they just came off a tour, which is the thing: a sweep through the southern states of Texas, Florida and Virginia, with stops in New Orleans and Memphis, chaperoned by Greensboro bar owner Will Henry, who helped underwrite the enterprise in both dollars and deeds, as the story goes. Davis is still working on his iPad footage from that run. And the band’s frontman, Josh Watson, has always been more comfortable with the written word than the ones and zeroes.

He earned his MFA in creative writing from UNCG in 2008, and worked the profesorial circuit from Guilford College to NC A&T University. Now he teaches English as a second language to the children of European Volvo executives, which, ironically, affords him the time to live a writerly life.

Tonight, fresh off the road, they’re tucked into the middle of a triple bill at the Ramkat, where just down the street an all-day food and music festival wiped out most of Winston-Salem’s eligible social scene.

Opening act the Distractors brought an after-work crew ready to rock at 7 p.m., and after their set of covers and might-as-well-bes, a third of them decide to hang around to see what comes next while headliners Crenshaw Pentecostal and their fans filter in. You can tell the difference by their haircuts.

Tucked in the middle, and with very little fanfare, Grand Ole Uproar moves to their instruments, beginning a study in the Americana genre that picks from the tree of rock’s various Southern boughs: the Band, Creedence, Leadbelly, virtually every aspect of the Traveling Wilburys — heavy on the Dylan, and country, but the kind the Rolling Stones used to do.

Watson laces his solidly crafted songs with elegant rhymes, peppered with references to driving, highways, mistakes, jail, Southern skies and open roads, backed ably by the seasoned band that in itself seems literary device: a compelling cast of characters. Watson’s

Josh Watson (right) provides the literary underpinnings of the Grand Ole Uproar whilke Sanders Davis (left) lays down a bedrock of rhythm.

LAUREN BARBER

the grizzled, erudite frontman and lyricist, channeling a lot and Parker ticking off the miles between Virginia and Texas; of Dylan though he could pass for three of the four Wilburys. the late-night set at Checkpoint Charlie’s in the New Orleans Davis plays the journeyman bassist with the facial hair and the French Quarter; Clinard flying in for the gig at Lafayette’s cool hat — he’s played with Crystal Bright & the Silver Hands, Music Room in Memphis; Will Henry acting as booking agent, Emily Stewart & the Batour manager and spiritual byteeth and the Family, and advisor. worked on numerous other “He was our Cassady,” The Grand Ole Uproar plays Friday at the Craft live and recorded projects.

Watson says. “It was like On City Sip-In in Greensboro at 7 p.m. and at World There’s a monster drumthe Road without the Meximer — Jeremy Parker — who can brothel.” of Beer in Greensboro on June 22. Find out more seems to take great pleasure Now. Onstage. After the at thegrandoleuproar.com. in bashing things. And then Distractors say their piece there’s the virtuoso hobbyand before Crenshaw Penist Wake Clinard who, when tecostal washes the place he’s not adding soaring and searing lap steel to the Grand Ole down with a fine, lonesome crooning. Josh Watson, heedless Uproar’s mix, has a day job as president of Clinard insurance. of the crowd and the miles and the hour on the clock, tells his He drives the nicest car in the lot tonight. story, the one he’s been writing this whole time.

It all makes for a sumptuous tale of the road: Watson, Davis

CULTURE Bibliophiliac’s art is all bound up

G

erald Ward doesn’t dabble. Not in board games, RPGs or craft beer — especially not book arts. In all his endeavors, he goes all in.

“I’m not proud of it,” he says with a smirk. “I went through a Gutenberg phase, like people do.”

Learn more and register for bookbinding workshops at bibliopathologist.com.

He’s partial to creating new sewing structures for text-block leather bindings, all by hand, with the aid of a finishing press a friend made. Depending on the project, he’ll measure down to 32nd of an inch.

He grabs his Gutenberg press pencil sharpener to demonstrate, describing how the impressions of the lead type into the 15th Century cotton paper are still visceral. It is easy to image him holding one of the 42-line pages like someone might look at a lover or a holy text. It seems the magic, for Ward, is in the knowing, and in the sacred details.

“I think a lot of these older art forms like papermaking and paper marbling never really died and maybe it’s just that now many millennials are interested in older stuff, stuff that’s not mass produced,” Ward says.

He has a point about millennials’ aversion to planned obsolescence, and penchant for bespoke goods.

“If you make somebody a book, how much of a sociopath would they have to be to not appreciate it? There’s a whole level of intention to it because you’ve folded the paper, you’ve made the hole, you’ve sewn the text block, you’ve made the cover. Whatever your binding style is it’s all intentional, it’s all effort, it’s all work.”

Behind chairs laden with inherited family quilts, visitors find that no less than a quarter of his many, many books focus on

PIZZERIA

L’ITALIANO

Large 1-topping pizza

11

$

He is a little proud of it.

99

Good through 7/4/18

Monday – Thursday

4-cheese pizza

10

$

WE !

DELIVER

99

Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net

every Tuesday, all day

219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • 336-274-4810

Puzzles

“What I really enjoy doing is teaching

this,” Ward says. “I am pushing form onto a formless world. I’m bending material to my will.”

Shot in the Triad

So, he spends his days mending, deacidifying, ironing mylar sleeves and digitizing records, but when he goes home, he’s the bibliopathologist, a selfdubbed moniker that is also the name of his side project teaching bookbinding.

Ward eases a waxed, royal-blue thread through a blunt needle’s wide open eyelet. He reaches for thinner thread when sewing up a text block — the technical term for everything between the outer covers — but a waxy coating ensures the thread won’t kink up on itself and holds its position. Once the needle travels through the hole, Ward reaches for pliers. It requires more strength than you might assume LAUREN BARBER Gerald Ward demonstrates an adhesive binding technique to pull the thread through. These holes are small with a finishing press in his home workshop. and when the paper material surrounding them the histories and science of bookbinding, papermaking, chemflares up, he smooths it out with a Teflon folder. It’s an elegant istry of ink and of books themselves. practice, however practical, straddling the line between art and science.

He pulls out a self-bound compilation of articles about inks from Gutenberg bibles.

“There’s a level of catharsis to

Culture

“Up until early to mid 19th Century they would use cotton in the paper and… with the high cotton content, it was pretty pH neutral,” Ward says.

“Then they realized they could make paper out of wood pulp. It’s not the best. It decays, and the acidity rises, and it becomes brittle, and that’s why you can look at a book from the 19th Century or early 20th Century and it’ll be beige or brown and you can bend the corner and it’ll snap off, then look at a book from the 17th Century and it won’t. It may have environmental issues with it from smoke to insects or mold but there’s no inherent acidity to the paper.”

It starts with a knot.

Opinion

Now he’s the senior conservator at Kofile Technologies’ Greensboro office where the oldest documents that grace his fingertips stem from the Revolutionary War era. The largest paper conservation company in the United States deals primarily with county and municipal documents, everything from property deeds to slave records throughout the Southeast, in Ward’s case. There’s a reason most documents he sees are from the last century-and-a-half.

The quiet, meticulous procedures take place at a desk overlooking his daughters’ playset in an add-on where he also homebrews beer — quite the contrast to the 14,000 square-foot conservation lab where he spends his working hours.

News

He began to teach himself, re-toning ripped pages with tea in his spare time until he learned professional methods at Etherington Conservation Services.

There, he worked with second folios of Shakespeare, a 13th Century Egyptian codex, first-edition Dickens’ serials bound for publication and an Eliot Indian Bible, the first bible printed in British North America, written in the lost Algonquin language.

workshops,” Ward says. “I think it’s a good outlet for me but also for people who have different backgrounds, some in art or others who work a 9-to-5 office job and just want to do something.

That’s awesome. You don’t have to be ‘artistic’ to do this — it’s very structural — but you have to be able to undo what you’ve done, both in bookbinding and in conservation.”

Up Front

Ward earned both his bachelors and masters at UNCG, in English and library science, respectively, but while working at Pages Past, a used and rare bookshop in Greensboro, he happened upon a bookbinding manual by Bernard Middleton: The Restoration of Leather Binding, a treatise on English bookbinding and restoration.

June 7-13, 2018

by Lauren Barber

13

June 7-13, 2018

Washington Street, Greensboro

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

14

“Rising Tulips” by artist Nils Westergard.

CAROLYN DE BERRY

“Long May You Run”--people keep tuning in.

by Matt Jones

59 Gobsmacked 61 Longest-running sci-fi comedy (U.K., 1988-1999, 2009, 2012-present) 65 Upgrade the circuitry 66 Won over 67 Grand Slam Breakfast offerer 68 Tire company with a blimp

Answers from previous publication.

General who’s a bit chicken?

Place to grab a bite Omits in pronunciation Model’s place England’s tallest skyscraper, with “The” Singer/songwriter Mann Breed like salmon He followed Carson “... and ___ it again!”

Did too much, in a way California wine, familiarly Fed. rule Is multiplied?

Davidson’s “The Crying Game” costar Pres. on a dime

Opinion

44 46 47 48 ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 49 25 What things are “right out of,” when immediate 50 51 28 “Anywhere” singer Rita 56 29 Scottish kid 57 30 Convertible type 58 31 A, in Austria 60 35 Throat bug 61 36 Minimal 62 38 Collision sound 63 39 It merged with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon 64 40 “Antony and Cleopatra” killer

News

Down 1 2018 documentary about a Supreme Court Justice 2 ___ de cologne 3 Online portal launched on the same day as Windows 95 4 Determine 5 “Woe ___!”

6 Alcove 7 “Benevolent” fraternal order 8 X member John 9 State capital since 1959 10 They’re made when making up 11 Ending for glob or mod 12 Wimbledon winner Rafael 13 City on the Arkansas River 14 Geyser output 20 Impolite 22 Bill-filled dispenser 23 ___ apso (small dog) 24 “Coco” studio

Up Front

Across 1 Stood 9 Short outings 15 Jazz performance from an upright individual?

16 Mark somehow over the “n” in “Spinal Tap” 17 Longest-running western (U.S., 1955-1975) 18 Tattoo tool 19 Cartoonish squeals 20 Current HUD secretary Carson 21 Light-feather link 22 Swiss terrain 25 Mario Kart character 26 On the ___ (running away) 27 Longest-running home renovation show (U.S., 1979-present) 32 Upper limit 33 Way less common 34 Bermuda, e.g. (abbr.)

37 Longest-running variety show (Chile/U.S., 1962-2015) 41 Coach Parseghian of the Fighting Irish 42 They may be checkered 43 Maze-running rodent 45 Longest-running news show (U.S., 1947-present) 49 Airline based in Stockholm 52 Additive to some soaps 53 Not exceeding 54 Popular with the cool kids these days 55 After-dinner add-on 56 Half of a griffin

June 7-13, 2018

CROSSWORD

SODUKO Culture

Answers from previous publication.

Shot in the Triad

©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

Puzzles

15