RVA Magazine #36

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RVA MAGAZINE SPRING 2019 / NO. 36 RVAMAG.COM

RVA MAGAZINE 2005 – 2019

CURATING CULTURE ACROSS VIRGINIA

#36 | SPRING 2019

CONTENTS

Founders

Welcome to the Dark & Beautiful World of Abigail Larson

Publisher President Managing Partner Editor-In-Chief Editor Web Editors, RVAMAG.com Writers

Photography

Graphic Design Ad Design Interns

Cover by General, Editorial & Distribution Questions Sales & Advertising Sales Manager Submission Policy

Send Submissions to All Submissions become the property of Inkwell Ventures Inc. Social Subscriptions Distribution All issues of RVA Magazine can be viewed online at RVA Magazine is printed locally by SPECIAL THANKS TO

R. ANTHONY HARRIS, PARKER GALORE INKWELL VENTURES LLC JOHN REINHOLD LANDON SHRODER MARILYN DREW NECCI CALEY STURGILL MARILYN DREW NECCI, CALEY STURGILL MADELYNE ASHWORTH, SAGE CANNADY, ASH GRIFFITH, HIP HOP HENRY, EMILY HOLTER, SARAH HONOSKY, MATTHEW MCDANIELS, MICHAEL MILLIONS, MARILYN DREW NECCI, NATE NEWTON, CALEY STURGILL MADELYNE ASHWORTH, ASH GRIFFITH, ROGER MAY, MICHAEL MILLIONS, LANDON SHRODER LLEWELLYN HENSLEY, STAMP STAMP GINNY BIXBY, ALICEN HACKNEY, AVIANCE HAWKES, EMILY HOLTER, SYDNEY LAKE, JAYLA MCNEILL, CAITLIN MORRIS, KATE SELTZER, BENJAMIN WEST CHRIS VISIONS hello@rvamag.com JOHN REINHOLD / john@rvamag.com CALEY STURGILL / caley@rvamag.com JOE VANERHOFF / joe@rvamag.com ACE PATEL / ace@rvamag.com JUSTIN MCCLUNG / justin.mcclung@rvamag.com RVA MAGAZINE WELCOMES SUBMISSIONS BUT CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR UNSOLICITED MATERIAL. hello@rvamag.com RVA MAGAZINE IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF INKWELL VENTURES INC. @rvamag hello@rvamag.com THANK YOU TO OUR DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS QUICKNESS RVA rvamag.com/magazine CONQUEST GRAPHICS ARTIFEX M. HUNTER HAGLUND

Advertising and articles appearing in this publication reflect the opinions and attitudes of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. RVA Magazine is published quarterly. Images are subject to being altered from their original format. All content is © Inkwell Ventures LLC and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without written authorization of the publisher.

RVA Magazine is a registered trademark of Inkwell Ventures Inc.

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by Ash Griffith

RVA Global / Seven Wonders of the Modern World

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words & photos by Madelyne Ashworth

The Truth Is Out There / The Universe Beckons: In Virginia, Ufologists Search Confidently for Life Outside Earth

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by Sarah Honosky

GayRVA / Rural LGBTQ Activists Push Back Against “Hillbilly” Stereotypes

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words by Emily Holter / photos by Roger May

Into the Visions-Verse: The Illustrious World of Chris Visions

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by Matthew McDaniels & Marilyn Drew Necci

Whitesburg, Kentucky words by Michael Millions / photos by Michael Millions & Landon Shroder

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Indie Film Last Call Finds the ‘Twilight Zone’ in the Richmond Bar Scene

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by Sage Cannady

Richmond’s Local Businesses Find Ways to Thrive in a Big-Box World words and photos by Ash Griffith

Doin’ It For Real: A Conversation with Segga Spiccoli

by Hip Hop Henry

Rock Is Dead, Let It Die

by Nate Newton / photo by Rama

COLUMNS DON’T SLEEP PLAYLIST STUDIO NEWS MUSIC REVIEWS RVA ON TAP

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Thank You to Our Sponsors! Our music coverage is sponsored by the Graduate Hotel of Richmond. Our art coverage is brought to you by the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Quickness RVA is our distribution partner.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Our fair city is known for its warm Southern summers, but right now it feels like we’ve been trapped in an endless, cold winter for too long. Thankfully, spring has finally come, and the constant dreariness that made 2018 one of the rainiest years on record for the River City feels like it might be fading at last.

On the first of what we hope to be many warm days in Richmond this year, we hope you’ll roll up this issue of RVA Magazine and carry it with you—through all your riverside picnics, all your park outings, and all your sunny days enjoying the fine cuisine our many restaurants are serving up for every taste in the book.

We’ll offer you a respite from the less-than-ideal weather that has plagued us lately, but we also hope to give you a refuge from the troubles that we, as Virginians, have endured together this year.

We hope that with the spring comes another season of warm days, and warm hearts, for our neighbors and friends across the Commonwealth.

This issue is a reminder that our state will always bring us plenty of stories to be proud of: from its incredible artists, musicians, and filmmakers creating outstanding work that carries the Virginian name, to the intriguing tales from its community of UFO watchers, and to all the activists fighting to ensure our rural areas are more than incubators of backwards thinking. As we grow with one another, RVA Magazine is here to tell your stories from mountains to coast, and every unique county in-between that we call home.

The sun will shine again, Virginia. 2019 is going to be a great year—let’s spend it together.

Warm Regards, Marilyn Drew Necci

DON’T SLEEP

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1 A harrowing feeling in Caroline County, Virginia by Richmond photographer @df.picturess / 2 The hauntingly intrepid work of Virginia artist @blashygallowsart / 3 Killing us, while saving us by @benjah_photography / 4 Orgy Burger. Art by @mike.makatron / 5 Dropping bars with @themostdebonair at RVA Lyricist Lounge by @radiotokyo / 6 Happy Presidents’ Day by @zoueh_skotnes / 7 Be who you were really meant to be. Mural by @gammagallery / 8 Virginia legend Pusha T by @5thphvse / 9 Valentines come early with Richmond’s @ grittycityrecs and @big_johnny_ciggs / 10 Snail Mail by Virginia photographer @itsana.photos

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Welcome to the Dark and Beautiful World of Abigail Larson

by Ash Griffith

The work of illustrator and artist Abigail Larson is what you’d get if you mixed Neil Gaiman and Mary Shelley together with a mystical, wonderful paint brush. From paintings to comic book covers—and even a tarot deck, currently in the works—Larson has covered a variety of media with her beautiful, darklyromantic style.

She describes herself, and her work, in five succinct words: “Strange, macabre, romantic, whimsical, imaginative.”

The arts have been in Larson’s blood since she was a young child. Originally, she dreamt big plans of becoming a world-renowned opera singer or a member of a circus, but crippling stage fright thwarted those ideas before they could come to fruition. We may never know what Larson’s version of The Greatest Showman would have been, but today, she could draw or paint a version of it for us. She’s had a great deal of success since turning to a less anxiety-inducing medium—fine art.

“I was always an artsy kid, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized illustration could be a career path for me,” said Larson. “I fell in love with the works of classical illustrators like Arthur Rackham and Harry Clarke, and I tailored my portfolio to bookillustration specifically. While getting my BFA at VCU, I built a website and started using social media to promote my work.”

It took quite a long time before Larson started getting work, but she remained busy with competitions and joining gallery shows whenever able. Two of her first showings appropriately took place at a few of Richmond’s artistic landmarks: The Poe Museum and Gallery 5.

It’s difficult to support yourself in the arts, and many artists fall victim to burnout and depression.

Larson was no exception: looking back, she points to the strong storytelling aspect of illustration as one of the things that kept her motivated.

“That’s really the heart of illustration—telling a story through art,” said Larson. “I really love that creative process, but I especially love sharing my work online for others to see and enjoy.”

Larson’s style and aesthetic is very much reminiscent of romantic-Victorian (ultimately, Gothic) styles. She has always been drawn to this approach, and its influence throughout her life has seeped deeply into her work. Even in her childhood, reading stories by authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charlotte Bronte, a macabre worldview has always attracted her, even if she isn’t sure why.

“I’ve never really been able to pinpoint what it is about the macabre and the Gothic that I love so much,” said Larson. “I think the quiet, creeping, dark romanticism has always appealed to me. I felt very comfortable with that world, and eventually brought it into my artwork.”

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Just one glance at Larson’s resume is sufficient to see that she stays busy. Her work is as extensive as it is diverse, and she keeps a full schedule of projects at all times.

Because of this, Larson admits she’s turned down projects due to time constraints. It’s pure profes-sionalism that motivates her at times like this; for her, turning down a project is a way to avoid biting off more than she can chew, so to speak. That way, she can maintain focus on the project at hand.

However, there is one dream collaboration she’d probably make time for.

“I’d love to work with a major studio on a feature film,” said Larson. “I think it’d be fun to design characters for a huge project in film or animation.”

Ask any artist what their favorite project of all time is, and they will probably tell you “the one I just did.” Larson is no different.

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“I think quiet, creeping, dark romanticism has always appealed to me. I felt very comfortable with that world, and eventually brought it into my artwork.”

“I love everything I’m working on while I’m working on it, and when the next project comes, I get wrapped up in that,” said Larson. “My favorite project to date is the Dark Wood tarot deck I’m working on with Sasha Graham, for Llewellyn Worldwide. It’s my biggest project to-date, but it’s definitely the most fun.”

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Naturally, a unique tarot deck falls right into Larson’s wheelhouse. Another very apropos recent project of hers was to illustrate a story by pioneeringhorror author H.P. Lovecraft. In 2016, Larson’s literary agent helped her pitch the project of a lifetime: creating an illustrated edition of Lovecraft’s The Cats of Ulthar. The resulting hardcover book was widelyacclaimed by fans of Larson and Lovecraft alike.

“It was a pretty fast-paced project, but the publisher was incredible to work with, and it was a lot of fun,” she said.

As mentioned, Larson tends to keep her hands in many different forms of media, one being a consistent array of comic book covers. She’s illustrated covers for series like Edward Scissorhands, Assassin’s Creed, and Penny Dreadful, and is currently working with DC and Vertigo on a project for the Sandman Universe.

But she can’t tell us too much about it just yet: only that a few issues will be out “relatively soon.”

This, of course, begs a question: can fans expect to see an original comic series of her own in the future?

Just maybe?

“I’m working on my own gothic retellings of classic fairytales, and I’m planning to release them in graphic novel form,” said Larson. “That’s a long way off, but it’s in the works.”

Larson originally came to Richmond for the acclaimed VCU art school; specifically, for their illustration program, which was recommended by several alumni she knew. Despite her confidence in her drawing abilities, she felt the university experience would help her evolve—not only in her skills, but in her sensibilities as an artist—in ways that working on her own couldn’t.

“I got the full university experience,” said Larson.

“I took classes in science, history, math, and literature.

In art school, I was able to learn not just how to draw, but to really understand art in all mediums. I studied photography, sculpture, painting, graphic design, etc. which have all helped give me a more solid foundation while developing my own style.”

She added that one of her first official gigs when she lived in Richmond was for the city’s Zombie Walk, designing their posters. Since graduating with her Bachelor of Fine Arts at VCU, Larson has relocated to Italy, where she now lives with her husband; and even though she’s far from the city, she still designs work for Richmond’s beloved annual event.

Larson is open about the fact that she looks to many people for inspiration in her work. From various artists she follows on social media to the prince of horror himself, Mr. Vincent Price, she keeps her list of inspirations endless.

But just like anyone else, Larson occasionally hits a creative roadblock. Her biggest tip for other artists, though, is just to take a step back.

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“I’m working on my own gothic retellings of classic fairytales, and I’m planning to release them in graphic novel form. That’s a long way off, but it’s in the works..”

“I like to switch gears when I get stuck,” said Larson. “I listen to music, find a new show or movie to watch, take a break and go out, visit a museum, read a book—things like that. I hit an art block a couple times a year, and usually all I need to do to get back on track is step away from my work for a little while.”

When you’re a creative person of any kind—whether in visual art, writing, theater, photography, or any other artistic discipline—the hardest part of the game is always the same: finding a way to sustain yourself solely through your work. It’s an arduous process that takes a long time and a lot of work… and that’s if it ever happens for you at all.

For Larson, it was no different. Among the jobs she held while perfecting her art, she lists working retail in a lingerie store, and teaching children’s art classes (all while freelancing in her spare time, making sure the bills were paid). No matter how difficult the path she walked, though, Larson never gave up.

She advises today’s struggling artists not to get discouraged if they don’t land the job they want right away.

“Learn, experiment, and your style will develop naturally,” said Larson. “Create artwork you enjoy, post your work regularly on social media, and jobs will start coming in.”

Even in her position today, as a successful artist self-supported with her work, Larson admits that there are still challenges.

“Keeping the momentum can be a battle sometimes,” she said. “For so many artists, jobs all pour in at once, or there’s nothing coming in at all. But having a personal project to keep you occupied during the slow periods will help keep you motivated.”

Despite moving on to live an ocean away, Larson’s time in the River City stays with her—and she maintains that it still influences her. Even if it’s just a small detail hidden in the background, the city is still present in her work.

“My time in Richmond and at VCU was a turning point in my life,” said Larson. “I was on my own, living in a new city, making new friends, building my portfolio, and taking my first steps into my career as an artist. Sometimes a certain headstone from Hollywood Cemetery or the landscape of Belle Isle might show up in one of my illustrations… and of course, I still carry all the skills I learned at VCU with me to this day.”

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RVA Global: Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Words & photographs by Madelyne Ashworth

The most difficult part about traveling is the people you must leave behind.

Other things can also go wrong: missing planes, losing luggage, items stolen, food sickness, uncomfortable weather, fear of strangers, looking like an outsider, feeling unsafe... they’re all most likely going to happen. When traveling to a new place, especially by yourself—and even more so as an American, whose exposure to hardship is less than most of the world—mishaps occur.

You learn to deal with them, and then you learn about yourself, learn navigation, gain confidence. But if you do it right, at the end of your journey, you’ll discover that “finding yourself,” that age-old obsession, is not the best or most significant part of travel.

Rather, it is connecting with people in a real and meaningful way, even while recognizing you may never see them again.

The most important moments in travel are not the ones that connect you with yourself, but the moments that link you with others.

Modern media, especially the ubiquitous travel blogs, have created a self-indulgent idea of solo travel as a vehicle for narcissistic soulsearching. Seeing international travel through this lens distracts us from even the most basic level of mindful immersion. Traveling alone should not mean that one exclusively travels inwardly.

What becomes memorable and meaningful is subjective.

Your takeaways will vary. Here are some of mine.

1 Knowing that a day at the temple leaves your palms smelling of herbs and spices, cardamom and coconut water.

Last fall, I took a three month journey to Asia by myself— but this was not a backpacking trip. I spent two months living and working in Bangalore, India, then part of another month exploring Vietnam. I took ten days at the end of this journey to visit a few European countries. While living in Bangalore, India, I worked at the Happy Kids Institute, an after-school program for children with learning differences like dyslexia, ADHD, and autism: all disabilities that are regarded in India either as taboo or as outright fabrications.

I spent my time at the institute interviewing and documenting teachers and students, and working daily with the 12- to 14-year-olds. I lived in an apartment with the woman who owns and operates the school, thanks to her generosity and to knowing her son as my college roommate.

It was an incredible offer I couldn’t possibly refuse, and it gave me the ability to immerse myself in Indian culture, traveling through the country on holidays and weekends. It was, indeed, immersive.

I woke up each day at 6 a.m. for yoga and meditation. I know how cliché that sounds, but I’m not kidding. I’d go into the courtyard of the apartment complex in which I lived to do yoga alongside many others doing the exact same— old, young, men, women. This is a way of life here.

Then I’d come inside and watch as my hostess carried out her daily Hindu prayers, make Indian food with her, dress in an Indian tunic, and head to the school to help prepare lessons for the day. That level of immersion was, in some ways, difficult. These were not clothes I would normally wear, knowing that at home they’d either be seen as a novelty or as cultural appropriation.

As a woman in Southern India, I was expected to dress, talk, and act like Southern Indian women do. It was easier that way. Last year, the Thomson Reuters Foundation found India to be the most dangerous nation in the world for sexual violence against women. Wearing long, loose pants and Indian tunics was a protective measure—those clothes felt like armor, and soon I felt strangely naked if I wasn’t wearing them in public. That feeling took several weeks to wear off, even after I left India.

So, yes, immersing myself into Southern Indian culture could include some fear, some discomfort, some unfamiliarity. But it was worth it to come together each morning with strangers in meditation, to be included in holiday celebrations. It was worth it to learn to cook Indian food each night, discussing Indian customs and education with the strong-willed, kind, and intelligent woman who hosted me. It was worth it to spend days in Hindu temples and understand why cows are sacred (Shiva), why Ganesha has an elephant’s head, why Durga is a badass. It was worth learning how to bless myself with herbed water, learning about energy and balance, about arranged marriage, village farming, the criticality of a healthy corn harvest.

2 Perceiving the joy and pleasure when a child recognizes they are capable of learning; experiencing their open curiosity firsthand.

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“...a da leave smelli spices and c

“The fog creeps up the Himalayan mountains everyday at 5 pm like a weary visitor come to rest for the night.”

I am being bombarded.

“What does your house look like?” “Where do you live?” “Do your streets look like ours?” “Do you live with your mom?” “Are there loose dogs everywhere in America?” “What do the cars look like?”

To keep up with the questions, I pull out the school atlas and find some pictures on my phone. I show them the tiny dot on the map that is Richmond, Virginia, pictures of my backyard, of my mother, of American cars. Chetan, Kavana, Lakshmi, and some of the younger ones whose names I don’t know, crowd around the little desk. Their questions become more complicated and in-depth, asking about cultural differences, religion, and the American school system.

The intelligence these children display—despite the prejudice they face from teachers, family, and friends due to their learning differences—never fails to astound me. Many Indians in older generations still think in context of the caste system, slotting these

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children into a lower social position, and setting them up for failure before they’re given a chance to prove they deserve any better. Happy Kids Institute gives them that chance.

“Maybe one day you’ll all have the chance to visit me in America,” I say. The smiles on their faces could light a city. 14-year-old Chetan and 12-year-old Kavana are brother and sister, orphaned as small children; they now live with their aunt and uncle. 14-year-old Lakshmi is the first person in her family to learn how to read.

If ever you have the chance to teach abroad, take it.

3 Sharing secrets with a total stranger at 10,000 feet above sea level.

The fog creeps up the Himalayan mountains everyday at 5 p.m. like a weary visitor come to rest for the night. The mountains are so tall, the fog is like a lap blanket below us. The air smells of mint and dew, and

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character in someone else’s story. Embrace them: being a listener is an underrated gift.

ay at the temple es your palms ing of herbs and s, cardamom coconut water.”

4 Standing next to an elephant; it doesn’t feel scary, but it does make one feel very small.

His back leg was irreparably broken after being crushed in a logging accident, and an abscess was embedded on his hip. He walked with a limp. He had been rescued from a logging company, and sent to the Elephant Conservation Center in Laos to live out his days with a disability that would prevent him from ever mating or socializing normally again. His sheer mass and height filled an astounding amount of space. The metaphorical space he occupied was overwhelming.

I couldn’t touch him—this was a conservation center, meant for rehabilitation, and contact was prohibited. Before I met him, I spent three hours walking around with one of the center’s organizers, learning the painstaking, meticulous processes—both legal and medical—that the center must carry out to protect these elephants.

Regardless of the way it seems from afar, the solutions to another country’s socio-political and environmental crises are always a little more complicated than “Let’s boycott the elephant riding-tour companies.”

Cultural immersion isn’t always about people. Sometimes it’s about 12,000 pound elephants.

5 Always taking the city bus and second-class train car. They’ll teach you more about a place and its people than any museum.

every single star comes out to wink the night away. The chai is all the sweeter after a six-hour trek, and our group of eleven gathers around a campfire at the base camp of Nag Tibba, the highest peak in the lower Himalayas of the Uttarakhand region.

A new friend and I had been joking throughout the day: bonding over art, writing, hiking, and superhero movies, laughing so hard my abdomen hurt. As the cold moved in and the aches of the day pushed everyone to bed, soon he and I were the only ones left awake.

“My boyfriend and I broke up last week,” he said, interrupting the silence. I waited. “I’m glad we did it. But this week has been hard.” Only me, the crickets, and the pack mules know the rest.

Homosexuality was decriminalized only this past September in India. Being gay in India is not easy. But heartbreak is heartbreak.

When traveling, instances arise in which you become the side

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It was like a barrage. For the past hour and a half, the entire train car had been empty, but at this small village stop somewhere outside Hanoi, a huge group of people making their way to the city piled in.

Local Vietnamese, arms full of bags, dogs, luggage, and children, filled the entire car. Grandmothers corralled the little ones, men hurried into the quiet corners, students rode back to the city for the school week and finished homework left to the last minute. I smiled sympathetically at the girl poring over her math homework, because doing math homework at 6 p.m. on a Sunday is actually the worst. She smiled back.

Traveling to more than 50 places within the span of a year, as some other popular travel articles have advised, becomes nothing more than a to-do list. Yes, you’ll meet lots of people. You’ll see lots of things. But that’s never been my goal when traveling. I aspire to learn, to absorb, to connect. I want to spend at least two weeks in any single place, because anything less is a tourist trap.

I’m happy for those who have the opportunities and means to travel—granted, I am one of them. I work hard to earn what I can, and find ways to travel despite supporting myself alone. I’m accustomed to operating this way. But the world does not exist to support my selfindulgent quest to find myself.

Because that’s the thing. It isn’t about me.

Travel is what you accomplish while being present in a place. It’s about mindfulness, being careful to remember you’re a stranger, not presuming you’re welcome in any space, and respecting boundaries until told otherwise. Reach for immersion. If you have the choice between staying in one town for a few more days or traveling elsewhere to look at a national monument for two minutes, stay in the town. Don’t allow your travels to become a to-do list. Allow them to consume you.

Ride the city bus.

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6 Reconnecting with loved ones, even if they are thousands of miles away. And Paris is never a bad idea.

We meet at Opéra. We always meet at Opéra. There are five of us, five girls who met at school, all those years ago. We link arms in the cold and head down the street, speaking a weird mix of English and French that probably only we can decipher. No time has passed. We order hot chocolate —it’s the best in the world, and we don’t need wine to enjoy ourselves. This is home.

It’s okay to visit the same place twice. Maybe even three times. Maybe even annually.

7 Knowing that no matter where you go, you are never alone, because there is always someone who has felt loss in the same way you have.

On the island, his friends call him “Crazy Sven.” He laughs loud, photobombs every picture he can, makes dirty jokes, and lives by the motto that “Every day is a good day.” Sven is a real-life viking. His ancestry predates the 1100s, when Norsemen first landed on the brutal, beguiling landscape.

He has been a search-and-rescue operative, radio reporter, mountaineer, photographer, mountain guide, and tour guide.

Our little group of eight had chosen a newer, independent Iceland tour company, meaning we had the pleasure of allowing Sven to show us the cliff sides, waterfalls, mountains, and glaciers of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. At the end of a long, cold, wet, and wonderful day, we gathered around a table eating dinner in a farmhouse somewhere in the barren lava fields of Snæfellsnes.

Once inside, Sven removed a couple of his many warm layers, revealing seven ravens tattooed on his forearm.

After entertaining us with some stories of elaborate pranks he used to play on his coworkers, everyone became engaged in side conversations. I asked him about the tattoo.

He tells me that in Norse mythology, the raven can be a symbol of death—of a loved one lost, watching over you.

“There were eight of us,” he said, referring to his group of friends during his time as a search-and-rescue operative.

“I’m the only one still alive.”

“I have a tattoo like that, too,” I said.

Many people regard international travel as glamorous, free-spirited, and privileged. But if you get beyond the standard tourist experiences and gap-year clichés, there is a lot to be learned from it. Mark Twain, the original American travel writer, once wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

For me, the travel required, it means a measure of courage, and a desire for adventure. But in return, it offered fulfillment and an encouraged perspective, even as it redefined the importance of home.

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The Truth is Out There The Universe Beckons: In Virginia, Ufologists Search Confidently for Life Outside Earth

By Sarah Honosky

I want to believe. It’s the refrain of a generation, the innate human desire for something more. Everyone has a UFO story, and astronomer Seth Shostak of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) says the fascination is hardwired into us.

“I get phone calls every day from people who are seeing things in the sky, and believe that they are alien craft,” said Shostak.

“That’s because one-third of the population thinks that’s true: that the aliens are here, sailing the skies.”

My own fascination started when my mom dropped the news at the dinner table: apparently, my sleepy hometown of Crozet, Virginia is home to more than peach orchards, cow pastures, and microbreweries. On the outskirts of town lives acclaimed-Ufologist Steven Greer. Greer is the founder of the Sirius Disclosure project, a group working to expose the extraterrestrial intelligence that, according to the project’s website, “has been visiting planet Earth for decades, if not centuries.”

Best of all was the revelation that my mom had met him, at a dinner party years ago. It’s my favorite image -- my rural, librarian mother chatting up the author of Ufology books, DVDs, and documentaries over canapés and locally-crafted beer. The same guy who claims he was given a briefing by former-CIA director James Woolsey, and who has appeared on CBS, BBC, and the Discovery Channel as an expert on all things “alien.”

I was already suspicious about the role of the paranormal in my small town, after participating in RVA Magazine’s inconclusive investigation of Afton’s Swannanoa Palace last year. But the presence of a nationally-known purveyor of the extraterrestrial in our locale is enough for me to be convinced this goes to the top.

Or maybe my fascination with UFOs started earlier, with grainy X-Files episodes on Netflix, and nights spent straining my neck to look at the night sky, desperate to see something supernatural in the star-speckled blur of the Milky Way. Or maybe it starts here. Now, with the warning.

It came in an email, one which I received after poking into the Virginia UFO scene. The cautionary sentence was sandwiched between a message about availability and a signature: “This subject can be very dangerous,” I’m warned in faux-typewriter text. “One does not know what they will stumble upon…”

This is my first attempt at contact with the world of modern extraterrestrial study, and it doesn’t disappoint. The polite, if foreboding, heads-up is sent by Jessica Youness -self described Ufologist and theorist, the president and founder of the UFO Club of Virginia.

Youness has made the study of extraterrestrial existence her life’s work, a calling that began while growing up in Minnesota. She was five years old when her parents came home from a trip to Saint Paul, her mother visibly upset.

“She took me aside and she said she had seen something in the sky that she’d never seen before,” said Youness.

It was 1967 in America, where the mid-twentieth century was the height of UFO-mania as burgeoning space travel, alleged government conspiracy, and the infamous Roswell sighting brewed an iconoclastic cocktail of paranoia and extraterrestrial fascination.

Youness was spurred by an interest in astronomy and photography, and references UFO sightings she witnessed while living in Michigan (and now, Virginia Beach), where she founded the UFO Club.

“I went from light research to going full-out and founding the UFO club,” said Youness. “We want to make connections from ancient cultures and civilizations to present day sightings…and if there’s ever an event, we’ll be there to prepare. We’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

Youness conducts lectures centered around UFO preparedness and safety, down to the basics: like stockpiling drinkable water and rations to be ready in the case of an extraterrestrial attack. “No matter if it’s a natural disaster or a celestial disaster,” she said, “humans can’t seem to take care of themselves.”

Though it may sound like a cheesy sci-fi movie, she calls it a practical form of self-preservation—be it from an invasion from the stars, or a natural disaster like tornadoes or hurricanes.

Virginia itself offers the perfect combination of natural landmarks and manmade structures to create close encounters of the third kind. Major airports, naval bases, nuclear facilities, power plants, and military bases all create a draw, said Youness.

While living on the coast, Youness said she and her husband have made sightings both together and separately. “We go down to the ocean a lot, and we see things off the water.”

“Even with all my years of investigating, having different experiences and sightings, when something comes closer to you, when you can get the better picture…that’s when it’s time to stop,” said Youness.

As for the danger, Youness says that sometimes it’s best to leave things to the experts. “There are good and bad extraterrestrials, just like there are good and bad humans,” said Youness. “And I don’t feel that humans should be sending messages out into space, or trying to telepathically connect with them to bring them [here]. That can be very dangerous.”

The study of UFOs is often taboo, or at the very least, done in private. Despite the topic being a staple of cult-phenomenon, Youness said many members of the UFO Club don’t want their coworkers and families being privy to their late-night investigations. “It’s not something that the world accepts.”

In many cases, this pursuit is their night job. Take Susan Swiatek, the Virginia state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)—one of the oldest and largest UFO research organizations, composed of volunteers who study alleged UFO sightings across the U.S. While we talked, she pushed a cart around a grocery store, buying supplies for her day job stocking vending machines and micro-markets in Fairfax. Our conversation was intermittently interrupted by the soft sound of Muzak from overhead speakers, the beeping of the checkout line, and a brief debate over the best flavor of La Croix.

“I have my hands full,” said Swiatek. “Most people at MUFON have a day job, and do the UFO stuff on the side.”

Swiatek has been with MUFON for over 40 years, and is a member of the national board alongside her husband. Established in 1969, the organization boasts of four thousand members nationwide, with chapters in every state.

I don,t feel that humans should be sending messages out into space, or trying to telepathically connect with them to bring them here.

That can be very dangerous.

“UFOs are my first love,” said Swiatek. Like Youness, her interest started young. Spurred on by the cases of extraterrestrial interest that punctuated the 60s, it was the mystery of the Betty Hill case that drew her in. The “Hill Abduction” was the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in the U.S. The story surrounded a rural New Hampshire couple, who claimed they were kidnapped by aliens in September of 1961.

As always, it began with a bright light in the sky—as did Swiatek’s own sighting, off the side of a Fairfax highway in broad daylight. “It looked like a gas burner in the sky… an oval circle of blue flame.”

As director of MUFON’s Virginia chapter, it’s Swiatek’s job to log, track, and investigate these UFO sightings. She manages teams of civilian investigators, whose ultimate goal is to collect and analyze UFO data and to discover the origin of the phenomenon. It’s a vein of work that relies on shaky cell phone footage and a plethora of false starts.

“The phenomena doesn’t really behave,” said Swiatek.

“It’s not like any other thing… you can’t predict what the field is going to do. It’s not that easy.”

Thanks to the geography—lakes, mountains, and prime oceanside real estate—Swiatek tells me that Virginia is the ideal breeding ground for UFO activity.

“We have a little bit of everything to attract them. It’s like a microcosm. And of course, we have the big government and military presence in our state, more so than others.”

Swiatek directed me to a story of a UFO sighting in Richmond from 2017, where a witness reported watching and videotaping a cylinder-shaped object hovering over a neighbor's home. There’s another report from Chesapeake of a triangle-shaped object, flying at a height of 500 feet which appeared to cloak itself and disappear. The lists of reported incidents are nearly endless, and Swiatek says some cases get very involved, while others are easily dismissed—a trick of the light, or a classic case of The Boy Who Cried UFO at the moon.

Though the study of UFOs is a side job for Youness and Swiatek, Shostak has made a living watching the stars. He’s a senior astronomer at the SETI institute, a research organization whose mission is to explore the nature of life in the universe.

Shostak is a NoVA native who began his search for intelligent life at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville. Though he was paid to study galaxies, in his free moments he would point the radio antennas in the direction of the black holes and planets, hoping to pick up a signal that would change his career.

“The universe beckons,” Shostak wrote in a 2015 editorial for The New York Times. He questions transmitting our messages into the cosmos, for fear of who could be listening.

Shostak ricocheted from Virginia to Europe, and finally to California in 1988: where he became entangled with the newly conceived SETI Institute, before it was even a whisper between Jodi Foster and Matthew McConaughey in 1997 scifi flick, Contact.

The SETI institute is a key research contractor for both NASA and the National Science Foundation. It employs more than 130 scientists, educators, and administrative staff. Work at the SETI Institute surrounds three centers: the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe (research), the Center for Education, and the Center for Outreach.

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Though he was paid to study g in his free moments he would the radio antennas in the dire of black holes and planets, hoping to pick up a signal that would change his career.

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galaxies, point ection

While SETI was originally created to find intelligent life in space, these days a majority of the scientists are more concerned with astrobiology -- the study of all life beyond earth, encompassing a wide range of topics, including astronomy, geology, biology, and sociology.

“There’s all this real estate. Could it be that it’s all just sterile? Or does some of it have life?” said Shostak, of potentially-habitable planets like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. “And, of course, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”

As far as our chances of finding life goes, Shostak is optimistic. Our technology and knowledge of astronomy is more advanced than any culture before us.

There have been ten or fifteen thousand generations of humans before us; none of them could have found any of this life,” said Shostak. “The neanderthals had a very limited space program.”

In the end, It’s Shostak, and not The X Files, that convinces me that everyone truly wants to believe. He calls UFOs “evergreen.” They’re enormously popular with the public, because they give us something to unite against.

A common enemy. A universal mystery. They’re the standins for our human fears, giving us the means to look into the vastness of space and to compartmentalize the intricacies of our own earthbound problems.

“It’s something that astronomy and physics can actually tell you,” said Shostak. “The stars will all burn out. The galaxy will turn into big black holes. These are things that are going to happen.”

UFOs are a universal fascination—whether it’s a life’s work, a hobby, or an idle pastime. Despite its association with fringe conspiracy, it’s a study legitimized among many major news sources.

See the The New York Times December 2017 exclusive on a secret Pentagon program investigating the phenomenon, or video released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program of an encounter between a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and an unknown object.

See an article published last month by The Washington Post about a top Harvard Astronomer, Avi Loeb, who theorized an extraterrestrial craft may be among us and became what the article calls “perhaps the most academically-distinguished E.T. enthusiast of his time.”

These theories, suspicions, and studies exist at every tier of our society. From national organizations to local clubs, and to my small hometown—where a ufologist can make a career in the foothills of the Blue Ridge; estranged among cow pastures, copious wineries, and good ol’ rural Virginia.

Despite our hometown connection, I should have you know that Steven Greer declined to comment for this article.

For all the talk of aliens, this is what makes us so entirely human. That, amid everything—amid logic, skeptics, and grainy, inconclusive photographs; amid debunked abductions, dramatized 90s sci-fi television, and the radio silence from space that meets our calls—we are drawn to the stars in search of fundamental truths.

Or, at the very least, a spaceship.

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GayRVA: Rural LGBTQ Activists Push Back Against “Hillbilly” Stereotypes

by Emily Holter photography by Roger May For years, the cultural and historical notions of Appalachia have been dictated by white, straight narratives. The understanding of the mountainous, rural region’s inhabitants as ignorant “hillbillies,” incapable of independent thought, drove the political narrative that formed around this “forgotten” region of America after the 2016 election. In the wake of that electoral disaster, many pointed fingers at Appalachia and labeled it “Trump country.” The coverage surrounding Appalachia was that of passive, poor, conservative voices.

With much of the blame resting on their shoulders, the people of Appalachia now face a divisive political paradigm: one in which the outside world can justify its continued willingness to overlook and ignore issues in the region. What these dismissals fail to realize, though, is that marginalized people live in Appalachia. There are large populations of people of color, indigenous persons, and queer individuals who call the mountains their home.

Often forgotten by their own country, these marginalized communities stand in the face of adversity every day, struggling to get by in a region with a strong economic dependence on declining fossil fuels, the highest rates of opioid addiction in the nation, and the country’s highest population of conservative Christians—a group that tends to have no interest in their plight.

Despite the odds stacked against them, they continue to fight back against bigotry, building their communal ties through social media, and taking action in their communities to rewrite their own narratives.

With the help of the community, Queer Appalachia’s zine, Electric Dirt, has grown into a 200page magazine encompassing the art and lives of queer individuals all over the Appalachian region.

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Yet despite the odds stacked against them, they continue to fight back against bigotry, building their communal ties through social media, and taking action in their communities to rewrite their own narratives.

For founder Gina Mamone, the Queer Appalachia collective did not set out to be a cultural movement.

What began as an inside joke—a way of coping with their own self-identity in a place that was unforgiving—became a stepping stone for other queer people in Appalachia to share their art and stories.

Created as a memorial to their friend, activist Bryn Kelly (who died in 2016), the group’s zine and active social media accounts became a way for Mamone and many others to address their identity within Appalachia.

With the help of the community, Queer Appalachia’s zine, Electric Dirt, has grown into a 200-page magazine encompassing the art and lives of queer individuals all over the Appalachian region. Their Instagram now boasts 136,000 followers.

Focusing heavily on local artists’ work, the zine encompasses art and pieces from all over Appalachia and the South. And none of it serves to profit the collective.

“We don’t keep the money,” Mamone explains.

“It all goes back to the community.”

This community outreach includes coat drives for those who are homeless or can’t afford warm clothes this winter. The group also helps to organize events like “No Thanks,” a project to recognize indigenous communities and the struggles they faced during the Thanksgiving holiday.

The organization also works to help queer addicts in Appalachia. Opioid addiction is an epidemic that has plagued the region for some time. In 2016, West Virginia had the highest risk of opioid-overdose deaths in the nation, while Virginia has seen a steady increase in opioid-related deaths over the past several years. It’s a problem that has no clear solutions, and one that Mamone believes is a part of continual exploitation of the region.

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“No one is really looking out for queer addicts,” Mamone said. Queer Appalachia has become the first organization to collect data on opioid addiction within the region’s community, and Mamone explains that the average amount of queer people addicted to opioids in West Virginia is around 90 percent. According to Mamone, it only gets worse for queer people of color: for them, the statistic rises to 98 percent.

“There is this perpetual ideology of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps—but that’s not how addiction works,” Mamone said. “Most of the aid comes from churches. Straight people can accept Jesus [and get help], but when you’re queer, no [religious] community will have you.”

Queer Appalachia is trying to break the stigma by working to establish a recovery program for LGBTQ addicts. They hope to create queer-led meetings centered around community, offering narcan training and clean needle exchange.

Queer Appalachia is not the only movement in the region that is helping to rewrite the narrative of marginalized people. Another is Cornbread Communism, a loose-knit group of Appalachian activists who came together to create The Cornbread Communism Manifesto, another zine set on changing the narrative of Appalachian voices.

“When pieces are written about rural Appalachia, it's from the perspective of an outsider, and completely lacks authenticity or nuance,” said activist

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Sacco, who acted as the chief editor, designer, writer, and artist for the Cornbread Communism Manifesto.

“At best, it's poverty porn framed around ‘Look at these poor, bumbling souls.’”

The Cornbread Communists have made it their mission to spread awareness of Appalachia’s long history of resistance, and to unite disparate groups of Appalachian activists. Often overlooked by activist movements, the region has a history steeped in exploitation. Its roots lie in communities made up of poor immigrants, runaway enslaved people, and indigenous groups. The discovery of coal allowed the exploitation to grow, as coal companies abused their power to trap local workers into an exploitative system of cheap, feudalistic labor.

“Our history is that of capitalist exploitation for labor and natural resources, and currently by pharmaceutical companies dumping opioids into communities,” Sacco said. “Because let’s be honest— liberals and conservatives see us as trash.”

Despite adversity, the most marginalized people in these communities are working to shift public opinions, making space for themselves as they share their stories to the rest of the world.

“I’m thankful I have the opportunity to change the narrative,” Mamone said. “I want to build this platform for the community.”

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“Our history is that of capitalist exploitation for labor and natural resources, and currently by pharmaceutical companies dumping opioids into communities,” Sacco said.

“Because let’s be honest—liberals and conservatives see us as trash.”

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Into The Visions-Verse: The Illustrious World of Chris Visions

by Matthew McDaniels & Marilyn Drew Necci “The first time I feel like I really internalized what art was…” with that, Chris Visions begins the story of his first art teacher—his mother—sketching out a rose. The setting of the story was Visions’ grandmother’s kitchen, where Al Green filled the room.

With couple of connecting lines showing him the magic of art, that was the day when Visions began to understand the fundamentals of illustrating objects in the natural world.

Now, it’s 2019. Visions and I are drinking orange juice in his private studio. We cover a wide range of subjects over the course of our four-hour conversation while he shows me his collection of journals and sketches. Having recently gained some fame in the world of graphic novel illustration, one thing is obvious: even if the world hasn’t completely realized it yet, Visions has the talent to place him alongside the giants in his field—Paul Pope, David Mazzuchelli, Jim Steranko, and other names that ring out in the world of comics.

And yet, somehow, he’s the most humble person in Virginia.

He’s not one of those stereotypical, presumptuous art snobs you see lampooned so frequently. No, Visions is the kind of person who sees Kill Bill and Stanley Kubrick at the Byrd Theatre and gets Chinese food from China Panda on Sheppard Street. He likes Breaking Bad and Omar from The Wire. He loves his cats and a big cup of hot tea. In short, Visions is an artist people can relate to, and he creates art that is accessible to everyone.

Arguably, Visions is among the best cartoonists in America, and has one of the greatest imaginations in the galaxy. His style is a revolt against conventions. Every illustration he creates is fresh, unique, and powerful. Each piece he paints contains commentary on contemporary issues, while holding its pleasing aesthetic and avant-garde.

Visions is educated on his predecessors and their legacy in the art world. By mastering the techniques and methods of Sergio Toppi and Aaron Douglas, Visions has the insight and toolbox to create artistic narratives entirely unique to the 21st century. One example of his insight is his representation of Walter White, the lead character from Breaking Bad. Through his use of color and perspective, Visions shows the moral and ethical decay of the family man-turned-meth cook. What took five seasons to depict in televised form, Visions makes clear in the space of two illustrations.

The central elements of his work are the concepts of freedom to express oneself—the need for the human spirit to feel beauty, and the driving force of empathy in art.

In that way, his work lies somewhere near the intersection of Richard Wright and Norman Rockwell.

One masterpiece in Visions’ portfolio is a purple and black illustration of Amy Winehouse, blurring colors and showing the body’s movement to depict a supple, but symbolic, representation of the departed singer.

The future is bright for this young artist. His work on the Marvel comic Spider-Gwen, which provided some source material for popular animated Marvel movie Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, gained Visions a lot of attention in the world of comics.

Visions has the talent to place him alongside the giants in his field—Paul Pope, David Mazzuchelli, Jim Steranko, and other names that ring out in the world of comics.

A little over a year ago, he underwent a corneal transplant, correcting damage to one of his eyes from a progressive disease that’s been with him since childhood. He was able to afford the surgery thanks to donations from fans, raising the necessary funds in less than 12 hours through a massively-successful social media campaign. These days, he continues to sketch, maintaining a daily practice that he sees important for any aspiring artist. “I always get excited to see people are sketching,” he says. “It means they’re thinking.”

As 2019 gets rolling, Chris Visions continues to think, sketch, and create. Fueled by a love of music, laughter, and life, it’s only a matter of time before he brings his next masterpiece to the world.

“ I always get excited to see people are sketching.

It means they’re thinking.”

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Whitesburg, Kentucky

Words & Whitesburg photos by Michael Millions Live photos by Landon Shroder After being on the road for more than a week, Nickelus F and I left Chicago for the midwest leg of our tour and headed south to its final shows. After a short stop in Lexington, Kentucky for a pop-up show, the next day we found ourselves riding through the hills of eastern Kentucky, headed to a small city called Whitesburg: population around 2,000. Surprisingly, when the tour was first organized, this small Kentucky town was the first city to book Nick and I. Having never been to Kentucky for anything—let alone music, let alone hip-hop—I knew the tour stop was going to prove interesting.

Watching the country roll through hills and windy roads, I kept wondering why people would choose to live in such a rural area. The closer we came to Whitesburg, the more I realized that normal city attributes like neighborhoods, shopping centers, restaurants, and gas stations seemed to disappear and reappear like mirages—harbingers of civilizations.

This was offset by small houses dotting the countryside; in one of the valleys, we even found a Lee’s Famous Fried Chicken.

I came to the conclusion that during our tour through the heart of America, I had finally reached the place that had triple bypass surgery. This place has been here long before me and Nick, and it will be here long after we depart. Maybe when everything goes up in smoke, Whitesburg will still be standing, among the rest of the small-popping cities of America.

With almost no cell service, I began to look up Whitesburg.

I learned that, of its population of less than 2,000 people, only one percent of that population was black. Yet, apparently, it was one of the most progressive towns in this all-red State.

Smiles.

As if being in a city with virtually zero black people wouldn’t be interesting enough, our road manager decided to pull over at a local grocery store as we entered it. Wanting to see what type of time this city was on, Nick and I hopped out of the van, Nick pulling up in his dark sunglasses. None of us were prepared for what happened next.

But first, let’s set the scene. Two black hip-hop artists from Richmond, Virginia, with long hair and nice clothes, just pulled into Whitesburg, Kentucky and walked into a very busy local grocery store with our black-haired, tattoo-sporting tour manager, Phil Shive.

Know that scene in the movie when the record scratches, stops, and everyone turns to look? That happened. So quiet did the grocery store get, we could actually hear the generic music playing in the background, mixed with the sound of the sliding doors opening and closing—a weird silence for that many people at midday.

Following Phil to the beer aisle, we noticed customers had stopped their transactions to look in our direction. In the beer aisle, one employee stopped mid-motion as he placed a box on a shelf; everyone in the store was still frozen in place. As we made our way to the registers, all the eyes still looked back at us. I could see their faces from where we were standing. The feeling was so crazy that I actually burst out laughing, and bent over to hide my reaction. I heard Nick mumble, “Shit’s crazy around here, yo.”

Our check-out clerk tried to act as normal as possible, but it was clear she had never seen black people in her life before.

I didn’t sense danger, and these people were not racist—

they’d just never seen so much color in their small town. We might have been just as rare as the Fugate Family of Kentucky, who had indigo blue skin due to genetics. This was probably one of the most awkward five to seven minutes of my life— like the Fugates, I felt like I had blue skin (and horns coming out of my head).

Walking back to the van, I think we almost caused a couple of parking lot accidents due to people rubbernecking our accidental trip to this store. Safely back in the van, we cracked up about the whole experience, but this made us even more excited to see what the show would be like.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up and parked on a block that happened to be the city’s downtown, maybe one or two city blocks long by Richmond standards. Phil blurted out, “Welcome to Downtown Whitesburg! The city that has earned its name today!”

“Yo, tonight’s gonna be fire yo, watch,” said Nick, nodding and smiling.

We walked into the record store, Roundabout Music Company. One of the owners, Ben Spangler, was playing some old Wu-Tang records, along with some other deepunderground hip-hop records. Lacy Hale, the other owner, is a painter, and one side of the store was filled with bins of art supplies and paintings. Nick broke the ice by asking about some records. He ended up buying a few albums.

We observed looks of slight confusion on both of their faces before we told them we were in town for the show at Summit. Then it clicked; we were the artists on the bill, and we were headlining this diverse bill in their city.

After leaving the store, Nick and I took some random pictures and kicked it until show time.

Naps are essential on tour, and sometimes they slow you down. We got to the venue a bit late and started setting up our merch tables. A short time later, we started meeting a bunch of locals attending the show. There were only two other black people there—a grand total of four, including Nick and myself.

In Whitesville, we shared the stage with Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires and a few others.

When it was time for me to go on, the whole crowd, previously spread out around the venue, pack into the front for our sets. I still couldn’t understand what connected Whitesburg to hip-hop, but it was clear, at least in that moment, that the music was bringing their town together. Of course, playing locations like Brooklyn, Philly, or Boston are super cool, but the most amazing part of tour is to have such a rare cultural experience in a new city.

Sometimes it’s not about the big cities with lights, but the small ones in the shadows of the country; these rare, remote places that give you a glimpse of a better America—not the one you expect when you recall the history. I wonder how many other hidden places around the country sit under the radar like this. And, hopefully, to more artists: consider Whitesburg the next time you sit down to plan a tour.

Our host, Tom Sexton—co-host of the Appalachian’s bestrated show, The Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast—had a real fly spot: walls full of classic hip-hop posters, interesting books on his coffee table, movies. I noticed he had a big poster of Dr. Cornel West, one of America’s most prestigious black academics, on the wall leading to the bedrooms. In this moment, I instantly understood what they meant when they said Whitesburg was progressive. Maybe, I thought, this city would be behind the rest of us. But, nope, the rumors were spot on. For me, it was like visiting one of America’s lost cities. One that had never lost track of the world.

I rolled a joint, and they walked us over to the building beside theirs where we would be staying. A couple doors down from our loft was the show venue, Summit On Main. We actually stopped there (and took five fireball shots) when we first pulled up to scope the venue.

Talking with Tom, it was apparent that he was a wellrespected person in the community, and he was excited for us to perform. This was more than just a random show for him.

We heard there was a record store at the end of the block, and I thought it was strange that a town this size even had a record store. We finished our joint and walked over there. On the way, we saw big posters for our show in all the store fronts.

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Indie Film

LAST CALL

Finds The Twilight Zone in the Richmond Bar Scene

by Sage Cannady With a mashup of local idols as its actors and musicians, Richmond-produced indie film Last Call is a River City dream. Spearheaded by Richmond-based production team Aisthesis Productions, the film tells the story of a bartender who endures a tragic quest one night without ever leaving the bar—also named Last Call. The feature-length film was shot over the course of nine months, and its “Twilight Zone-Esque” mood depicts, according to director Tim Moehring, “a relatable theme of regret and what we can do to change our lives.”

Not only was Last Call filmed in Richmond, every aspect of its soundtrack has Richmond connections as well. The soundtrack was assembled by local musicians Todd Herrington (The Big Payback) and Coldon Martin (Positive No), and features other Richmond acts Mekong Xpress, Sports Bar, and Tim Barry. Local thrash heroes Municipal Waste even grace the film with a live performance, with singer Tony Foresta making a cameo in the film.

As a local crew with Richmond roots, it was important to Aisthesis to produce a locally-oriented film.

To that end, Last Call’s action was filmed inside a popular Richmond hotspot, The Answer Brewpub. Situated on Broad Street in Richmond’s West End, the bar is renowned by locals and national beer enthusiasts alike. The reason for choosing it for the film was simple. “We wanted the bar to be believable, a bar everyone would go to,” said producer Monica Moehring.

The Moehrings were both born and raised in Richmond, and continue to base their work here. “I’m lucky that my partner in life is also my partner in art,” said Tim Moehring. “Whether we’re writing together or discussing production details, we share an artist’s vision and the insane energy it takes to actually do it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Together, Tim and Monica Moehring lead Aisthesis Productions. However, the company is firmly a group effort; throughout the process of filming, the couple strove to account for each worker’s viewpoint on the results. Understanding that filmmakers tend to butt heads within the industry, the Moehrings want to be sure they do their work surrounded by those they get along with.

left and above: Stills from locally produced independent film Last Call.

above: A shot of the crew during the production of Last Call.

We do our own stunts!

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For that reason, it’s no surprise that the Aisthesis team consists of the couple’s friends—an extra-localized situation that helps create a friendly and inclusive atmosphere within the production team.

When putting Last Call together, the creators weren’t interested in playing it safe. “For all of the production design and detail we wanted the audience to ‘feel’ things with us, from arousal to nausea,” said Monica Moehring. “The music, the lights, the acting, and everything had to feed into that.”

For Tim Moehring, pacing was of particular importance. Throughout, he strove to make sure that the story unfolded in a manner that would create the mood and tempo he wanted the film to have. For Monica Moehring, this sometimes meant obeying the classic literary advice from William Faulkner: kill your darlings. “The playwright in me is long-winded,” she said. “I think there was more heartbreak in the writer’s room than the editing room.”

To cast the film, the Moehrings turned to local actors that have been working with Aisthesis for years.

Indeed, the film was written for the actors who were eventually cast. “Lines are crafted for the specific talent we’ve chosen,” said Monica Moehring. Lee Reynolds plays the bartender in Last Call, a complex character who devolves on screen as the story unravels.

According to Tim Moehring, Reynolds “gave us 110%.

He truly gave his blood, sweat, and tears bringing this character to life.”

In its Twilight Zone state-of-mind, Last Call largely derives its mood from the 1950’s TV show, suspended somewhere between reality and fantasy.

The classic series is best known for its unforgettable shocking moments, but beneath the obvious elements of weird fantasy and horror lies an unexpected, but important, moral vision; one that’s given weight by the series’ particular approach to cinematography.

The Moehrings worked to achieve a similar cinematic effect through close collaboration with director of photography Doug Bischoff, who Tim Moehring calls “a master of his craft.” Explaining the atmosphere they sought, Tim Moehring said, “We wanted to transport the audience into another world with this movie—the world of Jason, the bartender who has always been the life of the party.”

Even low-budget independent films take tons of effort and funding to create, and Last Call is no exception. "A film doesn’t just fall into your lap," said Tim Moehring. “There are a lot of moving pieces and preparation is the key. Luckily we had people like Will Towles and Saskia Price making sure all the moving pieces kept moving! We didn’t settle on any details, and that didn’t come easy. It meant rehearsals, and rewrites, and hours of production meetings.”

“When you’re watching a movie, you’re seeing the puzzle completed,” said Monica Moehring.

“You’re not seeing the ten million pieces that had to be put together.”

As yet, Last Call has no set release date; however, its trailer is viewable on YouTube. It’s sure to get local film, music, and craft beer fans chomping at the bit.

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Richmond’s Local Businesses Find Ways to Thrive in a Big-Box World

Words and photos by Ash Griffith We live in a convenience-based society. Between Amazon Prime shipping various household needs straight to our doors, and food apps like DoorDash and UberEats keeping us well-fed without leaving the couch, it’s become more convenient than ever to satisfy all our needs online. As city dwellers, we want life to be easier, cheaper, and more convenient— and multinational corporations have become very skilled in fulfilling those desires.

But part of what makes Richmond so special to its natives, and to the consistent string of expats who flock to our streets, is the plethora of unique local businesses thriving in the city’s locally-oriented business districts. There is something for almost everyone here: from costume supplies at Premiere Costumes to used video games at Bits and Pixels, and comic books at Velocity Comics. Richmond’s merchants know how to do local business right; more importantly, the city’s residents do what they can to keep them alive. If Amazon is Goliath, neighborhoods like Carytown are our David.

Despite the looming outsourced shadow of big-box giants, local business tends to do pretty well in the city. While there is no such thing as an average day for any small business owner, there are still more ups than downs to owning an independent business, having no corporate man in the sky telling you what you can and can’t do with your store.

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Business-based tourism helps support the city as a whole. And it is definitely a thing.

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“There is no wrong way of doing things,” said Vinyl Conflict owner Bobby Egger. “If you get a wild idea that makes no sense to anyone but you, you can just go ahead and do it. I’ve come up with some of my best [and some of] my worst ideas that way.”

“We are controlled locally, so we can order the books that we want,” said Chop Suey Books owner Ward Tefft.

“We can plan events and do things that are not middle-ofthe-road. We take stands on things for social justice, which we’re happy to have the opportunity to do, and not [try to] please everybody, which corporate does. We don’t try to offend, but we don’t shy away from offending someone who doesn’t support social justice issues.”

World Of Mirth owner Thea Brown also appreciates the opportunity to more-readily support her community. Last, year the store hosted a donation drive to gather toilet paper for Richmond Public Schools. During the government shutdown earlier this year, World of Mirth worked to help furloughed federal employees give gifts to their children with January and February birthdays.

Sometimes reasons for local businesses to be cheerful come from unlikely places. One of those came for World Of Mirth when international toy giant Toys R Us closed all of its U.S. stores—this provided a small, but welcome, bump in new customers.

“At first, we had an influx of customers that thought Toys R Us was the only toy store,” said Brown. “That was kind of interesting. [Customers also noticed] ‘Wow, you’re really nice here!’ Well, of course—we want you to come back.”

Books and music have been tricky businesses since the advent of the internet, with electronic versions of both becoming more accessible to consumers with each passing year. Even for customers who are loyal to physical media, corporate giants like Barnes and Noble can offer discounts that make it hard for local stores to compete. Nonetheless, Vinyl Conflict's Egger sees the internet as good for business.

“We’re able to use the idea of social media to drive customers into our store,” said Egger. “When we get new product, people are able to see on the internet what we have before they come in the store. People are able to see before they come up from Fredericksburg or Virginia Beach. It’s really awesome that people want to take the time to do that.”

Indeed, business-based tourism helps support the city as a whole. And it definitely is a thing.

“We’ve had people here on vacation from New York [because] someone has told them ‘You need to go to Carytown. They have these shops,’" said Brown. “I think a thing that people tend to overlook is that local businesses make a city special. They make it really unique, and people will go to those cities because they’ve heard X amount of shops exist.”

“Essentially, you’re allowing people who are creative to bring a service to the city,” added Egger. “People really like supporting local business. I think the fact that the city isn’t massive keeps it really special. Everyone knows everyone by two degrees.”

This was shown in dramatic fashion in 2018, when national grocery store Publix took over the former Ukrops/ Martins grocery store in Carytown’s Richmond Shopping Center.

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Despite the looming outsourced shadow of big-box giants, local businesses tend to do pretty well in the city.

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“We fight to make our business the best it can be, and live the best life we can live.”

As part of the strip mall's planned redevelopment, shopping center owner Regency Centers evicted over a dozen local businesses, forcing longtime tenants like the Aquarian Bookstore and Carytown Burgers and Fries to find new homes. The response from city residents was not very happy, by any means.

“We don’t like it when big companies uproot small businesses,” said Brown. Whether the disapproval will carry over to Publix once it opens in 2020 remains to be seen.

“I think it’s going to be a mixed bag,” Brown said.

“There will be people who don’t care, there will be new students who won’t even know that was an issue, and then there will be some people who will choose to not shop there.”

Supporting local business doesn’t just help keep people’s dreams alive, it also keeps money in the community and gives our city a more distinct flavor. And nothing can replace the experience of walking into a unique store and finding things you can’t find anywhere else.

“If you don’t support and you just shop online, eventually the small stores will close,” Tefft said. “We can’t pitch battles against Goliath. So instead of fighting the David’s battle, we fight to make our business the best it can be, and live the best life we can live.”

“Keep Richmond Weird,” Brown concluded.

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RVA ON TAP BOOZE NEWS FOR THE PEOPLE: RICHMOND’S LATEST IN ALL THINGS CRAFT BEER.

By Caley Sturgill

Hardywood’s Charlottesville spot turned two last month, and The Veil Brewing Co. is celebrating their third anniversary this spring in a week-long rager you won’t want to miss, packed with tons of brand-new bottles, cans, drafts, and guest taps. And down the road, Garden Grove just turned four. For the downtown and East-Enders, Triple Crossing is turning five this April, with plenty of new recipes and guest taps as well.

In the second-largest birthday of the year, The Brew Ridge Trail—the state’s oldest beer trail—just closed the keg on their first decade in business, since getting their start down in Nelson County along VA 151. The Brew Ridge Trail hosts plenty of wineries and breweries, with local favorites like Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company, Blue Mountain Brewery, and Wild Wolf, among others, calling it home. Richmond’s got the rest of the state (and let’s be real, the nation) beat for breweries per capita, but this beer trail is something special you just can’t find in the city. RVA beer enthusiasts, if you’re looking for a weekend out of town to celebrate the new season of warm weather, here’s your spot.

New Brews In Town Welcome back, beer family! Jumping into Richmond’s spring Booze News, we’ve got a few new faces to welcome to the beer community in town. Starr Hill, one of my Commonwealth favorites, is joining the RVA club this season with a rooftop beer hall in Scott’s Addition. Starr Hill is originally out of Charlottesville, and they’ve got an adorable spot down in Roanoke in front of the mountain, too.

They’re finally making their way further up 64 to hit the River City and beer capital of the state (and arguably, East Coast) with their new spot in Scott’s Addition.

When fall comes around, be sure to give their Maple Brown Ale a try—if you’re into earthy spices, it’s up your alley (and one of my favorite brews of all time)!

Also new to the area is Tabol Brewing, who joined the club last month with their soft opening up in Northside outside Battery Park. Since their start, Tabol has dropped several new beers with flavors like Fructoj Cranberry, Bucolic Frolic, and NOW. Most of their brews tend to stay in the low- to mid-ABV range, so these guys are great to try with dinner (or day-drinking, of course) and taste 58

great all the time. This spring is going to have a lot in store, from brand-new releases to events and festivals, so grab your mugs and let’s drink!

A Legendary Quarter Of A Century In contrast to new members of the RVA family, a few special anniversaries are coming in 2019 as well…and this year, we’re wishing a big, huge, giant congratulations to Legend Brewing Co. for celebrating their 25th year in business!

Legend is Richmond’s OG Brewing Company, and they’re partying big time for their 25 trips around the sun. Their 25th Anniversary Double IPA for the occasion is a tasty, very drinkable brew. It’s got a malty background, which truly takes what Legend is known for—in their classic style—and gives you an IPA you can love with a nice, smooth character. Legend’s 25th Anniversary party is going down on Saturday, April 13th from 12-8pm. Bring your kiddos and your pups, and celebrate with Virginia’s Original Craft Beer since 1994.

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Fresh On Tap Outside of special occasions, all the locals are celebrating the best part of all this time of year: Winter’s over! Well, for now. Spring weather in Virginia is pretty unpredictable, but trust us, we’ve got you covered with a beer for every temp of the season. For St. Paddy’s, Strangeways Brewing has none other than a Lucky Charms beer, which will certainly be one for the books. Hardywood is soon to drop its Road to Idaho, Biran’s Tpyo’s, and a Bourbon Barrel Cru to top off their Wyldflower DIPA and None of This Makes Sense that dropped last month.

After nearly two years in the making, Garden Grove just released their Barley Wine, White Tawny Port, and Synthesis—a mead hybrid that’s part-barleypart-honey. For their fifth anniversary, Triple Crossing will have a big handful of can and bottle releases, plus guest taps from friends like Bellwoods Brewery and Brasserie Dunham. Center of the Universe has big plans for brews this season as well, with a St. Paddy’s Bald Irishman for St. Baldrick’s, the BEEr Orange Blossom Honey Ale, and plenty more releases upcoming across the region—so be sure to hit up RVA On Tap weekly online to get fresh updates as all the new recipes hit the taps every day.

Happenings Around Town I think one of the most unique things about Richmond is its drive to find every activity possible that can be combined with drinking. Snow Law all winter, smashing things, bowling, arcade bars, dressing up like The Big Lebowski and parading ourselves through Carytown… we’re never short on things to do, and this season is keeping up the spirit. Fine Creek is bringing back their Wild & Weird festival to celebrate the best of the unusual, and Hardywood is packed with events like Casino Nights and Arcade Weekends through the spring.

Strangeways has Burlesque Right Meow coming up this season, and Center of the Universe is set to celebrate their massive St. Paddy’s Day fundraiser party.

We’ve also got the 2nd Annual Southern Food Festival, music festivals, and springtime gigs galore, so keep up as we roll into the season and start off the best time of the year.

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doin' it a conversation with segga spiccoli

By Hip Hop Henry Segga Spiccoli is only in his mid-20s, but he's been a visible and productive member of the Richmond hip-hop community for quite a while now. I got a chance to sit down with the East End rapper shortly after the release of his latest project, The Skinny V Tape, which dropped in the fourth quarter of 2018. We discussed The Life Company collective project—of which he is a core member—and his Green and Gold Label. We were then joined by fellow Life Company member and sought-after Richmond producer Bandolero, who produced almost all of the tracks on The Skinny V Tape. We started out by discussing that very release.

for

Tell me about The Skinny V Tape.

Segga Spiccoli: We've been working on it for a while now. Some songs we had in the cut—Bandolero produced like six, six out of the eight.

But Skinny V Tape is basically everything that I've been thinking about, everything that I've been going through for the last year and a half. This feels like the most complete body of work that I've put out so far, and I was super proud of that, because I got a chance to say everything I wanted to say. Get it off my chest and have people have a better understanding of me as an artist, you know what I'm saying?

Who is Segga Spiccoli?

Segga Spiccoli: I'm just an East End nigga. You feel what I'm saying?

Like, I'm humble and down to earth, I’m laid back, and I think that is reflected in the music, honestly. I feel I give a great description of where I came from in the city, and I give a great description of how I look at the city. People always say to me, like if they ain't never been to Richmond before, listening to my music gives them a description of the city even if they never come to it. I think about it because when I used to listen to Snoop, or I used to listen to UGK, or 8 Ball and MJG... wherever they was at, whether it was Memphis—Orange Mound or wherever it was—or Port Arthur, Texas, or whatever. I felt like I was there and I knew what was going on. So I just wanted my music to be the same way for this city. For Richmond.

I remember first seeing a video of yours a few years ago and it had the label of the The Life Company at the beginning. Now I have noticed that it has shifted to the Green and Gold Label. Was there a change?

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Segga Spiccoli: It's still The Life Company, its TLC/Green and Gold.

We started The Life Company just on some independent shit. The “LIFE” in The Life Company statement is Living Independent For Ever. That's the umbrella of everything; Green and Gold is just the set.

The Life Company is going to live forever though. Life. We might not be pushing it as much as we used to, but it's still gonna reflect in Green and Gold. And we still gonna keep the clean visuals—shout out to Flexico.

How many are with Green and Gold?

r real:

Segga Spiccoli: It’s five of us. Me, Bandolero, Young Flexico, A6, and Wayne. It’s us, and we've been moving together for a minute, know what I'm saying? Bando came in like three years ago. Flexico, me, Wayne, and Nard, we have known each other for damn near ten years. This Green and Gold is serious, we're worried about us. We doin’ us, we don’t have time for the bullshit. We’re trying to prosper.

[At this point, Bandolero joined in to explain how he joined the crew, and their vision for the future of Green And Gold.]

Bandolero: I didn’t even really get involved until me and Segga had a conversation one night outside of Gallery 5. With young motherfuckers in general—like, we’re all around 24, 25, so we’re not teenagers but we young. But we didn't see a lot of organized young guys making moves, know what I'm saying? And that was our thing: we got to pick up that slack for the next generation, to be something that people can look at and be like, “Oh, they actually doing it.” Originally when I came in, I asked to be in Life Company, but when we started pushing the music as a collective with all of us, we figured that we'd make Green and Gold the label. That's our Death Row Records. Know what I'm saying? That's our artistic outlet.

Now that we are in 2019 and with the buzz of Skinny V, What’s next for the Green and Gold Label?

Segga Spiccoli: My new project, On the Eastside: Side B. Flexico is working on his album, that shit’s done, it’s in the stash. He’s working on all his shit to make it perfect. Like I said, I'm working on On The Eastside: Side B, keep going with that series [which began with On The Eastside: Side A, released in 2017]. Bando and I have two songs in so far.

Bandolero: But I mean, for real—2019 should be a really good year.

We’re picking up a lot of pace on putting ourselves strategically. That's the other thing is, like, you'll see a lot of motherfuckers out here doing shows. That ain't worth shit. And that's not to take away from anybody's performance or anything like that, but at the end of the day, we’re not gonna hop on a bill with 30 other motherfuckers just so you can hear five minutes of me and forget about it. You know what I'm saying? We want to get on the stage with people we fuck with, we’re gonna make moves with, promoters that we fuck with. We're not going to do all this weird shit; nine times out of ten, we gonna be trying to do the shit ourselves. soundcloud.com/segga-spiccoli

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Rock is Dead.

Let it Die.

by Nate Newton

Nate Newton is a musician who plays in the bands Converge, Old Man Gloom, Doomriders, and Cave In. Rock and roll is dead. Each and every one of you need to hear this: you, the “real” fans of “real” music. Because, let’s be honest—it’s all about you.

You, who cannot believe these kids today and their awful taste in music—music you are not willing to understand. You, who “cannot stand this EDM shit.” You, who can’t stand all of this ineffectual “indie-rock bullshit.” You, who don’t get modern rap and hip-hop. You, who think this year’s lineup at Coachella (or any other festival) is “shit.” You, who constantly wonder where all of today’s rock and roll heroes are living, and where the rock and roll lifestyle migrated (hint: they’re rappers).

You, who distinguish yourself in the wild with your natural bluster of, “There’s no good music anymore.”

Rest assured, I was once you.

Envision in our future a vast island of garbage, floating aimlessly in a dead ocean. Not one of trash, waste, and rubbish. No, this island of garbage will be built with vinyl copies of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, made over and over for record store day, year in and year out—because the eight million copies already in circulation throughout America are somehow not enough. This island will stay afloat through remastering, remixing, repackaging, rehashing, and re-releasing every re-forgotten classic of utmost importance to the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.

So the mantra of “there’s no good music anymore” marches on, and with it, the generation of music fans who will always know best. The ones who still want you to know that The Who sang “Long Live Rock.” The kids are alright—didn’t you know?

In the end, the younger generation—the ones whose work you hate—are the ones driving creativity in 2019. They don’t care about your rock and roll; they’re worried about an uninhabitable planet, worried about affording a house one day, worried about crowdfunding their medical bills. They are definitely not interested in being told which rock and roll altar they need to kneel to. They’re on to the next thing, and thank fuck for that. They don’t need your old rock gods. It is time for them to make their own, and it’s time for us to make space.

Nurture their creativity.

The island needs to be set adrift. Let the birds shit on it. Let the seeds be fertilized and sprout new musical life; a musical life we won’t understand. It’s time we let the island become an unrecognizable paradise.

The kids are alright… they always will be. Let rock and roll finally die.

Do. Not. Fucking. Resuscitate.

Why? Because for them, there will always be an inherent need to buy the same album, over and over, for the next 50 years.

Never exploring, never recognizing that the vast musical frontier is generational, and that every generation makes new music for their time. Instead we cling to a vast Pangea, whose bedrock is made of millions of Beatles anthologies and Led Zeppelin box sets. And on this supercontinent are mountains built by the Best of Chicago, and snow-capped with every useless copy of Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

This musical wasteland will always be adrift, like a massive, rudderless ghost-ship set to sea by the rock gods of our elders’ wonder years. Their gods can never be replaced. Should they be, the replacements know that they, too, may very well be replaced.

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Photo by Rama, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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