By Jasmine Gallup, p. 5
VOL. 40 NO. 25
5 This year, the Women's World Cup will be bigger than ever—especially in North Carolina, where soccer stars are born. BY
JASMINE GALLUP8 A new federal law makes it more difficult for employers to discriminate against pregnant workers.
BY LENA GELLER10 Talk of a greenway through Bolin Forest has been bitterly divisive for over a decade. Will fresh momentum find room for a compromise?
BY CY NEFF28 Tucked inside an Apex gas station, Akami Sushi Bar makes tuna sing. BY
LENA GELLER30 Music reviews of new albums out from Charlie Smarts and DJ Ill Digitz, Jenny Besetzt, and Entrez Vous. BY KYESHA JENNINGS, JORDAN LAWRENCE, AND BRIAN HOWE
32 Local rock heroes Pipe return with a scorching new album and lament for affordable living.
BY BRIAN HOWE
3 Voices 4 15 Minutes
34 Culture calendar
COVER Players for one of NCFC Youth’s most competitive teams at WRAL Soccer Park. PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA
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On July 3, I sat in a conference room at Duke University and signed a contract to work full time as a senior writer in the university’s communications office.
Before signing the one-page agreement I paused and told my new editor, Greg Phillips, that I wished my mom and dad could witness the moment.
My dad did most of the heavy lifting. His more-than two decades in the military helped pay for my college education. And my mom carefully nurtured my love of reading and the written word, destining my career as a journalist and writer.
Richmond County’s public schools integrated in 1969, and my mom, who would have celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday on July 21, purchased for me the first iteration of the World Wide Web: a brandspanking-new set of the 1969 World Book Encyclopedia.
Like Malcolm X sitting in a prison cell and reading every word in a dictionary starting with the letter A, I sat in my parent’s tiny den and began with the “A” encyclopedia and read all the way to the “Z” edition of that pristine, cream and forest-green set with the gold lettering.
I have vivid childhood memories of sitting with my buddy Thomas and looking at the colorful snake pictures in the “S” edition. With a few more resources and greater support from his teachers, Thomas might have become a leading herpetologist, perhaps researching snake venoms that would lead to a cure for an incurable disease. Instead he went to prison soon after high school and became such a prolific re-offender that he became permanently institutionalized.
Meanwhile, my mom pushed books and newspapers on me like a dope dealer. Every morning, my dad would go to the nearby newsrack and purchase copies of The Charlotte Observer. Mom subscribed to our hometown paper, The Daily Journal. For a
while she received issues of the now-defunct Charlotte News with its distinct green news pages that featured columnist Kays Gary and the athletic feats of the incredible UNC-Charlotte 49ers basketball team led by Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, Lew Massey, and Chad Kinch.
She even bought a subscription to the Reader’s Digest condensed books series, and if that wasn’t enough, there were always copies of True Romance and other magazines around the house.
Outside of the home, I could visit my cousin and fellow-write-brother Barry Saunders whose mom had also purchased an Encyclopedia Americana set for him, plus subscriptions to Sports Illustrated and other magazines.
Along with raising just enough youthful hell to rank a cut above the Little Rascals with our gang, Barry and I hung out at our school and public libraries.
At the time, the only thing that exceeded our love of reading was basketball, and we dreamed of a path to the NBA that began with signing a grant-in-aid to play college basketball at some nondescript school like Atlantic Christian College. (Hey man, when you’re 12 or 13, all things are possible.)
In short, writers are readers.
So now my beloved parents are with Black Jesus, and in lieu of a picture of me in my hometown paper, flanked by them and their proud, beaming smiles while I sign a grant-in-aid to play basketball at Wingate College, I just signed a contract to write for Duke.
That said, every zig has its zag, every yin has its yang, every up has its down.
July 14 was my last day at the INDY, and I am so going to miss my fellow staffers: Lena Geller, Jasmine Gallup, Sarah Edwards (and Penny, her biscuit-eating puppy dog). I’m going to miss my beautiful editor, Jane Porter, along with the best publisher I’ve ever
had the pleasure of knowing, John “with an H” Hurld, the paper’s one-man business office Mathias Marchington, our graphics editor Nicole Moore, and her quiet, intrepid assistant Izzel Flores.
I am grateful for the relationships I cultivated with staffers who are no longer with the paper—the exquisite Eric Ginsburg, arts editor Brian “Brother B” Howe, photographer Jade Wilson, the fantastic graphic artist Jon Jon Fuller, the brilliant, cantankerous Jeff Billman, scrappy Sara Pequeño, data wizard Geoff West, forever-intern Hannah Kaufman, along with the other best publisher I have ever worked with, the profoundly compassionate Susan “Sue” Harper.
I’ll miss how we managed—each week, and now biweekly—to punch above our weight and make a difference in the community where we serve primarily as a voice for the voiceless. Under tremendous pressure
(while receiving little money and often even less appreciation) we provided full-throated, unapologetic support for diversity, equity, and inclusion—attacks from the Republican Party be damned.
Somebody needs to tell the attackers of the so-called “woke” culture that the Constitution guarantees us all the right to be left the hell alone.
Most of all, I’ll miss our readers and the immense pleasure I felt when one would stop me on the street or drop an email to tell me they had read one of my stories. It did not matter if they offered praise or cursed me out and called me everything with a handle on it. Writers, above all else, want to be read.
Thank you all who thought enough of me to read my scribbles.
That said: I’m out, yo. Peace and love. W
Submitted an essay into a contest about being queer and religious.
BY HANNAH KAUFMAN backtalk@indyweek.comWhat was your experience being queer and religious?
Especially as an adolescent, I was not religious. I didn’t feel like there was a space for me: I was very gay, very transgender, and I felt like I didn’t belong in religious spaces. I’d internalized the idea of, ‘God made Man and Woman, and you can’t be transgender because it’s in defiance of God.’ I interpreted that as ‘Well, I guess there is no God because here I am.’ I exist. My experience is real. My pain is real. But I also always believed in something a little more spiritual than just the mundane world we live in. I like to believe that there is a spirituality in all things and plants and animals and our connections to each other. So religion has interested me, but when I was an angry 14-year-old, I cast it aside and said, ‘I’m an atheist.’
How did you first find the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers?
During quarantine, I had time to sit in my room and think. I spent part of that time in religious introspection. I researched Quakers and I thought they were cool because I don’t like rules and Quakerism doesn’t have a lot of rules—there’s no correct way to be Quaker. At the Quaker meeting I attend, there are people who are firm believers in Jesus Christ, and there are also people who are like, ‘Yeah, I’m Buddhist or I’m Agnostic, or I don’t really know what I believe, but I like the people and the community here.’ Community is a huge part of why people are drawn to religion. That’s why I joined the Quakers—I was alone and scared and I needed a group of people that I could come home to.
How has the group shaped your identity and understanding of religion?
I haven’t been involved super long. I joined the Quakers in October, and in Quakers, there’s an official process of becoming a Friend. I haven’t gone through that process—I’m currently an attender —but I’m putting a lot of serious thought into converting. I leave feeling better, and it’s something I want to have in my life for a while.
It’s definitely changed my perspective on religion and that I actually can be religious. I’m in the process of rediscovering my connection to spirituality; it’s fun seeing that and I feel like my connection to God is growing.
When did you come out as transgender?
I came out at 13 years old to my family and I started testosterone when I was 14. I’ve been extremely blessed in that I have a very accepting, supportive family. My parents are spiritual and they’ve always believed that God loves me just the way I am. They’ve worked hard to make sure I have everything I need to be secure in my identity, making sure I had all my documents changed and that I got my hormone replacement therapy.
Because of my parents, I’m secure in myself as a trans person. And it’s becoming a bigger part of my identity as kind of a spite against anti-trans legislation. A lot of the legislation is attacking gender-affirming care for youth, which is what saved my life. There’s a real chance that instead of being out here living my life, doing internships,
meeting people, and doing normal teenage stuff that I could be six feet under the ground. There was a really dark time in my life and I couldn’t see a way forward. But I made my way forward, and I want every trans kid out there to be able to make it to a trans adult.
What would you tell other queer teens who are going through a similar struggle?
I would tell them, ‘First of all, you are not a mistake. You are loved and you have a place in your religious community.’ In the book Something That May Shock and Discredit You, there’s a quote that I love: ‘God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation.’ I’m not trans in spite of God, I’m trans because I was wonderfully and beautifully made this way.
How did you feel about sharing your story?
It’s fun and I like it. I’ve always tried to be an open book. People are more likely to understand and be compassionate towards trans people if they’ve had a conversation with one of us and understand we’re real people with feelings and passions and dreams, not just scary talking [points] on Fox News.
A lot of trans people aren’t comfortable with someone approaching them and going, ‘Hey, have you had the surgery?’ But I let the cis people in my life know that they can come to me for those weird trans questions. Sometimes people just want to live their lives without being asked what their genitals look like, but I’m happy to walk cis people through the process of hormones and name changes and what my genitals actually look like. Being published has been an extension of that and I hope someone out there can read it and learn that maybe there is a place for them in religious circles, or someone in a religious circle can understand that there’s a place for people like us. W
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Women’s World Cup will be bigger than ever this year, especially in North Carolina, where soccer stars are born. But that doesn’t mean it’s been an easy road.
BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.comAven Alvarez is only 16, but she already knows where she wants to be in 10 years—playing professional soccer for the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) like her hero, Emily Fox.
“She’s amazing,” Alvarez says. “I watched her at UNC and was just so impressed with not just her soccer ability, but also her character off the field. I really look up to her.”
Fox is a starting defender for the U.S. team at this year’s Women’s World Cup, which kicked off July 20 in New Zealand and Australia. She’s one of a dozen or so players on the international stage who honed her game in North Carolina, either at the college level or by playing for the state’s professional team, the NC Courage.
For Alvarez, a New Hope local, it’s not hard to imagine going pro. In North Carolina, there’s a clear path forward for female soccer players—one that can lead to the highest levels of play.
The next (next) generation of soccer stars
Alvarez, like many children in North Carolina, started playing soccer as part of a recreational team that doesn’t require tryouts. This is how most people picture local
soccer: a hot summer day with volunteer coaches and orange slices. It’s a non-competitive environment where youth can make friends and get exercise.
But unlike some of her peers, Alvarez didn’t quit after a few years. Instead, she’s kept climbing, joining a competitive team at age 10. She knew she wanted to get serious about the game after watching the 2019 Women’s World Cup when the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) clinched their fourth international championship.
“It just really inspired me,” Alvarez says. “Ever since then, I’ve had the goal of being able to do that someday—represent my country at full team level.”
A talented defender in her position as outside back, Alvarez already has a leg up as a member of the Women’s National Team for players under 17. That’s where a few current USWNT players made their start, and she’s already being recruited by several top college teams, though she can’t talk about the details. In 2019, she was invited to train with the NC Courage, where she got to meet Fox in person and play alongside the pros.
Alvarez admires Fox’s speed and technicality, she says. In practice, she’s set her own goal of winning the ball in more advanced positions, as well as creating attacking chances and assisting goals.
It’s a strategy often utilized by defenders on the USWNT. In the team’s first World Cup match on July 21, Fox and other defenders created some scoring opportunities by winning the ball in midfield or making long passes toward the goal. Assisted by surprising and creative plays, forward Sophia Smith scored two goals during her World Cup debut.
These kinds of aggressive plays by newcomers make the World Cup thrilling to watch. You never know who’ll become the next soccer superstar.
The path to going pro often starts with a league like the Triangle’s North Carolina Football Club (NCFC) Youth, a group for kids ages 2-19. Many who play competitively for NCFC go on to have college careers, including Macey Bader, 20, who plays for UNC-Charlotte. Bader was serious about soccer from a young age, but playing with NCFC helped her realize her goals.
“Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to go pro,” Bader says. “But specifically, I remember middle school, because we weren’t allowed to play on our middle school team [while playing for NCFC]. That
didn’t really bother me much because I just wanted to be at the highest level.”
After graduating from a youth league like NCFC, the next “highest level” of soccer can be found on college campuses. Fortunately for aspiring pros, North Carolina is home to 17 Division 1 women’s soccer teams, including what is arguably the best women’s soccer team in the nation—the UNC-Chapel Hill Tar Heels.
Over the past four decades, the Tar Heels have won 21 NCAA championships and launched the careers of soccer greats Mia Hamm (who once held the record for most goals scored), Tobin Heath (a two-time World Cup champion), and Crystal Dunn (who is returning to the USWNT this year as a defender with 24 international goals).
Coached by Anson Dorrance since 1979, UNC’s team was the first varsity-level women’s program in the Southeast.
Dorrance has seen many of his college players move on to professional careers, including Hamm, Heath, and Dunn. In 2017, North Carolina secured its own pro team with the NC Courage. That’s provided even more opportunities for female soccer players, says Paul Forster, NCFC Director of Soccer.
“We have these professionals playing at our own back doorstep,” he says. “These
young girls can go and watch every Saturday, and say ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
Over the past ten years, the success of the USWNT has sparked a growing interest in women’s soccer. With that interest comes growing support through higher salaries for professional players and more money going into the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
It wasn’t easy, though. Professional women’s soccer didn’t even exist in the United States until 2000, when 20 USWNT players, fresh off their second world championship, organized to start their own league— more than 30 years after the first men’s soccer league was founded in the U.S. Despite the players’ success on the field, that first league folded after only three years. The second attempt, in 2007, lasted only five years. It wasn’t until 2012 that the NWSL was formed, the first women’s pro league to get sustained support. And thanks to the hard work of players like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, women’s professional soccer is finally taking off. Home to 12 teams, the NWSL is set to
add two teams in 2024 and another two in 2026. This year, bids to buy the new San Francisco team (dubbed the “Bay Football Club”) reached a record $53 million, more than 10 times what owners paid for NWSL teams just a few years ago.
Celebrities, as well, are throwing their support behind the league by becoming investors. Movie stars like Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, and Reese Witherspoon all have a stake, as well as renowned female athletes like Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka (an investor in NC Courage).
“We’re at the nexus of an economic revolution for the women’s game,” says Dorrance, citing a recent instance in which one investor, Michele Kang, paid $10 million above the asking price for a team, the Washington Spirit.
“She was indicating not only that her franchise was worth more than the $25 million they were asking for,” Dorrance says, “but also that all of the franchises across the country in the NWSL were worth more.”
When it comes to player pay, it’s the same story. USWNT players led the charge, filing a legal complaint against the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2016 over unequal pay and treatment. Although the USWNT was generating way more revenue than the men’s
team, top female players at the time were being paid five-and-a-half times less than the men. As a woman, winning the World Cup netted you $75,000. Men received a bonus of $390,000.
And it wasn’t just the pay. USWNT players also received less travel compensation, were put up in worse hotels, and played on poorer fields. Despite years of lobbying U.S. Soccer leaders for better treatment, the women’s proposals were rejected over and over again. Then, in 2020, Cindy Parlow Cone (another UNC-Chapel Hill alumna) was named the first female president of U.S. Soccer.
All of a sudden, things started to change. In 2022, U.S. Soccer reached a settlement with the USWNT players that provided nearly $24 million in back pay and pledged to equalize pay between men and women. Last year, NWSL players finally secured a living wage through a collective bargaining agreement, which also instituted long-overdue reforms to the league schedule and contract rules.
“Female players are now in a position where they’re getting paid enough to actually live,” says Forster. “They’re not all millionaires, but there’s been so much positive change to support the growth of the female game at all levels.”
More people are also playing and watching women’s soccer. The 2019 Women’s World Cup final was the most-watched match in the tournament’s history, netting an average live audience of 82.18 million across the globe, 56 percent more viewers than the 2015 final. But in the U.S., women’s soccer still needs to attract more fans, Dorrance says.
“[UNC-Chapel Hill has] always been a leader, but most of our leadership in the early years was just developing great players that win games. Now we also want to be a leader in attendance,” he says. “If people are paying top dollar to watch women compete athletically, then their salaries are going to improve. I want to be a part of that.”
Today, there’s more excitement than ever around the U.S. Women’s National Team as they head to their ninth World Cup. North Carolinians, in particular, can be proud of the fact that six players from the NC Courage represent nations from across the globe. Two will be playing for the U.S.—defender Emily Fox and goalkeeper Casey Murphy.
“To see their evolution has been tremen-
“Ever since [the World Cup], I’ve had the goal of being able to do that someday—represent my country at full team level.”Aven Alvarez. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCFC YOUTH
dous,” says NC Courage Head Coach Sean Nahas. “It’s a little bit personal for me, just because I know where they started several years ago. I’m looking for them to go and have a big impact for the States, and hopefully, they come back … as world champions.”
Like many other young USWNT players, this will be Fox’s first World Cup. She made her first appearance for the national team in 2018, went on to play 28 more international matches, and helped the U.S. win the SheBelieves Cup earlier this year.
“Foxy is sort of a free spirit,” Nahas says of her play style. “She’s quiet, but when she plays, her personality comes out. She’s great on the ball, she’s great at getting forward, she’s great in tight spaces.
“Her ability to get out of trouble, her ability to pass and combine … That’s what makes her dangerous at the next level,” Nahas adds. “If she’s in a situation where the U.S. asks her to get forward, down, and back, it could be a lot of trouble for the opposition because she’s so hard to track.”
Murphy also has a chance to make her first appearance at the World Cup this year, likely as a substitute for longtime USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. Although Naeher has more experience, Murphy is a rising star. She made her first appearance for the USWNT in 2021, when she saved an astonishing eight goals against Australia.
Murphy’s time on the NC Courage, particularly under assistant coach Nathan Thackeray, has been “a tremendous help in my growth,” she says. “What’s great about the Courage is that the environment is super intense and it’s high-level. So when I come in with the national team, it’s not that big of a jump.”
“I was pretty clear when I joined the team what my goals were … to be the best goalkeeper in the world,” she adds. “He helps keep me to that standard.”
Thackeray, who has coached Murphy for about three years, says she’s made “major progress, both on and off the
field.” Like the player herself, Thackeray credits some of her growth to the competitive NC Courage environment. Also crucial, however, is Murphy’s personal drive.
“She’s relentless in her approach to getting better,” he says. “She wants to win in everything that she does. Without her attitude, her mentality toward being the best, she wouldn’t be where she is.”
All in all, Murphy has played more than 1,000 minutes of international soccer. But this year’s World Cup comes with the added challenge of defending the U.S. title and vying for a third consecutive championship, a feat unprecedented among either men or women.
Avid fans, including Alvarez, will be watching. She says she always watches the World Cup at home, surrounded by her family. She’s rooting for the U.S.
“It’s the pressure of having the target on our back, to win the game and advance in the tournament,” Murphy says. “What gives me comfort is knowing everyone’s feeling the pressure. It’s a matter of how you handle it.”
The 27-year-old goalkeeper sees the tournament as “an opportunity to acknowledge that I’m going to feel pressure for the rest of my career, especially playing with the national team.”
This will not be Murphy’s last World Cup, Thackeray says with confidence. He hopes to see her shine on the world stage, but he and Murphy both know her role in the lineup is someone else’s decision, he adds.
“I would love it if she was to start and be the number one because I think she has that quality,” Thackeray says. “But to be honest, I hope she just embraces the moment. She’s got a long future in the game.” W
Cierra McClain says she was pushed out of a serving job because of a pregnancy. The passage of a new federal law may help protect workers like her.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.comIn mid-May, Cierra McClain, a server at First Watch, learned that she was six weeks pregnant. She immediately passed the news along to her manager.
McClain was working at a Durham location of the national breakfast restaurant chain, near Southpoint Mall. Her decision to divulge the pregnancy was driven by a misconception about North Carolina law: she thought that workers were legally obligated to disclose pregnancies to their employers.
A less optimistic person might have based that assumption on our legislature’s affinity for policing the bodies of its constituents, but McClain, a bubbly Georgia native who tries to see the best in people, envisioned the requirement—which, to be clear, does not exist on state nor federal levels—as a common sense safety precaution. In case of emergency, she figured, it was imperative that a supervisor be made aware of a worker’s pregnancy at the earliest possible date.
Indeed, the next month, McClain did find herself in an emergency situation at First Watch: she slipped on a pool of water that had accumulated under a ceiling leak and fell hard on her left side, bruising her hip and knee. When she was seen by a doctor that night, she learned that a blood clot had formed around her placenta.
McClain is okay now, and her unborn child isn’t in danger. But her transparency with First Watch—transparency that she’d imagined would help in a situation like slipping on a wet spot—played no role in her recovery, she says. In fact, it ended up making everything worse.
modations such as water breaks or relief from lifting heavy objects.
and thus more prone to error, and ticket printers run rapid-fire.
But McClain was happy to throw herself into the fray. For pregnancy accommodations, all she needed was a short mid-shift break to sit down and drink water, which would relieve her nausea. But her break requests were denied, she says.
F
ifty years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for pregnant workers to wear girdles and baggy clothes to hide their growing stomachs from bosses.
In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) made it illegal for any company with 15 or more employees to consider pregnancy status while hiring, firing, and enumerating wages. A shift toward a more equitable reality seemed possible. But in the decades since, the efficacy of the act’s protections has been overstated, according to Elizabeth Gedmark, vice president of the workers’ advocacy group A Better Balance and co-author of the book Babygate: How to Survive Pregnancy and Parenting in the Workplace.
For many low-wage workers—whose labor, Gedmark notes, is often made “invisible in our country”—the PDA’s stated protections have not translated from theory to practice. Specifically, gaps in the law have allowed employers to deny pregnant workers’ requests for simple, temporary accom-
In some cases, an employer might use a worker’s accommodation as an excuse to fire them, arguing that they can no longer adequately perform their job. A more surreptitious strategy, though, is to keep a worker on the payroll while continuously rejecting their accommodation requests, effectively forcing them to quit.
McClain, who quit her job at First Watch last month, has become intimately familiar with the latter approach.
First Watch did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.
In the weeks after McClain disclosed her pregnancy to her manager, she says her schedule was cut from five days to four, and then to three. There were also a number of instances where she was told to go home right after clocking in for a shift.
“They would say they had enough people on the floor,” McClain says. “Even on weekends, when we would be packed with customers.”
Her shifts typically started around 7:30 a.m. and lasted six or seven hours. Serving at all is physically taxing—she had to be on her feet the whole time, table hopping and running hot platters of food—and brunch is widely viewed as the worst shift: customers are crabbier, dishes are more modifiable
“It felt like they wanted to fire me, but they couldn’t,” McClain says. “They were trying to push me out.”
Her fall happened in early June. Management told her to go to Urgent Care, but when she arrived, the facility didn’t have an ultrasound machine on hand, she says. She ended up driving to Duke Regional Hospital and spent ten hours in the emergency room worrying about the fall’s impact on her pregnancy.
McClain returned to work the following weekend for her shift and was told by her manager that the restaurant was sufficiently staffed and she should go home. By that point, her schedule had dwindled to two days a week. She already had two kids at home—a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old— and needed to save up for the new baby. First Watch was paying her $2.15 an hour, so two days, or roughly 13 hours, of work netted her about $7.60—total—plus tips.
Between the lack of accommodations, the lack of hours, and radio silence from
a representative that First Watch told her would reach out about workers’ compensation, she felt she had no option but to quit and find a different job a few weeks later, she says.
McClain’s experience was distressing. But hopefully it’s about to become a lot rarer.
On June 27, just weeks after McClain left First Watch, a new federal law—the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which passed in December—went into effect. The PWFA requires most employers to afford a wide breadth of pregnancy accommodations to workers, including accommodations that one might need postpartum.
According to Gedmark, the PWFA closes a major loophole in the decades-old PDA. Under the PDA, workers were only legally entitled to a pregnancy accommodation if they could prove that another employee had received the same accommodation in the past, which placed an undue onus on workers and also created a pretty glaring Catch-22. (Scores of states implemented their own pregnancy discrimination and accommodation laws in previous years to address this loophole; North Carolina is
tected during the postpartum recovery period. To qualify for the Family and Medical Leave Act, though, a worker was required to have spent a year or more with the same employer, which boxed out a large sect of low-wage workers.
Now, people like McClain—who just started working a new job at Old Navy— can know that their jobs will be waiting for them after the recovery period.
While McClain wasn’t able to reap the benefits of the PWFA at First Watch, her requests for accommodations have gone over well at her new job, she says. She’s become well-versed in the new legislation since joining the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), a cohort that evolved from the Southern branch of the national workers’ rights movement Fight For $15, this month.
Group members have connected McClain with an attorney in case she decides to follow up on a workers’ compensation claim, and on a muggy mid-July day, they also join her to stage a demonstration in front of First Watch.
“We’re out here to let all pregnant women
one of four states with no statewide protections against pregnancy discrimination and its accommodation law only applies to state employees.)
The PWFA shifts the burden to employers. If a pregnant worker requests an accommodation, employers now must “engage in an interactive process” to meet their needs, Gedmark says. To reject an accommodation request, an employer would need to prove that said accommodation poses a significant threat to the business’s finances or operations. Since pregnancy accommodations are temporary, this would be quite hard to substantiate.
The PWFA also mandates that employers give workers the option of taking unpaid time off to recover from childbirth. This might not sound like a big deal (paid parental leave, of course, would be ideal) but in a high-turnover service industry, it’s a game changer for employees.
Before the PWFA was enacted, some workers could take unpaid time off through the Family and Medical Leave Act, which guaranteed that their jobs would be pro-
know—to let all people know—that you have rights,” says Ieisha Frances, a USSW member, after delivering a summary of the new PWFA protections. “No more of this discrimination and acting like bringing a life into this world is some type of crime. ‘Cause someone brought you into this world. So how dare you.”
McClain is next to the mic. A few seconds after she starts recounting her First Watch experience, she pauses and says she’s nervous. A white scar is still visible on her knee from the fall.
“We got your back,” the crowd shouts in unison.
McClain picks up where she left off. USSW members punctuate each stated instance of mistreatment with a chorus of “that ain’t right”s, and her confidence seems to grow over the course of her speech.
When she’s done, an organizer hands her a printed copy of the PWFA and a roll of tape.
“Watch this!” someone shouts, and McClain tapes the PWFA to the door of the restaurant, raising her fist. W
“No more of this discrimination and acting like bringing a life into this world is some type of crime. ‘Cause someone brought you into this world.”
Talk of a greenway through Bolin Forest has been bitterly divisive for over a decade. Will fresh momentum find room for a compromise?
BY CY NEFF backtalk@indyweek.com
The headwaters of Bolin Creek begin their slow trickle in the center of Orange County, a clay-colored stream thin enough to jump across, winding oxbows framed by tree roots and dark clusters of ferns. Bolin Creek gradually grows wider and turns a thin, clearish-brown beer-bottle color and meanders through farmland, forests, and suburbs until its waters merge to form Little Creek, which drains into Jordan Lake.
There are around 50 streams in Orange County, but few have been as controversial as Bolin.
Two sections of greenway currently run along the creek—a roughly mile-long portion in North Carrboro in the Hogan Farms subdivision, and a two-and-a-half mile stretch north of downtown Chapel Hill, ending just past Franklin Street. Talks of constructing a paved greenway next to the creek between these two paths have started and stalled repeatedly in past decades.
“I don’t know if there’s a debate so much anymore,” says Chapel Hill resident Patrick Quirk, who lives near the Chapel Hill stretch of Bolin Creek and hopes to see progress on the greenway construction in the coming year. “It’s two camps that just want different things. I don’t think there’s any communication happening between the two sides.”
A contentious Carrboro Town Council meeting from November 8th, 2009 was intended to conclude months of planning and public engagement with a potential adoption of the town’s proposed Greenway Master Plan. A grainy video shows a handful of residents interrupting town council members, asserting that there hasn’t been enough community input. The town council accedes and ends the meeting directing town staff to re-explore possible greenway alignments.
After more than a decade, Carrboro’s Town Council formally re-opened public engagement on the proposal, with
the debate beginning anew at a February meeting this year. The renewal is tied to the shifting winds of Orange County politics. Groups embracing and advocating for responsible growth, such as Next NC, are gaining increasing local traction while established, largely anti-development groups such as the Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town are seeing their influence fade. This has happened in tandem with an 11 percent population jump in Orange County since the debate’s inception, as well as a 2021 election that altered the makeup of the Carrboro Town Council.
A new petition emerged in April asking citizens to write to town officials and oppose the proposed creekside greenway. A fiery blog post fact-checking and critiquing the petition published just a week later.
If a tree falls in Bolin forest, everybody will hear about it. Some might even write op-eds.
It’s March 27th, 2023 and I’m sitting in on a Carrboro Town Council meeting and feeling déjà vu. Copies of a Bolin Creek Greenway Master Plan from 2009 sit on council members’ desks. The three-and-a-half mile connector phases of the Bolin Creek greenway remains unbuilt and controversial, and the council hasn’t addressed the subject until it was resurrected at a meeting on Valentine’s Day. The maps and graphs are also from 2009. Two town council members sat in this same room 14 years ago, as well as some town staff and folks in the audience. The March meeting ends with a six-to-one vote directing town staff to pursue public engagement over potential alignments for the Bolin Creek Greenway, with a deadline to report back by mid-October.
In mid-June, the Town of Carrboro launched an extensive Bolin Creek Greenway Public Engagement website, the largest concrete measure taken to resolve the greenway
debate. The website offers a map with three potential greenway routes, a list of frequently-asked questions, a survey for Carrboro residents available in four languages, a list of events at which to engage with town staff, and a historical timeline. Opponents, notably Bolin Forest Climate Action, characterize the website as inadequate, arguing that the site relies on old information and doesn’t sufficiently educate the public on the environmental effects of paving in a riparian zone.
Discussions around Carrboro greenways have gone on for decades, with plans for greenways consistently emerging in the town’s planning surveys, conceptual master plans, and parks and recreation plans. Carrboro voters approved a bond in 2003 allocating $291,400 for greenway construction in the town. A 2006 Parks and Recreation Master Plan offered a possible vision for a connecting set of greenways around Carrboro. And the 2009 Bolin Creek Greenway Conceptual Master Plan sought to identify a greenway corridor that would have minimal environmental damage, facilitate outdoor recreation, and provide opportunities for non-motorized transit.
The 2009 master plan introduced the controversial Bolin Creek stretch—following an existing OWASA sewer easement—as the preferable alignment. It’s a particularly beautiful stretch of creek. Steep hills cut almost right up to the river bank, tall rock outcroppings sprout laurels. In the cold months, leaves lie, penny-colored, under barren trees and the only green comes from the needles of junipers and red cedars and pale lichens clinging to silver-gray bark. In the warm months, the creek is bordered with a green underglow of river oats; water bugs cast speckled shadows on the creek floor and tadpoles wiggle their tails in standing water by the side of the dirt and gravel path. Would laying down a path here unnecessarily bring in
more traffic and degrade one of the most serene urban forests left in the Triangle? Or would it allow more residents to access, utilize, and cherish a natural resource nestled in the heart of their town?
Sources on both sides of the issue hold similar academic and professional credentials, as well as largely aligned political values—everyone interviewed for this story says they care for the environment and are pro-greenway, generally. But the same sets of facts consistently produce disparate, wildly variable conclusions among stakeholders.
Chuck Flink, the owner of Greenways Incorporated, served as a consultant on the Town of Carrboro’s 2009 Bolin Creek Greenway Conceptual Master Plan, and designed a separate section of greenway along Chapel Hill’s Bolin Creek in the 1990s. Flink has helped design greenways in 36 states and says Carrboro’s controversy is not unusual for highly educated university communities.
Disagreements center primarily around the creekside greenway alignment’s transit benefits, potential environmental impact, and location on the OWASA sewer easement.
Proponents argue that a greenway would seamlessly connect Carrboro’s northern neighborhoods, and Chapel Hill High, Smith Middle, and Seawell Elementary School with Chapel Hill’s approved greenway extension to Estes Drive, creating a safe, car-free route to travel from Northern Carrboro all the way down to University Mall. Proponents also argue that having accessible greenspaces nearby would enhance residents’ connection with nature and reduce their need to drive to further-away forests.
“I … started hiking in those woods over 40 years ago, and at the time, there wasn’t even a path going down to get you down the stream,” says Carrboro resident Melva Fager Okun. “I don’t need to drive to the mountains to do
a lovely stream walk. I don’t need to even drive to Duke Forest or to a state park to walk in a lovely wooded area.”
Opponents say there are better alignments that offer the same transportation benefits. They liken the project to paving the creek.
“It isn’t like you order carpet and they come in and roll it out and all’s well,” says Carrboro resident and Friends of Bolin Creek member Diane Robertson. “It isn’t something that lies flat on paper and you see a line and you say ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a pathway right there?’ It is a major construction project in a fragile ecosystem.”
Tranquil as it is, Bolin Creek is still an urban forest. Some sections of the creek back up against higher-end subdivisions. Children can wander from their swingset to the creek’s edge, residents’ living rooms look out onto green treetops. The residential proximity, the existing network of trails within Carolina North Forest, and the sewer easement’s wide clearing have created a well-worn creekside trail, albeit unpaved for now.
An afternoon stroll on the easement sees kids lugging backpacks, slobbery-tongued dogs trotting along on-leash, mountain bikers with mud-splattered wheels, and silver-haired professor types wearing athleisure and ambling along with hiking poles.
The existing path is rugged and muddy at points, with the occasional cone-shaped sewer cap poking out of the forest floor and thin black pipe crossing over the creek’s smooth waters. Trees stand on either side of the easement corridor, holding up the creek bank on one side and the hillside on the other.
“There would definitely be loss of trees,” says Carrboro resident and Bolin Forest Climate Action supporter Linda Haac. “If you were to pave [the OWASA easement], you’d have to
dig down deep enough to have a road. The subsurface would be tree roots. Those tree roots go to the trees along the bank on either side. You cut the tree roots, you lose the trees. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen.”
Haac and other members of Friends of Bolin Creek have concerns about complications related to replacing the sewer line if the greenway is paved on top of the existing easement.
OWASA Engineering Manager Allison Spinelli confirmed that OWASA is not scheduled to perform maintenance on this section of sewer line until mid-2028 or 2029 at the earliest. Spinelli says replacing sewer lines underneath a paved trail would be business as usual for OWASA. But the impact on any hypothetical construction timeline is unclear and would likely factor in after the public engagement process.
Flink, of Greenways Inc., notes that municipalities often choose to build greenways on top of sewer easements. This has been done in Cary, Hoover, Alabama, Denver, and Ramsey County, Minnesota, among other places.
“I’ve never had one municipality come back and say ‘Boy, we should’ve never built that trail on top of our sewer line or near our sewer line or whatever,” Flink says.
Greenway supporters also cite the 2009 Master Plan’s note that the sewer easement is an already disturbed area. Trees have been cut to clear a path wide enough for maintenance vehicles, and the sewer line is treated to prevent roots from growing into the easement and cracking the pipes.
Dr. Johnny Randall, conservation director at the North Carolina Botanical Garden, sees paving the pathway as preferable to the existing dirt trail.
“Paving a perpetually disturbed easement, even next to a
stream, was always far preferable than leaving it to erode every time it rained and put sediment in the creek,” Randall says. “If you go out there and look at it when it rains, you’ll see that the water either runs off or pools up in ruts on the greenway.”
Friends of Bolin Creek Director Tom Cors feels differently. “Why would we want to further impair a system knowing what we know—that putting in impervious surface in a riparian zone is not good for an ecosystem,” Cors says. Other opponents echo Cors’s environmental concerns, and repeatedly emphasize concerns over constructing a greenway next to a flood-prone creek. They worry about reduced tree canopy, impacts on the macroinvertebrate population levels in the creek, and the destructive effects of construction.
It’s hard to find new ground in an argument that has gone on for so long. Any point that one side makes has a ready-made rebuttal from the other. An opponent to paving says they’re worried about reducing Bolin Forest’s ability to trap carbon. Those in favor say paving will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by taking cars off the road. That same proponent argues that the greenway would provide students another route to school and reduce rush hour traffic. Opponents assert that children wouldn’t use the path in rainy or cold weather, and that high school students would never walk or bike to school—they have too much stuff to carry, or they prefer their friends’ cars.
Still, 14 years on, the conversation has reemerged, and the town is finally embracing it. Former Mayor Mark Chilton, who was in office in 2009, sees the renewed debate as an opportunity for Carrboro to take meaningful environmental action.
“Most of the things that our planet needs to do on a grand scale are not within the control of our local govern-
ments,” Chilton says. “But we do have control over this, over where we develop and how we develop, how we build our transportation infrastructure, whether it’s car oriented, or whether it’s bike- and bus-oriented.”
“Let’s do it,” he adds. “Let’s build a bicycle, pedestrian, and transit friendly future.”
The Carrboro Greenways Commission, a volunteer-staffed board, is charged with “recommending policies, programs, and actions that may assist the Town in safeguarding the water quality, environment, and livability of the community by establishing greenways.” But past and present members of the commission say that they were told not to discuss proposed phases three and four of the Bolin Creek Greenway in their meetings.
“Anytime there came a discussion, the town staff had to say, ‘you can’t discuss Bolin Creek,” former Carrboro Greenways Commission member Charlie Hileman says. “Anytime Bolin Creek was brought up [the Greenway Commission] was told no, that’s verboten, this is Voldemort, we’re not allowed to discuss this, can’t go forward.”
sion’s moving forward now is that, frankly, there are people on the council who just want it resolved.”
Former Mayor Lydia Lavelle noted strong and concentrated community opposition to the project.
“It’s a greenway that runs through people’s backyards,” she notes. “That’s where you find sometimes people get the most upset and the loudest … They were people who did live along it or used it a lot or on the cross country teams or are really familiar with it. As opposed to greater Carrboro that doesn’t even realize what an amenity this is or could be.”
Frustration that hardline persistence against seeing a paved greenway shut out debate or progress on the issue and the council’s continual stalling meant town staff never planned for phases three and four altogether, as emails between council members from 2019 show.
But recent elections saw enough turnover on the council to usher in a pro-development majority, specifically with the ouster of creekside greenway opponent and longtime council member Jacquelyn Gist and election of newcomer Danny Nowell in 2021 and with the special election of Eliazar Posada in 2022, who were both endorsed by NEXT NC.
Gist did not respond to a request for comment.
The March meeting saw town staff walk away with a clear timeline for a public engagement process on the proposal. The Bolin Creek public engagement website will remain live until late September or early October, giving town staff time to condense findings for the mid-October report back to the town council.
Beyond this, officials hesitate to offer any potential construction timeline. Town staff point to the multi-step process outlined in the original 2009 Master Plan, including identifying funding sources, project design specifics, and meetings with local stakeholders as next steps in the process.
Emails from town staff to Greenway Commission members (dated as recently as November 2022), internal emails between Carrboro town council members (dated November 2019), a video of Carrboro Town Council meeting from June 2016, and town council meeting minutes from June 2018 confirm Hileman’s assertion.
In short, it became clear that charting a path forward was the council’s responsibility, and delays in doing so rested on their shoulders.
“Oftentimes, [politicians try to] keep everyone happy,” says Carrboro Town Council member Sammy Slade. “But, in this instance, the image I’ve always had is that it’s like a festering wound, where not following through with what we said we were going to do is de facto taking action by leaving the status quo.”
Slade adds that there’s “a certain group within the community” that wanted to table the discussion indefinitely.
“But what we told the community we were going to do is actually go through a process and thereafter make a decision,” Slade says. “The reason why it’s taken this long is, a majority of the council, over all these years, has been reluctant to be decisive.”
Slade also cites construction of other phases of the proposed greenway as a reason for the delay. Carrboro mayor and longtime former council member Damon Seils echoes Slade’s view.
“It’s been easy for the council to just let it sit … because we know that there’s been some controversy in the past about the project,” Seils says. “The reason …the discus-
Officials on town council remain optimistic regarding momentum on the greenway.
“We’re finally getting some movement,” says Slade. “There’s a majority on the board that understands we should follow through with what we said we’re going to do.”
Town Council Randee Haven O’Donnell, the lone dissenting vote in March’s meeting, has reservations about moving forward with public engagement.
“The scope of work that was offered up was one that did not put the education and the information and the need for data up front,” O’Donnell says. “And without that being present, you’re asking for [the] community to make uninformed decisions.”
O’Donnell says they have questions regarding potential carbon sequestration loss, effect on water quality, data and numbers for who would potentially use the greenway and for what purposes, and more. O’Donnell says they hope there is room for compromise moving forward.
“What are the compromises? Where do we find that level set middle ground? Because if that’s not our objective, then we’re looking for further polarization through the process,” O’Donnell says. “The work that has to be front-loaded right now is one of community building, through the expectation that we’re going to find compromises on all sides.”
But Seils, who is retiring at the end of this year, says he is hopeful that Carrboro will find a way.
“This is not unique,” Seils says. “There are greenways all over the world, including in places just like this one. We have a lot of other examples to look to that can be instructive and informative and help us make this decision.” W
“We do have control over this, over where we develop and how we develop, how we build our transportation infrastructure.”
Another year, another round of winners in INDY Week’s much-imitated, never-replicated Best of the Triangle contest, where you tell us who’s the best of the best in our beloved region.
While Best of the Triangle has been running for two decades now, astute readers and INDY fans will notice that we’re doing things a little differently from now on. Instead of presenting all winners in all categories ranging from restaurants and bars to yoga studios and hair salons to museums and preschools all at once, we’re running individual contests and presenting winners in different categories one county at a time—Wake, Durham, and Orange.
At the end of the year, a contest will be held pitting the best of each region against each other for the “Best of the Triangle” crown. There are a handful of additional categories that only apply to the entire Triangle. We’ll honor all Best of the Triangle winners in hundreds of different categories in a special issue in early December.
This year’s list of Durham winners, as voted by our readers, really does look like a best of the best list of businesses and service providers in the city and county. You could make a perfect local day—or several—out of dining at the restaurants, touring the wonderful parks and museums, and shopping at all the stores for which our readers cast their ballots. As for service providers—your lawyers, bartenders, chiropractors, and dog walkers—our readers really have chosen the best in the business.
Thank you for nominating and voting for all of your favorites! Congratulations to all of the finalists in Durham who will receive our coveted star decal to display in their windows. Winners will also receive a poster to display in their shop. Look back at our Wake winners from April, look forward to our Orange County winners in a future paper, and we’ll all look forward to celebrating all of our winners in our special edition paper at the end of the year.
Best Attorney
Larry Rocamora
Best Dog Boarding
Sunny Acres
Runners-up: Taibi Law Group, Brennon Morton
Best Auto Dealer
Southpoint Honda
Runners-up: Wasp Auto, Michael Jordon Nissan
Best Auto Mechanic
Wasp Auto
Runners-up: Ingold Tire, Couch’s Automotive
Best Bridal Store/Boutique
Smitten Boutique
Runner-up: Gavin Christianson Bridal
Best CBD/Head Shop
MagikCraft Bull City
Magic
Runners-up: Emerald Medicine Company, Heal Tree CBD
Best Clothing Consignment
TROSA Thrift Store
Runners-up: Rumors, MODE Consignment Boutique
Best Dance Studio
Fred Astaire Dance
Studio Durham
Runners-up: Barriskill Dance Theatre School, Davis Dance Co
Runners-up: Eno Animal Hospital, The Pet Wagon
Best Dog Grooming
Eno Animal Hospital
Runners-up: Elliotte’s Pet Spa, Dog Stylist Inc
Best Dog Training
Learning to Dog
Runners-up: Sally said so, Durham Dog Training Center
Best Dog Walking
Bull City Pet Sitting
Runners-up: Kate’s Critter Care, APS of Durham
Best Electrician
Bonneville Electric
Runners-up: Donnie Cowart, Green Volt
Best HVAC Company
Air Innovations
Runners-up: Alternative Aire, JD Service Now
Best Insurance Company
State Farm
Runners-up: NC Farm Bureau Insurance, Herring Bickers
Best Jeweler/Jewelry Store
Jewelsmith
Runners-up: Fink’s, Hamilton Hill
Best Landscaper
TROSA Lawn Care
Runners-up: For Garden’s Sake, The Silent Treatment
Best Local Bookstore
The Regulator Bookshop
Runners-up: Letters Bookshop, Golden Fig Books
Best New Business
Auroraflow
Runners-up: Davis Dance Company, Triangle Homeschool Rock Academy
Best Painters
Zarazua Painting
Runners-up: Hansell Painting, Bennett Painting
Best Place to Buy
Locally Made Art
The Artisan Market at 305
Runners-up: Cecy’s Gallery, MagikCraft Bull City Magic
Best Real Estate Company
Urban Durham Realty
Runners-up: Inhabit, Weichert Realtors Mark Thomas Properties
Best Realtor
Marie Brockenbrough
Runners-up: Tammi Brooks, Robin Thomas
Best Vintage Store
TROSA Thrift Store
Runners-up: Gibson Girl Vintage, Rumors
Best Art Gallery
Durham Arts Council
Runners-up: Craven Allen Gallery, 5 Points Gallery
Best Art Museum
Nasher Museum of Art
Runner-up: 21C
Best Comedy Club/Event
Mettlesome
Runner-up: Comedy Off the 147
Best Drag Show/Event
House of Coxx
Runners-up: Drag Story Hour, Crape Myrtle Festival
Best Electronic Concert Venue
The Fruit
Runners-up: DPAC, Motorco
Best Film Theatre Venue/Event
The Carolina Theatre of Durham
Runners-up: AMC at Southpoint, Shadowbox Studio
Best Local/Regional Podcast
Discover Durham
Runners-up: This is Love, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon
Best Radio Station
WUNC-FM
Runners-up: WKNC 88.1, WNCU
Best Science/History Museum
The Museum of Life and Science
Runners-up: Museum of Durham History
Best Theatre Company
The Durham Savoyards
Runners-up: Red Bird, Bulldog Ensemble Theater
Best Unplugged Concert Venue
The Blue Note Grill
Runners-up: Pinhook, Rubies on Five Points
Best Alcoholic Cocktails
Alley Twenty Six
Runners-up: Kingfisher, Corpse Reviver
Best Bagel
Isaac’s Bagels
Runners-up: Everything Bagels, Monuts
Best Bakery
Gugulhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten
Runners-up: Loaf, Ninth St Bakery
Best Barbecue
The Original Q-Shack
Runners-up: Picnic, Mavericks BBQ
Best Beer Retail Store
Sam’s Bottle Shop
Runners-up: Beer Study, Der Nachbar
Best Biscuits
RISE Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken
Runners-up: Monuts, Biscuitville
Best Brewery
Ponysaurus
Runners-up: Fullsteam, Durty Bull Brewing
Best Brunch Restaurant
Gugulhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten
Runners-up: Elmo’s Diner, Alley Twenty Six
Best Burger
Bull City Burger and Brewery
Runners-up: Only Burger, QueenBurger
Best Catering
Foster’s Market
Runners-up: Succotash, Sage & Swift
Best Cheap Eats
Cosmic Cantina
Runners-up: Elmo’s Diner, Cook Out
Best Cheese Shop
Durham Co-op
Runners-up: Whole Foods, Locopops
Best Chinese Restaurant
Happy China
Runners-up: Shanghai, Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant
Best Coffee Shop
Cocoa Cinnamon
Runners-up: Bean Trader’s, Joe Van Gogh
Best Desserts
Gugulhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten
Runners-up: Mad Hatter’s, Dulce
Best Draft Selection
Growler Grlz
Runners-up: Beer Study, Federal
Best Ethnic Grocery Store
Li Ming’s
Runners-up: Compare Foods, Al-Taiba Halal Market
Best Food Truck
Chirba Chirba
Runners-up: Succotash, Bulkogi
Best Indian Restaurant
Lime & Lemon Indian Grill & Bar - Durham
Runners-up: Viceroy, Sitar Indian Cuisine
Best Italian Restaurant
Gocciolina
Runners-up: Cucciolo Osteria, Vici Ristobar
Best Japanese Restaurant
M Sushi
Runners-up: Dashi, M Tempura
Best Late Night MealPast 10 p.m.
Cosmic Cantina
Runners-up: Queeny’s, Schmack’n Plates Bistro
Best Mexican Restaurant
La Vaquita
Runners-up: Mezcalito, NuvoTaco
Best Neighborhood Bar
Growler Girlz
Runners-up: Accordion Club, Bull McCabe’s
Best New Restaurant
Mezcalito
Runners-up: Succotash, Krill
Best Non-Acloholic Drinks
Alley Twenty Six
Runners-up: Quickly Tea House, Pompieri Pizza
Best Pizza
Pizzeria Toro
Runners-up: Hutchins Garage, Tomato Jake’s
Best Seafood
Saltbox Seafood Joint
Runners-up: Succotash, Locals Seafood
Best Triangle 2023 of the Orange & Chatham Counties
The most recognized award throughout the Triangle is back for 2023—next up are ORANGE & CHATHAM COUNTIES!
Nominate your favorite Orange or Chatham County bar, veterinarian, bookshop, museum— whatever it may be, there are over 100 categories in which you can profess your favorite Orange/Chatham County treasures. Later in the year we will vote among the winners from all participating regions to determine the Best of the Triangle for 2023!
Orange & Chatham Counties
NOMINATIONS BALLOT LIVE NOMINATE NOW!
Best Small Plates/Tapas
Mateo Bar de Tapas
Runners-up: Juju, Taberna Tapas
Best Southern Food
Bullock’s Bar-B-Cue
Runners-up: It’s a Southern Thing, Succotash
Best Sushi
M Sushi
Runners-up: Shiki Sushi, Rock N Roll Sushi
Best Thai Restaurant
Thai Cafe
Runners-up: Thai on Main Street, Thai Spoon
Best Vegetarian Eatery
Luna Rotisserie and Empanadas
Runners-up: Pure Soul, Earth to Us
Best Wine List
Vin Rouge
Runners-up: LouElla Wine, Beer & Beverage, Killer Queen
Best Wine Retail Store
Wine Authorities
Runners-up: Hope Valley Wine & Beverage, LouElla Wine, Beer & Beverage
Best Wings
Heavenly Buffaloes
Runners-up: Tomato Jake’s Pizzeria, Schmack’n Plates Bistro
Best Barber Shop
Rock’s Bar and Hair Shop
Runners-up: North Durham Barber Shop, Dennis Best Men’s Salon
Best Childcare
Schoolhouse of Wonder
Runners-up: Bright Horizons North Durham, Montessori School of Durham
Best Chiropractic Practice
Bull City Physical Therapy
Runners-up: Emergence Chiropractic, Triangle Chiropractics
Best Dental Practice
Durham Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics
Runners-up: Smile First Dental, Bull City Smiles
Best Dermatological Practice
Duke Dermatology
Runners-up: Triangle Dermatology, Regional Dermatology of Durham
Best Gym
Duke Health & Fitness Center
Runners-up: The Sweat Lab, Jewish for Good at the Levin JCC
Best Hair Salon
Willow Hair Studio
Runners-up: Posh The Salon, Vent Hair Salon
Best Holistic Medicine
Duke Integrative Medicine
Runners-up: Bull City Acupuncture, MagikCraft Bull City Magic
Best Massage Therapist
Kim Turk
Runners-up: Castle Frame, Hayley Ware / Warewithall Massage Co.
Best Pediatric Practice
Regional Pediatrics
Runners-up: Duke Children’s Primary Care, Smile First Dental
Best Spa
Bella Trio
Runners-up: AuroraFlow, Durham Salt Cave
Best Veterinary Practice
Southpoint Animal Hospital
Runners-up: Willow Oak Veterinary Hospital, Eno Animal Hospital
Best Women’s Health Practice
Chapel Hill OB/GYN (Southpoint location)
Runners-up: Durham Women’s Clinic, Duke Women’s Health
Best Yoga Studio
Yoga Off East
Runners-up: Shala Yoga Durham, Arrichion Durham
Best Alcohol-Free Venue
Durham Central Park
Runners-up: Durham Bulls Stadium, American Village Park
Best Arboretum or Garden
Sarah P. Duke Gardens
Best Dance Venue
The Fruit
Best Golf Course
Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club
Runners-up: Hope Valley Country Club, Umstead Pines
Best Hotel
The Durham
Runners-up: 21C, JB Duke Hotel
Best Hotel Lounge
The Durham Rooftop
Runners-up: 21C, Bull Durham Bar at the Washington Duke Inn
Best Karaoke Place/Event
Pinhook
Runners-up: West 94th St Pub, TP TRIVIA
Best Place to People Watch
Durham Farmers Market
Runners-up: Duke Gardens, Durham Central Park
Best Preschool/Early Education Program
Carolina Friends School
Durham Early School
Runners-up: Epworth Preschool, Montessori School of Durham
Best Sports Bar
Tobacco Road Sports
Cafe
Runners-up: The Boot Room, Bralie’s 2
Best Summer Camp
Piedmont Wildlife Center
Runners-up: Schoolhouse of Wonder, Camp Shelanu at the Levin JCC
Best Trivia Bar/Event
Hammered Trivia with Chris @ Gizmo Brew Works Durham
Runners-up: Growler Grlz, Tomato Jake’s
Best Chef
Ricky MooreSaltbox Seafood Joint
Runners-up: Juan DiGiulio-Succotash, Amy Tornquist - Sage & Swift
Best DJ
DJ Wicked
Runners-up: DJ Highrise, 8-Track Minds Band
Best Draft-Slinger
Bear (Growler Grlz)
Runners-up: Lindsey Helm- Growler Grlz, Jess at Beer Study
Best Kids Non-Profit
Book Harvest
Runners-up: Piedmont Wildlife Center, Jewish for Good at the Levin JCC
Best Local Activist Group
LGBTQ Center of Durham
Runners-up: Bike Durham, Durham Beyond Policing
Best Mixologist
Shannon HealyAlley Twenty Six
Runners-up: Arturo Sanchez, Gabriel Higares - Pompieri Pizza
Best Non-Profit
TROSA
Runners-up: Open Table Ministry, Crayons2Calculators
Best Politician
Nida Allam
Runners-up: Elaine M. O’Neal, Marcia Morey
Best Reason to Leave Durham County Republicans in the State Legislature
Runners-up: No affordable housing, Cost of Living
Best Reason to Love Durham County
The Culture and Community
Runners-up: The Diversity of its People, The Food
Best Use of Public Money Durham Public Schools
Runners-up: Affordable Housing, Durham County Library
Best-Kept Secret
Piedmont Wildlife Center
Runners-up: Jewish for Good at the Levin JCC, Triangle Homeschool Rock Academy
Biggest Waste of Public Money
The Scuttling of the Light Rail
Runners-up: Poorly Made Bike Lanes, Law Enforcement
Worst Politician
Ted Budd
Runners-up: All of them, Valerie Foushee
When a Subway inside a Han-Dee Hugo’s closed, Bird Owattragool jumped at the chance to open a restaurant inside the Apex gas station space. The chef has wooed regulars ever since.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.comE very day for two years, Bird Owattragool drove past the same gas station in Apex on his way to work, and every day for two years, he thought the same thing: there, inside that Han-Dee Hugo’s, that’s where I’ll open my first restaurant.
Specifically, Owattragool had his eye on the gas station’s in-store Subway space, which he felt had the bones of a sushi bar.
The space—tucked at the end of a hallway, just past the Han-Dee Hugo’s restrooms—was intimate, as sushi bars traditionally are. It didn’t have a kitchen, but Owattragool didn’t need one. The sandwich counter, already outfitted with refrigeration, would do the trick.
And while the parking lot outside the Subway’s street entrance was always empty, Owattragool viewed that as a good sign; it meant the location was on its last legs, he thought, not that attracting customers would be a problem.
Sure enough, in December 2019, the Subway sput-
tered to a halt, and a year and a half later, Owattragool saw his vision through. Since then, Akami Sushi Bar has emerged as a profound metamorphism of its sandwich chain predecessor.
The counter that once harbored tuna salad with a controversial composition—its purveyor created a “tuna facts” website to “clarify any misunderstandings”—now boasts a sleek case stocked with freshly-caught bluefin, yellowfin, and a dozen other fishes.
The linoleum floors have been replaced with hardwood; the faux brick walls painted pebble gray and adorned with Japanese artwork. The seating, previously made up of hard laminate stools that compelled patrons to perch, not sit, is now comfortable enough that customers who land a coveted spot at one of Akami’s monthly Omakase dinners can enjoy the hours-long meal without growing tired.
What hasn’t changed since the Subway days is the presence of a somewhat satiric tagline (Akami’s is “Gas Station
Sushi”; Subway’s, of course, was “Eat Fresh”); the price of a solid lunch, which runs between $10 and $15 (dinner is in the $20 to $30 range); and a chunk of the clientele, who happily shifted from footlongs to nigiri and sashimi mori.
Now, though, regulars hang around a bit longer. They get to know each other, and they get to know their chef, who stores personal chopsticks for them on a shelf behind the counter.
Owattragool borrowed the chopstick idea from one of his many mentors.
After moving from Thailand to the United States at 21 and attending college in Virginia, Owattragool relocated to South Florida and set off on what would become a yearslong journey to mastering sushi, an art form he admired for its simplicity.
From the beginning, Owattragool showed the potential to one day launch his own concept. He knows this, he says, because two years into his first stint as a sushi chef, at
restaurant company Benihana, he was told that he “was not worth it to teach.”
“When sushi chefs are training you, they are looking for a certain mentality so that when you grow, you grow with the company,” Owattragool says. He was too independent for Benihana’s liking.
He convinced his boss to give him another chance but, in a move that perhaps cemented his role as a maverick, promptly quit the next day. The pay was too low, he says.
After spending another two years at an independent sushi bar across the street, he jumped around for three more.
“Anywhere I could learn, I stayed,” Owattragool says. “If I had nothing to learn, I quit.”
Once he’d racked up as much knowledge as he could, he returned to helm the kitchen at the independent sushi bar for several years and eventually moved to the Triangle, joining the ranks at Wasabi Sushi & Thai Restaurant in Cary and, later, Osha Thai Kitchen & Sushi in Holly Springs.
Owattragool’s nearly twenty years of experience shine through at Akami. While it’s tempting, and worthwhile, to order the indulgent house rolls, which come in standard varieties like volcano, spider, and dragon, the best route—particularly for a newcomer—is the simplest one, the sashimi. Available in sets or a la carte, the sashimi puts Owattragool’s sourcing, and his knife work, on display.
The firm, velvety cuts of king salmon, Japanese yellowtail, and the namesake akami, brilliant red bluefin back loin, need nothing beyond a daub of wasabi and a splash of soy sauce to sing.
Given the quality of the restaurant’s food, it’s hard to believe that the Han-Dee Hugo’s landlord almost opted to replace the Subway with another corporate chain instead of giving the lease to Owattragool.
When Owattragool originally approached the landlord about the space, he says, the landlord was reticent about taking on an independent tenant. Ultimately, Owattragool says he only landed the lease because he reminded the landlord of himself.
Kate Medley, a Durham-based photojournalist who has spent the past several years capturing gas station food spots across the South to compile in a book she’ll release this November, says it’s increasingly common for restaurateurs like Owattragool to be turned away from gas station settings.
“Thirty years ago, a lot of these gas stations had affiliations with petrol companies, but they were independently franchised and run,” Medley says. “Now, most of them are chains—and if you’re a Sheetz of the world, the last thing you want to do, from a financial perspective, is take a chance on a young entrepreneur.”
But it can have a big payoff, both for an enterprise like Han-Dee Hugo’s, which now sports a consistently packed parking lot, and for locals and travelers, who gain a gathering space and a taste of the region, respectively.
“Gas stations, to me, hold a mysterious quality to them,” Medley says. “You swing open that glass door and the bell rings, and what’s presented to you? The thrill of finding these treasures, finding these gems, finding these reflections of the communities that I’m in—it’s my way of learning about where I am.”
Medley learned of Akami when a friend texted her a photo of the restaurant’s tote bags, which say “gas station sushi” in a blocky black and red font. She stopped by to purchase one as a travel bag for her fall book tour and was blown away by the food, hospitality, and delightful slice of local life.
“People are literally rubbing elbows at the bar,” Medley says. “It’s one of these little-seen
democratic spaces that we all share.”
Indeed, when I visit Akami for lunch, I’m seated at the bar, elbow-to-elbow with a man named Abdel. He used to come here occasionally when it was a Subway, he tells me, and now eats lunch at Akami almost every day.
Owattragool prepares Abdel’s usual, a personalized set of nigiri, and they catch up on each other’s lives. Abdel, I learn, is a car salesman. While I’m slurping down a piece of madai sashimi, he asks me to identify my dream car.
“Something red,” I tell him.
“No make?” he asks. “No model?”
“Okay, a red Subaru Forester,” I say.
“That’s like if I asked you what your favorite food is,” he says, “and you said a tuna sandwich.”
He’s talking about the kind of tuna that used to sit stewing in a container at this very bar, back when it was a sandwich counter, but his comment also rings true with something Owattragool told me, which is that people in the Triangle don’t seem to like tuna in general.
“They love strong fish, like mackerel,” he says. “They love oily fish, like toro. But they don’t eat tuna that much.”
The topic came up while we were discussing a lesson Owattragool learned from a mentor: that to be a good sushi chef, one must be adept at adaptation.
The lesson was imparted in the context of cutting fish of different sizes. But it’s become one of Owattragool’s core values in a broader sense, compelling him to do things like shape his menu around community tastes.
The name “gas station sushi,” too, was bestowed on Akami by locals. Owattragool sees the restaurant’s setting as incidental. But he’s adopted the moniker in genial stride. W
HHHH 1/2
M.E.C.C.A. Records & Fat Beats | April 28
F
or the past 15 years, indie rap group Kooley
High has earned a following as one of Raleigh’s favorite rap groups, captivating audiences with their boom-bap sound and undeniable collective talent as emcee and producers. Whenever one of the group’s emcees drops a solo project, fans eagerly anticipate and embrace the continuation of Kooley High’s legacy.
Out this spring from Charlie Smarts and DJ Ill Digitz, Charlietape, the pair’s first release as a duo, is a captivating journey that pays homage to mixtape culture. The album artfully blends vintage elements with modern sensibilities, making it a fitting tribute to this year’s 50th anniversary of hip hop.
From the opening skit “Charlietape Intro,” the album outlines specific expectations for its listeners: “You are now about to begin a great adventure, a journey out of your mind,” a robot-like voice intones. Charlietape goes on to seamlessly blend all the expected aesthetics of a mixtape, including shoutouts.
Produced by a mélange of talented producers, including the legendary 9th Wonder, members of The Soul Council, and in-house Kooley High producers Sinopsis and Foolery, the album brings forth a soulful, nostalgic vibe, immediately drawing listeners into an immersive experience of hip-hop’s boom-bap heyday in the ‘90s. The production works as a time machine, taking listeners on a journey through hip-hop’s golden era while still sounding fresh and relevant.
Each track carefully complements Charlie Smarts’ prowess on the mic, and his cadence is a highlight of the album. Charlie’s confident, smooth delivery showcases his experience as an MC as he effortlessly rides each beat. He’s obviously comfortable on the mic, commanding attention with his lyrical finesse and passionate storytelling.
The 19-track list is a perfect gift for Kooley High superfans and those who appreciate genuine hip-hop artistry. Each song—from the introspective “Hater Anonymous” to the uplifting “Air Max 95”—feels purposeful and adds to the album’s cohesive shape. The skits also add an extra layer of depth: The well-placed interludes elevate the album’s concept by bridging the gaps between tracks and giving listeners a more profound insight into how music was experienced during the mixtape era.
Charlie Smarts and DJ Ill Digitz are the only two members of Kooley High to live out of state—both are now in New York City—but they returned to Raleigh in mid-July for the album’s hometown release show, and Charlietape succeeds as a testament to North Carolina’s vibrant hip-hop scene. Alongside his legendary producers, Charlie Smart embraces the legacy of classic hip-hop while adding in his unique voice, leaving a lasting impact on listeners and proving that quality hip-hop emerges from this region.
All in all, Charlietape is a soul-stirring journey that showcases the remarkable talent of Charlie Smart as an emcee, DJ Ill Digitz as a DJ, and the exceptional production skills of the talented producers whose innovative soundscapes brought depth and dimension to the project. Whether you’re a fan of boom-bap or a lover of quality hip-hop, this album deserves a spot on your playlist—or your cassette player. —
Kyesha JenningsHHHH
Self Aware | July 7
Goner feels like an album that could have blown up for Jenny Besetzt several years ago.
It still could, mind you. The Raleigh band’s best album yet, Goner is an alternately swirling and pounding vision of ’80s-indebted dream pop that is dark but engaging, pessimistic about relationships and the state of the world but still clinging to shreds of hope.
A struggle that is very real.
That Goner’s particular brand of nostalgia sounds a bit dated only enhances these themes. The vision it conjures of Future Islands dance memes and Passion Pit festival dominance inject a sharp tug from the passage of time. The tropes it tweaks are well-trod, apt reflections of the compulsion to look backward when confronted with harsh realities like the ones leader John Wollaber tackles in the lyrics.
One unforgiving reality that hangs over the seven-year gap between Goner and Jenny Besetzt’s last album, Tender Madness, is the pandemic. This makes the band’s continued and impressive honing of a sound that peaked in the 2010s—before the world got put on pause—both hard to criticize and intensely relatable.
It’s 2023, but, in one way or several, we’re all picking up where we left off at the close of the previous decade. So perhaps it’s the perfect time for Jenny Besetzt to show back up—sounding largely the same, yes, but also better than they ever have.
Wollaber’s growth as a singer is especially impressive. His frequently deployed low-register affect could come off as a bit forced. Now, his expressive oscillations between that artifice and a softer, more sonorous delivery heighten the record’s emotional ups and downs. As shimmery guitar and keys and muscular bass and drums fuse into a propulsive force on the title track, Wollaber laments that “Everyone feels like a goner tonight,” turning to the example of Jonathan Brandis, the young star of ‘90s TV shows such as seaQuest DSV who killed himself at 27. The singer murmurs Brandis’ name before booming out, “Where are you? / Are you still lost at sea?” alarmed at the prospect of being pulled into a similarly dark place.
The musical strides made by the band push the album’s emotional catharsis even further. The slow build on “Abridged Dream (Disintegration)” from percolating dark wave to Deafheaven-worthy fury is a perfect delivery system for Wollaber’s escalating consternation at the feeling of “Disintegration / Life folds in at / The corners and forgets us / Grind it into dust / Modern men / Children of industry.”
And the music is just as apt during the album’s restrained moments. On the opener “Blonde and Blue,” reverberating drum hits and warm guitar conjure echoing, steamy vistas that expertly gird a multi-tracked chorus of Wollaber’s divergent vocals as “cotton candy skies” get tinged with regret (“The sun going down / On the trailer park”) and the narrator “Thumb(ing) down the edges of / Letters from you / In the county jail.”
Does Jenny Besetzt’s sound still line up with current trends? Perhaps not. But Goner doesn’t suffer for it. —Jordan Lawrence
HHHH
Self-released | July 7
You could run out of fingers and toes trying to count all the Chapel Hill-area bands that Clark Albert Blomquist has been in since 1998, let alone the number of genres they touch.
The baroque indie of the Kingsbury Manx, the whispery folk of Work Clothes, the odd pop of Waumiss, the garage rock of Spider Bags, the punk rock of Cold Cream, the experimental electronics of Tegucigalpan, and his more recent turn to country—among these, Blomquist has played everything in the standard rock kit and much beyond it.
Kelly Reidy has also been writing music and playing shows for two decades, though more often as a solo singer-songwriter, and in the Triangle only since the pandemic. Her songs provide most of the source material for the debut album by Entrez Vous, her new band with Blomquist, who splashes them with the psychedelic watercolors that permeate his most personal projects.
Even on a quick impression, the band’s concept and styling are striking, and quick impressions are what Entrez Vous is all about. Most of the songs are just a minute or two long; they state an atmospheric vision, lodge an earworm, and duck out. They’re like interesting confections, brightly colored but with flavors of umami.
We hear blissed-out, fuzz-coated country, rock, and indie pop with all the sharp, interlocking edges that make up a song rounded off, smeared into glowing blurs. Reidy plays melodiously snarling guitar as well as cello, flute, and synths. Blomquist plays bass, organ, drums, synths, some guitar and cello, and a vibraslap.
The record deftly threads between pop immediacy and experimental breadth, and it says something of its boldness that it does not evenly distribute these properties. After all the vocal-led songs, the final third of the record slips into the hallucinating instrumental territory that has gleamed on the horizons throughout, where sunburst colors play against shades of gray.
The shift marks a practical divide: after most of the record was recorded at Nightlight, the instrumentals were cut and pasted together from a later home session. But the way they run together fits this knowing retro pastiche of the naïve rock of the Shaggs, the DIY twee of K Records, and the trippy frills of Elephant 6. —Brian Howe W
Twenty-six years and several zip codes away from where they left off, local rock heroes Pipe come home with a scorching new album and a lament for affordable living.
BY BRIAN HOWE music@indyweek.com
If you’ve haunted Carrboro since before they cleaned up the telephone poles to match the higher rents, there’s a certain visual style you probably associate with local concert flyers. It’s colorful and bold, with high-impact text slicing a strong central graphic into layered planes—punk but polished, like Raymond Pettibon meets Andy Warhol. This style emerged in the early 1990s when Ron Liberti started screen printing posters for Cat’s Cradle shows. There’s something similarly enduring, almost load-bearing, about Liberti as a musician and scenester—especially with his band Pipe, which is releasing a new, self-titled album via Indianapolis’s Third Uncle Records on August 4. It might give the wrong impression to call them indie rock, though they are indie, and they do rock. They play loud, swinging, sneakily catchy songs that sound like they hurt to sing, the riffs stewed in ‘70s garage and pre-hardcore punk.
Pipe released some singles, an EP, and three records between 1992 and 1997; most are out of print and were never digitized. Hardly a trace can be found on YouTube of their raucous live show, fired by Liberti’s coiled, capering presence. Yet when I got into local music circa 1999 and started piecing things together, Pipe seemed as important as Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Polvo, and in some circles—like those around the Orange County Social Club—they’re still spoken of with the same reverence as their famous friends, who made a bigger national impact through touring and videos.
And perhaps that’s the key: during the ‘90s alt-rock boom, Pipe was around, playing shows and hanging out.
They earned plenty of national fans through college radio play, but they were the local-est of local heroes. And when the band petered out, Liberti stuck around, playing in bands like the Ghost of Rock, Bringerer, and Cold Cream and continuing, alongside Casey Burns, to refine the visual language of local rock and beyond—recently, he designed the logo for Guided by Voices’ 40th anniversary.
But Ron Liberti doesn’t live here anymore. As a working artist and designer, he used to have to go 60 miles to find a rental house for what a room costs in the Triangle now, the kind of place you could still luck into, around here, until fairly recently.
“I miss my friends, and I miss living there,” Liberti says via video chat, “but the same house was three times as much.”
Pipe songs don’t make a big deal about what they mean. On the new record, which picks up right where the band left off 26 years ago, the sounds are un-mellowed, with Liberti sounding more and more like Lemmy from Motörhead. The songs have titles like “Bug Boy” and “Puck Man” and are casual about intelligibility, with all the energy trained on frenetic yet sleek motion, though the atmospheric closer “Stumbles” is my low-key favorite.
But one theme is urgent and clear on “Venable,” a pummeling blues-punk eulogy for an artist-friendly town. “Oh Venable, you’re trading in your Peavey for a tricycle,” Liberti bellows. “You’re turning horizontal into vertical, incredible.” Recalling Rosemary and Franklin before the artists “got kicked up off the Hill,” he rat-a-tats, “Affordability is not attainable/Sucking on a stone is not sustainable.”
(I’m quoting at length here because you aren’t likely to make these lyrics out through Liberti’s shredded sneer, and they’re good.)
“That was one of the first new ones we wrote after our reformation,” he says, which happened 15 years ago and led, in a leisurely way, to this album. “In the nineties, we were all moving to Carrboro because it was still so affordable, inspiring, and chill. Come the turn of the century, things had already started to change. Now it’s 2023, I live in Wilson, and many peers and comrades have had to relocate also.”
Sometimes, you really can’t go home again. But a new Pipe record? It feels close.
There is something likeably mascot-like about Liberti, who, at 56, still has the boyish, smiling, mischievous vibe of the ‘80s skate kid he once was.
He grew up on the Jersey Shore, going to car shows and races with his father, where he reveled in the rumble of the engines and marveled at the hand-painted pinstriping. You can trace the scorch marks from there to the hot-rodded speed and efficiency of Pipe’s music, especially in the classic single “Raceway Park.”
“Going to garages with my dad, with all his friends smoking cigarettes and drinking 40s and sitting around, talking, it almost felt like being in a band,” Liberti says.
He also admired all the hand-lettered signage lining the boardwalk, if not the Springsteen blaring from the speakers. He had a dyed and crooked haircut and loved the Ramones, the Replacements, and Hüsker Dü—unfussy,
tuneful punk bands. He wasn’t sure he’d go to college, but a high school art teacher encouraged him to, so he enrolled as a painting major at Montclair State University, where he got into screen printing. There he started his first band, Love Onion, which, what else can you say? He also made friends with future Pipe bassist
Dave Alworth and guitarist Mike Kenlan, who was the first of the group to move to Chapel Hill in 1989.
“When I graduated from college with a degree in fine art, I knew I was going to be a bartender someplace,” Liberti explains. “It was just easier to live down here.”
He had visited Chapel Hill, where Kenlan had a house for what Liberti was paying to live above a liquor store in Hoboken. The bands coming through Hoboken were on the Cradle’s schedule, too. Kenlan made him a mixtape of local rock from that time just before Superchunk and Merge: Metal Flake Mother, Zen Frisbee, Bicycleface.
So Alworth and Liberti moved to Chapel Hill, where the latter got a job at the Hard-
Bubblegum, he left to focus on his other band, Small 23, which was gaining some traction; Clifton Lee Mann, formerly of the rockabilly band the Bad Checks, played guitar on their three LPs. The first two were released by Jesus Christ, a local label whose name was picked to lead to funny phrases like that one. It was run by Randy Bullock, a WXYC program director, and Kirk Ross, a musician and INDY journalist.
“Didn’t Pipe do a show at Villanova where the nuns had to make out a check to Jesus Christ?”
Kenlan muses.
The third, final, and perhaps best album of Pipe’s original run, Slowboy, was released by Merge. The band had done some decent tours—Archers of Loaf liked to take them out—but they had bad luck on the road, especially after Slowboy, when they were supposed to go all the way to California with New Bomb Turks. Garrison and Mann both sustained hand injuries and had to cancel 20 shows. Their booking agent, fed up with their stolen
back Café, a music hotspot where Pipe drummer Chuck Garrison (Superchunk’s original drummer and partial namesake) was washing dishes. They formed just before Nirvana’s success shifted national interest to local scenes like Chapel Hill’s. Despite the fortuitous timing, they set out with no particular ambitions, nor did they develop any along the way.
“The thing I loved most was how supportive and cool everyone was, because coming from Jersey, it was more dog-eatdog,” Liberti says. “Here, there was room for everybody and I loved that. We didn’t just have to play with hardcore bands.”
Indeed, the opener for the record release show on August 4, will be Shark Quest, a legacy act in which seasoned local rockers play groovy vintage film-score music.
“A big part of the Pipe sound was cheap beer,” says Kenlan, who has joined the video call. “We weren’t a Sassy band. We weren’t cutesy and marketable.”
This is actually the first proper Pipe LP Kenlan has played on. After their debut, the Ball Peen EP, released in 1992 on Sonic
vans and other mishaps, dropped them. Kenlan returned to the fold, but Pipe had run its course.
They didn’t know about the garagerock revival that was shortly on the way— nor would they have cared, not being the trend-chasing types.
Pipe got back together to play Merge’s 20th-anniversary festival in 2009 and started working on new songs. In 2014, when they were recording with Alex Maiolo, the INDY reported that a comeback record was almost finished. But Liberti’s father died the day he started recording vocals, and his mother followed within the year, slowing down the already-sluggish process. They recorded more with Nick Peterson, and then there was the pandemic and vinyl-plant delays, and—well, they just took it as it came, which is the Liberti way.
“I just love hanging out with these guys for 30 years now,” he says. “It’s like riding a pipe.”
Too bad it can no longer happen in Carrboro. W
“In the nineties, we were all moving to Carrboro because it was still so affordable, inspiring, and chill. Come the turn of the century, things had already started to change.”
Owen Fitzgerald with Entrez Vouz and Jesse Wooten $10. 8 p.m.
The Pinhook, Durham poptropicaslutz!: Truth
Is In The Glitter Tour $18. 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Black Power Rangers
Comedy Tour $20. 7:30 p.m. Watts & Ward, Raleigh.
Comedy Hoppy Hour 7 p.m. Tobacco Wood Brewing Company, Durham.
The Drowsy Chaperone, a Summer Youth Conservatory Production! $20. Jul. 20-30, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.
Mary Poppins $34+. Jul. 25-30, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Al Strong Presents: Jazz on the Roof 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham
Altin Gün $22. 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw
Dirty Heads: Island Glow Tour $20+. 6 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
DJ KJB on the Rooftop Jul. 27-29, various times. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
The Drums $25. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
The Great Reset 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Horsegirl and Lifeguar $18. 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Isabella Ullo 6:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Thursdays at 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
The Shop Sesh $10. 8 p.m. SchoolKids Records, Raleigh. Step Friends with The Coyotes $10. 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham
Redbird Theater Presents: Numbers Are Down $20. Jul. 27-Aug. 5, various times. Center Theater, Durham.
Lauren Yero: Under This Forgetful Sky 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
Step Friends performs with The Coyotes at Rubies on Five Points on Thursday, July 27.
Agosto: A Tribute to Heroes del Silencio $15. 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham
Doomsday Profit with Bongfoot and Skull Servant $10. 9 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Gay Agenda: Last Friday Night $5. 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Jesse Fox $10. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro, MAN ON MAN $15. 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Revelry 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Walker Hayes: Duck Buck Tour $63+. 6:30 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
CATS: Presented by Summer Theater Conservatory $20. July 28-29, 7 p.m. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.
Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets $8. 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Rory Scovel: The Last Tour $15+. 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Bianca Oblivian, Alex Lomami, DJ Tripple AAA, and BSHNGU $15+. 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Buster Jangle 3 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Counting Crows: Banshee Season Tour $38+. 7:30 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
Hatchback 6:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Jeremy Pelt Quintet $40. 7 and 9 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.
Jon Shain and FJ Ventre 7:30 p.m. Succotash, Durham.
Ladies R&B Kickback Concert $90+. 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Live Band Karaoke with The Blind Tigers 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Mystery Ranch with Entrez Vous and Paint Work $10. 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Old Solar $10. 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Ravine with Brutal Junior and Chainletter 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Town Mountain $20. 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Willie Traywick 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
STAGE
The Comedy Worx Show Matinee $9. Saturdays at 4 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
Black Bouquet, Pons, and Sesame $12. 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Primordial Tides, Chidori, Laniidae, and Attracting the Fall $10. 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Spirituality & The Beatles with “Rev. Faerie” Elaine Silver 11 a.m. Unity Center of Peace, Chapel Hill.
Wish Queen, MEGABITCH, and hollyo $10. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Google Dolls, Soup Dreams, and Persimmon $10. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons
Jazz Trio $8. Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham.
Julia Jacklin $22. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Sam Smith: Gloria Tour $14+. 8 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.
Wilton Barnhardt: Western Alliances 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
Late night drive home $15. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Weston Olencki, Libby Rodenbaugh, and Chinchorro (Minori SachizFung) $10. 7:30 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.
STAGE
The Prom $30+. Aug. 2-13, various times. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh..
MUSIC
Hudson Valley 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Joshua Kendrick 6:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Thursdays at 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
Midnight Remedies DJ and Drag Show $5. 11 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Nikki Lane $20. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Social Distortion$83+. 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
STAGE
Between The Lines: A New Musical $36+. Aug. 3-5, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
PAGE
David Joy: Those We Thought We Knew 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
Eric Church: Outsiders Revival Tour $57+. 7:30 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek, Raleigh.
Jason Mraz: Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride $20+. 7:30 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
Pipe: Record Release Show $10. 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
River Whyless $17. 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
The Rocket Man Show $40+. 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Worthington’s Law “Mr. Wild” Tape Release Party with Contact Comfort, Oort Patrol, and Narsick $10. 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Alexa Rose $15. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Back To Jamaica: 61st Independence Day Celebration $67+. 4 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
Big City Lights: Deep Funk with DJ Brian Burns $5. 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Cosmic Charlie $20. 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Johnny Mathis: The Voice of Romance Tour $60+. 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Josh Branch 3:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Mary Kate Farmer 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Sayless 6:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.
Slightly Stoopid and Sublime with Rome & Atmosphere: Summertime Tour $32+. 5 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.
Sweeping Promises $16. 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
The ComedyWorx Show Matinee $9. Saturdays at 4 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
this week’s puzzle level:
There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key and previous puzzles at indyweek.com/puzzles-page.
Best of luck, and have fun!
07.26.23
HEALTH & WELL
919-416-0675
www.harmonygate.com
Automation Engineer II
KBI Biopharma, Inc. seeks an Automation Engineer II in Durham, NC to perform functions to provide instrumentation and automation engineering and technical support. BS & 3 yrs. 1 day of telework per week permitted. For full req’s and to apply visit: https://www.kbibiopharma.com/careers Job Reference
Number: R00005141
Editorial and Research Assistant
Editorial and Research Assistant for book concerning Grand Teton National Park, Wyo. Part time, work from your home. Good computer skills and creativity mandatory. $25/ hour. Start soon. Resume to: teton2021@gmail.com
Scientist II
Tergus Pharma seeks a Scientist II, Analytical R&D in Durham, NC to develop & validate analytical methods to support formulation drug development under supervision. Reqs: BS in Pharma Sci, Analyt Chem, or related + 3 yrs exp. or MS in Pharma Sci, Analyt Chem, or related + 1 yr exp. For full reqs & to apply visit: https://www.terguspharma.com/current-job-openings/ and search for Scientist II, Analytical R&D Req #20230014.
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