TCB Jan. 11, 2017 — Greg Taylor and the long arc of justice by Triad City Beat

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point January 11 – 17, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

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Greg Taylor and the long arc of justice A study in narrative storytelling

PAGE 12

Deep Roots shakeup PAGE 6

Crysyal Bright’s snow day PAGE 18

Cooper’s Medicaid stand PAGE 10

January 11 – 17, 2017

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Meeting a friend at the movies by Brian Clarey

UP FRONT 3 4 5 5 5

Editor’s Notebook City Life Trump’s America The List Unsolicited Endorsement

NEWS

6 New leadership inducted after board exodus at local food coop 8 Council members approve additional funds for convention center

OPINION 10

10 Citizen Green: Medicaid at last 11 Commentariat

SPORTSBALL

12 Greg Taylor and the long arc of justice

CROSSWORD

COVER

20 How the mighty Panthers have fallen

CULTURE

21 Jonesin’ Crossword

Food: Bottleshops battle the

17 18

Barstool: Growling Music: Snowed-in Crystal

snow

Bright streams stripped-down set 19 Art: Exhibit challenges the act of viewing

Editorial: Cognitive dissonance

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

22 Fisher Park Circle Drive, Greensboro

TRIADITUDE ADJUSTMENT

23 I’d like to thank the academy

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

He has a quote where he basically reinforces what Chris [Mumma] and others said. The thing that made Greg stand out is that he and Johnny never turned on each other. Marty says the same thing — ‘What is really amazing is that these guys never turn on each other. Other people in that situation usually give the other person up in two seconds.’ And I said, ‘We don’t want to add another character in this film who is only going to say one thing.’ — Gregg Jamback, in the Cover, page 12

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

brian@triad-city-beat.com allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

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CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Jelisa Castrodale

Stallone Frazier Anthony Harrison Matt Jones

Photo illustration by Jorge Maturino, the world famous art director and local cool guy at Triad City Beat newspaper.

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SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

eric@triad-city-beat.com

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

EDITORIAL INTERN Joel Sronce intern@triad-city-beat.com

I would never have met Greg Taylor, the Raleigh man who served 17 years of a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, without first meeting his father, Ed, at the Guilford County Courthouse in 2010, on election night. As we watched the returns roll in, Ed told me about his son, who had been released earlier that year, and how he used to think that everyone who got arrested by the police had done something wrong. I visited Greg at his home in Durham, after he had just gotten his first big check — $750,00, which barely begins to cover his suffering and time — and while he was trying to re-acclimate to the world after almost two decades of forced absence. “You know they made a bunch of new Star Wars movies?” I asked him. When I saw him last week at the preliminary screening of a new documentary about his case, he told me had gotten himself all caught up on Star Wars, including Rogue One, which he had seen with his grandsons just a few days earlier. I told him that I think about him all the time: the injustice, the years, the slimy details. From the beginning, police told Greg that if he testified against Johnny Beck, the innocent black guy he had been smoking crack with on the night of the murder, they would let him go home. He never took the deal. In 2013, Greg got a $4.6 million payment from the State Bureau of Investigation, the law enforcement agency that essentially framed him in 1991. He’s not rich — think about the money he couldn’t earn, the investments he couldn’t make, in the years between 1991 when he was arrested and Police told Greg that if he 2010 when he was testified against Johnny, finally released for the innocent black guy he context — but he’s had been smoking crack comfortable as with on the night of the long as he keeps his job, which is murder, they would let him fine by him. Work go home. is one of the pleasures of being free. Greg has been traveling and spending time with his family. He’s single, with some money in the bank. His smile looks genuine. It’s not behind him, he says. It never will be. But these days he’s more concerned with what lies ahead.

January 11 – 17, 2017

CITY LIFE Jan. 11 – 17 by Joel Sronce

THURSDAY

The State of Eugenics @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 5 p.m. The film, which screens at the Porter Byrum Center on the campus of Wake Forest University, tells the true story of North Carolina’s aggressive eugenics program and the sterilization of more than 7,600 men, women and children between 1933 and 1974. A panel with the film’s director and producer, journalists, a former state rep and a former chair of the Governor’s Task Force on Compensation will follow. More info on the Facebook event page.

FRIDAY

Trunky author reading @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 7 p.m. Samuel Peterson reads from his newly-released novel, Trunky: A Memoir of Institutionalization & Southern Hospitality. The book portrays the author’s path from addiction to recovery and from female to manhood. Greensboro musician Molly McGinn joins. More info at scuppernongbooks.org.

SATURDAY Winter drive for the homeless @ Windsor Community Center (GSO), 10 a.m. In honor of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, the nonprofit I Am A Queen hosts its seventh annual drive in support of homeless people in Guilford County. For more information on specific items needed, visit iamaqueen.org.

Artrageous! @ High Point Theatre (HP), 8 p.m. Artists, musicians, singers and dancers celebrate different art forms, pop stars and musical genres in a multimedia show that ends in a series of finished paintings. Bring the kids out and don’t pass up a chance to be part of the show. More info at artrageousexperience.com.

SUNDAY

Memphis or Bust showcase & fundraiser @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 3 p.m. The Piedmont Blues Preservation Society’s 2016 Blues Challenge winners Gabriel Morales (youth), Seth Williams & Terry VunCannon (duo) and Laura Blackley & the Wildflowers (band) perform at the annual event to raise funds for the winners’ trip to Memphis and a chance to compete in the International Blues Challenge. More info at piedmontblues.org.

MONDAY

DL Hughley @ Winston-Salem State University, 7 p.m. Winston-Salem State and Wake Forest universities honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. with keynote speaker DL Hughley in the Kenneth R. Williams Auditorium on the campus of Winston-Salem State. Hughley is an actor, author, political commentator and one of today’s most popular and recognized standup comedians. The event is free and open to the public. More info at wssu.edu.

by Brian Clarey

Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

5. Your boss’s four-wheel drive At 8:30 a.m., she’s out in your driveway, idling, as you slip and slide your way to her truck’s passenger door. Neither your erratic Civic nor the snowplow’s deposit at the entrance to the street could save you from going into work. Your delighted roommates, hot coffee in hand, cheer you on through the window.

Crossword

3. The roll out There are plenty of terrible things to run out of on snow days — coffee, alcohol, internet service or, god forbid, bread and milk — but nothing compares to toilet paper. The last roll’s empty just before noon.

4. Carpetbaggers At the coldest point on your pilgrimage for toilet paper, you see someone in shorts. No, he’s not taking his Alaskan Malamute for a run. He’s using an Amazon Prime box to scrap the snow off his Prius. There’s an open Yuengling on the hood. His shirtless roommate smokes a cigarette out of the apartment’s open window, his Yankees hat on backwards while his free hand shields his eyes from the winter sun. “guys call this cold?!” Yes, yes we do. Please go inside.

Sportsball

2. The political snowmen (and women) I was happy to see a brainless scarecrow or an uncanny pumpkin-headed Trump likeness back on Halloween, before they all came to life and, apparently, voted. But now these all too real broom-bristle-haired abominations in red trucker hats are just freaking me out. (By the way, all the Brrr-nies and pantsuit-wasting Chillaries? C’mon, guys.)

Nowhere to walk, no way to drive, no courage to ask your neighbors. By early afternoon there are no napkins in the apartment. Then last week’s Triad City Beat disappears. By sunset the first chapter of The Hobbit goes missing. You’ve showered three times.

Culture

by Joel Sronce 1. The “told-you-so”-ing of climate-change deniers Imagine you’ve pulled into a gas station. As you fill up, an oversized man by an oversized car loudly befouls the wintry scene with willfully inaccurate conclusions. “You call this global warming?!” It appears the snowfall disproves bounties of scientific fact, and those who don’t fess up the falsehood of climate-change can put that in Frosty’s pipe and smoke it.

Cover Story

5 obnoxious snow-day encounters

Opinion

for statutory rape. Now, the Polanski thing is just weird. For one, his crimes were 40 years ago, and most Americans probably have no idea who he is. For another, it’s difficult to equate participation in a standing O at the Golden Globes with… what exactly? This dig on Streep doesn’t really apply with anything on Trump’s side, except to remind everyone that Trump has also been accused of — and admitted to on tape — sexually assaulting women and assail Streep’s character. It’s straight-up ad hominem, which is what passes for political discourse these days. The other beef — that Hollywood celebrities should keep their traps shut about politics — has long been the position of the Republican Party. Except when it’s Clint Eastwood. Or Ronald Reagan. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or, for that matter, Trump.

News

Naturally, the president elect of the United States took to Twitter at 6 a.m. to talk smack about Meryl Streep, who just a few hours earlier had given a politically charged acceptance speech for a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes. Donald Trump called Streep — whose list of awards and nominations has its own Wikipedia page — “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood” and a “Hillary flunky,” and lied as he denied that he had ever mocked a disabled New York Times reporter. On social media, I noticed that many of my conservative friends — most of whom do not know each other — began their counterattack early, and all using the same talking points: that Streep is nothing but a Hollywood actress and should keep her political opinions to herself, and that Streep, at the 2003 Golden Globes, was part of a standing ovation for director Roman Polanski, who was indicted in 1977

Up Front

Streep throat

by Jordan Green It was the kind of story that was hiding in plain sight: From 1933 to 1974, the state of North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 people against their will. The program targeted women and men, blacks and whites, almost all poor, who were merely promiscuous, epileptic or “feeble minded” as prospects for sterilization based on the pseudoscience of eugenics. Eugenics was widely practiced across the United States, but North Carolina undertook one of the most extensive programs, along with Virginia and California. The California program in particular inspired the Third Reich’s racial purity laws, but after World War II while many states reined in forced sterilization, North Carolina’s program accelerated, with the support of leading industrialists in Winston-Salem and other urban centers. As the new documentary The State of Eugenics — premiering on on PBS on Jan. 29 — attests, numerous people who became aware of the monstrous actions of the state felt compelled to do whatever was necessary to ensure that the public learned the truth and to redress a historical wrong. Researcher Johanna Schoen says, in the film’s trailer, when she looked at long dormant files on microfilm at the NC Division of Archives and History, it felt like the sterilization victims “were pleading with me for some form of acknowledgement.” Schoen recognized that a book wouldn’t do justice to the victims, and she arranged to pass the files along to the Winston-Salem Journal. North Carolina’s sterilization story is a testament to how newspaper editors and reporters who display courage and leverage their resources wisely can make a big difference, as the Winston-Salem Journal demonstrated with its 2002 “Against Their Will” series based on Schoen’s files. The newspaper kept the issue in front of the public even when it wasn’t popular. As Editorial Page Editor John Railey says in the trailer: “I get readers telling me: ‘We’re sick of hearing about this.’ I’ve had friends tell me: ‘You might want to back off this.’” He didn’t, and neither did former Democratic state Rep. Larry Womble, who became an unflagging champion of justice for sterilization victims in the state General Assembly. Thanks in large part to Womble, an unlikely political coalition that also included former Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis — now a US senator — North Carolina became the first state to provide compensation to victims. The Porter Byrum Center on the campus of Wake Forest University is hosting a sneak preview of The State of Eugenics, followed by a panel discussion hosted by journalist and professor Melissa Harris-Perry, and featuring Womble and Railey, along with filmmaker Dawn Sinclair Shapiro and Laura Gerald, former chair of the Governor’s Task Force on Compensation. The event takes place on Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. This is a lesson that — even in the face of the darkest machinations of the state — people of conscience can still come together and nudge society towards the light.

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The State of Eugenics

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

NEWS

New leadership installed after board exodus at local food co-op by Jordan Green

In the wake of an exodus of board members who were committed to broadening Deep Roots Market’s customer base and the recent departure of the cooperative grocery’s general manager, the board met Monday to appoint new members and elect new officers. Facing financial uncertainty and contention about the cooperative grocery’s future direction, the board of directors of Deep Roots Market held a special meeting on Monday to fill vacancies and elect new officers. The need for Monday’s special meeting was created by the resignation of five board members in late November, including Board President Dave Reed. The resignations, which accounted for a majority of the board, were made effective Dec. 31. During the special meeting in the grocery cooperative’s community room on Monday, the four remaining members, including former General Manager Joel Landau, appointed three new members: Hope McLean, Daniel Woodham and Stefan Hauke. McLean and Woodham asked that their terms expire this spring. McLean, who previously worked as a bookkeeper and human resources manager for the co-op, said she wants to help the co-op during its transition. Woodham said he was requesting a limited appointment because he plans to move to the Northeast this spring. Hauke was not present for the meeting, although Landau said he had expressed interest in serving on the board. After approving the new appointments, the newly constituted board elected Landau as president, McLean as treasurer and Woodham as secretary. Tia Cromartie was re-elected as vice president. Before the meeting, the four returning board members decided by consensus to allow a reporter to observe the appointment of new directors and election of officers, but exercised its discretion as a member organization to ask the reporter to leave for the remainder of business on the agenda. Landau said prior to the meeting that the board had a lot of “urgent matters that we need to attend to.”

Cashier Tiffany Hargraves chats with customer Amy Tolbert at Deep Roots Market on Monday evening.

Last year, the co-op brought in a second distributor, Spartan Nash, in an effort to expand its offerings to appeal to a broader customer base as part of a vision of making the co-op a full-service grocery to serve downtown Greensboro. The move frustrated some member-owners who saw it as a betrayal of the co-op’s original mission of providing natural and organic food. Stephen Johnson, a departing board member who is also the owner of the Elam Gardens urban farm and a cofounder of the Corner Farmers Market in Lindley Park, said the turnover on the board “is about two competing visions” of who the co-op serves. “One vision is of DRM as a healthfood store while we were attempting to reorient it as a grocery store that serves a wider group of folks with more diverse food and grocery needs (including conventional foods),” Johnson said in an email to Triad City Beat on Tuesday. “We felt that previous decisions about the move coupled with changes in the competitive markets in the organic grocery business, and a desire to be a different community of owners and shoppers required this change in orientation of Deep Roots. We experienced a lot of pushback from some staff and a vocal

JORDAN GREEN

group of owners wedded to the older vision. “We decided to resign for two main reasons,” Johnson continued. “First, we realized that none of us were experiencing joy at the thought of going to or working for Deep Roots, and as volunteers and co-op members this was not ideal. Second, we wanted the team with the older vision to be clearly in charge to implement their projects. As co-op members we hope they succeed.” As an example of the pushback against the new vision, member-owner Michele Salinas wrote in an open letter to board members and others last year: “Many owners are alarmed that DR is not operating in a financially sustainable way, and no amount of junk food is going to walmart our way out of financial troubles. The only way DR can offset the fears is to ‘come straight’ with financial reports. No news is not good news and guarding information is counterproductive to sustainability, and certainly to the cooperative spirit.” Jonathan Maj, one of the five directors who exited the board at the end of 2016, said downtown residents told board members they wanted to be able to shop at the store for more “everyday” items like batteries, laundry detergent

and Tylenol. “But due to the store’s performance over the past few years it was difficult to achieve the changes in the scope at least I personally had hoped for, because we had a lot of debt on our books and very little cash,” Maj said in a Facebook message on Monday. “So we did what I felt was the best we could with what we had to implement a new vision. The ongoing board will do what is best, which may mean a turn back to focus solely on organic/natural, which from my perspective just isn’t a valid business model in today’s economy. Folks want variety, and they want organic/natural at a price point no higher than 10-15 percent more than the ‘conventional’ price point.” Compounding the co-op’s governance challenges, the store management is also in transition, with the general manager leaving last year. Hauke, one of the new board members appointed on Monday, made his feelings known about the future direction of the co-op in a message posted on an open Google Groups message board for owner-members in early December. “I personally find it highly questionable to go the other way and move away from Deep Roots’ heritage and strength by expanding into unhealthy, cheap industrial mass-produced food stuff,” he wrote. “These are low margin. These are not growing. And most importantly, these poison the people with artificial dyes, cancer-causing preservatives and cheap fillers. Deep Roots should not poison the community! It was naïve to believe that the co-op can compete with conventional stores on pricing. We can’t. Price-conscious people who want mass-produced staples will buy them at Walmart, a Dollar Store or a chain store, not at Deep Roots.” Haucke also said in the message that he was troubled by the co-op’s 2015 financial numbers, which he described as “negative equity of $250,000” and “current assets, which are less than half of the current liabilities.” Landau said in an interview after the new board’s organizational meeting that the co-op showed a profit in the

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Landau said the new board didn’t discuss product offerings or other aspects of the vision for the co-op on Monday, and he said he couldn’t speculate where the new board members’ sympathies lie. “We’ll start talking about it at the next board meeting on Jan. 30,” Landau said. “We want to see how things are selling and also talk to the ownership to see if we can get some kind of consensus around what our owners would like to do.”

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third quarter of 2016. Landau said he has served as general manager three different times over a total of 18 years. He left the post most recently in the summer of 2013, following the co-op’s relocation in March of that year to the north end of downtown from the original store on Spring Garden Street near the Pomona neighborhood. “Cash flow is very tight,” Landau said. “We’re very highly leveraged. We knew we had to take all this loan money to make the move. If we didn’t have all the loans, we would be fine.”

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Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

Council members approve $1.4 million for convention center by Jordan Green

Members of the finance committee of Winston-Salem City Council approve additional funds to complete the renovation of the Benton Convention Center, but take a cautious stance on a request to support a proposed food cooperative. A panel of Winston-Salem City Council approved an additional $1.4 million for renovations to the cityowned Benton Convention Center during a meeting on Monday, bringing the total cost of the project to $19.9 million. The extra funds include $335,000 to enhance the exterior of a “skywalk” from the convention center to the SixthCherry-Trade Parking Deck, $302,000 for new carpet in the lower level exhibit hall, $263,000 for unforeseen maintenance issues uncovered during the renovation and $500,000 for additional contingencies. “As much as some of us travel to these smaller cities, even in North Carolina, we have to catch up,” said Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, a member of the finance committee whose North Ward includes the convention center. Adams said the city did a good job with the construction of the convention center in 1969 and a renovation in 1986, but hasn’t made adequate investments since then. “We just got an old convention center,” she said. “And when people plan conventions and tourists come to our town, we want to talk about the Innovation Quarter, we want to talk about our restaurants, we want to talk about what we’re doing with the arts. But we got a broke-down convention center. And we have to understand the convention center is the goose that laid the golden egg as well.” Adams indicated that the renovations will be critical for the National Black Theatre Festival, a biennial event that runs from July 31 to Aug. 5 this year. “That’s something that this city profits from very well,” Adams said. “We have all of the hotels are full, even hotels in Greensboro, High Point and surrounding areas. And it’s all because of what’s going on, not just downtown at all of our different theater venues, but the convention center is the main hub of that activity.”

Renovations to the city-owned Benton Convention Center are expected to be complete in May.

Other council members who serve on going to be really important to us.” the finance committee also expressed Winston-Salem voters approved $17.5 support for the project, although they million in limited obligation bonds in asked Assistant City Manager Ben Rowe 2014 to pay for the renovation, which for an accounting for any expenditure got underway in April 2016. City counof the approved contincil approved an additiongency funds. al $1 million in funding “The convention for the project in March center business is an arms ‘The convention to create more flex space race, and if you’re not center business is in the exhibit hall, install as good as your compealuminum panels on an arms race.’ tition, you’re not going an exterior wall facing – Councilman Jeff to get the business,” said Cherry Street and make Councilman Jeff MacInimprovements to the terMacIntosh tosh, who represents the race. Rowe said the monNorthwest Ward. “And ey to cover the new $1.4 I would hope we didn’t million request would value-engineer this to the point that it’s come from unspent funds from the city’s not going to be something we’re proud new maintenance yard, additional debt of. There’s an awful lot of hotel capacity capacity and reserves in a fund desigcoming online downtown and having nated for the convention center. Rowe a fully functioning convention center’s said contractors have projected that the

JORDAN GREEN

renovations will be complete by May 4. The finance committee’s action on Monday forwards the request to the full council for consideration. A request from a community group for funding to pay for a feasibility and marketing study for a proposed food cooperative met with a cooler reception from members of the finance committee. The Revs. Gary R. Williams and Willard Bass, respectively the project coordinator and project founder, hope to open a member-owned grocery to address food insecurity in the West Salem Shopping Center near the intersection of Peters Creek Parkway and Academy Street. The $21,800 requested by the co-op would cover the cost of a market analysis study by Minneapolis-based Dakota Worldwide, and start-up assistance from CDS Consulting Co-op, also

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Up Front

ond go-round where we’re shown what the possibilities are, what the structures are — a lot more in-depth information about how this works in the long run,” MacIntosh added. Councilman John Larson, who represents the South Ward where the co-op would be located, and Councilman Derwin Montgomery said there’s no way to tell whether the plan is viable without conducting the study requested by the organizers. “Many of the questions that I’ve heard around this table about the end result and the end goal of an actual co-op are questions that hopefully some of the answers would actually come out of the actual study, so not to do the study doesn’t get us the answers to the questions that I think are being raised at this moment,” Montgomery said. Based on the information from the feasibility study, Montgomery said community members and foundations will have to determine whether it makes sense to move forward. Councilman Robert Clark, the chairman of the finance committee and the only Republican on the city council, echoed MacIntosh’s skepticism. “If you’re serious about addressing it, you need to peel the onion back and really ask: Why can this person not get groceries?” he said. “Is it they don’t have the money or they can’t get to the grocery store? And that’s what we need to address. I am reluctant for us or anyone else who is not in the grocery business, getting into it. We have a bad habit of encouraging people who do not know anything about an industry to get into it, and then it all blows up.” Council members did not take a vote on the request, which was presented only for informational purposes.

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based in Minneapolis. Assistant City Manager Derwick Paige warned council members that if the project proceeds, the co-op would likely need additional financial support from the city. Williams said the proposed venture, named the Share Cooperative, is modeled after Renaissance Community Co-op, a grocery store that opened in northeast Greensboro in November through more than a decade of community organizing efforts in response to the 1999 closure of a Winn-Dixie grocery store and a successful mobilization to block the reopening of a landfill. Williams encouraged members of Winston-Salem City Council to visit to the Greensboro co-op. Williams said the aim of the Share Cooperative is to provide “fresh, nourishing food at a reasonable price” in a food desert. He added, “When we stand that store up anywhere in Winston-Salem, it will stay there. It will belong to the people. The profits will not be siphoned off; the profits will be reinvested in our community.” Councilwoman Adams said she’s seen numerous nonprofits pledging to address food insecurity and disparities, with little result. “I will support whatever is needed from me on this end right now,” she said, “but as we move forward — as I’ve told the council — we have to really think about the end result of what we’re getting for our taxpayers’ dollars being invested in this.” MacIntosh expressed reservations. “I guess I’m concerned about the long-run capacity of this to be successful, and successful without the city of Winston-Salem having to continue to put money in,” he said. “Before I’m comfortable committing $21,000 to this I would rather see a sec-

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

OPINION

EDITORIAL

Cognitive dissonance in North Carolina The state of North Carolina and the country of which it is a part have been doing a strange sort of double-helix dance these days, like the twin snakes on the caduceus or a couple of refrigerator magnets that repel each other instead of attract. In the 2016 election, the state went blue at the top of its ticket by electing Gov. Roy Cooper while simultaneously choosing Donald Trump for president. It’s worth noting that Trump took North Carolina by more than 3.5 points while Cooper’s victory was about 0.2 percent. Our own political experiment with HB 2 was a disaster by almost any measure — it’s cost our state more than $400 million, including lost revenue from canceled events and corporate expansions, and the money we’ve spent defending the law in the courts. And even Pat McCrory’s most ardent supporters would agree that HB 2 cost him the governorship — at least the ones who still live in a reality-based society. But back to the courts: North Carolina is being sued by the federal government over HB 2, claiming that it violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — a charge against which Cooper, as state attorney general, said he could not defend. That case is on hold while the US Supreme Court makes a ruling on a transgender Our own political case in Virginia experiment with HB that would affect the determina2 was a disaster by tion. almost any measure. Meanwhile, in the first days of 2017, five states so far — Kentucky, Missouri, Minnesota, Texas and, hey, Virginia — have introduced similar “bathroom bills,” the language of which either negates the entire notion of transgenderism, or unisex bathrooms, or both. Now Gov. Cooper, in the first days of his administration, announced plans to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. McCrory’s refusal to take part in this aspect of Obamacare, according to the NC Justice Center, costs the state $5.9 million a day, more than $5 billion since McCrory first refused the funds in January 2014. At the same time, the new US Congress and the president are unrolling plans for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which this time — after 60 failed votes since 2014 — just may pass.

CITIZEN GREEN

Gov. Cooper fights for Medicaid expansion

If your only source of informaconstrained him from taking executive action, judging by tion about healthcare spending is reports that he continued to negotiate with Washington for press releases from Phil Berger, the a possible expansion of Medicaid. Republican leader of the North While the feasibility of Cooper’s proposal is far from Carolina Senate, you might believe certain, it’s good politics. In contrast to McCrory’s madthat Vice President-elect Mike dening foot-dragging and equivocation about whether he Pence, Chris Christie, John Kasich might pursue expansion in the future, it’s refreshing to have by Jordan Green and Jan Brewer were wildly irrea governor who’s not afraid to stand up to the ultra-consponsible liberal politicians eager to servative legislature and who sets out clear political goals. waste tax money on bloated social programs. Yes, opposition from the Republican leadership at the All four Republican governors signed legislation — in General Assembly, not to mention pledges from the Trump Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio and Arizona, respectively — to administration and the Republican Congress to dismantle approve what Berger called “a massive, budget-busting the Affordable Care Act, creates significant uncertainty, Obamacare expansion” of Medicaid. If Medicaid expansion but Cooper and his fellow Democrats are wise to present has triggered financial crises in these Republican-controlled voters with a clearly drawn alternative vision. states, it seems to have escaped public notice. Considering that the legislature holds the power of the While the legality of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s purse, one option floated by the new governor to cover the efforts to expand Medicaid in North Carolina will have state match is for the hospitals — which would significantly to be determined by the federal Centers for Medicare & benefit from Medicaid expansion — to kick in through fees. Medicaid Services or the courts, the financial sense of his Resistance from the Republican leadership in the Generplan is not in doubt. al Assembly was entirely predictable. North Carolinians’ federal tax contributions are currently “Cooper is three strikes and out on his attempt to break paying to subsidize Medicaid expansion in 31 states and the state law: He does not have the authority to unilaterally District of Columbia because the fedexpand Obamacare; his administration eral government covers 95 percent of cannot take steps to increase Medicaid In contrast to McCrory’s the cost of the program, although the eligibility; and our constitution does state match will balloon to 10 percent foot-dragging, it’s nice to not allow him to spend billions of state after 2020. Without Medicaid covtax dollars we don’t have to expand have a governor willing erage for some of the state’s poorest Obamacare without legislative approvresidents, the NC Hospital Association al,” Berger said. to stand up to the GOP. says its members are chipping in $1 Of course, Republican lawmakers billion to care for residents who can’t could remedy that immediately by afford it. Cooper, a Democrat, says expansion would allow coming to their senses and passing a resolution in support the state to access between $3 billion and $4 billion in of expansion. federal funds. Speaking of breaking the law, there’s more than a little “We need healthcare that’s affordable and available,” bit of the pot calling the kettle black here, with the federal Cooper said in his inaugural address on Jan. 7. “It’s long courts ruling that the General Assembly’s 2011 state redispast time to expand Medicaid, so more working North tricting law is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Carolinians can get the healthcare they need. It just makes districting plan, which virtually guarantees a Republican common sense. It’ll create tens of thousands of jobs, supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature, hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians will finally be is precisely why most citizens do not have a voice in state insured, and rural hospitals will stop being closed down. government anymore and why Republicans can refuse to That’s why Republican governors across this nation have expand Medicaid while passing unpopular laws like HB 2 put partisanship aside and done what’s best for their states. without fearing repercussions at the ballot box. It’s time for us to do the same.” Even if Cooper’s plan doesn’t get traction, it’s importCooper is potentially hemmed in by a 2013 state law that ant for him to propose good policies to force Republican stipulates that North Carolina “will not expand the state’s lawmakers to defend their bad ones. Unlike his Republican Medicaid eligibility under the Medicaid expansion provided opponents, the new governor had to face all of the state’s in the Affordable Care Act.” It also states, “No department, voters to get elected. He’s not going to win any points agency or institution of this state shall attempt to expand letting the legislature set the agenda — the people sent the Medicaid eligibility standards provided… unless directRoy Cooper to Raleigh to be a strong leader. Good for him ed to do so by the General Assembly.” for leading. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill, although he himself apparently doubted whether it

Opinion Cover Story

Ginsburg responds: We’ll see. I’m most interested in what you mean by “the halt of our cultural destruction.” And while I’m no liberal, your willingness to call other people “trash” speaks volumes.

News

Trump train Resist all the good family sustaining factory jobs that Trump has already kept/created before taking office or the millions more to come, resist the rise in living standards, resist law and order and the lack of rioting, resist the halt of our cultural destruction, resist the lack of periodic terrorist attacks that obungler allowed, and most of all resist the end of a threat of WW III that Killary’s no-fly zone in Syria guaranteed [“Join the resistance: Welcome to the struggle against Trumpism,” by Eric Ginsburg, Dec. 23, 2016]! Liberals=trash. Josey Wales via triad-city-beat.com

Up Front

Transparency, please Well Tony Wilkins, if not [Marty] Kotis then who are you covering for [“Inspection raises concern about political payback as inauguration nears,” by Jordan Green, Jan. 4, 2017]? Does North Carolina

Jamestown foodie Enjoyed the article [“Celebrity Dining Guide: Where the stars eat in Greensboro,” by Eric Ginsburg, Jan. 4, 2017]. As a former (long ago) High Point resident, I still like to keep up with what’s going on there. If you’ve never been to Southern Roots in Jamestown, please give it a try. Lisa Hawley, the owner is amazing. (Okay, I’ll admit she’s my cousin, but I would love Southern Roots no matter who owned it.) And just for the record, I love BBQ from Kepley’s in High Point and Country BBQ in Archdale. Nothing like that in the Atlanta area. Marlene Lawson via triad-city-beat.com

Ginsburg responds: As we pointed out last week, Jamestown is outside of the TCB coverage area. So is Archdale. Kepley’s though… that should appear in the paper some day!

triad-city-beat.com

Speakeasy praise I recently became a member at this location, and was blown away by the experience [“Barstool: Let’s talk about Hush speakeasy,” by Kat Bodrie, Dec. 7, 2016]. Having had opportunity to visit speakeasies in other cities, and states, I’m thankful Greensboro has a contender. I’ve been to Employees Only in New York, and the Green Light in Raleigh, and Hush ranks right up there. Do yourself a favor and try it out, or do me a favor and don’t! The less people who know about it, the more I can enjoy it. Intoxicologist83 via triad-city-beat.com

state law not state that all communications to elected representatives are in fact, public record? As a matter of fact they do. You might want to get the city attorney on the telephone as state law does not say what kind of communications and talking or telephone calls also come under public records laws. And Tony Wilkins, you’ve already admitted you talked with someone. Wouldn’t be the first time I sued the city over public-records violations, and this one is in the bank. Billy Jones via triad-city-beat.com

Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

January 11 – 17, 2017

Greg Taylor and the long arc of justice A study in narrative storytelling

Cover Story

by Brian Clarey • courtesy photography

Greg Taylor meets former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake after his exoneration.

The 2009 jailhouse interview might be the strongest piece.

It’s the moment when Greg Taylor of Raleigh, 16 years into a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, finds out from his lawyers that someone else has confessed to the crime. Shock registers on his face as a stone blank look before his head falls into his hand and the sobs shudder through his body; we see the enormity of it all wash over him in waves, a catharsis made all the more potent because it’s real. It is a remarkable piece of footage, pertinent because the confession convinced the eight-member NC Innocence Inquiry Commission to unanimously recommend a review by the three-judge panel that eventually granted Taylor his freedom. But the confession itself — by a man named Craig Taylor, no relation — was torn apart in arguments during Taylor’s innocence hearing. It was the bit with the State Bureau of Investigation that sealed the deal. And they’ve got that on camera, too. One of Greg Taylor’s attorneys, Mike Klinkosum, has pinned down SBI analyst Duane Deaver during a cross ex-

In 1991, Greg’s truck was found stuck in the mud some 100 yards from the body of Jacquetta Thomas.

amination before the three judges. Taylor had been convicted in 1993 largely because of evidence from the SBI serology lab noting the presence of blood from the victim, Jacquetta Thomas, on Taylor’s truck — the only physical evidence that linked the two of them that night. Klinkosum wants to know why the prosecution had evidence of Thomas’ blood, while the reports from the serology lab indicated that the sample was not blood at all. Backed into a corner, Deaver reveals that he was acting on an SBI policy to indicate the presence of blood evidence when it could — that the state of North Carolina had been deliberately withholding evidence from defense attorneys as a matter of course, not just in this instance, but every instance. This revelation causes a scary moment of stillness in the courtroom; all three judges have their hands over their mouths and lawyers from both sides just look at each other uneasily. Deaver’s testimony would lead to a massive SBI scandal: decades of tainted evidence that prosecutors around the state had used to make more than 200 convictions, three of them death-penalty cases that could never be made right. But that bit is very technical, requiring some explana-

Johnny Beck was with Greg that night. Neither would testify against the other in a plea deal.

tion of the practices used by the lab and the significance of the Takayama hemochromogen test. It needs to be in the film, but probably not up front. These are the matters that consume Gregg Jamback and Jamie Huss, custodians of more than 80 hours of footage concerning the Greg Taylor episode — they began shooting while Taylor was still behind bars — and producers of the independent documentary film In Pursuit of Justice, which will attempt to rein in the sprawling saga that begins in a suburban Raleigh cul de sac after midnight in 1991 and is not quite over yet. The two have been involved since 2010, and they’re still trimming the thing down, still debating the true essence of the story, still raising funds for the last stages of production. “There’s a lot of technical stuff that needs to be done, high-dollar tech stuff ,” Huss said. “We’ve got about $86,000 of our own time and money in this already; as independent filmmakers, we’ve hit our wall. We’ve hit our personal wall after six years.” And then there’s that most daunting question all narrative storytellers must face: In a story this layered and complex, where do we even begin?

triad-city-beat.com

Greg’s father, Ed (center) with attorney Chris Mumma.

The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, unique to the state, looks into wrongful convictions.

The rough cut that screened last week at Hanesbrands Theatre in downtown Winston-Salem begins with police sirens. The discovery of a dead body in Raleigh makes the nightly news, along with footage of Greg Taylor’s SUV stuck in the mud behind the cul de sac about 50 yards away. Taylor — a white father and husband with a steady job — had been smoking crack that night with Johnny Beck, a running partner who was none of those things, when they decided to do a little four-wheeling in the mud flat beyond the cul de sac. When the truck got stuck, they gathered their crack and walked to the street. And that’s when they saw the body. The night of Taylor’s arrest could have been re-enacted into a wonderful piece of gritty, gonzo-style docudrama. He and Beck agreed that it would not be in their best interests to get involved with a murder investigation. They walked to an all-night gas station where they met Barbara Ray; the trio spent the rest of the evening smoking rock

The victim’s sister, Yolanda Littlejohn, was happy to see Taylor freed from prison.

cocaine in various party houses in the city. Taylor went to pick up his SUV the next day. He would be arrested for murder before the sun set. In hindsight, Taylor’s first trial played out a bit like the one in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer,” which shed serious doubt on a murder conviction in Wisconsin. The falsified evidence was the only thing connecting him to the victim, and he refused to take a plea or testify against Beck. His family hired a famous lawyer, James Blackburn, who had successfully prosecuted Army physician Dr. Jeffrey McDonald in 1979 and wrote a book on the subject, Fatal Vision, that became a TV miniseries. Blackburn had legal problems of his own in the early 1990s: An investigation for embezzlement and other crimes led to disbarment, a criminal conviction and a jail sentence. Taylor’s new lawyer took the case just a couple months before trial, and it did not go well. By 2002, Taylor had exhausted every avenue for appeal, one courtroom drama after another that would see the innocent man being escorted back to jail every time. There’s 19 years of backstory that happened before Jamback and Huss came on, and so much has happened since that it’s already blown the parameters of the stan-

dard 90-minute doc. And the thing is that, while Greg Taylor is at the heart of Jamback and Huss’ film, the story they are telling is much bigger. While Taylor was imprisoned, North Carolina became the only state in the nation with an innocence process enshrined in law. “We want this film to change the criminal justice system, hopefully across the country,” Jamback said. “Now we’re very fortunate that Greg is so articulate and that his case had so many different aspects to it and that he was the first person freed from [the innocence process]. His story is the perfect story to help tell this overall story. “The current word in the documentary world is ‘impact,’” Jamback continued. “So we want this film to have impact.”

It’s a task that would daunt even the most seasoned documentary filmmaker: a multifaceted, episodic piece of true crime with far-reaching consequences; more than eight hours of footage, much of it showing nuanced pieces of argumentation; an innocence process that is a

January 11 – 17, 2017 Cover Story

story unto itself. For Jamback and Huss, both Winston-Salem residents, Greg Taylor’s story is their first foray into long-form documentary filmmaking — their first effort, a short called “Greg Taylor Ghost,” made the festival rounds in 2016 [???] and 2016, picking up the Best of the Fest from Greenville’s Down East Flick Fest in 2015. Before that, Jamback’s résumé consisted mostly of corporate marketing and fundraising videos. He met one of the major characters in the story — Chris Mumma from the NC Center on Actual Innocence — in 2009, when she was a recipient of the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award from the Winston-Salem-based Z Smith Reynolds Foundation for her work. “In September [2009], Greg had just been through the eight-person panel and received the 8-0 vote to send it to the next level,” Jamback remembered. “We started working on that video in October.” He and Huss were there every step of the way from then on, beginning a slate of interviews with Taylor while he was still in jail, culminating with every minute of testimony in front of the three-judge panel that eventually declared Taylor innocent. “I’d done the odd scripted thing, a couple documentaries,” Jamback said. “Taking that eight-minute mindset and expanding it into an hour, 90 minutes, really took a lot of thought on my end.” They conducted interviews with Taylor’s daughter, his parents, his ex-wife, a couple of the guys he did time with, a journalist who covered the case. Officials from the state Innocence Inquiry Commission, which is a part of the state government, and the NC Center on Actual Innocence, a nonprofit, walk viewers through the peculiarities of the case. “The answer, then, was surprisingly obvious,” Jamback said. “Which was: You think about the film in eight-minute segments, and then you piece all that stuff together. “It took me a while to get there,” he admitted. The rules of storytelling still apply: Content determines structure. And with such a surplus of material, the question becomes not what needs to go into the film, but what to leave out.

The screening room at the Hanesbrands Theatre filled early, mostly people who have invested in the film or otherwise have an interest in Greg Taylor, justice in North Carolina or documentary films. Jamie Huss took a show of hands — perhaps 20 of the 200 or so attendees have never heard of Greg Taylor and his 20-year tangle with the law. Jamie Huss introduced the people seated in the front row, including Greg’s mother and stepfather; his brother Ed, who Huss said has “basically earned a law degree” in the years Greg was incarcerated; Chris Mumma, who found the smoking gun; and Daniel Essa, who served time with Taylor. Greg was there, too, at ease in jeans and sneakers. He’s been free for almost seven years now. When he was

Greg Taylor with Chris Mumma of the nonprofit NC Center on Actual Innocence. Mumma discovered the evidence that exonerated Taylor and exposed the State Bureau of Investigation in a massive scandal.

released in 2010, he was worried that he might not be able to resume his career in the computer-technology field, as things had advanced so much since 1991 when he was first locked up. “My telecomm career is pretty much over,” he told an interviewer in 2010. “I had never even used a cellphone [before I got out]. I knew about them, but I didn’t know they had cameras and all this other crazy stuff on them. Cameras without film — that blows me away. And those GPS things that know everything about you: where you’re going, where you’ve been, where you’re at.” Now he once again works in the tech industry; a few people from the office made the drive in from Durham for the screening. Also in the audience that night, Munn said, was a filmmaker shopping a documentary about the murder of Michael Jordan’s father that’s taken eight years to compile. “It takes some time,” Huss said. “It takes some time when you’re working with the criminal justice system.” She emphasized that the screening is a “rough cut.”

“There are mistakes,” she said — the soundtrack is not filled out, finishing touches in sound and color need to be applied. The storyline, too, becomes bogged down at times with what Jamback would later call a “civics lesson.” In the course of the tale, it becomes necessary to understand the various governmental, non-governmental, academic and even private organizations that fall under the “innocence” mantle. All are concerned with getting innocent people out of jail, with varying aspects and authorities. Central to the story, too, is the state’s innocence legislation, which began as a result of the relationship between Mumma and state Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake, for whom she clerked out of law school. Lake sat for a long interview, lending a lot of credence to the project and some insight into the 2006 legislation that created the NC Innocence Inquiry Commission. Several lawyers and politicians get their say as well, eating up precious screen time.

Find more info about In Pursuit of Justice, a film that is still work in progress, at inpursuitofjusticefilm.com.

Filmmakers Gregg Jamback and Jamie Huss have way more footage than they need for their film In Pursuit of Justice, which is entering the final stages of production. They’re figuring out how to edit it down to 90 minutes.

“Lawyers take forever to say anything,” Jamback said. But for anyone familiar with the case, the doc is a trove of rare gems: three interviews with Greg Taylor conducted while he was still in jail and not at all certain he wouldn’t remain there for the rest of his life; a long interview with Johnny Beck, who was set free after a year without charges being filed against him; testimony from Barbara Ray that was omitted from the original trial. Serious government wonks will love the footage of the hearing before the three-judge panel, itself a study in narrative nonfiction that makes for compelling courtroom drama all on its own. This is where the audience sees the pugnacity of Tom Ford, the man who first prosecuted Taylor as Durham DA now inexplicably called on to prosecute him again. Ford’s badgering style in cross-examination makes him a great villain, and it shows our hero, Taylor, standing strong under the barrage. It’s where we meet Barbara Ray. And it is the setting for Duane Deaver’s sensational admission that set off the biggest scandal in state law enforcement this century. There are heroes like Mumma, the dogged investigator who found the missing piece in a fit of desperation, when she and an assistant had begun going over the case files by hand, and Ed Taylor, the loyal brother who stood by throughout.

“Eddie was the go-to person in the family, with all the legal stuff,” Jamback said. “He interfaced with the attorneys and the investigators and he knew everything backwards and forwards. And we sort of gave him short shrift. “The scene in the film at the very end,” Jamback continued, “after the first time Judge Manning declares him innocent, he said, ‘Seventeen years, that’s what we’ve been waiting for,’ and he choked up and that’s his moment, really, in the film. It’s the climax of his storyline.” They’re still debating the footage of private investigator and former police officer Marty Sexton, which hit on one of the most relevant facts in the case. “He has a quote where he basically reinforces what Chris [Mumma] and others said,” Jamback explained. “The thing that made Greg stand out is that he and Johnny never turned on each other. Marty says the same thing — ‘What is really amazing is that these guys never turn on each other. Other people in that situation usually give the other person up in two seconds.’ And I said, ‘We don’t want to add another character in this film who is only going to say one thing.’” Huss disagreed. “I say yes,” she said. “When a police officer and all his years of serving in a police department, for him to say it is

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more powerful than just Chris. That jumped off the page to me first.” “I told Jamie [Huss] we’d go look at the footage again,” Jamback said.

Before the screening, Greg Taylor stood in the cold air outside the Hanesbrands Theatre with Chris Mumma, “I know that dude,” Greg Taylor said to a ponytailed man, a guy he recognized from prison, who approached. He said the same to a reporter he hasn’t seen in years. “I know that dude.” The years of freedom have been good. He’s employed and single, and the $4 million windfall, which doesn’t even begin to cover his 17 years behind bars, does make things a little easier. He spends time with his grandchildren, three of them now, and travels. Last year alone he visited Belize, Hawaii and Las Vegas. “I’ll never be over this,” he told the reporter. “I was behind bars for a third of my life. It’s just a part of me. I’m not trying to run or hide from it. I’m just trying to make sense of it.” When Taylor entered the lobby, Gregg Jamback and Jamie Huss surrounded him and guided him to the receiving line under the stairwell so he can press flesh, but he kept drifting away and no one made an effort to corral him. “At first we thought this film was about a process,” Huss said. “Then it was about Greg as a person. Then it was a confession, and then it’s a rogue agent. And then it shifted again with the whole process in the SBI. “Every time you think it’s about one thing, bam! We got a surprise.” “In filmmaking there’s this device called the McGuffin,” Jamback said. “In The Maltese Falcon, it was the Maltese falcon — the kind of thing that runs through the whole story but it’s really kind of irrelevant.” Greg Taylor, he said, is a kind of McGuffin. “In a way I have always thought this piece is Greg’s story,” he continued, “but it could have been about any one of the 13 exonerees. The real story has always been the creation of the commission and the work that Chris had done to free all these people.” If Taylor is affected by his role as a minor player in his own saga, he doesn’t show it. He recently went to a reunion at his high school — Sanderson, in Raleigh — and found some clarity in a conversation with an old classmate. “I said to her, ‘You know, I’m just trying to find a purpose in all this,’” Taylor remembered. “She said, ‘Don’t worry about finding the purpose. Just keep telling your story.’”

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

CULTURE Giving a High Point restaurant its due by Eric Ginsburg

he menu looks — at first glance — pretty bleak for vegetarians. “Looks like you’re having the fresh vegetables with bean curd,” I said to my friend Daniel, who sat across the table from me as we tried to pick our lunch entrees at Full Kee. The Chinese restaurant in High Point came well recommended, albeit by strangers, who noted my occasional griping about the lack of good Chinese food in Greensboro and urged me to come to High Point. Full Kee, the two readers wrote in emails about a year apart, is where it’s at. Daniel, a vegetarian who grew up in High Point, hadn’t been before either, but he said on our drive over that he’d checked online and the menu boasted a vegetarian section. When we arrived and he didn’t see it on the lunch menu, he asked for the full menu. No luck there, either. I’m not sure where he checked, but when I did my own search, I didn’t see a menu online anywhere. But Full Kee is actually full of vegetarian options; you just have to ask. Daniel ordered the chef’s special orange beef lunch but subbed in tofu, and when he picked fried rice to go with it, our server was with it enough to check that eggs were okay. Full Kee predates my arrival in the Triad a decade ago — the restaurant opened its doors in 2005. It’s doubled in size since then, according to Full Kee’s Facebook page, which now has a full bar and offers “a humble atmosphere.” But this is no hole-in-the-wall takeout joint – though ERIC GINSBURG The spicy Szechuan shrimp with a vegetarian egg roll and fried rice is a worthwhile lunch option you can order carryout if you’d like. There are a few at Full Kee Gourmet Chinese in High Point. of those worth hitting in the area, my favorite being Golden Wok off of West Wendover Avenue not far into roll in the mustard. It sucker-punched both Daniel and kah bar next door, or after church around the corner of Greensboro, but most Chinese restaurants in the Triad I in the face pretty damn hard. Otherwise, ask for more the shopping center. are underwhelming. Full Kee is a full-on restaurant, heat if that’s your aim, or Beyoncé it and bring some of Full Kee isn’t as glitzy as 98 Asian Bistro, the best about equal in size to the worthwhile Sampan Chinese your own. Asian restaurant in High Point I’ve tried, and if I’m in Winston-Salem but with more natural lighting and Full Kee operates off Samet Road, right by the looking to try a spicy Chinese dish I’ve never had bemore thought put into the décor. intersection of Eastchester and Wendover, near Carter fore, I’m going to Captain Chen’s in northwest GreensSome of the tables at Full Kee are bright red, decBrothers BBQ and Sammy G’s Tavern (Greensboro and boro. But Full Kee can hold its own, most closely orated with “traditional good fortune inscriptions,” Winston-Salem residents: You need to try both these matching Sampan or Greensboro’s Chinese Kitchen, according to the restaurant’s Facebook page. Even if spots). Chef George Yu, who used to operate the Blue and that’s a compliment. you can’t read the characters, it makes for a more phoDiamond Restaurant in DC a few decades ago, moved Whether you’re looking for more common American togenic Instagram pic. And most of the other, larger to High Point and launched this family business back Chinese restaurant fare like lo mein, egg drop soup and tables feature rotund lazy Susans, ideal for a commuaround the time Barack Obama first saw a national General Tso’s chicken or something harder to find such nal dining experience. stage at the 2004 Democratic Nationas ma po tofu, Szechuan-style pork and Hunan fish, it’s Forget long, wooden community al Convention. all here. tables where you crowd in next to Visit Full Kee Gourmet And I have to agree with our two strangers. Give me a circular table Chinese Restaurant at readers who independently reached with a variety of entrees on a turntaout to sing its praises — Full Kee 3792 Samet Drive (HP) ble in the middle any day. Pick of the Week makes the grade. I opted for the Szechuan-style or find it on Facebook. We enjoyed a tasty and relatively shrimp, which comes with sautéed Tween cooking class: breakfast for dinner @ quiet lunch that Wednesday, as other zucchini, green pepper, bamboo Greensboro Children’s Museum (GSO), Friday, patrons came and went, never taking shoots, mushrooms and water chestnuts. Despite a 5:30 p.m. up more than a quarter of the restaurant’s dining star next to the menu item, it was more sweet than Kids ages 9 to 11 learn to prepare poached, scramroom. I imagine it gets busier for dinner, especially on anything, enjoyable mixed with the rice that comes as bled and fried eggs, as well as make fresh biscuits the weekends, when some come for the bar and others with a sweet potato and maple butter twist. More part of the lunch special. to unwind after the workweek. Maybe a few people info at gcmuseum.com. You want heat? Dip your complimentary veggie egg even walk in before or after hitting the Egyptian hoo-

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Bottleshops battle the snow

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story All She Wrote

Kat loves red wine, Milan Kundera, and the Shins. She wears scarves at katbodrie.com.

Shot in the Triad

Asheboro’s Four Saints Brewing and the Morning Stout from Hoots in Winston-Salem, in that order. I’ve heard that Hoots’ Coconut Rice Porter is a masterpiece, but unfortunately I didn’t catch it before the kegs ran out. I ordered a 64-ounce growler of the Ass Clown (don’t laugh), to which the bartender honked the clown horn on the tap handle. When Beer Growler had an Ass Clown tap takeover last year, he said, it was a nightmare of honking for days. I had to drink some later that night. I mean, how could I let it sit in the fridge until snow arrived? Most of our beer was gone by Day Two of the storm, including the Deep River Riverbank Rye-It pale ale, which perfectly matched our rutabaga, potato and carrot stew. Despite my success, I don’t recommend braving the crowds to buy beer at the last minute before a snowstorm. But more importantly, it’s important to stock up ahead of time, especially with a local growler, rather than driving on treacherous roads even if your local bottleshop or brewery is open. I wanted to, especially after cracking into my beer as soon as I made it home, but next time I’ll just buy more — because three growlers isn’t enough.

Crossword

chains, be they local or otherwise. On Jan. 5, the day before the storm kicked off, I hit up the Beer Growler on what was certain to be a busy night. They’d sent a newsletter earlier in the day advertising Kick the Keg night: 25 percent sale on 64-ounce growlers of certain taps and $2 half pours for those kegs. Plus, my co-workers had been feeding me updates of the weekend weather forecast, so it wasn’t hard to put the two together. When I got there a couple hours before close, only a handful of people had showed up for the sale and presnow binge. I guess other people prioritize milk and bread while I’m out hop hunting. At least I had more time to talk to my bartender, who told me his favorite dark beer is New Holland Dragon’s imperial milk stout, which rings in at 11 percent alcohol. My husband is a proponent of getting a growler in order to “sit with” a beer, so I took his cue and settled on a 32-ouncer. My favorite beer this visit, though, was the Ass Clown Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Stout. The flavors don’t taste artificial, and the bartender was right: It’s more salt-forward when cold and chocolate-flavored when warmer, a fun transition to witness. It ranks fourth on my list of dark beers this season — after a bourbon barrel-aged imperial Tele-porter from Charlotte’s Unknown Brewing, Impending Grace imperial stout from

Sportsball

You know how it went down last weekend: a dump of snow drove most of us indoors, or at least off the roads, and business hours were hit or miss. Gate City Growlers off Battleground Avenue in Greensboro sent an email the day of the deluge, by Kat Bodrie claiming, “We will be open regardless of the weather tomorrow.” And sure enough, they were. City Beverage in downtown Winston-Salem stayed opened until 5 p.m. on the first full day of the storm. The Beer Growler on Robinhood Road in Winston-Salem had promised to open around mid-day, but a heartrending Facebook post around 2 p.m. said, “We admit defeat — even walking didn’t work!” You’ve got to hand it to them for trying, and you can understand why I appreciate the value of a great local bottle shop. I used to rely on the more convenient beer offerings at chain grocery stores, which, admittedly, started carrying interesting brands like Mystery Brewing from Hillsborough. I even went to the Lowes Beer Den to fill growlers for a fresher craft beer experience. That was before I discovered the magic of local bottle shops, effectively ridding myself of the guilt of supporting

KAT BODRIE

Culture

Growlers from local bottleshops or breweries are a beer lover’s best friend during inclement weather.

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front

When the past weekend’s heavy snowfall dumped on North Carolina, everything shut down in a state of emergency, including concerts. Greensboro’s On Pop of the World Studios canceled two shows over the weekend, one featuring Corporate Fandango, the other the second iteration of Songwriters Explosion. Doodad Farm saw 9 inches of snowfall, forcing the remote ranch to nix an appearance by guitarist Jack Williams. In Winston-Salem, the relentless blizzard compelled

Crossword

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CULTURE Snowed-in Crystal Bright streams stripped-down set by Anthony Harrison

All Showtimes @ 9:00pm 1/10

Bring Your Own Vinyl

1/11

Dead Tenants, Drome, Ozone Jones, Power Take

1/12

Joy on Fire, Bag of Humans

1/13

Crow’s Nest Presents: Friday the 13th Show with Origin

1/14

Mikey Stough, Emily Syewart, Josh Crocker, Southern Gothic, A Comp for Kyle

1/15

Paranormal Nite with Jeff Jenkins and Lillie Bailey

1/16

Pissed On, Knuckle Buster

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Pick of the Week Chamber music concert @ Watson Hall — UNC School of the Arts (WS), Saturday, 7:30 p.m. School of Music faculty, along with the Giannini Quartet, perform Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” as well as Prokofiev’s “Quintet in G Minor” and Tison Street’s “Adagio for Oboe and Strings.” More info at uncsa.edu.

shutdowns from Wahyas and Night Battles at Test Pattern to Vel Indica at Tee Time Sports and Spirits. However, one artist was determined not to let cabin fever get her down. Crystal Bright, based outside of Saxapahaw but formerly from Greensboro, canceled a show on Sunday in Wilmington due to the inclement weather. “We got about five inches of snow with ice underneath,” Bright said in an interview. “I live on the back roads, so it was impassable for a couple days. My road is still not cleared.” Bright’s bandmates were en route on Interstate 40 when it began icing, and they were forced to call off the show. “The weather wasn’t as bad in Wilmington, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to get me back to my house the next day,” Bright said. “I was really bummed about it, because I was looking forward to seeing all of my friends, and we had already rescheduled that show because of the last hurricane that came through.” Though Bright felt blue, she figured out a workaround with guitarist Jeremy Haire: stream a show while isolated in their home. The circumstances might’ve been unique, but the spur-ofthe-moment Saturday show wasn’t the first time Bright had used a streaming platform to broadcast a set. “I had used a streaming site a few years ago once from my home, but they have come a long way since then,” Bright said. “I used Ustream last year to stream a benefit concert for our friend we were doing it for because he couldn’t be there because of his back surgery, hence the benefit.” This time, Bright opted for Concert Window. “Concert Window is nice because people can chat with you during the stream and you can interact,” Bright explained. “It’s more intimate and relaxed, and there’s an option for setting up rewards for tips.” The situation forced Bright to pick songs carefully. “I had to pick songs that just Jeremy and I could do with accordion, keyboard and guitar,” Bright said. Her music can tend towards lush arrangements, so the stripped-down sonic aesthetic was something of a challenge, but not one where the songs suffered. “Jeremy and I have been performing as a duo occasionally the past year, so we’ve had some practice getting used to the sound and trying to fill it out the best we can with auxiliary foot percussion,” Bright said. “It definitely takes some getting used to, because I want the songs to have the full effect, but it’s also good to be adaptable to different settings. In the process, I can hear the songs differently and appreciate different aspects of them.” Haire even took the opportunity to push his creative boundaries. “We recently set up a drum kit, so Jeremy played around on that, too,” Bright said. “He played a couple songs on drums instead of guitar for the first time, and that was fun. It’s a great time to experiment and just have fun with it, since it’s so informal and relaxed.” Bright said about 30 people watched the spontaneous stream continuously, with about half of those loyal fans employing the service’s chat function to send requests or encouraging words.

Snow shut down Crystal Bright’s show, but she found a workaround.

Bright performed from home during the storm, through a livestream.

MONTY CHANDLER

SCREENSHOT

“We had an hour set aside for it, and I had about 40 minutes’ worth of material written down,” Bright said. “I left time for me to show some of my fun instruments I keep at home that no one ever sees. “My cats were also involved,” Bright added with a laugh. Instead of letting the cancellation deflate her and leave her helpless and stranded, the experience led Bright to new ideas and an opportunity to make some dough off tips contributed by viewers. All told, after the 30-percent fee imposed by Concert Window, Bright brought in $275 for a night’s fun, including revenue from merch sales. The experience was so positive that Bright now considers streaming a consistent, viable outlet for her music. “I’m definitely going to do it at least once a month and have lots of ideas of different things to try,” Bright said. “There are so many supporters around the world who haven’t been able to see a live show yet, and this can give them the opportunity to get a little closer.”

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CULTURE Exhibit challenges the act of viewing

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by Joel Sronce scending the gallery stairs to a small loft, one hears an industrial hum, a mechanical churning, as if worn fingers busy their typewriters with the stories of lives and journeys forgotten. Ghostly workers in an otherwise empty room. Though the surge of digital technology has kept dormant the rumblings of slide-projectors for several decades, there are many alive and toiling in the Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University. In the loft up the stairs, five projectors whir disparately, seemingly random at first approach but intentional in their timing, delivery and aesthetic. They produce images of homes and gatherings, travels and ruins, leisure, markets and, often, the stark-white vacancy of an empty slide. The recipient screens a few yards away all overlap so that none receives a full projection; instead the images fall from one screen to another. One viewer might see a kaleidoscopic distortion, and another a blend of collectivity. The intentionality endures; it’s the viewers’ perceptions that differ. Serbian-born artist Vesna Pavlović constructs such displays so that her audience not only focuses on the JOEL SRONCE A projector rotates a series of slides onto a thick gray curtain as part of Vesna Pavlović’s Lost Art exhibit at Wake pictures being presented, but on its Forest University’s Hanes Gallery. own act of viewing. Her Lost Art exhibit incorporates visual media from that hasn’t passed and been filtered demand of Pavlović’s artistic life. As she challenges the viewer various sources, including prominent images from the archive through the heavy curtain — but one in an environment of examination, she must challenge herself, of the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade, the capital of that is also now “backward” or “retoo. her home country. Photographs of political meetings, patriotic versed”. A photograph captures a certain point in time, becoming stadium celebrations and old propaganda film canisters all Again Pavlović challenges the a well-accepted proof of something having existed. Yet the have become material for new images and works of art. In litaudience’s act of viewing; her three-diimage then journeys away from that flashing second without erature on the exhibit, the gallery cites Pavlović’s “exploration mensional craft questions the viewers’ returning. Humans, clutching their photographs tightly, do of archives as repositories for personal, social and institutional perception and convection of what they the same from every passing moment. If a photograph is an memory.” see versus what they’re shown: shades interpretation or a receipt of what was Viewers who wander Pavlović’s inof the limitations and exploitations once real, Pavlović exposes its power, stallation might get the feeling that the created by environments all around. its influence and its role in memory and artist has contended with the trajectory Lost Art continues at the political psychology. of her own life as it crosses over this Hanes Art Gallery through One important projection connects history and these events. The exhibit’s Jan. 22, and a Community the exhibit’s political images to the idea lack of dialogue with the viewer is almost Pick of the Week of social perception. Slide Show — a participatory frustrating, but many of the specific In the larger gallery downstairs, a sinimages that Pavlović has chosen to part of this exhibit — takes The March on an All-American City gle projector labors on. It casts images of redress illuminate her own relationship place at SECCA on Jan. 19. @ High Point Museum (HP), Saturpresidential halls and other behemoths to memory. day, 10 a.m. of bureaucratic institutions onto a dark The biography on the artist’s website Local historian Phyllis Bridges gray curtain, undulating and weighty. begins in 2007 with her receiving an MFA introduces her documentary on the (An Iron Curtain analogy here is by no means a stretch.) from Columbia University; it includes nothing of her previous history of High Point’s African AmerThere is a curious detail. Viewers first encounter the curtain life. ican community during the racial when the projector is opposite them, and therefore has cast One can imagine that her Serbian roots — what were once tension and Civil Rights Movement its image “correctly” through the curtain: what you’re meant Yugoslav roots before that country was torn apart — are of the ’60s. More info at highpointto see. It’s not until the viewer moves to the other side that not without the terrible anguish that plagued the region for nc.gov. they see the image much less blurry and distorted — an image many years. Recalling those memories may be a burdensome

January 11 – 17, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad

SPORTSBALL How the mighty Panthers have fallen

ats typically land on their feet, but the Carolina Panthers fell flat on their faces this season. As the NFL playoffs roll along, the fact that both teams that appeared in Super Bowl 50 somehow missed the cut by Anthony Harrison hangs heavy over the Carolinas and Colorado. In fact, the only thing that makes me feel better about the Panthers’ inability to make the playoffs is that the Denver Broncos — the team that whipped them in the Big Game a year ago — delivered an insubstantial season, as well. At least the Broncs have the excuse of losing one of the strongest talents that’s ever played. Carolina still has their own living legend running the offense. Super Bowl slumps have happened in the past, even in the Panthers’ relatively short history. The Cardiac Cats Version 1.0 followed up their title appearance in 2004 with a 7-9 record, kicked off by a 1-7 start and capped by a short field goal against the New Orleans Saints to miss a wild-card berth. This year, the Panthers finished 6-10 — dead last in the tire-and-hair fire that is the NFC South. We missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012. No team has ever played as well in the previous season and failed to reach the postseason in any fashion. The Panthers’ final game occurred on New Year’s Day. Sadly, I didn’t even catch the game, because I was otherwise engaged with covering Wake Forest University basketball. Actually, if we’re being honest, I’m not so sad about it. In hindsight, I know I wouldn’t have wanted to witness my team limp to the end of this godawful season with a one-point loss to the damn Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I haven’t watched a bit of the Cats since their 35-32 loss against the Oakland Raiders on Nov. 27. And even worse — if you keep score of fandom like some pretentious jerk — I haven’t watched a full game since the

New Orleans Saints topped the Panthers by a field goal back on Oct. 16. I did write about that one. And it was a slow, deep stab in the belly so disheartening that I think my brain subconsciously yet conveniently forgot to keep tabs of the Panthers’ schedule as a coping mechanism. Thing is, there are plenty of reasons why Carolina failed to keep up their near-flawless 2015-’16 run. For one, injuries plagued the team. Notably, quarterback Cam Newton got concussed in Game 4 against the Atlanta Falcons, which they lost 48-33; the following loss against the Bucs with backup QB Derek Anderson may have come as no surprise, but we’re still talking about the Bucs here. Down the stretch, linebacker Luke Kuechly received a concussion of his own in the Week 11 match against the Saints on Nov. 17, which Carolina won by a field goal. Unfortunately, the Panthers lost the next game in Oakland by… well, a field goal. There’s a pattern there: The Panthers lost quite a few close games. A cursory review of Carolina’s season shows we they lost five games by 3 points or less — four by a field goal, and the season finale off a bad call by head coach Ron Rivera, for once going a step too far with his riverboat bravado. It does seem that strategic woes also put the Panthers at a disadvantage. From what I saw in contests early in the season, it seemed like Cam wasn’t running the ball as much as he had last season. Whether this was his snap judgment or a conscious, deliberate decision by offensive coordinator Mike Shula, I don’t know for sure. But without Cam scramblin’ for first downs, the offense seemed hobbled in efforts to advance. The tumultuous departure of cornerback Josh Norman also left a gaping hole in the Panthers’ roster. On top of that, we lost center Jared Allen, a veteran snapper, to retirement. Owner Jerry Richardson opted for three corners in the 2016 draft to remedy this unfortunate situation, but none of them are worthy of holding a candle — not even a match — to Norman.

These elements culminated in a harsh disappointment. It’s awful to dwell in What if? but let’s just say the team remained healthy. Let’s say that if Cam scrambled more often he clearly could have and made big first downs. Let’s say Josh Norman had remained with the team he loved. Could the Panthers have won those five games and improved to 11-5? That’s around the figure I predicted for this season. But it just didn’t happen. Carolina’s fans must face the fact that, no matter how talented the Cardiac Cats may be, they got damned lucky in 2015. Sure, the run-up to the Super Bowl was an incredible tear through the best the NFC had to offer, but if the same number of close games the Panthers won that season had gone the way their analogues went this season, Carolina wouldn’t have been in the position or possessed the confidence to go on such a rampage. Rest well in this comfort: The last time the Panthers had their Super Bowl slump, they returned to the NFC Championship game the following season. Here’s hoping the Cats land on their feet this time.

Pick of the Week Tobacco Road showdown UNC Tar Heels @ Wake Forest University Demon Deacons (W-S), Wednesday, 8 p.m. Two ACC teams and in-state basketball rivals duke it out in a midweek match. The legendary Tar Heels (14-3, 2-1) take a trip to the westward terminus of Tobacco Road to meet the Triad’s team, the Demon Deacons (10-6, 1-3), at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. For more info, visit wakeforestsports.com.

University Performing Arts Series presents: BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY

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CROSSWORD ‘Sweet!;’ getting that glazed-over look. by Matt Jones Across

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circles failed to follow Baby garment with snaps Word heard by Marge a lot, I imagine Extreme aversion ___ Martin (007’s car) Part of MS-DOS (abbr.) Fairy tale preposition

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A Trump Roast

A Celebrity Roast of Game Show Host-Turned-U.S. President Donald J. Trump. 8:30 PM Fri., Jan. 13. Tickets are $6 online and $8 at the door! OTHER SHOWS Open Mic 8:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 12. $5 tickets! Family Matinee Improv ALL AGES COMEDY! 4 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14. $6 Tickets! Saturday Night Improv Improv Comedy Featuring the Idiot Box Crew 8:30 & 10 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14. $10 Tickets!

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro idiotboxers.com • 336-274-2699

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Playing January 12 – 14

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Trump tweet ender, often Prefix before friendly or terrorism Brownie ingredients, sometimes Khartoum’s river Uphill battle Supermarket section March Madness gp. Cheese companion Exploitative type Retired hockey great Eric “Dig in, everyone!” High-class group, for short? Hubble after whom a space telescope was named “I’ve got ___ feeling about this!” “Born on the Fourth of July” locale, briefly “To ___ is human” “Little Red Book” chairman James Bond, for example “Como ___?” (“How are you?” in Spanish)

Horns that are really winds Iron-___ (T-shirt transfer patterns) London or Brooklyn ending Home of Times Sq. and Columbus Cir. Brings by cart, perhaps Bovine quartet Peanut butter brand for “choosy moms” Instances of agreement Hackers’ hangout that’s tough to find via search engines Keg attachment “I’d like to buy ___” (request to Pat Sajak) Armani competitor, initially “I’ll have ___ Christmas without you” (Elvis lyric) “Rio ___” (John Wayne flick) Ask for a doggie treat, perhaps Judy Jetson’s brother “Make ___!” (Captain Picard’s order) Some PTA members Aloha Stadium locale Morgue acronym Judge Lance played by Kenneth Choi on “American Crime Story” First number shouted before a ball drop, often

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Put in stitches Andreas opener Cogitates, with “over” Antioxidant berry in fruit juices Nervous twinge Like a game’s tutorial levels Considered only in terms of money Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America bestowals Bird that runs 35 mph Dating site datum 1986-to-2001 orbiter Hi-___ graphics Like “The Polar Express” “Ain’t happenin’” “Friends” friend Filet mignon cut Foul, as weather Number sometimes decoded as “Z” Friedlander of “30 Rock” Amish, e.g. “Buy It Now” site ___ of troubles Ashley and Mary-Kate, for two Christmas tree choice Fall back, tidewise Quirky comic Philips Unagi, at sushi bars It’s provided by guild members Advice that the four long entries with

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Playing January 13 – 18

“The Room”

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Homecoming Screening with Robyn Paris Grimsley High/Duke Grad Robyn Paris will host a special Q&A and talk about her experiences starring in Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” 10 p.m. Friday, January 13 Answers from previous publication.

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Mario Kart 64 Tournament

FREE ENTRY! $50 Cash Prize! 5 p.m. Saturday, January 14.

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TV Club: Sherlock SERIES FINALE! 9 p.m. Sunday, January 15. Winners get CASH PRIZE! 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 17.

Drink N’ Draw 6 p.m. Wednesday, January 18. All Artists of All Ages & Skill Levels are Welcome!

Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee! 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •

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Totally Rad Trivia! $3 buy in! Up to six player teams!

January 11 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 17, 2017

Fisher Park Circle Drive, Greensboro

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Sometimes winter is perfect.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

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TRIADITUDE ADJUSTMENT I’d like to thank the academy

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a campaign stop. (Trump, who spent Sunday night Poetry kit (“This isn’t working,” “We’ve grown apart,” twirling a phone cord around one stumpy finger, while “Please don’t set the porch on fire”). cooing “No Vladimir, you hang up first,” promptly He said the breakup was because we’d been havinsulted Streep on Twitter Monday morning.) Anyway, ing problems, but the real problem, I later learned, perhaps the most poignant part of Streep’s speech was another woman, a twice-divorced goblin whose — for a couple of reasons — was her final sentence: “As default facial expression made her look like she had a my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me mouthful of bad shellfish. Afterwards — while I was once, ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art,’” she still in that Same-Sweatpant Stage — I immediately recalled. immersed myself in books with soft pastel cover art Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe that’s what sepaand started doing a series of daily affirmations that rates the Meryl Streeps and the involved staring in the mirror Carrie Fishers — and the other and saying positive things to I wouldn’t be surprised to top-shelf actors, songwriters, my own reflection until I was novelists and artists — from politely asked to leave the learn that Meryl Streep has the rest of us. I’ve admittedChick-fil-A bathroom. actually spent the past decade ly never been good at using We had been together for heartbreak as a motivator for seven years, and some of those playing the role of Pittsburgh much of anything, other than self-help experts said that it Penguins defenseman Kris a willingness to wear the same could take me half of that time pair of sweatpants until they to get over it and move on. Letang. became a 50-cotton, 50-poly It seemed longer for me, but part of my own epidermis. And, that could’ve been because I trust me, I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of it. spent zero time trying to fashion that heartbreak into (If you add up all of my relationships, I’ve only been on something beautiful, or trying to create something the giving side of one breakup — with a listless, moody other than a new version of myself. Everyone knows writer whose hobbies included tucking in his T-shirts, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ signature stages of grief (Decommenting on the poor quality of my kitchen utensils nial, Anger, Subscribing His New Girlfriend to A Year and being tired.) of Modern Witch magazine), but maybe Art should be Maybe — another maybe — the ones who can peradded to that heart-tugging taxonomy. form some kind of beautiful alchemy on the shards If I’m emotionally KOed again — and I probably will of their own broken hearts also have the strength to be — I’m using Meryl and Carrie’s words as a reminder immerse themselves in that pain. I do not. When I to turn it into something beautiful. Hell, maybe I’ll get think about the night my first real relationship ended, that Golden Globe after all. it’s a complete blur. For someone who regularly walks Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who lives in out of movies quoting chunks of scripted conversation, Winston-Salem. She enjoys pizza, obscure power-pop or who can remember the words to Huey Lewis’s entire records and will probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter back catalog, it’s strange that one of the most devas@gordonshumway. tating discussions of my life didn’t really cling to my memory at all. Maybe it was a survival mechanism. Or maybe it’s because it was less a dialogue and more a collection of pieces from the Massive A-hole Magnetic

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’m never going to win a Golden Globe. I’m probably never winning a Tony, an Emmy or an Oscar either, not unless the Hollywood Foreign Press Association or the Academy decide to introduce categories like Ugliest Crying by Jelisa Castrodale During a Musical or Comedy or Outstanding Achievements in Movie Snacks, which I’m pretty sure I locked up the afternoon I emptied an entire Costco cheese tray into my purse. Despite blowing some of my college tuition on that theater minor, my best performances to date are a local commercial for the Fertile Turtle maternity shop I did when I was 4, and that time I successfully convinced a police officer that I was only speeding because I was listening to a Los Angeles Rams game and just got caught up in the excitement. (No one has ever been excited by a Los Angeles Rams game, not even the Los Angeles Rams). So what I’m saying is that I’m never going to be Meryl Streep. The honest-to-god living legend has won Golden Globes, Oscars and an Emmy, and has been nominated for every possible piece of hardware imaginable, other than maybe the Stanley Cup (and even then, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she has actually spent the past decade playing the role of Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang). On Sunday night, Streep was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, because of both her performances onscreen and her impeccable grace and poise off-screen. In her brilliant acceptance speech, Streep mentioned a half-dozen of her fellow actors, noting the different paths they’d taken so they could end up sitting in front of the same expensive place settings in the Beverly Hilton Hotel. She also criticized the lump of expired pimiento cheese we have to call our president-elect, slamming him for mocking a disabled reporter during

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