YES! Weekly - June 30, 2021

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ParticiPate in research Dr. Blair Wisco, a clinical psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is currently recruiting participants for a research study. This research study examines emotional and physical reactions to memories of extremely stressful or traumatic experiences. In order to participate, you must be 18 years old or older and must be able to read and write in English. If you are interested in participating, first you will be asked to complete screening questions online or over the phone to see whether or not you are eligible for the study. If you are eligible, you will be invited to participate in the study, which involves five visits to Dr. Wisco’s lab on UNCG’s campus within two weeks. During the first lab visit (3 hours), you will be asked to complete an interview and fill out questionnaires about your emotions and life experiences. You will then wear a portable cardiac monitor under your clothes and to complete questionnaires on a tablet computer outside the lab on three separate days (30-minute set-up per day, plus time spent completing questionnaires). In the last lab visit (2 hours), you will be hooked up to a similar monitor in the lab and be asked to listen to audio-recorded scripts describing personal past experiences. If you participate in these procedures, you will be compensated $150 for your time. If you are interested in this research participation opportunity, please email copelab@uncg.edu to learn more and receive the screening questionnaire.

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As described in the articles “The [Hate] Group” and “Fear, fraud and ‘fun felonies,’” THE INSIGHT PROGRAM advertises its “Successful Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers for Teens and Young Adults” in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh, as well as Georgia and Florida. Insight’s “treatment” is based on the teachings of controversial “enthusiastic sobriety” guru Bob Meehan, whom Dan Rather compared to a cult leader in a 1980 60 Minutes broadcast, and whom a 2005 ABC News 15 report described as “teaching troubled teens how to hate.”

Publisher CHARLES A. WOMACK III publisher@yesweekly.com EDITORIAL Editor CHANEL DAVIS chanel@yesweekly.com YES! Writers IAN MCDOWELL MARK BURGER

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The Eastern Music Festival (EMF) has returned to Greensboro’s Guilford College campus for its 60th year of classical music and education. Students, fellows, and instructors from around the country are already working together to polish their crafts and perform throughout the summer after missing out on the in-person experience last year.

5 The front lawn of the TAB ARTS CENTER was filled with attendees on Friday, June 25, 2021, in anticipation of the long-awaited public art sculptures designed to celebrate well-known members of the community and their legacies. The interactive pieces are part of the TAB Arts Center’s new East White Oak Community Center Ancestral Sculpture Garden. The center, located at 1801 Tenth St., was once a one-room schoolhouse for African-American children in the early 1900s.

6 One of my late father’s favorite sayings was, “That guy just don’t believe sh*t stinks.”

It was a colorful way of describing someone who stupidly refuses to accept an obvious fact or situation. Were he alive today, Dad would be applying his SMELLY ADMONISHMENT to anyone who denies that January 6 was an

insurrection or that voter suppression is real.

7 Not only is Werewolves Within an entertaining film, but it is ARGUABLY THE ONLY GOOD FILM EVER BASED ON A VIDEO GAME. For all of the Mortal Kombats, Resident Evils, and Silent Hills, films based on video games tend to offer a barrage of special effects over any semblance of story. Werewolves Within is so good you wouldn’t even know it was based on a video game, and that is meant as high praise.

12 “In growing up, it was music or baseball.

I had a little bit better of a chance at music,” MARK NORMAN, the new artistic director and conductor of the Piedmont Wind Symphony, says about the origin of his devotion and passion for music.

14 MATTY SHEETS keeps moving as he settles his long-running Open Microphone series into a new home at the Green Bean in downtown Greensboro. With its inaugural launch on June 1, Sheets’ Tuesday tradition is back—a little earlier and in new digs. “I’ve always liked the Green Bean,” Sheets said.

“It’s one of my favorite places in town. And being on that spot of Elm Street feels great.”

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DISTRIBUTION JANICE GANTT ANDREW WOMACK We at YES! Weekly realize that the interest of our readers goes well beyond the boundaries of the Piedmont Triad. Therefore we are dedicated to informing and entertaining with thought-provoking, debate-spurring, in-depth investigative news stories and features of local, national and international scope, and opinion grounded in reason, as well as providing the most comprehensive entertainment and arts coverage in the Triad. YES! Weekly welcomes submissions of all kinds. Efforts will be made to return those with a self-addressed stamped envelope; however YES! Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. YES! Weekly is published every Wednesday by Womack Newspapers, Inc. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. Copyright 2021 Womack Newspapers, Inc.

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Eastern Music Festival Returns to Greensboro for the 60th Anniversary

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he Eastern Music Festival (EMF) has returned to Greensboro’s Guilford College campus for its 60th year of classical music and education.

Students, fellows, Rich Lewis and instructors from around the country are already working Contributor together to polish their crafts and perform throughout the summer after missing out on the in-person experience last year.

Even though the EMF is looking at a full (if not more socially distanced) slate of events that began on June 26th and will run through July 31st, just a couple of months ago, as the country begins moving into hopefully a post-COVD experience, this year’s event was not exactly a sure thing.

“As things improved this spring, we started making plans with Guilford College,” EMF’s Media and Communications Director Kelly Swindell explained. “We watched the Governor’s orders and worked with the Guilford County Department of Health to make sure this could happen and that it would be as safe as possible.”

She explained that several steps had to be taken to ensure everyone’s safety in light of COVID-19. That included meeting the regulations set up not just by the state and county but to make sure the plans

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EMF Maestro Gerard Schwarz and Eastern Festival Orchestra 2018 also paid close attention to the college’s mandates for student and faculty safety.

Attending students and fellows will number about 190 (including those attending a special tuba/euphonium session) instead of the usual 270 and a reduction in faculty to match. Attendees will also be staying individually in dorm rooms, rather than having roommates, and will be separated from other groups on campus at that time.

All participants, students and faculty alike, were also given COVID tests upon arrival and had to have prior vaccination before attending.

Instruction will be handled with social distancing and masks, as will performances from solos to ensembles on up. Tickets to performances at Dana Auditorium on the campus of Guilford College will also be limited to 500, down from the usual 1,000 patrons, Swindell said. Additional smaller performances will be held in the college’s Carnegie Room. Masks, right now, are required for concertgoers at the performances, but that may change with changes to county and state health protocols.

But there will be music, finally.

“It’s like a homecoming,” Swindell said.

“It’s just been joyous with the students and faculty seeing each other again. We’re just really excited and confident that we will be able to execute the true EMF experience and teach and perform on the level of the past EMFs. “It’s just so exciting. I hate to say it’s like the old ‘we’re getting the band back together’ thing, but we really are getting the band back together!” she said with a laugh.

“Virtual learning was fine for what we had to do last year,” she continued, “but experiencing the performances and the

instruction in person is just so much better.

There’s so much energy you get from the performers and so much energy they get back from the audience that just wasn’t there last year.”

Originally established as The Guilford Musical Arts Center by Sheldon Morgenstern in 1961, the Eastern Music Festival was created as a summer camp for music students. It has grown quite a bit from that first year’s group of 72 students and 14 professional faculty members.

Now, as much a local cultural event as an advanced learning opportunity, the EMF draws not just students but also fans of classical music who take in the numerous performances each year, from orchestral shows to chamber music performances and even an operatic event (held this year in conjunction with the Greensboro Opera at nearby Temple Emanuel).

Swindell said the students’ involved range from 14 to 23 years old, and it is designed as a focused study for those who are very dedicated to their craft. Each student wanting to attend must apply to be considered for the program, and it is a competitive application process. In addition to those students, the EMF is also host to several conducting scholars (whose ages range from 23 to 30 years) attending to further polish their advanced craft.

The EMF provides specialized instruction and training such as a five-week piano program, orchestral fellowships for strings, trombones, and percussion. Along with the pre-professional conducting institute, there are classical guitar programs and a two-week euphonium tuba institute. Over the six decades of instruction so far, nearly 10,000 students have attended.

Guest artists have also appeared at past EMFs, including Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Midori (violin), Andre Watts (piano), and Sir James Galway (flute), among others.

The schedule this season will feature performances Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Tuesdays will have chamber music with the Eastern Chamber Players. Wednesdays will feature Signature Performances with EMF faculty artists (June 30: Pianist Awadagin Pratt; July 7: Violinist Jeff Multer and EMF faculty artists for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; July 21: EMF Percussion faculty recital; and July 28: The Mile-End Trio (Multer on violin, Julian Schwarz on cello and Marika Bournaki on piano).

Tickets are available now, and all will be e-tickets. Tickets can be purchased as singles or in groups of two to three. Seating at events will be socially distanced and are subject to change due to public health protocols. Dates, prices, programs, artists, and venues are also subject to change. You can purchase tickets at the website: Easternmusicfestival.org. For further questions, you can contact the EMF Box Office at (336) 333-7450 x222 or by emailing ticketing@easternmusicfestival.org.

Tickets for events run from $10 to $45, and there will be some free student recitals during the event. In the past, EMF has done a number of community outreach events ranging from performances for civic groups, retirement homes, libraries, and parks to other venues. Due to public health restrictions this year, those have been shelved for the time being in hopes that they will return as part of the festival next year. !

RICH LEWIS is a father, husband, writer and cook who makes his home in Greensboro, NC.

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Historic neighborhood celebrates public art The front lawn of the TAB Arts Center was filled with attendees on Friday, June 25, 2021, in anticipation of the long-awaited public art sculptures designed to celebrate well-known Chanel Davis members of the community and their Editor legacies.

The interactive pieces are part of the TAB Arts Center’s new East White Oak Community Center Ancestral Sculpture Garden.

The center, located at 1801 Tenth St., was once a one-room schoolhouse for African-American children in the early 1900s. According to a press release from the nonprofit, it is now a community center and event space and one of the oldest African-American buildings still standing in Greensboro. The sculpture garden project is part of the TAB Art Center’s ongoing work with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Preservation Greensboro Incorporated to restore East White Oak Community Center.

Friday’s event offered attendees a chance to visit food vendors, participate in a raffle to raise funds for the center’s restoration project, enjoy music from a DJ, hear about the work from the artists and enjoy food and music.

The first two people to be celebrated and recognized are members of the East White Oak community. David Richmond and Truman Gant were two of the 13 men who worked tirelessly to incorporate the center and ensure the nonprofit was an option for residents in the area.

Gant was a community leader and

Left, steel and wooden bench engraved with a popular phrase used in the community. Right, a realistic multimedia sculpture of David Richmond with a desk placed in front. highly active in many young people’s lives. David Richmond is known for his activism during the Civil Rights era by “sitting in” as a form of protest at Woolworth’s lunch counter. Descendants of the families were in the crowd for the unveiling. Cathy Gant-Hill, a granddaughter of Truman Gant and board member of the community center, shared the history of The Mill community and reflected on how the center came to be.

“The few of you who knew my grandfather knew he was very small in stature, maybe 5 feet tall, but he had a voice that would make you stand up, straighten up and fly right,” she said. “He spoke to the council and asked if the community could have the opportunity to raise some

money, so they had hot dog sales, fish fry’s, and whatever else. So dollar by dollar, and nickel by nickel, they raised the money, and it has belonged to the community ever since.”

Gant-Hill said they would contact her grandfather when something needed to be done in the community calling him the “godfather of East White Oak. “We want to continue to be engaged and serve because what my grandfather stood for more than anything was the love of people,” Gant-Hill said.

Damien Mathis of Fayetteville, and Vandorn Hinnant, of Greensboro created the works that are on display. Mathis created a realistic multimedia sculpture of Richmond with a desk placed in front of

the activist, giving the viewer the feeling of being educated about the past. The former Marine uses art to battle his PTSD and uses it to get outside his head.

“I wanted to show the knowledge that comes with what you do. No matter what you do, there should be some kind of lesson behind it, so the desk represents that,” Mathis said. “Since he was an honorary scholar, I wanted to show that, as well.”

Hinnant created a steel and wooden bench engraved with a popular phrase used in the community, symbolic of Gant’s love for his community.

“Each one of the arms points outward with the idea is that this bench is inviting and the color gives a feeling of warmth, and it’s mahogany, so it is some of the hardest wood in the world,” Hinnant said.

“If it had not been for the feedback from the stakeholders, this creation would not exist, so it’s not my creation alone. This creation is the creation of all of those parties that were involved. I would even suggest the spirit of Truman Gant was involved, as well.”

Recently, TAB received $8,300 funds from Creative Greensboro’s Catalyzing Creativity Grant program to start the sculpture garden. The center used this funding as an opportunity to enhance the grounds of the property through the arts while bringing recognition to some of the community’s finest. !

CHANEL DAVIS is the current editor of YES! Weekly and graduated from N.C. A&T S.U. in 2011 with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. She’s worked at daily and weekly newspapers in the Triad region.

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For more information on the TAB Arts Center, including current programming and its current restoration campaign, visit www.tabartscenter.org.

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Wolfpack lax on vax

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ne of my late father’s favorite sayings was, “That guy just don’t believe sh*t stinks.” It was a colorful way of describing someone Jim Longworth who stupidly refuses to accept an obvious fact or situation. Were Longworth he alive today, Dad would be applying at Large his smelly admonishment to anyone who denies that January 6 was an insurrection or that voter suppression is real. But, in light of recent statistics, my father would also be ranting about people who deny the realities of COVID and refuse to get vaccinated, including a few selfish baseball players from N.C. State who just cost their teammates (and their school) a shot at the College World Series. And just why did that happen? Because those young men “don’t believe sh*t stinks,” that’s why. I imagine they thought COVID couldn’t touch them, that COVID was just an old person’s disease,

and that there would be no consequence to refusing the vaccine. They thought wrong on all counts.

Up until last Friday, the Wolfpack had been on an impressive post-season run, beating number one Arkansas twice in the Super Regionals, then dispatching Stanford and Vanderbilt in the opening rounds of the CWS. The Pack would only need to beat Vandy once more to reach the series finals, but an hour before game time last Friday, NC State coach Elliott Avent learned that some of his players tested positive for COVID and were unable to play. Avent then fielded a makeshift line-up, which was no match for Vanderbilt. Nevertheless, State still had high hopes of reaching the finals.

All they had to do is avoid double elimination and win on Saturday afternoon. But by that morning, the second round of bad news arrived, with officials telling Avent that a number of other Wolfpack players tested positive. Adhering to strict COVID protocols, the NCAA had no choice but to cancel the game and send the Pack home to Raleigh. So much for a World Series title.

Right after the first COVID shoe dropped on Friday, Coach Avent was asked by the press what had happened and why so

many of his players had neglected to get vaccinated. Said Avent, “My job is to teach them baseball, but I don’t try to indoctrinate my kids with my values or my opinions…

These are young men that can make their own decisions, and that’s what they did.” Up until that moment, I had been a fan of Elliott Avent, but no longer. His head-in-thesand explanation was ignorant, irresponsible, and an abdication of his responsibility to his players, the University, and the boosters and taxpayers who support him. Former Wake Forest football coach Jim Grobe once told me that a college coach should first and foremost be an educator of young men. As such, a coach must be a leader who teaches his players about good choices and encourages them to make those choices. The moment that COVID vaccines were widely available, Avent should have announced that only vaccinated players would be allowed to participate in postseason tournaments. The stakes were too high to do otherwise, and I don’t just mean preserving the students’ baseball season but also preserving their health. And that brings me to the most important lesson to be learned from the Wolfpack saga. Despite various incentives being offered to those of us who get vaccinated, the demand for shots has slowed to a near stop over the past few months because a lot of folks

“don’t believe sh*t stinks.” They think we’re out of the Pandemic woods. We’re not.

Right now, only nine States can claim that at least 60% of their adults have been vaccinated. The other 41 States are nowhere close to that. North Carolina ranks 28th in the nation with 44%, and the States with the least number of vaccinated people are now showing a surge in COVID cases. Then last week came the news that nearly 100% of all recent COVID deaths involve patients who had refused to get vaccinated. Yet despite this recent data and a virulent Delta strain of COVID spreading through the country, North Carolina lawmakers just announced that they were lifting the mask mandate for public schools, even though hardly any kids have been vaccinated.

The message is clear: if more people don’t get vaccinated soon, then the wearing of masks will be the least of our problems. We could very well see a return to overloaded emergency rooms and closed restaurants. And, to paraphrase my Dad, anyone who doesn’t believe this could happen has a serious problem with their sense of smell. !

JIM LONGWORTH is the host of Triad Today, airing on Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. on ABC45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 11 a.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15).

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Full moon fever: Werewolves Within a winner

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ot only is Werewolves Within an entertaining film, but it is arguably the only good film ever based on a video game.

Mark Burger For all of the Mortal Kombats, Resident Contributor Evils, and Silent Hills, films based on video games tend to offer a barrage of special effects over any semblance of story. Werewolves Within is so good you wouldn’t even know it was based on a video game, and that is meant as high praise.

As befits a horror film, Werewolves Within is set in Beaverfield, a bucolic and snow-swept burg in Vermont, where a framed photograph of Bob Newhart adorns the tavern wall – right next to a convenient shelf of throwing axes. (Rest assured, those will eventually come into play.)

Sam Richardson, also a producer, plays

Finn Wheeler, the newly-appointed forest ranger of the region. No sooner has he set foot in Beaverfield than he encounters a variety of locals (and yokels), each one more eccentric than the next. Only the frisky local postal worker, Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), who describes herself as a “mailperson,” appears normal. But in a film such as this, appearances can be deceiving.

The current controversy in Beaverfield, such as it is, is the construction of a new pipeline by would-be tycoon Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall), but this pales in comparison to a series of mysterious killings – both canine and human – which leads the residents to believe that a lycanthrope is at large. As genre fans know, “lycanthrope” is a fancy name for werewolf. And it just so happens that it’s the time of the full moon, and

we all know what that means.

Werewolves Within is as much a whodunit as a horror film. The quirkiness quotient is so high, and the actors play their roles to the hilt (some beyond) that any one of them could be the guilty party. Some are potential suspects, others are merely red herrings, and it’s divulging nothing to reveal that some will obviously end up as dead herrings.

Director Josh Ruben, who made his feature debut last year with Scare Me, brings a mostly assured touch to the proceedings, often relying – and often wisely – on his actors to dominate a moment or an entire scene. Richardson makes for a delightful hero, playing straight man the entire time while chaos reigns around him.

Catherine Curtin, Michaela Watkins,

Rebecca Henderson, George Basil, Sarah Burns, Michael Chernus, Harvey Guillen, Cheyenne Jackson, and Glenn Fleshler round out an appealingly flaky ensemble, the latter as the resident, grizzled mountain man whom everyone initially assumes is the prime suspect. Nah, that would be too easy … or would it?

Cinematographer Matthew Wise does a fine job establishing a mood that is both stylish and spooky. Werewolves Within isn’t exactly scary, but it does have its fair share of jolts along the way, and genre fans shouldn’t be disappointed. On the contrary, this bears all the hallmarks of a potential cult classic. It has so many tricks up its sleeve that the narrative foundation isn’t always on firm ground, but by and large, this is a treat – and it isn’t even Halloween yet!

– Werewolves Within is currently playing in theaters and will be available everywhere you rent movies beginning this Friday. !

See MARK BURGER’s reviews of current movies on Burgervideo.com. © 2021, Mark Burger.

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[NEWS OF THE WEIRD] CREEPY

Chuck Shepherd

A TikTok user in New Jersey shared the unsettling scene that unfolded on June 10 as she pulled up carpet in her new home, the New York Post reported. “Ashley” showed followers the floorboards under-

neath the carpet, which appeared to show a bloodstained imprint of a human being and a chalk outline of a body, along with a 2018 date and a case number. “I wasn’t bothered knowing someone died in my new house,” Ashley said. Responding to comments on her video, Ashley tested the bloodstain by spraying hydrogen peroxide on it, which caused bubbling — a sure sign that the substance was blood, some said.

Still, Ashley isn’t fazed: It “seems chill here.

It’s all good.”

INEXPLICABLE

The latest trend in plastic surgery in China, according to Gulf Today, is the pointy ear. The modified ears resemble those of animated characters or fairy tale creatures, and they give the face “a slender shape,” the site reported on June 17. Doctors first insert cartilage or an implant in the back of the ear, then fill it in with hyaluronic acid.

Plastic surgery clinics in China are experiencing such great demand that patients have to get on waiting lists.

FINE POINTS OF THE LAW

In December 2016, Cletus Snay hit a patch of black ice while driving in Bellevue, Ohio, and slammed into Matthew Burr’s mailbox. Doesn’t seem all that dramatic, but postal service guidelines specify that mailbox poles be able to break away, which Burr’s clearly did not do. Burr had installed an 8-inch metal pole, buried 3 feet in the ground and fortified with rocks and dry cement poured on top, News5Cleveland reported. This immoveable fixture caused Snay’s truck to roll and left him a quadriplegic. Attorney Kathleen St. John argued on June 16 to the Ohio Supreme Court that a property owner “is not justified in inflicting, without warning, bodily harm upon the person of a trespasser,” but Burr’s attorney, Doug Leak, calls the USPS recommendations “just guidelines” and said Burr was justified in reinforcing his mailbox after years of accidents and vandalism. The court is expected to rule soon.

AWESOME!

Julia Yonkowski of Largo, Florida, only needed a $20 bill when she visited the ATM at Chase Bank on June 19, but she decided to check her balance while she was there.

What she saw on the paper slip surprised her: a balance of $995,985,856. “I was horrified,” she told WFLA-TV. “I know most people would think they won the lottery, but I was horrified.” She’s tried several times to contact Chase, but she can’t get through to anyone. “I get tied up with their automated system and I can’t get a person,” she said. “I don’t know what to think.”

CRIME REPORT

As 34-year-old Paul Kiyan let himself into the home of Mat and Monica Sabz in Bel Air, California, on June 20, Monica watched on Ring video and alerted her husband, who was at home. Kiyan was naked, KTLA-TV reported, and as he wandered around the house, he helped himself to a shower and a pair of shorts. When Mat Sabz confronted him, Kiyan said the house was his. While he was there, Kiyan killed the couple’s two pet birds with his hands; police arrested him on several felony charges.

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UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT

— Richard Turpin apparently just needed to borrow a truck, but he ended up with charges filed against him in Bratenhal, Ohio, on June 18. WJW-TV reported that a mail carrier parked his USPS van at the end of a driveway and walked up to the house to deliver the mail, giving Turpin a chance to jump in and take off. A witness saw the theft and called police, who caught up with Turpin a few miles away.

When they asked him why he took the truck, he cryptically answered: “A U-Haul.”

The police officer responded, “I don’t think that’s a U-Haul” — but surprise! Inside, they found a big-screen TV that hadn’t been in the truck earlier, according to the mailman. And no mail was missing. The mail carrier admitted he’d left the keys in the ignition.

— A 35-year-old man from Emmaus, Pennsylvania, was presumably having a good time on June 20, sitting in his Dodge Ram truck and lighting fireworks, then throwing them out the window ... until he was critically injured by one that didn’t make it outside the cab. The exploding firework also did significant damage to the interior of the truck, lehighvalleylive.com reported, but didn’t cause a fire, Emmaus Police Chief Troy Schantz said.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The Smoking Gun reported that on June 18, a woman in St. Petersburg, Florida, was arrested after allegedly drunkenly slamming her car into a tree, a Taco Bell sign and the store’s water meter, and then leaving the scene. The appropriately named Kanisha Booze, 34, is an employee at the Taco Bell. Police said Booze had “bloodshot, watery eyes, a dazed and blank expression on her face and an odor of an alcoholic beverage on her breath.”

EWWWWW

The Wellington Correctional Center in New South Wales, Australia, is being evacuated so that crews can clear the prison of dead and decaying mice and repair chewed electrical wiring, the Associated Press reported. Australia has been overrun with mice for months, which scientists say happens when rain follows several years of drought. Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin explained that “the mice have got into wall cavities, into roof spaces. They’re dead, but then they start obviously decaying and then the next problem is mites.” !

© 2021 Chuck Shepherd. Universal Press Syndicate.

Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

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Code of Silence: Survivors allege teen rehab program refused to report rapes

“

My counselor made me stand up in front of the other kids in the Insight Program and explicitly say what my rapist did to me,” alleged a High Ian McDowell Point resident in a telephone interview with YES! Weekly.

Contributor “After shaming me, they persuaded me not to report it.”

As described in the articles “The [Hate] Group” and “Fear, fraud and ‘fun felonies,’” The Insight Program advertises its “Successful Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers for Teens and Young Adults” in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh, as well as Georgia and Florida. Insight’s “treatment” is based on the teachings of controversial “enthusiastic sobriety” guru Bob Meehan, whom Dan Rather compared to a cult leader in a 1980 60 Minutes broadcast, and whom a 2005 ABC News 15 report described as “teaching troubled teens how to hate.”

The exposure of Meehan’s racism (openly expressed in the YouTube video “Bob Meehan – his views on Blacks”) led him to officially step down from the Insight Program, but his book Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is the first link on the program’s website, which lists Meehan’s son-in-law Clint Stonebraker as Insight’s owner and executive director.

The woman who alleges she was told not to report being raped as a teenager asked not to be named in this article, but Liz Nickerson, a 32-year-old Greensboro

native, now living in Oregon, finds the claim all too credible. Nickerson told YES! Weekly, she entered the Greensboro and Atlanta Insight programs in 2004 and left in 2006, and that staff told her to “take responsibility” for her rape, which happened when she was a child.

“I was made to describe my rape in graphic detail in 2004,” Nickerson wrote via email last week. “This was when I was in the Insight Outpatient program that costs parents 10k out of pocket for their kids to be ‘treated’ by an unaccredited twenty-year-old.”

“That counselor,” continued Nickerson, “told me that being raped was my fault.

Since it happened when I was twelve, and I wasn’t using drugs or drinking yet, she said it was my fault because I walked over to my rapist’s house that day. It was never brought up that I could have reported it. I was told my ‘recovery’ must be based on taking responsibility and ‘letting it go.’”

While Insight executive director Clint Stonebraker did not respond to the allegations of racism and homophobia previously reported by YES! Weekly, he did to this one. “Insight has a duty to report any claims of sexual abuse or rape whether they are brought up in group or individual counseling,” wrote Stonebraker in a May 21 email. “There are no exceptions. No Insight counselor engages in any form of victim shaming.”

“Note Clint’s phrasing,” said Nickerson last week. “Yes, they have that legal obligation, but they don’t comply with it. They didn’t in my case, or the cases of 57 other people who participated in our anonymous mass complaint.”

Nickerson was referring to an online mass complaint form at Enthusiastic

Clint Stonebraker speaking at Meehan institute in 2016.

Sobriety Abuse, an “expository council of survivors of Enthusiastic Sobriety Programs” she co-created. According to results she shared with YES! Weekly, 84 of 118 respondents alleged they were shamed for either their sexual histories or for being the victims of sexual abuse.

Nickerson said these results are only one of many things that have happened since she first contacted YES! Weekly last November.

“It started when I became aware of a private Facebook group formed by fellow survivors of Bob Meehan’s and Clint Stonebraker’s programs. After one month, it had 400 members. Some of us began meeting on Zoom and talking about our shared experiences and how we want to do something to stop

these abuses from continuing. I reached out to YES! Weekly and about 20 of us decided to start writing out complaints to send to licensing boards. Then another Insight survivor, Blake Strider, mentioned the organization Breaking Code Silence and we made contact with its Interim Reporting Lead Emily Carter.”

In the words of its banner page, Breaking Code Silence is “a social movement organized by survivors of institutional child abuse and activists to raise awareness of the problems in the Troubled Teen Industry, and the need for reform.” Emily Carter told YES! Weekly that what she learned from Nickerson, Strider, and other Insight survivors deeply shocked her. “I thought I had seen a majority of the horrendous practices done on children in the

Courtesy of Enthusiastic Sobriety Abuse Alliance, Inc. (ESAA) YES! WEEKLY

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US in the name of ‘therapy,’ but this is a different monster entirely,” wrote Carter in a recent email.

Nickerson said that Carter advised her and Strider that an Anonymous Mass Complaint would be the most accessible and trauma-informed way for survivors to speak out against Enthusiastic Sobriety Programs and report them to state licensing boards and governmental oversight agencies. “With Emily’s guidance and help from other Enthusiastic Sobriety survivors, we created this complaint form in five months.”

Shortly after the women were first interviewed by YES! Weekly, former Insight staff member Jacqueline Leibler suggested they organize into a formal nonprofit organizaJacqueline Leibler was an inside tion. With Leibler’s help, they administrator for 11 years and is a now CEO of created Enthusiastic Sobriety Enthusiastic Sobriety Abuse Alliance Inc. Abuse Alliance, Inc. (ESAA), which Nickerson described as having seven active board of EESA Inc., described herself as very members and 60 volunteers. “They are familiar with the Insight Program’s inner mostly survivors, but also a few parents workings, having originally been a patient and allies. Our mission is to expose and who then worked in various administrareport Enthusiastic Sobriety programs tive positions for Insight in Atlanta and and advocate for and support survivors. the related Step Two Recovery Center in ESAA, Inc., and BCS will also be assistPhoenix from 1997 until 2008. ing survivors in submitting individual “I have wanted to start a movement complaints. We plan to be doing the like this since I finally realized the abuse administrative and reporting work for the and brainwashing I was subjected to and survivors, so they only have to be willing complicit in when I worked for Meehan’s to file a complaint and tell us their story.” programs. In 2020, I met Liz and reconNickerson, Carter, and Leibler all said nected with some former group and that, as YES! Weekly has reported on staff members who also wanted to do their allegations of racism and homophosomething about these programs.” bia, what they remain most concerned Leibler believes that many of the about is that Insight and related progroup’s problems stem from Meehan and grams do not report teen’s allegations of Stonebraker’s belief in reincarnation. sexual abuse.

“Anything bad that happened to “That partially stems from the twisted you can be traced back to your addicideology in the program of ‘No Victims, tion, even if drugs and alcohol were not Only Volunteers,’ said Nickerson. “Staff involved. The problem was your way of and the general culture of the program thinking and the karma you created as an is that you volunteer for every situation addict that allows bad things to happen or hardship in life. Clint Stonebraker’s to you. If your abuse happened at a young mentor and father-in-law Bob Meehan age, it was because as a spirit before you even takes it as far as ‘you chose your life were born, you chose the abuse as a way before you were born’ and implies that to learn a lesson. My sponsor concluded your abuse was your personal chosen I was victimized because I was likely a destiny.” slave owner in ancient Egypt, and I chose In a YouTube video titled “Meehan on my victimization to experience what I had Parents,” Meehan says, “when I say there done to others.” are no victims, only volunteers, I take Clint Stonebraker denied this allegathat all the way down. My belief says we tion. “No, Insight does not teach that as spirits chose our parents, in order to we make choices before we are born,” he be properly set up to be aware of those wrote in a June 23 email. “‘There are no things we had to work on.” victims, only volunteers’ is a topic that Jacqueline Leibler, who is now CEO WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

Liz Nickerson was used to help people who struggle with identifying a drug or alcohol problem. To my knowledge, it is never used in the context of rape, sexual abuse, or any form of physical abuse. I have never used that statement in any context because it is so easy to misconstrue.”

Jacqueline Leibler alleges Stonebraker said something very different when she worked for him in Phoenix. “I never heard anything about that when I was a client of the program, but I was only that for about eleven months. My remaining twelve years were as an employee. I met with Clint once a week, and it was all he talked about.”

Liz Nickerson alleged that both her own experience and responses to the complaint form contradict Stonebraker’s denial.

“84 people, former staff as well as patients, wrote that they were told they chose their lives before they were born. To the question asking if staff had ever used the phrase ‘no victims, only volunteers’ in relation to sexual abuse or assault, 60 said they were told this publicly, 58 said they were told it private, and 82 wrote that they witnessed it being said to others. Eighty-four respondents said that they were told ‘no victims, only volunteers’ in reference to their illness, and in one case, about their father’s fatal cancer.”

Nickerson also said that 26 out of 118 respondents wrote that program staff told them, “There’s no such thing as con-

sensual sex for a woman.” She put YES! Weekly in touch with one who indicated on the form that he was willing to speak to the media.

“I was in the Greensboro Insight program from 2010 to 2020,” wrote Adam Sands in a June 23 Facebook message.

When I was first admitted to Insight I was 15 and had never had sex with a girl. My counselors convinced me that women never consented to sex. Therefore, every sexual encounter between a man and woman was rape, so therefore, when a woman actually got raped, it seemed normal. Many others in the group with me had this said to them, and it took me years after the group to override that thought.

In my opinion, it was basically grooming boys to commit sexual assault.”

Emily Carter said that she found the responses to the complaint form both persuasive and deeply shocking.

“A lot of the troubled teen industry programs that exist today have ties to a cult called Synanon that came out of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1958. Enthusiastic Sobriety seems to be a second Synanon.

My co-workers in Breaking Code Silence have been studying these topics for over 20 years, and Enthusiastic Sobriety never came to the forefront. This is incredibly concerning because the responses to the Mass Complaint are alleging rape, assault, medical manipulation, abuse, emotional manipulation, and the rate of suicides is incredibly high. The dates that people were in enthusiastic sobriety programs from the complaint span the past few decades, and the stories remain consistent. It has been horrific to read the stories of children attempting to report their sexual assault in these programs, and it seems that a common outcome is for the counselors to make excuses for the perpetrator and victim-blame the child reporting.”

Both Carter and Nickerson asked for the link to the complaint form to be included at the end of this article. “Please,” said Nickerson, “if you’ve witnessed or experienced sexual abuse going unreported in any enthusiastic sobriety program, please fill out the Anonymous Mass Complaint Form at ethusiasticsobrietyabuse.com. !

IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

JUNE 30 - JULY 6, 2021

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“This is what I do”: Veteran conductor, musician named Director of Piedmont Wind Symphony “In growing up, it was music or baseball. I had a little bit better of a chance at music,” Mark Norman, the new artistic director and conductor of the Piedmont Wind Symphony, says about the origin of his Jessica Clifford devotion and passion for music.

Norman, a profesContributor sional tuba player and conductor, whose served as the director of instrumental ensembles and conducting faculty artist at UNC School of the Arts, started working for the Piedmont Wind Symphony in February.

“Though I love college band directing, I knew I always wanted to get back to also having a pro group, and now this is it,” Norman said.

The Piedmont Wind Symphony, established in 1990 by Rob Simon, a Granger scholar and a group of local musicians, music educators, and students, was formed to play demanding repertoire for wind ensembles.

“What spurred this organization was Rob’s vision of having this wonderful professional wind band in this area, and it’s survived all these years very well,” Norman said of the ensemble that is typically around 50 musicians.

After Simon stepped down from the role in 2015, Matthew Troy, a conductor, musician, and educator, took his place until early 2020.

“The Piedmont Wind Symphony has served this community really well,” he said.

According to Norman, he had a “running start” into the new position.

In October 2020, the Board of the Piedmont Wind Symphony approached him to do a Beethoven project after being awarded a grant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth that was part of a community-wide “Beethoven Rocks” campaign. Norman agreed to put together a program focused on the iconic composer, resulting in a three-part film series.

The project, named “Beethoven and the Winds,” includes music inspired by Beethoven, a tribute to him, and a wind ensemble of Beethoven’s seventh symphony.

The production went “fantastically,” Norman said, and that is when they offered YES! WEEKLY

JUNE 30 - JULY 6, 2021

him the position of music director. While Norman started his new role in February, it was not made public until two months later.

“I knew I wanted to be the next music director, and I’m just glad they wanted me to be the next music director,” he said.

Simon is also excited to have Norman take on the role, stating he will bring the Piedmont Wind Symphony to the next level.

“He knows the repertory and stays on top of new compositions to keep the growth of versatile programming,” Simon said. “Musicians like Mark because he knows what he wants and what he is doing. I like Mark, his style, experience, his understanding of how the PWS originated and where it could go.”

According to Norman, his dad was the catalyst for him to start playing music.

While Norman would not describe his family as musically inclined, his dad was a wonderful harmonica player.

“He would play harmonica…and I realized I really dug that,” he said.

In the second grade, Norman picked up the guitar while he was living in Florida.

After his family moved to High Point, the place he grew up, Norman auditioned for his school’s band.

“I heard somebody play the trumpet, and I wanted to play trumpet, and then, later, my best friend switched from trumpet to tuba because he had braces,” Norman said.

“We were first and second chair trumpet players in our band, and suddenly I was like if he’s going to switch, I’m going to switch.”

The sound of the tuba inspired him.

He attended many summer music camps, such as those organized by the University of North Carolina (UNCG) and East Carolina State University.

“To be a professional musician, it takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of hours; I always loved practicing. So, I had no problem practicing four to six hours a day,” Norman said.

After his sophomore year in high school, he knew he would become a musician.

At 18, Norman was a substitute tuba player for the Greensboro Symphony, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, and North Carolina Symphony.

He started his full-time professional career at 22-years-old with the U.S. Navy Band in Washington D.C. Norman played for the band for four years but stayed in the area for 14, launching his conducting career.

“I like to say the 1990s is when I turned to the dark side of conducting,” Norman joked.

Mark Norman He began cover conducting, shadowing the conductor and knowing the score if the conductor cannot work, for one of the orchestras he was playing in. Then, he began getting calls to cover conduct for other orchestras and bands.

In 1993, he founded the Loudoun Symphonic Winds and, in 1997, the Riverside Wind Symphony. In 1998, he was named the music director of the professional American Wind Orchestra.

From there, he began his collegiate conducting career. He conducted the bands and orchestra at Towson University before returning to the state in 2002.

While he was the music director of the Greensboro Concert Band and director of wind ensembles at the UNC School of the Arts, he finished his undergraduate degree, obtained his master’s degree, and Doctor of Musical Arts in instrumental conducting from UNCG. He would go on to become the director of bands at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas; visiting professor of conducting at the University of Michigan; and a faculty member at the Peck School for the Arts at UW-Milwaukee before he and his wife purchased the Charlotte Music School.

“It sounds like we bought a zoo, but we bought a music school,” he said.

In 2016, Norman became the director of wind ensembles at UNCSA. In 2020, he was named the director of instrumental ensembles and conducting faculty artist at UNCSA. Norman, who lives in Pfafftown with his wife Amanda, said there are challenges

and thrilling moments as a conductor, dubbing the conductor the “ultimate multitasker,” who is often expressing the music to the musicians, listening to the music, comparing it to a previous score study, and communicating it to the ensemble.

“That’s our job as conductors, is to get the most out of the ensemble in front of us,” Norman said.

Like anything else, good conducting comes from constant practice.

“The more you do it, the more you get on the podium, the better you do it,” he said.

Norman’s favorite part of his job is the collaborative nature and hearing everyone “in sync.” Conducting requires great relationships with the musicians, Norman said, adding, “the musicians make the music, we encourage.”

“There is nothing like a large ensemble because we’re able to create something much greater than any one of us could do individually,” Norman said. “The collective sound of what we do is unbeatable.”

Norman’s vision for the symphony is to become the wind ensemble authority for the state of North Carolina. Part of this vision, Norman said, includes incorporating Simon’s goal of being an example for other bands by embracing classical and newer music to create a “new soundscape.” In addition, he wants to connect with composers and younger audiences while expanding the educational programming, especially for the youth.

“I feel like we are about to take a big step forward in helping to lead the band movement in this state that is already so active, and I think we can even do more,” Norman said.

The new season for the ensemble begins in the fall but will bring a creative flair to their work. According to Norman, the ensemble will perform in various authentic settings, such as a church instead of a concert hall, but they will collaborate with other art forms such as film, bring in guest artists, and plan to do more community performances.

“Our first concert is going to be all about the joy of making music again together,” Norman said.

For more information, a schedule or ticket sales, www.piedmontwindsymphony.com. !

JESSICA CLIFFORD is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is typically found reading, writing short stories and poetry, or hanging around friends and family with a glass of wine in hand.

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tunes

HEAR IT!

Matty Sheets brings Open Microphone to the Green Bean

M

atty Sheets keeps moving as he settles his long-running Open Microphone series into a new home at the Green Bean in downtown Greensboro.

Katei Cranford With its inaugural launch on June 1, Sheets’ Tuesday Contributor tradition is back—a little earlier and in new digs. “I’ve always liked the Green Bean,” Sheets said. “It’s one of my favorite places in town. And being on that spot of Elm Street feels great.”

It’s welcome news for folks who’ve missed the Green Bean as an event space, fans of Sheets, and anyone looking to come out of their performer-shell. “I moved to the Southside last year, and I started taking my daily walk there and talking with my new friends, the new owners, Amy

and Galen Foresman,” Sheets explained.

“They’re into the arts and making the Green Bean better than ever.”

The past few years, Green Bean ownership fell under the Joe Van Gogh coffee company. It operated as a standard coffee shop—with none of the spirits or spirited events that helped define one of downtown’s iconic eateries.

Beer and wine have returned to the menu (along with treats from Breadservice and Black Magnolia Southern Patisserie).

Local art covers the walls. Events have already been underway, including an exhibition party for photographer Daniel White; and popups from the Carnelian plant shop and Baklava & More.

But the Open Microphone is the first regular, music-oriented experience under the new owners. And Sheets is thrilled. “I love that we can have fun and have drinks, but we’re not in the bar,” he said. “I’m not the only middle-aged person who appreciates that and who appreciates that the open mic is a bit earlier now.”

As a revered host since his first open mic

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incarnation in 2002 with Mikey Roohan and Kristin Leigh Southworth, the series— and spaces—have grown and changed along with Sheets himself.

“They’ve all been different, and they’ve all had their strengths,” he said, looking back. “When I was still a young man, I loved doing open mic until 2:30 in the morning at The Flat Iron.” That tenure ran until 2013 when he moved to New York Pizza for a nearly four-year stint—180 open mics, to be exact. “Tate Street is really cool, and it’s a historic Greensboro spot. Being with Rosie at New York Pizza was lively, with new folks all the time.”

Following Rosie’s NYP departure, Sheets shuffled over to Westerwood, thanks to the help of his co-host, [a different] Mikey, the Westerwood bartender, with whom he’d host 143 open mics between May of 2017 and the pandemic shutdown on March 10, 2020. “Being with good ol’ Mikey at Westerwood and throwing open mic into the little spot by the dartboard was always a good time,” he said. After the shutdown, Sheets and Donna Smith tried to carry the series online.

“Matty and I met at open mic back in 2004, so it’s always been a special part of our friendship,” Smith explained. “When the pandemic hit, we wanted to keep open mic going as a virtual event, but it was really unrealistic.”

The pair reconvened for two special “Unlike Open Mic” streaming episodes, the second airing just before news about the Green Bean hit. “It was our way of saying, ‘Open Mic isn’t over, Matty will keep it going in whatever form possible,’” Smith said. “It’s such a huge part of the artistic community here. And his friends will do whatever they can to help make that happen.”

For Sheets, the experience was heartwarming. “Open Mic regulars from across the country sent videos, and Donna put them into episodes, with a few breaks, for me to announce folks,” he explained of the series, available on YouTube. And while Sheets got bit by the streaming bug (he performs a “Live From Home” series each Wednesday and Saturday), he’s excited to host other artists in real life again.

With a few sessions in, the regulars are returning. Familiar faces and guitar-slingers like Ben Singer and Emily Stewart. Pianists like Jack Gorham. Violinist Emanuel Wynter and banjo from Colin Cutler. Stand-up from Tom Peters. Flutists. Spoken word. Weezer covers. Shakespeare. Anything goes.

Except hate speech—that’s one of

Sheets’ few rules, embodied in his tagline: No hate speech. Be cool to everyone.

“That’s the only real rule, I think,” he said.

“We all usually have a nice time together, celebrating differences. We’ve had magicians, dancers, and actors along with singers, rappers, and songwriters. It’s a good show, all thanks to whoever shows up that night.”

Sheets keeps it straight with an archive, a notebook of the evening’s performers, and a firm-but-fair approach to the flow.

“I’ll skip someone if I call their name and they don’t show up,” he explained. “I’ll repeat their name once, and then start with a ‘going once, going two times, going three times—you’re skipped! Coming up next.’”

Carving a real sense of charisma out of his years as an emcee, Sheets has created an open and approachable open mic, for audiences and artists alike. Interested performers simply need to arrive at sign-up and get on stage when their name is called.

“Running and hosting open mic turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done,” Sheets said. “I’ve met a lot of good people in these 18-years. I think they know I’m on their side.” !

KATEI CRANFORD Is a Triad music nerd who hosts the Thursday Tour Report, a radio show that runs like a mixtape of bands touring NC the following week, 5:30-7pm on WUAG 103.1fm.

WANNA

go?

Want to take a walk on his side? Got a song to share? Matty Sheets’ Open Microphone makes its triumphant return, now at the Green Bean, 7 p.m. on Tuesdays. Sign-up starts at 6:30 p.m.

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last call

[THE ADVICE GODDESS] love • sex • dating • marriage • questions

LEAVE ACTUALLY

Amy Alkon

Advice Goddess stop? —Creeped Out

I broke up with a guy I dated very briefly and said it’d be best for me if we didn’t maintain contact. He respected this for a while, but he’s suddenly all over my social media, not just “liking” but often “loving” my posts. I hate being led to think about him. Is there a kind way to ask him to

Sometimes a person fails to grasp that “It’s best we don’t maintain contact” means “Go away forever, human stain.”

You’re being “orbited,” culture reporter Anna Iovine’s word for when an ex lurks on your social media posts: showing up as one of your “story viewers” on Instagram or liking your tweets or Facebook posts.

This sounds benign, but orbiting is a form of stalking.

Stalking is a confusing term because the behavior involved isn’t always considered criminal. The U.S. Department of Justice defines stalking as “engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress.” Laws against stalking vary across states, but causing fear in the victim is typically essential for stalking to be a crime. Outside the criminal sphere, stalking is sometimes referred to by researchers

as “unwanted persistent pursuit”: repeated behavior that bothers or distresses the victim, often sucking their time and attention and creeping them out.

Noncriminal stalking like this can escalate to the criminal kind — and can turn deadly, reports evolutionary psychologist David Buss in his new book, “When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault.” Though stalkers are usually male, Buss acknowledges that women become stalkers, too. An infamous female stalker is former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak — a case you might remember not so much for the crime but for the diapers.

In 2007, Nowak drove from Houston to Orlando wearing an adult diaper to avoid being slowed down by bathroom stops.

She was off to confront (and possibly kidnap and harm) Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, the slim, pretty blonde 10 years her junior whom NASA astronaut Bill Oefelein had dumped her for a few weeks prior. Gwendolyn Knapp, in Houstonia magazine, reports that Nowak was seen in surveillance video disguised in a black wig and hat following Shipman around the Orlando airport for three hours — before attacking her with pepper spray in the parking lot.

Shipman told “Inside Edition” in 2017, “I ... still have anxiety,” and media reports often claim stalking is motivated by a desire to cause fear. However, making a victim afraid as the ultimate motivation for romantic stalking makes little sense (save for the few sadists in the population who get off on causing pain). Research by evolutionary psychologist Joshua Duntley and Buss suggests romantic stalking is a

form of “mate guarding”: evolved tactics — from coercion to showering affection to gift-giving — used to keep one’s romantic partner from bolting or being poached.

Understanding, as Buss explains, that a “key goal” of romantic stalkers is to “reunite with the (former) partner” sheds light on your situation. You might be tempted to minimize the guy’s behavior because it’s happening in the virtual world. However, stalkers aren’t just exes hiding in your bushes with binoculars. It’s stalking just the same when somebody’s sitting in the bushes on social media, watching your life and signaling their unwillingness to accept your “no contact” terms by posting “likes” they know you’ll see. The message: “Here I am, refusing to leave you, but in a way you’d probably feel dumb complaining about!”

Sure, you could politely but firmly tell him to stop — “I’d prefer that you not post anything on my social media” — and explain why you need this. However, Buss writes that one of the strategies stalking experts most frequently recommend is “ceasing all contact with the stalker.”

Because you’re being cyber-stalked, the ideal way to do this is blocking him on all

your social media. Say nothing. Just block.

Buss also advises you consider taking your accounts private for a while or “staying off social media as much as possible.”

If contact escalates, shore up security in your home with locks, motion sensor lights, and video surveillance; document all contact; and notify the police.

Blocking without explanation might seem unkind and perhaps a little paranoid. However, Buss explains that “stalkers often construe any interaction” with the person they’re pursuing “as rewarding,” even if it’s negative. “Reasoning and logic rarely work. They give the stalker hope that the romantic relationship can be renewed.” And this could lead to situations you’d surely like to avoid. As the romantic cliche goes, “You’ll find love when you’re not looking for it” — like when it breaks in and stands over your bed, watching you sleep. !

GOT A PROBLEM? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@ aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com). Follow her on Twitter @amyalkon. Order her latest “science-help” book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence. ©2021 Amy Alkon. Distributed by Creators.Com.

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