Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point

FREE triad-city-beat.comJuly 15 – 21, 2015

The movement comes to Winston PAGE 9

The GSO gambit PAGE 10, 13, 31

Worldly women PAGE 20

The Triad’s most authentic barbecueBarbecue is a nounBarbecue is a noun

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SUMMER ON TRADE \ SATURDAYS / 7-10 PM AT SIXTH & TRADEPRESENTED BY TRULIANT FEDERAL CREDIT UNION

NEXT EVENT JULY 18 THE BROADCAST (ROCK)

DOWNTOWN JAZZ \ FRIDAYS / 6-9 PM AT CORPENING PLAZAPRESENTED BY WINSTON-SALEM FEDERAL CREDIT UNION

NEXT EVENT JULY 24 JEANETTE HARRIS, OPENING ACT - JOHN DILLARD

a one woman Show

August 14 Thru September 4

An Installation featuring...SgraffIto Tableware • Ceremic Sculpture

Block Prints • Paper Collages

336.274.6717Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30am-5:30pm Sat 10AM-4pm

Irving Park Art & Frame . 2105-A W. Cornwallis Dr. Greensboro

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June 29th – August 1st see more scheduled events at

easternmusicfestival.org

Free admission seating limited – doors open at 5:30 pm

Guitar Orchestra Concert 6:00 – 7:30 pm Saturday, July 25th

in the Carnegie Room of the library at Guilford College

June 29th – August 1st

Open House Sunday, July 26th

NOON- Eastern Festival Orchestra and Conducting Fellows

3 pm- Young Artists Piano Recital 4 pm- Percussion Ensemble Concert6 pm- EMF Fringe/ MUSEP concert:

The Meldavians

FREE admission all events on Guilford College campus

5 Star AccreditationNWCDC is a 501(c)3 – nonprofit organization

MudPiesNORTHWEST CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS

336.721.1215www.mudpiesnc.org

TM

NOW ENROLLING CELEBRATING 45 YEARS

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The woman who washed my hair before a cut the other day made mention of my shoes as I submitted my head for processing.

These old, black Doc Martens carried me through hundreds of bar shots, down countless miles of road and sidewalk. A deep scar runs across the left one, a memento of a barroom scrape that in a lesser boot would have cost me my toes. The soles are holding up; the laces are the originals; and the yellow stitching still stands out.

“These boots are probably older than you are,” I joked. “I got ’em in 1995.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I was two.”Well, then.I remember quite clearly the day I got them, in a shop on

Canal Street after a particularly lucrative Mardi Gras season. I spent a lot of time on my feet back then, and after the rigors of the Carnival season had worn out yet another pair of cheap boots, I wanted to buy something substantial.

I talked myself out of buying them a few times before finally pulling the trigger. They were $120, probably the most expensive item of clothing I had ever bought at the time, and I thought the price exorbitant — the equivalent of at least two good bar tabs or a pretty good night at the casino.

The boots are one of the few things I’ve ever bought with Mardi Gras money that I still possess.

That strikes me as ironic tonight, as I sit alone in my house, filled with things gathered long after these boots began to soften.

The kids are off at camp and sleepovers. My wife is out of town. Besides the three cats and the bearded dragon inside a tank in my daughter’s room, I am absolutely and completely alone.

For a domesticated man like me, a moment like this comes around maybe once every 10 years.

And it’s telling that the most appealing thing about it tonight is that I can settle in at the kitchen table and get a bunch of work done.

A lot has happened in the years since I bought those old, black boots. And it’s not inappropriate to consider these things as I sit alone in my house while the hour grows late.

Now, as then, I’m wearing the boots. But it might be get-ting time to loosen up the laces, slip them off and see what’s on TV.

They’ve seen enough action for one day.

CONTENTS

First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Those shoes

20UP FRONT 4 Editor’s Notebook5 City Life6 Commentariat6 The List6 Barometer7 Unsolicited Endorsement7 Triad power Ranking8 Heard

NEWS 9 March in Winston10 A voter’s guide12 HPJ: The liquor houses

OPINION 13 Editorial: Ground Zero 13 Citizen Green: A slimy ploy14 It Just Might Work: Veggie dogs14 Fresh Eyes: Dirty work

COVER 16 Right on ’cue

FOOD 20 International Girls Night Out21 Barstool: Lulu & Blu

MUSIC 22 Classy strings

ART 24 The creative process

STAGE & SCREEN 26 Life beyond Netflix

GOOD SPORT 28 Dulce et decorum est

GAMES 29 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD 30 High Point Road (aka Gate City

Boulevard), Greensboro

ALL HE WROTE 31 The inevitable lawsuit

by Brian Clarey

Cover photo by Eric GinsburgPlated barbecue at Mr. Barbecue

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St.Greensboro, NC 27406Office: 336-256-9320

BusinessPublisher Allen BroAch allen@triad-city-beat.com

editoriAlEditor in Chief BriAn clArey brian@triad-city-beat.comSenior Editor JordAn Green jordan@triad-city-beat.comAssociate Editor eric GinsBurG eric@triad-city-beat.comEditorial Interns sAyAkA MAtsuokA christ nAfekh dAniel WirtheiM intern@triad-city-beat.comInvestigative Reporting Intern nicole ZelnikerPhotography Interns Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

ArtArt Director JorGe MAturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com

sAlesSales Executive dick GrAy dick@triad-city-beat.comSales Executive Alex klein alex@triad-city-beat.comSales Executive lAMAr GiBson lamar@triad-city-beat.comSales Executive cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

contriButorsCarolyn de BerryNicole CrewsAnthony HarrisonMatt Jones

For a domesticated man like me, a moment like this comes around maybe once every 10 years.

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48-Hour Film Project screenings @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO)Teams have submitted their films — all written, shot and edited within 48 hours — and the screenings begin today with the first of three groups at the Carolina. See 48hourf-ilm.com/Greensboro for details.

THURSDAYLadies Night @ SECCA (W-S)The Southeaster Center for Contemporary Art invites wom-en to the space for networking, food from Jeffrey Adams and free tickets to the latest in its film noir series. The action begins at 6 p.m., and secca.org has a link for tickets.

City Market: Transit @ the Railyard (GSO)This month’s City Market dwells on movement, with planes, buses and motorcycles at the fore, live music from Vaughn Aed and Magpie Thief and the usual bevy of food trucks and vendors. See gsocitymarket.com for more.

Artist Talk @ Elsewhere (GSO)Elsewhere is transforming downtown Greensboro’s South Elm Street a few square feet at a time. Tonight the South Elm Project’s Colin Kloecker takes to the Elsewhere front window to elaborate on that vision. It begins at 8:30 p.m. See goelsewhere.org for more.

FRIDAYBookmarks Preface Party @ Milton Rhodes Arts Center (W-S)Bookmarks begins the announcements concerning their September festival at 6 p.m. at the art space, revealing the authors and events involved at this free party. RSVP, appro-priately, at rsvp@bookmarksnc.org.

Tristin Miller: New Works @ Irving Park Art & Frame (GSO)The opening reception for Miller’s drawings and paintings begins at 6 p.m., with an artist talk at 7:30 and plenty of time for group sketching in between. Bring your sketchbook.

1970s Film Stock @ New York Pizza (GSO)Winston man Eddie Garcia brings his abstract sonic art to Tate Street, with Maple Stave and Ebon Shrike in support.

CITY LIFEJuly 15 – 21

SATURDAYKrispy Kreme FanFest @ Bailey Park (W-S)The magic doughnut turns 78 this weekend with a free fan fest and classic-car show beginning at 9 a.m. at the Innovation Quarter. There will be plenty of coffee and doughuts.

Summertime Brews @ the Greensboro Coliseum (GSO)The original Triad beer festival is back, with acres of small-batch and boutique brewers along with some of the big boys of the industry. VIP passes are sold out, but you can get 4 p.m. admission tickets at Bestway or Ticketmaster.

Molecular Mixology demo @ the Marshall Free House (GSO)Myles Cunliffe speaks about craft cocktails, molecular mixology and whiskey at the British Midtown pub. It begins at 2 p.m., and tickets are at sean@marshallfreehouse.com.

Summer on Trade: The Broadcast @ Sixth & Trade Streets (W-S)The party begins at 7 p.m. on Sixth & Trade, with the Broadcast’s brand of classic rock.

Vaudeville After Dark: Around the World @ Jackie’s Place (HP)Can the Washington Street crowd handle the antics of the Triad’s only improv burlesque troupe? Pretty sure they can. The early show starts at 9 p.m., with doors opening just after 8. Flow arts, a raffle and “naughty nibbles” are all part of the fun.

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1. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Guns N’ Roses

This could be the best song on the list, only because Bob Dylan wrote it. How could such a terrible, sapped up version of a masterpiece go so far in the classic-rock radio repertoire? Even when they really break it down and bring in back-up vocals, the vocals are just so fake — horrendous, even.

2. “Hotel California,” EaglesI don’t hate the Eagles just because

the Dude hates the Eagles. I just think this song is stupid, and doesn’t make any sense. “So I called up the captain, ‘Please bring me my wine’/ He said, ‘We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969’ A good songwriter would know that wine is not a spirit; the fermenta-tion processes are completely different.

3. “Dream On,” AerosmithI’ll admit that “Sweet Emotion” is

a pretty good song, at least the first 45 seconds, before the lyrics start to make no sense and you realize you’re listening to a band that is harder than cockroaches to kill. “Dream On” should be banned because it’s so obviously created by some sleazy music exec who wanted kids to think

there was more to this ridiculous group of clowns than the most basic rock and roll talent. There’s absolutely no reason this should carry on like it has.

4. “In the Air Tonight,” Phil CollinsThe legend of this song — when Phil

Collins plays directly to the guy who let a girl drown and Phil saw the whole thing go down — is way cooler than the actual song. It’s like that one was a genius marketing-ploy that won’t die.

5. “More than a Feeling,” BostonWhen I hear this song I try to imag-

ine what’s going on in the DJ booth. I tell myself that this is either when the DJ takes a smoke break or when the automated DJ takes over. I’ve heard people say before, “Yeah, but that guy invented really cool things for the guitar; he was a genius.” The dude who invented the vibrating ab-belt was probably hailed as a genius of his time, but do we still honor that?

6. “Rock and Roll Band,” Boston“Rock and roll band, everybody’s

waitin’/ Getting’ crazy/ Anticipating love and music/ play, play, play, play, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Those are the actual lyrics.

6 duds classic-rock radio should banby Daniel Wirtheim

It’ll never workUnfortunately, there isn’t a market in

Greensboro for art-house cinema, retro cinema or any cinema that isn’t at your local multiplex [“It Just Might Work: Art-house on Tate Street”; by Daniel Wirtheim; July 8, 2015]. The key element unmen-tioned in the article is the cost of obtaining the rights, or license, to screen a film, and the trouble one can run into by not paying that licensing fee to the studio. We tried this idea at the Crown at the Carolina The-atre that has state-of-the-art film screening equipment. After four consecutive film series, we were told that if the overall series ended, no one would notice. Obviously this writer and the community and Carolina Theatre in general didn’t notice or support what was proposed in your article and was already in place in Greensboro without the enormous expenditure being suggested for Adams Bookstore’s space.Tina Wilkins, Greensboro

Things that matterThank you for this column and all the

wonderful journalism you give us every week [“Fresh Eyes: Black health matters”; by Tamara Y. Jeffries; July 8, 2015]. I am the board chair of the Cone Health

Foundation and have shared Ms. Jeffries’s column with other board members and lots of other folk. We white folks need to constantly remind ourselves of the unjust privileges we have just because we’re white — including the privilege of trusting that the police are on our side.

Steve Sumerford, Greensboro

Thank you for a wonderful article! So many times we don’t realize the source of the stress we are feeling and the overall impact of it on our bodies.

Marsha Goins, via triad-city-beat.com

Parks and wreckIt is important to understand that all

actions and recommendations by the Guilford County Open Space Committee had to be fully approved by the Guilford County Parks and Recreation Commission and the Board of County Commissioners [“Losing wild places: Guilford County’s open space program in peril”; by Jordan Green; July 8, 2015]. For example the approval of the 2009 Open Space Report, while officially approved on a consent agenda, required a lot of direct interaction with the BOCC in work session meetings and many conversations.

John D. Young, via triad-city-beat.com

Shot in the Triad Edition3. High PointSince the General Assembly put the kibosh on the state film industry by killing the tax incentive in favor of a $10 million grant with more strings attached to it than a mar-ionette (see ncfilm.com for details), shooting has slowed down considerably. No films have been shot in High Point for at least 18 months. That’s a shame, because High Point may be the most photogenic of all the Triad’s cities. The last big picture to be filmed in High Point was 2012’s Elephant Sighs, starring Ed Asner.

2. GreensboroGreensboro has had its share of films in the last few years, including a memorable George Clooney sighting during the filming of 2008’s Leatherheads. But the only film that has utilized the Gate City in the past year and a half has been The Disappointments Room, which briefly put Kate Beckinsdale on location on South Elm Street. It comes out in September.

1. Winston-SalemThe City of Arts & Innovation has not let the lack of cooperation from our state government slow down film production — which may have more to do with the wealth of talent coming out of the UNC School of the Arts and the variety of locations in the city than hard cash. The Longest Ride, which came out in April and was adapted from a Nicholas Sparks book, filmed a few scenes at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. And Andrew Droz Palermo, whose Rich Hill was lauded at Sundance in 2014, shot parts of his next feature, One & Two, here as well. That gives Win-ston-Salem the win.

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Huarachesby Daniel Wirtheim

When my girlfriend visited her family in Acapulco in the winter, I knew it was my opportunity to get a pair of authentic huaraches.

I had first heard of these traditional Mexican sandals while reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I remember him complaining that they were the worst shoes to be wearing in the rain in New York. I think he changed shoes at some point, but that image of tattered leather wouldn’t leave my mind.

Where my girlfriend’s family lives, wearing huaraches is like wearing a Viking helmet. They’re a ridiculous im-age of what people might have worn in tribal villages centuries ago. So she had to sneak off by herself one day to the market where an old man was stretch-ing leather around used-tire soles.

I got my huaraches in the middle of winter, so I had to let them sit under my bed until summer came around. I pulled them out a few times since then, only to try them out around the house.

But now that I’ve actually put some mileage on these pups, I’m pretty sure they could be the ultimate summer shoe.

Huaraches beat flip-flops simply because they protect the toes. There’s no threat of the front part folding un-der your foot and they look way cooler than strips of plastic around feet.

They do squeak a little while walk-ing, but the straps around the ankles keep them snug. The recycled-tire soles are not only a great way to use an often-wasted material, but they are quite literally made for the road.

I wouldn’t take huaraches on the Appalachian Trail, but I would take them to any vintage store in town, if not just to boast about acquiring the perfect mix of thrift-store culture and Mesoamerican style.

When winter comes around, the huaraches are going back in storage. But for now, they’re the best footwear out there.

The speck flatbread at Lulu & Blu is more like a cracker than other Triad flatbreads, and that’s a good thing. Read more on page 21.

ERIC GINSBURG

Apricot, you say?

6 duds classic-rock radio should banby Daniel Wirtheim

Should Greensboro sue over city council redistricting?The Greensboro City Council voted 8-1 to sue the

state over a major new elections law that dramatically alters city council. On Monday, the city filed that lawsuit. We asked our readers whether they support the decision, and the overwhelming majority said yes.

Brian Clarey: We have to sue, and not just because this is legislative overreach. We need to fight because the courts are the place for laws to be challenged. We need to fight because this infection could soon spread to other cities. And we need to fight because not to would be an unforgivable sin. To roll over and let the General Assem-bly have its way with our city government, to go down with a whimper instead of a shout, would be shameful.

Jordan Green: Yes, although with qualifications. See “Citizen Green: A stealth scheme to suppress Greens-boro’s vote” on page 13.

Eric Ginsburg: I’m going to recuse myself from this poll, given that I’m the journalist reporting on this issue for TCB.

Readers: An impressive 77 percent of respondents said yes. That isn’t quite as resounding as the 96 percent who told us they didn’t support the changes back in February, but it’s still pretty overwhelming. “I don’t see how we have a choice,” Ted Hoffler wrote via Facebook. “This map violates the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal repre-sentation. It packs a huge number of minorities into one district and leaves other much smaller districts.” Brooke Neal said the law looks like an attack on Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson — who is black and serves at-large but has said she won’t run this year since being drawn into black Councilman Jamal Fox’s district. She added: “It is important that we have at-large delegates to speak for the under-represented and to look at the whole city, not just the parts that are ripe for development.”

New question: What do you think of North Caroli-na’s new election law, which is currently being litigated in federal court in Winston-Salem (page 9)? Visit triad-city-beat.com to vote!

77%Yes

21%No

2%Unsure

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“I’m the kind of guy who’s pretty easygoing about it. If it’s barbecue, I’ll eat it.”— Matt “Chuckles” Evans, in the Cover, page 16

Motoko Furuhashi, whose materials included road segments, broken side mirrors and car paint, told the story of her contemporary sculptures through a series of pho-tographs from junkyards and dilapidated buildings. Her sculptures, which look like torture devices, get a much-needed redemption by means of precise compositional balance.— Daniel Wirtheim, on the new Create : Adorn exhibit at Delurk, page 24

“Rock and roll band, everybody’s waitin’/ Gettin’ crazy/ Anticipating love and mu-sic/ Play, play, play, play, yeah, yeah, yeah.”— Boston, in what are quite possibly the worst lyrics in rock and roll history, page 6

A deep sense of panicked defeat settled in, and morale slumped to a new low. Any fron-tal assault towards Wittstock turned out in vain. I lost division after division of Shermans, Mitchells, Mustangs and Avenger fighter bombers. Burnt-out carcasses of wrought steel littered the dunes outside of the airfield.— Anthony Harrison, in Good Sport, page 28

“I think, of course, of a cello as being like a fellow human being. I call it a name and I think it’s alive and living and communicates about deep feelings.”— Cellist Lynn Harrell, in Music, page 22

“They were speaking with loud voices, and one guy was advancing on the officers; he had his girlfriend holding him back. They were out there with cameras so they could have something to post on Facebook. It could have been a very volatile situation.”— Community leader Jerry Mingo, in High Point Journal, page 12

“The NAACP and other plaintiffs understand that this is a pivotal moment in North Carolina and US history. What happens in this courtroom this week will have a decisive impact on African Americans and Latinos, and on the Voting Rights Act. This is our Selma!”— Penda Hair, lead attorney for plaintiffs challenging North Carolina’s election law, page 9

“I was skeptical when I started. Then, seeing how much they care about their customers and employees… A lot of them are just smart about how they go about things. I can’t really talk about numbers, but it’s a very profitable business, like very profitable; we’ll leave it at that.”— Family Video District Manager Dan Bonenzi, in Screen, page 26

I have always prided myself on thinking I knew about food. Not until I felt the life leave that first bird or the splatter of the warm blood on my skin did I truly under-stand what it meant to be a meat eater. That chicken breast you are eating did not magically come boneless, skinless, and cyro-vacuumed. Someone had to feel every moment of that, and those moments build appreciation and respect. — Caleb Smallwood, in Fresh Eyes, page 14

HEARD Graham HoltATTORNEY

Criminal • Traff ic • DWI

336.501.2001P.O. Box 10602

Greensboro, NC 27404ghol tp l lc@gmai l .com

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(336)210–5094catering@capers.biz

5000 Heathridge Terrace Greensboro, NC 27410-8419

Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

Check us out on Facebook or give us a call to find out more about us.

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North Carolina’s ‘monster’ voting law goes on trialby Jordan Green

Opponents of North Carolina’s “monster” voting law argued in federal court that the elim-ination of out-of-precinct provisional voting, cutting same-day registration and curtailing early voting imposes a disproportionate burden on blacks and Latinos as a historic trial began in Winston-Salem on Monday.

Gwendolyn Farrington, an Afri-can-American resident of Durham, tes-tified in federal court in Winston-Salem on Monday that she had been working for a 72-hour-a-week job putting bolts in transmissions for AW North Carolina, a supplier for Toyota, during the 2014 election.

With limited time from when she fin-ished work and picked two sons up from school on Election Day, she decided to vote at a polling place that was closer to work rather than her assigned precinct. She learned later that her ballot had been thrown out. She said her job simply did not afford her adequate time to drive across the county to vote at her assigned precinct.

“There’s almost zero flexibility,” Farrington said. “Any time off, twice, even being late to work twice you could be fired.”

Farrington was one of five Af-rican-American citizens who gave testimony about being disenfranchised in the 2014 election. They also included Dale Hicks, a Marine who relocated from Onslow County to Wake Coun-ty to take an IT job at Apex Systems

andneglected to update his voter registration; the Rev. Moses Colbert, a drug and alcohol counselor who found to his surprise that his voter registration did not go through when he updated his driver’s license after a move from Gaston to Cleveland County; Yvonne G. Washington, an elderly stroke and cancer survivor who walked for a half an hour with her husband to the nearest polling place, only to be told they were in the wrong precinct; and Carnell Brown, a retired sharecropper from Tar-boro who voted in the wrong county.

The elimination of out-of-precinct provisional voting is only one feature of the 2013 omnibus election reform law, also known as the “monster” voting law, that the North Carolina NAACP, the US Justice Department, the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs are seeking to overturn, along with the elimination of same-day registration and the curtailment of early voting from 17 to 10 days.

“The plaintiffs will show that the law unduly burdens low-income voters and results in discrimination because they have higher rates of transience, lower rates of education and lower rates of ve-hicle ownership, particularly burdening black voters,” Allison Riggs, a lawyer for the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice, pledged at the outset of the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks.

Opponents of the law, led by the North Carolina NAACP, have framed the federal case as a historic moment, and the first day of the trial drew civil-rights activists by the busload from as far east as Onslow County, while College Democrats from Watau-ga County in the state’s northwest corner also showed up to monitor the court proceedings. The day culminated with a rally at Cor-pening Plaza in the

city’s downtown, attended by a crowd estimated by the Winston-Salem police at 3,500.

In response, lawyers for the state of North Carolina portrayed the provisions of the law as well within the main-stream, characterizing them as “majori-ty rules.” Thomas Farr, lead attorney for defense, called the historic comparison to Selma “a pretty strong accusation,” adding that “nobody in this courtroom looks back at what happened in Selma without feeling disgust.”

He asked, “What is the dastardly thing that North Carolina has done? Eliminate out-of-precinct provisional voting? The state of New York has no out-of-precinct voting. Eliminate same-day registration? The state of New York has no same-day registration. Curtail early voting? The state of New York has no early voting.”

US District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder telegraphed his legal in-clinations in a ruling in August 2014 on a preliminary injunction filed by the plaintiffs in the case. The trial for the preliminary injunction, in which plaintiffs had sought to suspend the new provisions for the 2014 election, took place in Winston-Salem exactly 12 months ago.

Schroeder said in his order that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success in their suit. Schroeder’s order was reversed in part on appeal by the Fourth Circuit, only a

month before the election. In a scorch-ing rebuke, Judge James A. Wynn Jr. wrote that the lower-court judge had committed “grave errors” by failing to consider whether the law constituted retrogression, overlooking North Caro-lina’s history of voter suppression and considering each provision of the law separately instead of within a totality of circumstances. Contrary to Schroeder’s finding, Wynn said the plaintiffs are indeed likely to succeed on their claims.

Meanwhile, the lawyers for the state have indicated they plan to build their case on new facts that emerged with the 2014 election. They argued in court on Monday that the opponents’ claim that the new election law creates a racially disparate impact is undercut by the fact that participation among blacks increased in 2014.

The Rev. William J. Barber II, pres-ident of the state NAACP, sought to neutralize the argument during his tes-timony. Among other unique factors, he noted that Thom Tillis, then the speaker of the state House, was on the ballot that year. “People saw this as a chance to fight back against voter suppression,” he said. “One of the architects of the bill was up for election. The 12th Con-gressional District, one of the districts created to ensure black representation, had an open contest for the first time in decades. This was unprecedented.”

Visit triad-city-beat.com for more coverage of the movement to restore voting rights.

NEWS

A voting rights rally at Corpening Plaza in Winston-Salem drew about 3,500 people.

The Rev. William Barber II addresses the crowd at Corpening Plaza.

JORDAN GREEN

JORDAN GREEN

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5 A voter’s guide to the city council redistrictingby Eric Ginsburg

A lawsuit filed by the city of Greensboro and six citizen plaintiffs seeks an injunction to stop a new state law that dramatically alters Greensboro City Council elections. Here’s what voters need to know to prepare for the coming election.

It is hard, even for the people serving on Greensboro City Council, to stay abreast of all the swirling election changes, so imagine the challenge to an ordinary voter.

That is part of the premise of the city of Greensboro’s lawsuit against the Guilford County Board of Elec-tions, which the city filed Monday in an attempt to stop a new state law with significant impact on the city council’s composition, terms and election process.

The city council — with the ex-ception of Councilman Tony Wilkins — is hoping that a judge will grant an injunction to prevent the election system overhaul before filing to run in the city council election begins on July 27.

The new lawThe new elections law passed by the

state General Assembly — the equiva-lent of the US Congress on a state level — alters city council and the process used to elect members in several ways.

The most significant shift creates eight Greensboro City Council districts and eliminates all three at-large positions. In previous elections, the city was split into five districts, while three council members and the mayor were elected at-large — meaning citywide. A voter previously could pick a candidate in their district, a candidate for mayor, and three candidates at-large — a majority of the nine-member council. Under the new law, a voter could select a candidate in their district and another for mayor.

The law also makes another major change to the way Greensboro residents vote. In the past, a primary election was held in October if there were more than double the number of candidates for a given seat. For example, with only one mayor, if three people filed to run for the office, it forced a primary. But if only two candidates sought the position, the mayor’s race would not appear on a primary ballot. The primary, when necessary, would cut the number of

candidates for all city council seats to double the number available. All races — the five districts, three at-large seats and the mayor — appeared on the gen-eral election ballot in November under the previous arrangement.

Under the new law, Greensboro moves to a runoff system. The election is still nonpartisan, meaning that party affiliation isn’t listed next to candidates. But instead of a primary election in Oc-tober and a general election in Novem-ber, the new law “is almost an inverse process of that,” Guilford County Elec-tions Director Charlie Collicutt said.

Now, all candidates for a given office will appear on the ballot for the Oct. 6 general election. If any candidate receives a majority of the vote — mean-ing 50 percent plus 1 vote — they win the race outright, Collicutt said. For example, if 1,000 people vote in a dis-trict race, a candidate who receives 501 votes or more wins. If nobody reaches a majority in a given race, the top two candidates will face off in the November runoff election.

The same system is in place in Ra-leigh and Cary, Collicutt said, and it could mean candidates could potentially avoid paying for two elections if they receive enough votes in October.

In the last two Greensboro City Council elections, only 8 and 11 percent of registered voters participated in the October primary, while that number was closer to 20 percent for both No-vember general elections, he said. The fact that the new law shifts the impor-tance to the October vote when half the people typically show up is part of the complaint in the city’s lawsuit against the new system.

The law makes other changes as well — now the mayor will only vote in the case of a tie and on certain personnel decisions rather than on every item like other city council members. And it doubles the length of the terms for councilmembers, including the mayor, from two years to four.

The new law also removes the ability for the city or its residents to revert to the previous system, placing that power in the hands of the NC General Assem-bly. That’s one element that the city is suing over, according to the lawsuit.

Candidate filing had been scheduled to begin on July 7 and would have run for two weeks until July 17 at noon. Now filing to run for office begins on July 27 at noon, and the two-week peri-od ends Aug. 7 at noon, Collicutt said.

The new law does not impact early voting, absentee voting or voter registra-tion. The deadline to register is Sept. 11 — under current law, North Carolina no longer offers same-day registration, Collicutt emphasized — and early vot-ing runs from Sept. 24 through Oct. 3. Absentee ballots must be postmarked by the Oct. 6 Election Day and received no later than three days after the election, Collicutt said. A recent state omnibus election reform law, which is currently being challenged in federal court in Winston-Salem (see page 9), does not require an ID to vote until Jan. 1, 2016, so there will be no impact on this city council election.

The state statute does not require that the Guilford County Board of Elections to mail out notifications on redistricting, but if the new district-system remains in place, Collicutt said his office will voluntarily mail information to voters to keep them informed.

The lawsuitThe city’s lawsuit argues that the state

law changing Greensboro’s elections is unconstitutional. Joined by six residents — including several prominent activists — the city argues that the law violates the city’s right to self-governance, destroys the right to a referendum on the changes and deprives the right to an equal vote by redrawing districts.

Even though the city council already had five districts, all of them were redrawn when the state created eight districts and eliminated at-large seats. In doing so, the lawsuit argues that the new

districts’ population makeup deviates from one another by 8.25 percent as op-posed to the more closely aligned 3.95 percent in the past.

The lawsuit argues that the districts are designed to disadvantage Demo-cratic incumbents on council as well as Democratic voters based on party affiliation. It also states that the new Districts 1, 4 and 6 — three of the four new majority-minority districts — are over-populated, thereby diluting the value of each resident’s individual vote in comparison to other districts.

The new districts “were drawn to overpopulate minority districts and to pit incumbents, including all four of the African-American incumbents on city council, against each other,” the lawsuit argues. The four black council members were drawn into two districts, forcing them to run against each other if they wish to remain on council.

The lawsuit challenges the law on a series of other points, including the fact that it splits seven precincts when pre-viously none were split, and that it will create mass confusion among voters and candidates. It also argues that chang-ing to a runoff system with the general election on Oct. 6 rather than a primary is designed to limit voter turnout.

“Without immediate injunctive relief, the act’s unconstitutional scheme will take effect as candidates file for office and voters begin to consider candidates in the new, disproportionately drawn voting districts and the preparations begin for an October 2015 general election,” the lawsuit reads. “Once that election machinery gets underway, it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the city to correct the equal protection violations created by the act if this court ultimately finds, as it should, that the act is unconstitutional.”

The four black city council members, including Yvonne Johnson, Jamal Fox and Sharon Hightower (picture), were drawn into two districts.

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Liquor-house parties flaunt residents’ complaintsby Jordan Green

Residents of impoverished east-central High Point are fed up with gunfire, loud yelling, mu-sic and traffic congestion from summer parties at three liquor houses. But complaints to the police seem to do little to curb the problem.

The aptly named Commerce Avenue links several of High Point’s largest showrooms controlled by industry heavyweight International Market Cen-ters, including the behemoth Interna-tional Home Furnishings Center, valued at $36.5 million.

Passing the courthouse and the jail as it moves eastward into the racially seg-regated, low-wealth, east-central section of the city, the avenue narrows and be-comes more weathered and pocked with age. It abruptly ends after four blocks, and then picks up again on the other side of South College Drive. Here, about a mile east of the International Home Furnishings Center, in a squat cinderblock house valued at $12,900, residents and the police are battling a form of commerce less welcome than furniture.

The High Point Police Department has made 32 service calls to the house, located at 1302 E. Commerce Ave., since May 28, most of them based on complaints by residents who refuse to identify themselves for fear of retalia-tion, said Lt. Tracy Perry.

On June 13 the police received a noise complaint about the house. Neighbors reported that the whole street was filled with cars, loud music blasted from the house and people were yelling in the street. The responding officer reported seeing about 50 people outside, but based on the fact that no arrests were made, Lt. Perry surmised that the partiers scattered.

The scene repeated itself the next night, with police responding to com-plaints about cars lining both sides of the street — and potentially impeding fire and emergency vehicles on the nar-row artery — and noise, at two different times in the early morning hours.

The next evening, at around 10:45 p.m., the police made a preemptive visit to the house.

“Our officer said, ‘We know what’s

going on: You’re running a liquor house,’” Perry said. “‘We’re going to be out here monitoring you.’ The guy ad-mitted he was going to have a party, but said, ‘It’s going to be smaller this time.’”

The complaints continued over the next two weekends, and on June 27, following two separate noise complaints about the house, the police responded to a call at 5:30 a.m. from a resident who couldn’t get out to go to work because of all the cars in the street.

The complaints don’t seem to put any damper on the parties, Perry said. A common refrain from residents to officers is: “They just keep coming back when the police leave.”

Around the block at 1205 Vernon Place, another property that has been subject to multiple complaints in the past two months, police responded to a call for shots fired on June 6.

Jerry Mingo, president of the area

Burns Hill Neighborhood Association, was in his backyard using his digital camera when he heard a pow! His first thought was that someone from 1205 Vernon Place was trying to shoot him. He could not see the shooter, but he surmised later that the shot was fired at someone else.

Lt. Perry said people fled the scene when the shots were fired, but officers pursued and caught a suspect.

The most recent complaints occurred on Sunday night, when the neighbors called the police on the house, reporting that traffic was blocked because of cars parked on both sides of the street.

At 1408 Leonard Ave., another prop-erty identified by police and residents as a liquor house that happens to be only two blocks away from police headquar-ters, officers have been met with brazen defiance.

As part of the department’s focused

deterrence approach of making special checks on “hot spots” or locations with an inordinately high number of service calls, Perry said an officer and a lieu-tenant conducted a “knock and talk” at the address.

“They denied selling drugs or alcohol and they thought they were being ha-rassed,” Perry said. “They got agitated and started getting mad at the officers. They were warned about what could happen. They were not very happy about it.”

On July 9, an officer with the depart-ment’s alcohol beverage control unit charged someone at the house with drug possession, Perry said.

Mingo confirmed that residents and guests at the liquor houses sometimes react with hostility to officers respond-ing to complaints.

“I was out there one night when the police responded,” Mingo said. “The

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Police responded to a party at this house, at 1205 Vernon Place in the Burns Hill neighborhood of High Point, following complaints from residents about cars parked on both sides of the street blocking traffic.

JORDAN GREEN

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crowd was trying to intimidate the offi-cers. It pissed me off.

“They were speaking with loud voices, and one guy was advancing on the officers; he had his girlfriend holding him back,” he continued. “They were out there with cameras so they could have something to post on Facebook. It could have been a very volatile situa-tion.”

Mingo also pointed to an incident on June 27 when a 46-year-old man crashed a 2002 Saturn into a house in his neighborhood, within a block each of two of the liquor houses. The man was charged with impaired driving and possession of less than a gram of marijuana.

“It’s very annoying,” Mingo said. “Some of these people [in the neigh-borhood] have to work. They have to hear this noise all night. I talked to one lady; she’s scared about a stray bullet or someone drunk leaving the house and hitting a kid — hitting anyone.”

Perry said a detective with the depart-ment’s alcoholic beverage control unit visited all three houses on July 9. Perry said the department’s tactics for crack-ing down on liquor houses can include developing information from inside sources that could lead to charges.

“We’ve done the knock and talks,” she said. “Now, you’ve got alcohol enforce-ment to let them know we’re serious. If you don’t take heed, there are ways detectives have of using folks who could get in and see what’s taking place.”

Perry also said the owners of the properties have received registered letters indicating that their tenants’ activities have become a concern to law enforcement. She said such formal notification is often the first step in a nuisance abatement action. A civil law-

suit, a nuisance abatement action would have to be initiated by the city attorney.

Perry said the city is likely a ways off from taking punitive action against the property owners.

“We’re usually talking about a lot more violent crime,” she said. “But if it were to continue, if the calls escalated, that would make it more of priority. I don’t think it’s gotten to that point yet.”

For Mingo, nuisance abatement can’t come soon enough.

“She doesn’t live there,” Mingo said. “That tees me off. We live there and we have to hear stuff every weekend. They say we have to gather evidence. If it was another neighborhood, it wouldn’t take that long.”

Mingo also wants to see the police conduct random checkpoints in the neighborhood to discourage people from coming from outside High Point and other parts of the city to patronize the liquor houses.

“If they could set up some license checkpoints, that could be a deterrent,” he said. “It could stop some of the busi-ness. A lot of these guys are paying the rent, but they don’t even live there.”

Chris Williams, who represents Ward 2 — which includes the properties — on High Point City Council, rode around the neighborhood with Mingo at night on July 6. With attention from City Hall and a relatively new city manager, Greg Demko, who seems serious about his job, Mingo is optimistic that the tide will begin to turn.

“Some things are going to start shak-ing, I’m hoping,” he said. “Most people in the neighborhood are afraid to say something, so me being the neighbor-hood association president, I guess I have to.”

Keep the beat.triad-city-beat.com

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by Jordan Green

OPINIONCITIZEN GREENA stealth scheme to suppress Greensboro’s vote

While the legal firefighters of the US civil rights estab-lishment train their hoses on North Carolina’s “monster voter suppression” law in a federal trial in Winston-Sa-lem this week, the state’s reactionary forces have set a new blaze in neighboring

Greensboro.During the nearly two-hour wait to get through two

security checkpoints to access the courtroom in the federal building on Monday, I chatted with Melvin Mont-ford, executive director of the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute in Raleigh. Montford had testified in the preliminary-injunction phase of the trial last July that the reduction of early-voting days imposed a burden on his efforts to transport low-income voters, predominantly African American, to the polls.

While we were waiting to get into the courtroom on Monday, Montford told me he plans to spend time in Greensboro this summer to help voters navigate the new system, and to monitor potential disenfranchisement. Emphasizing that his organization is nonpartisan with a focus on maximizing voter participation, Montford told me that he fully expects the conservative leadership in the state General Assembly to try to replicate the Greensboro model around the state.

The wide-ranging overhaul to Greensboro’s election system involves expanding the number of districts from five to eight while eliminating three at-large seats, re-placing the old primary system with a runoff method and withdrawing the city’s ability to redraw its own election districts. Rammed through by state Sen. Trudy Wade of Guilford County, it gained the support of Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and — with some reported arm-twisting — a majority of House Republicans across the state.

The most insidious change might be the introduction of the runoff method. Rather than spell the change out in the legislation adopted on July 2, the bill merely stip-ulates that a preexisting law on the books, § GS 163-293, applies to Greensboro elections and overrides any other provisions of the law. The applicable law for municipal runoff elections in North Carolina holds that a candidate winning a majority of the vote on the first Tuesday of October shall be declared the winner. Only if one of the candidates fails to win more than 50 percent of the vote will the election go to a runoff, which will be held on the second Tuesday of November.

Got that? That means the deciding election could be the first Tuesday in October, the date traditionally set aside for the primary in Greensboro. By the first Tues-

day in November, traditionally the general election in Greensboro municipal elections, the game could be over.

Greensboro’s election overhaul has also captured the attention of the North Carolina NAACP, the lead orga-nization in the Forward Together coalition that is fighting the state’s new election law.

The Rev. William Barber II, the state NAACP pres-ident, told WFDD’s Paul Garber that the Greensboro election law is yet another example of state lawmakers not listening to the people.

“They’re bullying,” he said. “It’s straight-out racialized bullying that’s going on in the General Assembly. And they know it’s wrong, but they continue to do it, and that’s why we have to end up in court.”

An ironic footnote to this saga is that Skip Alston, Barber’s predecessor as president of the state NAACP, has expressed support for the new Greensboro election system. Barber defeated Alston during the organization’s annual convention in Greensboro in 2005 — replacing an establishment agenda with a radical and prophetic vision.

The new Greensboro election system imposed by the Republican majority in Raleigh will land in court before the first day of polling on Oct. 6. Greensboro City Council elected to file suit against the Guilford County Board of Elections on Monday, although it is unclear whether the state NAACP will join the city.

City leaders are right to take a stand against the bul-lying of state lawmakers who plainly don’t care one whit about the wishes of local citizens. But there’s a danger to city leaders and citizens becoming consumed with the fight and neglecting to engage in the contest under the current rules, which could very well be upheld by the courts.

The new runoff system could potentially allow a stealthy and well-organized slate of candidates to, well, run away with the election. Voter turnout for the November general election is typically double that of the October primary because many voters figure they can sit out the first contest and then vote for the two most popular contenders in the final balloting. Of course, under the new system, a candidate could win outright in October, and voters going to the polls in November could discover that there are literally no candidates on their ballots.

It’s imperative that we fight two battles simultaneously. Fight the new election system in court, by all means. But we also need to actively recruit candidates to make sure that every single district race is competitive and goes to a runoff in October. And once filing is complete, abso-lutely citizens should finance candidates they support, and canvas their neighborhoods to get out the vote. Let’s have a real debate and a real election.

And make the bastards regret it.

EDITORIALWinston-Salem: Ground Zero

A nation’s eyes turn to Winston-Salem this week — or, at least, the eyes of the voting public, which comprises about half of all adults — as it becomes Ground Zero in the fight for voting rights in the South.

And while it’s wonderful for the national media to converge on the city that has become the jewel of the Triad to see what we do well around here, in the courtroom there will be a daily reminder of some-thing we do not.

North Carolina sucks at fair elections, particularly when it comes to race, going all the way back to 1900 when the General Assembly enacted laws requiring literacy tests and poll taxes for black voters, while a grandfather clause allowed whites to skip the process. The US Supreme Court kicked that one back to the drawing board in 1915, but the literacy tests remained in place until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when they were finally deemed illegal. That law punished states like ours by requiring that most new election laws needed to be run through the federal govern-ment. Forty of North Carolina’s 100 counties fell under this classification, including Guilford.

The 2013 SCOTUS decision that nullified key parts of that act cleared the way for the NC Voter Information Verification Act, signed by Gov. Pat McCrory just a few weeks later, almost like it was planned that way.

Now that the notion of the law protecting against election fraud has been debunked, we see it for what it is: a modern-day poll tax just like the laws passed back in 1900. The newer law is designed to restrict voter access to the polls, specifically the access of poor people, and even more specifically poor black people.

Our first batch of unconstitutional laws came two years after the 1898 riots in Wilmington, when a duly elected, mixed-race council was overthrown by white supremacists. This time our General Assembly waited three years after a black man was elected president to make sure it wouldn’t happen again, at least not with North Carolina’s help.

There’s enough shame in North Carolina’s past to overshadow the things we have set in place for the future. That’s why, in a city where human bladders are grown in science labs and a grassroots culture thrives, we’re re-enacting events from the last century.

And we’re hoping once again that history bends towards the light.

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IT JUST MIGHT WORKBallpark veggie dogs

Some things just shouldn’t have to be said, but what’s so hard to understand is why anyone even needs to raise the question: Why aren’t there veggie dogs at the ballgame?

Likely any concessions-stand employee at a Grasshoppers or Dash game could tell you that there is a demand for veggie dogs at the downtown stadiums, especially on Mondays in Greensboro when the meat franks are one of several items sold for just a dollar. There’s a veggie burger at both ballparks, sure, but if major grocery chains can stock the meatless dogs, why can’t the minor-league stadiums?

It’s possible there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation that points to the distributor, or a higher price, or an alleged lack of demand, but it is difficult to believe that there’s not a way to make it work. If a dive bar like Fat Dog’s in Greensboro can do it, so can a minor-league baseball stadium.

My friend Tara posed the question recently, pointing out that the Durham Bulls seem to have figured it out. And she’s not the first — every time I attend a Grasshoppers’ game, at least two friends are disappointed by the lack of veggie dogs. Tell them that there are veggie burgers, as you gleefully bite into a hot dog, and they’ll roll their eyes and sigh in exasperation. The two are not the same thing.

Hot dogs and baseball go together in a way that burgers don’t. Veggie dogs are much harder to mess up, and they’re better stand-ins for meat than most any veggie burger around.

While we’re making changes, couldn’t a couple tap handles be spared — or added — to accom-modate more local breweries making stellar beverages in lieu of watery, mass-produced beer from out of state? Don’t touch the Natty Greene’s and Foothills beer taps that exist at our ballparks — after all, the Hoppers deal catapulted Natty’s to the next level years ago. But in that spirit, why not add one tap, even on a rotating basis, for the up-and-coming brewers in the Triad?

Don’t see this as a call to eliminate beef franks, or even to give up Bud Light. Just make a little space for the smaller markets, and the Triad public will thank you.

by Eric Ginsburg

FRESH EYESThe ‘dirty work’ of slaughtering animals

This spring I hit a climax in my culinary career. I have been cooking a variety of proteins for more than 10 years and not until recently have I ever directly laid to rest the animals I would be serving.

Sure I’ve filleted fresh fish, crabs and lobsters, but there is

a disconnect of empathy when it comes to cold-blooded ocean dwellers. Why is there this disconnect? Working in several kitchens over the past decade I have often seen farmers hold a much higher respect for the food they grow compared to food that my fellow chefs cook. Shouldn’t culinary professionals hold the ribeye they are serving in the same regard as the farmer who raises that cow? One would assume so, but unfortunately even in kitchens most chefs and cooks have no idea where their protein came from, and frankly couldn’t care less. 

Running a mobile farm-to-table operation, I have made it a point to get to know the farms and farmers I am buy-ing produce and protein from. Building these relationships has been the most positive thing I have ever done for myself and for the people I am serving. I have gained so much knowledge about sustainability and permaculture. The equilibrium of a successful farm is built between the farmers, the animals and the produce. This delicate chess match must be handled with the upmost respect and care, and must be guided by an almost spiritual purpose to coexist and be a part of what is growing and grazing in front of one’s eyes.

Chefs always talk a big game when it comes to slaugh-tering and butchering their own animal proteins. I have been in that circle for most of my career, never truly putting myself in a position to do the “dirty work.” I always just assumed that if it came down to it, of course I would be able to do it.

Building a connection with Haw River Ranch I had the chance to be involved in the processing and butchering of 56 chickens. Most of these birds came to rest by my hands, back feet held in one and the breast in the other.

Each taught me something about how to be more efficient with the next to make sure they feel no pain. A method and an action that is truly as technical as it is spiritual.

I have always prided myself on knowing about food. But not until I felt the life leave that first bird or the splatter of the warm blood on my skin did I truly understand what it meant to be a meat eater. That chicken breast you are eating did not magically come boneless, skinless, and cy-ro-vacuumed. Someone had to feel every moment of that, and those moments build appreciation and respect.

When I prepared my chicken that night, I had never handled protein so delicately in my life. I took extra care and attention that would not have been possible until I had crossed the threshold of having to take another living animal’s life with my own hands.

I don’t care how many people reading this won’t be able to eat their dinner tonight. Food doesn’t grow in the produce section of your local grocery store. From the right farms, animals are loved, cared for and respected from their birth, their life experience and in their passing. Their life gives to the land and the land gives them life, which ultimately sustains our own.

This connection is very primal and does not present itself to most people in their modern daily lives. With that being said, one can still take steps and make efforts to build a better understanding about farming practices and getting to know how your food is being raised.

On that note, be cautious. Know that most animals, which are mass farmed, are not cared for in this manner. Honestly, the process of raising and slaughtering them is quite disgusting, and the product should be avoided.

The bottom line is that if you can have a better under-standing of the process of where your food comes from and what you are putting in your body, you will have a better respect for the animals, plants, and people in that process. A respect and understanding of this food cycle is the first step into building a healthier, more interconnect-ed and sustainable society.

Caleb Smallwood is a chef, a photography intern with Triad City Beat and a food-truck specialist.

by Caleb Smallwood

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Zach Ward’s brother isn’t a fighting man — he’s a pastor — but there was one time that he seemed ready to plant his fist in someone’s face: While eating at Mr. Barbe-cue in Winston-Salem, he heard someone order a cheeseburger.

Who would do such a thing? Some people don’t understand that in

North Carolina barbecue is a noun rather than a verb, third-generation barbecue man Chip Stamey of Greensboro explained. The food is a part of the culture, an integral component of the state’s heritage. And the people like Stamey’s grandfather who sold barbecue in tents outside the courthouse in Lexington — arguably the barbecue capital of the state — could even be considered the originators of fast food, he said.

Zach Ward, like his brother, is just one of the North Carolinians who takes that history and its preservation very seriously. The respected Campaign for Real Barbe-cue began in the Old North State and has several tenets that restaurants must meet to be certified, primarily the use of pit-cooked barbecue that is slow-roasted over hard-wood coals as opposed to an electric or gas grill. Ward’s guidelines for the places he patronizes are even more strict: He wants places without frills or too many other items on the menu, served quickly, with an

everyman sort of clientele and a reasonable price point.

A native of St. Pauls, a speck of a town south of Fayetteville, Ward spends part of his summers teaching social sciences at Governor’s School at Salem College. Each time he returns to Winston-Salem from Chapel Hill, where he lives the rest of the year, Ward helps lead a relatively informal but longstanding barbecue club.

The premise of the group is simple: For more than a decade, a smattering of people working at the Governor’s School have made excursions once or twice a week to authentic barbecue joints in the region. The size of the crowd balloons as schedules and interest allow, involving everything from impromptu midday trips to the nearby Mr. Barbecue on Peters Creek Parkway to longer weekend rides out to places like Keaton’s Barbecue, a restaurant in Cleve-land, a small town in Rowan County that is one of the few authentic, black-owned options in the state.

With plates of barbecue, hush puppies and slaw in front of them at Mr. Barbecue, Ward and a couple of the group’s regulars discussed an upcoming multi-day trip during a school break. Ward had sent out an agenda with five barbecue restaurants listed for the tour of the best eastern

North Carolina barbecue, but friend Matt “Chuckles” Evans pointed out that Ward hadn’t bothered to say anything about where they’d be staying.

“In my car,” Ward joked, before admitting that he hadn’t finalized details for one of the nights but had two choices in mind.

The trip, as well as the shorter, sin-gle-restaurant outings between teaching sessions at school, provide a chance for Ward and other natives of the state to showcase North Carolina and Winston-Sa-lem alike. In the same spirit, some staff members introduce others to racing at Bowman Gray Stadium or explore taquerias in the nearby Waughtown neighborhood.

Many of his colleagues travel from places like New York and Philadelphia to the program each summer, living together at Salem College and forming a close community, Ward said, and the off-campus activities — particularly barbecue-oriented ones — are a chance to better understand their surroundings.

Ward takes the decision about where to bring his coworkers seriously, but the group’s experience at restaurants is inten-tionally like that of any other customer. No speech from the owner or history lesson on its founders, just a nice sit-down meal with a full plate.

And sometimes, like last week at Mr. Bar-becue, one plate isn’t enough; after down-ing his lunch, Ward’s friend Ben Stallworth ordered a large to-go cup of barbecue. A tall, stringbean sort of kid, Stallworth started digging into the cup while he waited for his coworkers to finish up.

“I’m still hungry, and it’s really good,” he said between bites.

Evans — a Georgia native who came to the Governor’s School in 2010 after finishing a masters in math at Wake Forest University and is now pursuing a PhD in New York — agrees. Mr. Barbecue was his favorite in the state until he joined more of the barbecue club’s trips, including the east-ern North Carolina tour last weekend, and he still really enjoys it. He’s been exposed to much of what the state has to offer on this front over the years, especially after teaching at a community college in the northeastern corner of the state, but Evans doesn’t consider himself picky.

“I’m the kind of guy who’s pretty easy-going about it,” he said. “If it’s barbecue, I’ll eat it.”

The Campaign for Real Barbecue lists only about 50 restaurants in the entire state that meet the requirements for “True

Chhqnuon Ponn, the pitmaster at Stamey’s Barbecue, cleans burned hardwood coals out from underneath one of the Greensboro restaurant’s pits last week.

Barbecue is a nounThe Triad’s most authentic barbecueby Eric Ginsburg

Visit triad-city-beat.com to watch Daniel Wirtheim’s accompanying video of the Triad’s three authentic, pit-cooked barbecue restaurants.

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’Cue NC” certification, though there are hundreds of barbecue joints populating North Carolina. To be certified, restaurants must meet seven requirements — some easy, like being located in North Carolina or serving barbecue on the regular menu at least monthly, and others more specific pertaining to the type of sauce or meat and how it is prepared.

The site’s founders — who include retired UNC Chapel Hill professor John Shelton Reed, the co-author of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue — are considered respectable, independent certifiers. But they only act in an unofficial capacity, conducting “inspections and re-in-spections as time, money and cholesterol levels allow.”

Of their list, only four are located in the three Triad cities: Mr. Barbecue, Little Richard’s and Hill’s Lexington Barbecue in Winston-Salem, and Stamey’s in Greens-boro. A few more are nearby, like Clark’s in Kernersville or Hursey’s in Burlington. It is unclear why Keaton’s, one of Ward’s favor-ites, didn’t make the cut, but his top choice, B’s Barbecue in Greenville, appears.

Though quite popular, Kepley’s Bar-B-Q on North Main Street in High Point comes up short. The barbecue restaurant founded in 1948 uses a combination of pit-cooking

and electric, owner Bob Burleson said — which would disqualify it from True ’Cue NC certification.

Hill’s on North Patterson Avenue in Win-ston-Salem displays its True ’Cue certificate behind a counter running along the front room, but it too starts the barbecue out in hardwood-fired pits before moving the pork shoulder to electric grills after several hours. On a recent Friday, all the shoulders and butts had been transferred to the electric grill by around 10 a.m. That’s more than four hours before Stamey’s in Greensboro, where the pit team also started three hours earlier than the folks at Hill’s that morning.

The restaurant doesn’t sell nearly as much barbecue as its coun-terparts, which may be due to an expansive menu that includes things like omelets and waffles. The use of electric is what runs afoul of True ’Cue NC, but Ward would look at both unfavorably.

Little Richard’s, Stamey’s and Mr. Barbecue are different, following traditional methods as closely as possible and only cooking its barbe-cue over hardwood coals — usually hickory — the owners all said.

Each of the three venues cooks their butts and picnics — the cuts that make up a pork shoulder — slightly differently, and despite some similarity in taste, each restaurant offers a different ambiance and way of doing things. As far as Zach Ward is concerned, Mr. Barbecue is the best of the three, followed by Stamey’s. He doesn’t like the style or taste at Little Richard’s, though he admits he hasn’t been in years.

Evans — who like Ward sports a modest beard and glasses, while exuding a churchy sort of wholesomeness — disagrees with his friend’s assessment.

“That was not my experience,” he replied quickly. “Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just wrong?”

Stallworth, who grew up in Lewisville and frequented Little Richard’s as a kid, defends the barbecue restaurant as well. But then

A chef prepares to cut into a pork shoulder at Mr. Barbecue in Winston-Salem.

Chhqnuon Ponn, the pitmaster at Stamey’s Barbecue, cleans burned hardwood coals out from underneath one of the Greensboro restaurant’s pits last week.

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again, his parents are from Knoxville and he was born in Houston, where he must have developed a taste for brisket, he said. Stallworth admits that it’s his favorite kind of barbecue, a comment that sends Ward over the edge.

Because barbecue aficionados like him — even though he lived in Austin for three years — take that sort of thing as a personal affront.

By around 4 p.m. on a recent weekday afternoon, Chhqnuon Ponn may have been dozing slightly while sitting upright at the edge of the pits, arms folded across his chest as NPR played in the back-ground. Ponn, a Cambodian immigrant who has worked at Stamey’s Barbecue in Greensboro since 1984, oversees more barbecue pits than probably everyone else in the three Triad cities combined.

This summer, Craver Stamey — a col-lege student at UNC-Wilmington and the first of his generation to work in the hot and smoky pits — asked to work alongside him.

It’s a job with its share of waiting, but before long Ponn was up and clearing out the burned hardwood coals from short but

wide slots underneath the mouth of the ovens.

Craver said he appreciates the down-time because it allows him to get to know Ponn and the other pit workers. There is no manual for how to be a true barbe-cue chef, no thermometer in the pits at Stamey’s letting him know when the meat is ready. He would ask those sorts of ques-tions when the summer started, and said this coworkers would just look at him and say something like, “When it’s ready.”

Since then he’s learned how to wield the two-pronged forks that Ponn makes himself; the long, skewer-like tools and the shovels needed for the hickory coals aren’t easy to come by.

Now Craver can stab the pork shoul-der in the right place to hook the bone, making it easier to hoist the heavy slab of browned meat into a metal cart. With a wet washcloth wrapped around his left hand and another resting on the front of the oven to protect his forearm, Craver pierces a pork shoulder with the long fork, and a crisp crackling sound lets him know the meat is ready.

There are 10 pits in the building behind Stamey’s longstanding location across from the Greensboro Coliseum. Housing

it separately significantly reduces the risk of a fire, said Chip Stamey, who is the company owner and Craver’s father, even though they are the only true ’cue restau-rant here to split the restaurant from the pits. Four or five of the oven pits are in use on an average day, Craver said, each able to hold about 21 pork shoulders.

One early afternoon last week, Craver, Ponn and a coworker named Johnny waited for a round of barbecue to finish cooking. They’d been at it since around 3 a.m. — a typical day — and at around 2 p.m., Ponn took his leave.

His remaining workers removed long sheets of tin foil covering the pork, de-signed to trap heat and protect the meat from any buildup in the chimneys — Mr. Barbecue uses face-down metal pans while Little Richard’s employs built-in metal doors. Then Craver and Johnny checked each shoulder, both leaving a few above the smoldering coals to finish cooking. The first batch off the fire would go to the restaurant’s Battleground location, while the second crop would make the trek across the parking lot.

Stamey’s opened in Greensboro on an adjacent lot in 1953 across from what was then the city’s fairgrounds, Chip Stamey said, but the restaurant traces its history back to 1930.

C. Warner Stamey, Chip’s grandfather, found-ed the restaurant in his native Shelby that year after working closely under one of the progenitors of Lexington-style barbecue. Jess Swicegood was one of two men selling barbecue out of a tent across from the city’s courthouse, and Stamey would later return to Lexington and buy his mentor’s business.

What started at the original Greensboro location grew from a drive-in and two pits into a restaurant pushing into its fourth generation. Chip’s 15-year-old daughter works at the Battleground location and his oldest son has worked for the business too, though not in the pits like Craver.

Chip hasn’t always been on the business side of things. He worked several jobs at the family restaurant and also spent several professional years away from the company. But barbecue has always been a big part of his life, even when he was in college at Wake Forest University, where

he’d head over to Little Richard’s out of convenience rather than driving back to Greensboro.

Governor’s School staffer Jonathan Bass, who grew up outside of Shelby near the True ’Cue-certified Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge, told his fellow barbe-cue-lovers over a meal last week that he doesn’t trust a barbecue restaurant that looks like it was built after 1995. Anything newer than that likely lacks authenticity, he mused.

Lucky for Little Richard’s, then, that it opened in 1991.

The restaurant with conk-rockin’ dapper pig belting into a classic microphone — paying homage to the flamboyant musical talent but named for owner Richard Berrier — is the youngest of the Triad’s true ’cue restaurants, save for Clark’s in Kernersville, which opened two years later. But even though Little Richard’s adheres to the time-honored, pit-cooked and hick-

ory-coal method, there’s little else traditional about the place.

AC/DC’s anthem “Back in Black” played over the house speakers during a recent Friday lunch hour as a white kitchen staff chopped pork shoulder, heated a bun, and readied a BBQ salad. The walls are lined with old-school ads, especially for Winston

cigarettes, and a jukebox stands near the register at this cash-only restaurant.

But while other barbecue restaurants spare the flair in favor of wood paneling — the Stamey’s on Gate City Boulevard feels almost like a converted barn — in the ways that it matters, Little Richard’s is part of the same cultural canon.

A patron’s pickup truck, a greasy auto mechanic or someone wearing cam-ouflage are tell-tale signs of a genuine barbecue restaurant; these are meant to be affordable, working-class venues with at least a touch of country.

Multiple recent trips to Little Richard’s, Stamey’s and Mr. Barbecue found all the above every single time. One customer last week at the Little Richard’s on Coun-try Club Road — there is another, newer store in Wallburg — with grimy hands had come straight from work at an auto shop, and the day before, a pickup with two

‘We just hope that people realize we’re just trying to do one thing very well. We don’t want to complicate it.’ — Chip Stamey

A cook in the kitchen at Little Richard’s in Winston-Salem chops barbecue with two large butcher’s knives at once.

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small, Confederate car-flags waited out front.

Twice a week, sometimes thrice, a dump-truck full of hardwood empties its load in the parking lot, where smoke can be seen billowing from stacks and wafting over to customers as they exit their vehicles. A sign out front advertises Little Richard’s curb service — a practice formerly in use at Stamey’s and other similar venues — allowing patrons to park and honk to summon an employee.

Matt Kelley, the 33-year-old manager, started working at Little Richard’s doing curb service when he was 16, working off and on at the restaurant ever since. He’s done just about everything there save for waiting tables, including pit work. Even still, Kelley says he isn’t sick of barbecue, though he admits it doesn’t hold the same mouth-watering appeal it once did.

Little Richard’s, like Mr. Barbecue and Hill’s, has two wood-fired barbecue pits just off the main kitchen, but only here could the pit master turn around and tap someone chopping barbecue in the kitchen on the shoulder. With three pin-up girls tacked over the doorway, it’s the most decorated of the local pits, and also boasts an added fan along one wall to vacuum out the smoke.

The pits can collectively hold about 36 pork shoulders at a given time, and will av-erage that number of shoulders four days a week, Kelley said. Wax-paper-wrapped barbecue sandwiches are more popular at lunch, he said, while plates with a dispos-able cup of slaw and chopped meat move better at dinner.

Kelley describes the sauce — or dip, as the restaurant and other old-school joints call it — as a little spicy, in part due to the vinegar, but like other barbecue purveyors including Jim Carros at Mr. Barbecue, Kelley said they prefer to let the meat do the talking.

Zach Ward, a student-services special-

ist at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Curriculum in Global Studies, doesn’t care much what other people think of barbecue. He needs no help from online polls to make up his mind, he said over lunch at Mr. Barbecue last week, adding later in the conversation that he has no regard for the brisket of a recent James Beard Award-winner in Tex-as. Ward doesn’t even really think brisket should be sold in North Carolina.

So when an unswayable man like that

says your barbecue is his favorite around, it’s a badge of honor. This is a man who has a preference for eastern-style barbe-cue where the whole hog is used anyway, and who is well versed in the state’s offerings.

But the most popular menu item at Mr. Barbecue is the pork-skin sandwich, owner Jim Carros said. And you have to try the fried chicken, it’s the best in town, he lobbied.

Even though Ward — and his brother the pastor — would prefer people ignored the cheeseburger and stuck to the ’cue, there are other things that are favorably distinctive about the fast-paced restau-rant.

For starters, it’s the only authentic bar-becue place in the three cities that doesn’t offer table service. Instead cashiers order via microphone at several registers, only to spin around a moment later to grab the

completed order from the kitchen and place it on the counter. With the possible exception of the drive-thru at Stamey’s, Mr. Barbecue provides the fastest service around. And that’s a core tenet, Chip Sta-mey and Ward agree, of barbecue culture.

Carros worked at the restaurant, which his dad and uncle opened in 1962, in high school and partially during college, later founding his own, similar restaurant, Pig Pickin’s on Reynolda Road. Wake Forest University bought up the area, including the pit-cooking restaurant. After it closed, Carros’ dad called and asked for help at Mr. Barbecue, and he’s been back at the family business for eight years, he said.

Carros said he doesn’t mind showing up around 4 a.m. to start the pit-cooking process.

“If you love what you do, it’s not really work, right?” he said after finishing a call outside his office at the back of the restaurant.

Carros’ father trained a team of three Latino men who oversee much of the barbecuing process, including making red BBQ-style coleslaw from scratch and tending to the sweltering pits. Using bread from Florida Bakery in Greensboro and a cooking method and sauce recipe that are “from the tree” of Lexington barbe-cue, Carros’ team cranks out anywhere from 20-50 pork shoulders-worth of the commoner’s cuisine daily.

With only 63 seats in the restaurant, it’s

not surprising that many of the orders at Mr. Barbecue are for carry-out, and like his fellow practitioners, Carros also sells sliced or chopped barbecue by the pound.

With the mid-session trip to eastern Carolina behind them, Ward, Evans and their peers returned to Salem College on Sunday. By now the annual Governor’s School program is more than half over, though there are still a few weeks of barbecue exploration left to squeeze out. Before it’s done, maybe Evans will con-vince Ward to reconsider his impression of Little Richard’s.

But more likely they’ll make a spon-taneous trip elsewhere, where they will continue their friendly barbecue banter.

That camaraderie, fostered by the community at Governor’s School, is part of why Evans made the trek down from New York this summer, though he joked that the real reason was to beat Ward at ping pong. But even though he finally triumphed over his friend, Evans’ meal at Mr. Barbecue last week was strong evidence he will likely be back next year.

A Winston-Salem T-shirt from local designers at Airtype was a dead giveaway. But the smile on his face as he lifted a forkful of chopped barbecue to his mouth made it all the more obvious.

A piece of pork shoulder sits on the chopping block before being served up on a plate at Little Richard’s.

Zach Ward (left) and Matt Evans at Governor’s School at Salem College.

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The 64th edition of the International Girls Night Out brought out more than 40 women for a night of drinks, food and conversation

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International Girls Night Out at the Chinese Kitchenby Sayaka Matsuoka

get-together at the Chinese Kitchen earlier this month wasn’t your ordinary girls night.

The International Girls Night Out group was meeting for the 64th time after being started six years ago by two local women, Marion Hofmann and Karen Narita.

“The sole purpose is to have fun,” Hofmann said. “It’s a really nice way to meet other people.”

The two Greensboro natives started the monthly group in February 2009 as a way for women from international backgrounds to come together for a night of drinks, food and conversation.

“Our goal is to meet every month except for November and December because of holidays,” she added.

While they started in Greensboro with only 11 people their first meeting, the group grew by word of mouth and now boasts an average of 40 to 50 women from all over the world. June’s meeting broke a new record, with 54 attendees. And the July affair was no

exception; at least 40 women showed up to the Asian fusion restaurant near Quaker Village. The restaurant was formerly housed in a smaller location in the popular shopping center by Guilford College, but the new, modern space has been the establishment’s home for the past year after considerable construc-tion for a new tenant moving in nearby, owner Ying Chiu said.

“We had to move because of Wal-Mart,” Chiu said. “We got kicked out.”

The established Chinese Kitchen may wear a new face, but it offers the same great food as it has for the past 10 years.

Both newcomers and returnees were in attendance; Pooja Cooper was one of the latter.

“People think Greensboro is a small city but there’s such a wide variety of women here,” said Cooper, who has

been showing up for the past two years. “We’re all in the same boat; we miss our homes and this way we get to connect with others who are going through the same thing.”

In part because of my Japanese heritage, group co-founder Karen Narita contacted me a few weeks ago after seeing my name in our neighbor-

hood listserv. After recently discovering one of my favorite Chinese restaurants from my childhood was still open, I suggested the 64th meeting be hosted at Chinese Kitchen.

The night brought together women of different generations

and from all over the world including France, Germany, Korea, Peru, Austria, Canada, Vietnam, Belarus, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

The group filled the large, open restaurant and once everyone was

For more information on the monthly International Girls Night Out, join the group on Facebook or contact Karen Narita or Marion Hofmann on the social networking site.

FOODFOODWake up and smell the syrupBlueberry Pancake Day @ Greensboro Farm-ers Curb Market (GSO), Saturday

Greesboro’s cheesecake wizard is trying his hand at pancakes. Alex Amoroso of Cheescakes by Alex will begin cooking at 8 a.m. Farm fresh ingredients, preserves, pies and baked goods are up for grabs. For more information, visit gsofarmersmarket.org.Beer… beer everywhereSummertime Brews Festival @ Greensboro Coliseum (GSO) Saturday

The Triad’s wettest festival of the year, Summertime Brews Fest has a lineup of more than 400 drinks to sample and caters to both the fine-draft aficionado and the craft-beer . And then there’s the appeal of straight-up inebriation, although anyone considering this approach should certainly have a designated driver lined up.Hints of bourgeoisieRosé Wine Tasting with hors d’eouvres @ Undercurrent restaurant (GSO) Wednesday

Jackie Biggs of Mutual Distributing will share his expertise, but it’s easy to appreciate wine by drinking enough. Hors d’eouvres might sound like a dirty French word, but it just means appetizers. For more information, visit undercurrentrestauraunt.com

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by Eric Ginsburg

Lulu & BluIf Lulu & Blu were a drink, it would be

prosecco, or maybe, depending on its mood, limoncello. Then again, the first thing people see after entering is a tow-ering wine rack about 10 bottles across with the restaurant’s selection that skews towards Italian and American reds.

Which is to say that the restaurant and bar near one of High Point’s main intersections brags a distinct personality, albeit one that resists being pigeon-holed.

Even though Lulu & Blu hasn’t really marketed itself since opening about eight months ago, a sharp bartender named Colin said there hasn’t been a need; the venue’s reputation precedes it thanks to its association with the Third City’s other “blue” restaurants ranging from Blue Rock Pizza & Tap to Blue Water Grille.

The posh Italian restaurant might fit in better in an outlying Brooklyn neigh-borhood, given its ability to appeal to a group of 22 women old enough to have grandkids dining together as well as a dapper middle-aged couple. And yet the bar would be the perfect place for a pair in the early stages of dating, say late twenties or early thirties and just looking to grab a couple rounds.

Half of the eight house cocktails at Lulu & Blu contain prosecco, including the Sgroppino with vodka and lemon sorbet. Only two drinks utilize limoncel-lo, including one of the nine house marti-nis and the Long Island Lulu, and the

liqueur is currently on special, which isn’t surprising considering that the lemon drink is Italy’s most popular of its type. And then there’s the wine list, where many of the wines are only available by the bottle and where only two nations are represented, providing an on-theme pairing for a special occasion rather than a casual weeknight out.

Lulu & Blu currently provides six beers on draft and a few bottles in the fridge, which is to say it’s there if you really want it, but that it’s not even anyone’s second-ary motivation for showing up.

From the parking lot, the restaurant appears as if it is closed, given that it’s practically impossible to see in through the windows, but after opening the door, a guest’s eyes quickly adjust to the elegant dining room split in half by a divider. Even with a relatively high early turnout on Monday, the venue remained rather quiet, making it an appealing choice for conversation rather than the somewhat more boisterous approach of Italian eateries like Quanto Basta in Winston-Salem.

The patio, with its billowing curtains blocking the view of the surrounding parking lot and nearby busy intersection, is similarly intimate.

If there’s a Mr. High Point, it’s Charles Simmons, a seasoned member of the city’s small culturati. He saddled up to the bar early Monday evening and ordered the usual: a bowl of mussels and a water.

At a table a dozen feet away, a woman took a bite of the salmon, her white wine in front of her acting as a counterpart to her partner’s glass of red. Much of the menu is seafood oriented, like the sea-food bucatini pasta with shrimp, mussels, clams, crab, tomato-fennel broth and toasted bread for $24. But there are also several flatbreads — unlike some Triad restaurants, these are like crackers, a sharper and more preferable differentia-tion from pizza — including a worthwhile one with speck, sun-dried apricots, taleg-gio cheese and a little pistachio topped with arugula.

The most interesting of the drinks on the cocktail menu may be the Sgroppi-no, at least in name and considering the inclusion of lemon sorbet. But there’s no scoop of ice-cream-like substance in this petite drink, served in a champagne flute of sorts that narrows near the top.

Instead it’s a more unassuming, mildly clumped film at the surface of the drink, which might not go down all at once were the mouth of the glass larger. With undetectable vodka, it’s a strong drink especially for $9 and its deceptively light taste and presentation.

Soon after Simmons takes his seat at the gleaming, copper-colored bar at the back, the executive chef appears to greet the thrilled group of women, who applaud the cuisine. It’s really the food that makes this place popular, Colin the bartender humbly said. But even though the party of 22 and Simmons didn’t come for the drinks, the allure of this secluded bar is too much to ignore.

Visit Lulu & Blu at 2140 N. Main St. (HP) or find it on Facebook.

seated, conversation flowed naturally. Women snickered as gossip traveled across the room, while others filled their friends in on lives revolving around husbands and children. At my table, which came to be labeled the “Asian invasion,” the talk was about where we came from. Narita, whose name is also a major city in Japan, revealed her childhood growing up in Brazil after her grandparents moved there from the is-land nation. Ci Barros, Karen’s mother-in-law who is also Brazilian, sat next to her. Barros moved to the United States in 1999 but lived in different countries before settling in North Carolina years

ago. Next to me sat Truc Nguyen, a young Vietnamese woman, whose name was actually pronounced “Joop,” as was written on her nametag by her co-work-er who invited her, Margarita Pasakarnis from Belarus. Nguyen moved to the States at the age of 5 when her parents moved here as refugees after the war. Pasakarnis came to the United States for her husband at the time.

While we waited for the main fare, we munched on complimentary fried noodles, dipping them in sweet and sour sauce. Soon, appetizers, entrees and vibrant sushi dishes were rolling out of the kitchen and onto our tables.

I ordered an old favorite — sesame chicken with broccoli — and some of the other women picked similar chicken dishes, Mongolian beef, seared scallops and lettuce wraps. Pasakarnis, who insisted on trying something new, had a plate of thin, yellowed, curry noodles placed in front of her.

“I don’t usually like curry, but this is delicious,” she said about the Singapor-ean noodles. “Here, have some.”

As we enjoyed our entrees, we continued to get to know each other. YoungDoo Carey, a Korean woman, and I bonded over our love of food and began a conversation with Narita about

different Japanese and Korean dishes. Carey recommended adding Tahini sauce to ramen to give it extra flavor and then started exalting shiso leaves and plum wine.

While many of the women, including myself, met each other for the first time that night, the common factor of being displaced from our home countries made bonding all the more natural; and by the end of the night, many felt they had found a new home away from home.

The Sgroppino (right) looks unassuming next to a glass of water, but it has a thin layer of lemon sorbet floating on the surface.

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5 Setlist by Jordan Green

The new MarleyMarley Carroll @ Café Europa (GSO), Thursday

North Carolina music cognoscente Ryan Snyder describes Marley Carroll as an “Asheville super-producer and musical polymath.” Carroll’s DJ sets have been well received at both the inaugural and first-an-niversary Dance From Above, and the artist returns to Greensboro for an intimate set of new music on the patio at Café Europa. Show starts at 10 p.m.Superior techniqueBit Brigade @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), Thursday

Members of the journeyman math-rock groups Cinemechanica and We Versus the Shark periodically come together to perform an epic soundtrack for vintage videogames in sync with master gamer Noah McCarthy. This time, they take on Metroid. With Black Squares/White Islands and Sacred Oaks. Show starts at 9 p.m.It’s a family affairRobert Randolph & the Family Band @ Cone Denim Entertainment Center (GSO), Friday

Sacred-steel prodigy Robert Randolph and his kindred players take the Lord’s music out of the church and into one of Greensboro’s dens of iniquity. With Soul-pax. Show starts at 8 p.m. Asbury Park saintsVagabond Saints Society @ the Garage (W-S), Friday

The itinerant constellation of bot-tom-line Winston-Salem musicians and assorted illustrious guests reconvenes to take on the Springsteen songbook. Show starts at 9 p.m.Hip hop’s blue noteGangstagrass @ Ziggy’s (W-S), Friday

Increasingly, Ziggy’s bookings have tended towards the extremes of hip-hop and country. So you can only applaud the appearance of Gangstagrass, a group that desegregates the two genres and their respective constituencies. Currently comprised of Rench, Dan Whitener, Mel-ody Berger, Landry McMeans, R-Son the Voice of Reason and Dolio the Sleuth, the Brooklyn-based group broke out when they were commissioned to write the theme for FX’s “Justified” in early 2010. Over the years, the likes of Kool Keith, Dead Prez and Smif-n-Wessun have guested with the project. While sonically distinct as genres, bluegrass and hip-hop are more attitudinal-ly aligned than one might suppose, sharing an unsentimental attitude about violence and working-class stoicism.

The deep love between a man and his celloby Jordan Green

the classical world, cellist Lynn Harrell needs no introduction.

He strode onstage at Dana Auditorium on July 11 with a broad smile, receiving a greeting of excited ap-plause from the full house, and took a seat with his instrument on a platform beside conductor Gerard Schwartz. Har-rell appeared with the Eastern Festival Orchestra for the second concert in the weekly Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Festival Orchestra Series at Guilford College.

The 71-year-old Harrell is a con-summate professional — isn’t that a prerequisite in classical music? — but also a performer who feels music deeply and approaches live collaboration with gusto.

A musician who has said he places as much weight on living a fulfilled life as artistic excellence, Harrell found a suitable match in Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote, Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character. His bow at rest during the “Introduzione,” Harrell made a bravura performance out of listening. He grimaced with the emo-

tion of a stirring movement, squinted in appreciation at a subtle articulation by one of the orchestra’s violinists, and his eyes widened in acknowledgement of a bright exposi-tion. Pursing his lips and nodding along with the rhythm, his whiskered jowls seemed to quiver with each dramatic flare.

As the music moved into “Tema con variazioni I-X” of Strauss’ piece, Harrell graciously forayed into so-los in the broad vistas carved out by orchestra. The first solo was delicate and thoughtful, the second robust and expressive. As the piece progressed in intensity, the complexity of Harrell’s playing evolved commensurately, with the musician demonstrating an ability to drop from demonstrative boldness to delicate articulation within a measure.

Representing the vainglory and ideal-ism of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the protagonist of Don Miguel de Cervant-es’ classic novel, Harrell’s solos provided

a noble and serious counterpoint to the jaunty adventurous-ness of the orches-tra’s violas, artic-ulating the earthy mockery of sidekick Sancho Panza.

As a picaresque featuring a deluded hero, Don Quixote represents the popu-lar culture of its day; Harrell, as a classical

musician demonstrates willingness to accommodate the demands of con-temporary culture. His repertoire of facial expressions leant Don Quixote an operatic flair.

Yet to popular audiences, Harrell’s greatest renown might be thanks to a 2013 segment on “People Who Are Destroying America” on “The Colbert

Cellist Lynn Harrell practices the art of listening as Gerard Schwartz conducts the Eastern Festival Orchestra. JORDAN GREEN

The Eastern Festival Or-chestra premieres a new symphony by Lowell Lieb-ermann on Saturday at 8 p.m. in Dana Auditorium at Guilford College. Visit easternmusicfestival.org for ticket information.

In

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Report,” after Delta Airlines kicked him out of its frequent flyer program. Har-rell had opened an account for his cello, so he could accrue points when he pur-chased tickets to carry the instrument with him on flights. Framing the satir-ical piece around people who “demand they embrace their deviant lifestyles,” the segment features Harrell saying, “I think, of course, of a cello as being like a fellow human being. I call it a name and I think it’s alive and living and commu-nicates about deep feelings.”

The medieval hero who tilts at wind-mills and the contemporary concert cellist who insists on “special rights” for his instruments are of course different animals, but what binds them is an ar-tistic willingness to poke fun at oneself.

That kind of popular framing is a useful access point for someone who is not necessarily familiar with composers and works of classical music, or the literature on which much of the canon is based.

Take the Eastern Festival Orches-tra’s rendition of Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov’s Suite from Le coq d’or (The Golden Cockerel) earlier in the concert.

One need know nothing about the composer, who lived in Russia from 1844 to 1908, or the original literary work by Alexander Pushkin to appreci-ate Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera. The suite — quiet, soothing melody disturbed by a dark undercurrent of cellos in the first movement; light, breezy notes coun-terposed against a creeping riff in the second; a gracious reprieve in the third; and violins played with fury and control hinting at danger lurking around the corner in the fourth — suggest nothing so much as the score of a late 1940s black and white film noir.

Conductor Gerard Schwartz and the orchestra gave their all to the piece, and to the entire concert. Conducting with verve, Schwartz’s hands waved towards the wings, summoning strains of sounds from the musicians. And the violinists played with furiously knitted eyebrows.

The convoluted plotline of the Golden Cockerel makes it clear how this music became a precursor for 20th Centu-ry cinema: Tsar Dodon receives the cockerel from a mysterious astrologer, with the understanding that it will warn him against threats to his security; the tsar discovers the bodies of his two sons, who have each plotted to kill each other to position themselves for power,

on a moonlit battlefield; the tsar falls under the spell of the beautiful Queen Shemakha (femme fatale, hello!) and marries her in a lavish ceremony; the astrologer returns to claim the bride for himself, whereupon Dodon kills him only to have the cockerel take down the tsar with a fatal peck to the jugular. The epilogue to Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera suggests that the entire story might have been an illusion all along, with only the astrologer and the queen being real. What could be more noir than that?

Similar drama attended Don Quix-ote with Harrell performing cello as a soloist in the second set. In the excit-ing finale, Harrell pursed his lips in an agonizing “oh.” With majestic sweep, Schwartz conducted like a man wading into the surf. The piece ended sudden-ly, and Harrell took a bow and left the stage. Clearly appreciative of each other and having fun, the musicians joined the audience’s sustained applause by waving their bows. Beaming, Harrell emerged from the wings, holding Mr. Cello aloft.

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5 Palette by Daniel Wirtheim

No boys allowedLadies night @ Secca (W-S), Thursday

It’s that night to get a couple girlfriends together and drink some wine, eat some food and whatever else you crazy ladies do. There will be socializing to be had, and a film noir, The Killing, will be screened. There’s an open bar and food by Jeffrey Adams on Fourth. Visit secca.org for more information.

A painter in processDavid Shaw @ Delurk Gallery (W-S), Wednesday

David Shaw paints over everything twice, and then four times, until there’s about an inch of paint on a canvas. He throws fragments of consumer culture — like barcodes and things — into the mix and calls it process painting. Visit Delurk-gallery.com for more information.

Lots of munchies Food for thought @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), all week

The food-obsessed art exhibit continues at the Weatherspoon, where food is polit-ical, philosophical and typically not edible. There’s photography from Israeli artist Ori Gersht and a whole lot of conceptual fruit. It’s a lot to serve up — maybe the “Weatherfork” would have been a better name. Visit weatherspoon.uncg.edu for more information.

Sometimes destruction is a part of the creative process. DANIEL WIRTHEIM

Through

The creative process on displayby Daniel Wirtheim

a series of photographs, Marina Shaltout smash-es Jurassic Park with a hammer, assembling the tape into a ball and

fixing it to a steel necklace. In her artist statement, Shaltout writes that she has been destroying objects “in order to re-move their historical connotations and provide them with new potential.”

Artists featured in Delurk Gallery’s exhibition Create : Adorn exhibit their work along with the process of making each piece, so that the story is just as important as the finished product.

Most artists tell the story of their work with photography, taking photos of early structural sketches and raw ma-terials. In some cases, the photographs feature carefully arranged parts that seem too clean, almost contrived — as if the artist knew we would be watching.

The more remarkable process diaries are for the Victorian-styled lockets and necklaces, or the modernist sculptures. The outlines are scribbled equations on graph paper with angular measure-ments displaying enough gadgetry to startle the most dedicated steampunks right out of their goggles.

The simple beau-ty of Annie Grimes Williams’ necklace, a heap of leaf-shaped copper enamel, be-trays the intense craftsmanship behind her work. The process sketches are detailed, featuring three-dimensional renderings of copper leaves measured and subscribed to acute analysis. The piece itself is uncomplicated, almost homely.

Motoko Furuhashi, whose materials

included road segments, broken side mirrors and car paint, told the story of her contemporary sculptures through a series of photographs from junkyards and dilapidated buildings. Her sculp-tures, which look like torture devices, get a much-needed redemption by

means of precise com-positional balance.

Furuhashi’s process photos of people walking among trash heaps and hands holding wire cutters

incite a narrative more interesting than the piece itself [awkward]. With little explanation, they set the stage for the viewer’s own imaginative journey through an apocalyptic city.

Luke Ivy Price’s bracelet, which he titled Bisect Bracelet, uses a mixture of polymer plastics and manmade stones

Create : Adorn runs to Aug. 1 at Delurk Gallery in Winston-Salem.

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Jurassic park as a fashion accesory. DANIEL WIRTHEIM

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to achieve its contemporary aesthetic. There’s a playful shade of blue along with a translucent orange band. Two pink gemstones give the bracelet a look that could be either kitsch or alien technology. Bisect Bracelet looks like something that might have fallen from the P-Funk Mothership.

It’s displayed delicately among Price’s process work, which to the untrained eye looks like undecipherable math equations. Bisect Bracelet is best un-derstood as a whole — along with the drafted versions — to understand.

Anna Johnson’s, Syriacus Brooch, made from grossular garnet, rain-bow moonstone, bat skull, fine silver, sterling silver, ancient bronze, hibiscus pod and stainless steel is easily most delicately crafted and balanced piece throughout the exhibit.

The skull, less fearsome than cute, sits among a delicately arranged nest of items that might have been picked from a meadow in Montana. Her style is not

new, but earnest. Johnson’s process photos show a

startling image of a mossy forest path covered in hibiscus flowers. What could easily be overlooked as an Urban Outfitters accessory is given a new per-spective: the artist as forager. Johnson’s work is holistic and lively. It’s a journey through death, striving for balance in the meadow’s ecosystem.

Destructed Jurassic Park VHS Necklace by Marina Shaltout stands out like a harmonica player at a classical mu-sic convention. It’s a silly necklace, a jumble of black VHS tape attached to a cheap steel chain. Only by means of process and association can the most pretentious piece of work in the gallery become the most captivating.

Destructed Jurassic Park VHS Necklace echoes the frustration of a generation grown up on Steven Spielberg franchis-es that have since been sucked dry by Hollywood execs. It assumes the same sense of ironic hipster humor that made

collecting Jerry Maguire VHS’ tapes a cultural phenomena, but somehow gets to the punch line with more finesse and sense of endearment, so much so that the $180 price tag almost seems reasonable.

Perhaps it’s not unlike a headhunter who gains power through the shrunken skulls of his enemies that Destruct-ed Jurassic Park VHS Necklace gives Shaltout a sense of agency and power. It’s a bold statement, ambiguous, and it underscores beauty of having an artist’s process exhibited along with her work.

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Life beyond Netflix: Video rental aims for a comebackby Chris Nafekh

Blockbuster? Once upon a time, young couples would wan-der the blue-carpet aisles and debate what to rent. The company reached

its prime in 2004, when it owned more than 9,000 stores and employed 60,000 workers. But, after unsuccess-fully competing with Netflix, Redbox and the merciless scourge of internet piracy, the film rental giant filed for bankruptcy just six years later. Dish Network, which bought Blockbuster’s remains, began tearing the stores down like wallpaper. The blue-ticket logo that once represented Blockbuster LLC now symbolizes a bygone era.

But one small video-rental store in High Point still stands.

Family Video, on the corner of Eastchester and Main is a fully func-tional, well stocked video rental store. It stands at the heart of High Point’s

furniture district, surrounded by quality restaurants and car dealerships. And, yes, there are customers.

Walking inside is a throwback to the glory days of Blockbuster, a sight that will startle any youngster who thought entertainment was only kept in a small box labeled “Netflix — Watch Movies Online.” It’s a place where Oscar Nom-inees, B-movies and video games stand together in the same store.

American Sniper. The Maltese Falcon. Selma. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Stephen King’s It. The Hobbit. Howard the Duck. Mad Max. Classic Looney Tunes. The Forbidden Kingdom. “Mork and Mindy.” Signs. “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Lincoln. Sharknado.

Video games for any recent console are available, with new releases like Bat-man: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3.

At first glance, Family Video seems like an anomaly, but the franchise has more than 700 locations in the United States and Canada. They boast being

the “largest movie and game rental chain in the United States.” Currently, there’s one in High Point and two in Winston-Salem. Another will soon set up shop in Greensboro. According to District Manager Dan Bonenzi, who heads multiple locations in the Triad area, it’s just a matter of when and where.

“We really want, like, three of them in Greensboro,” Bonenzi said. “If the right place opens up where we can put a Family Video… we’re gonna do it.”

The franchise was founded in the 1970s by Charlie Hoogland who turned his father’s Appliance and Supply Company into the video-rental chain., Amazingly, the company survived the recession. How did Family Video stay afloat? Bonenzi attributes its survival to the company’s business model.

“We own all of our own property,” he said, “which is a huge deal as we found out with Blockbuster.”

In High Point, the video store is con-

High Point Family Video store on the corner of Eastchester and Main street. CHRIS NAFEKH

Remember

On iTunes, Stitcher, and at BradandBritt.com

STAGE & SCREENSTAGE & SCREENCigarettes and coffeeGoing Dark Film Noir Screening Series: The Killing (1956) @ Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (W-S) Thursday

Criminals always have one last heist. The Killing, directed by Stanley Kubrick, tells the tale of a thief trying to conduct his magnum opus — robbing a race track. As a grand exit from his life of crime, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) just wants enough money to settle down with his lover, Fay (Coleen Gray). Nothing ever goes as planned. Tickets are $5 and the show starts at 8 pm. For more information, visit secca.org/going-dark48 hours laterGreensboro 48 Hour Film Project @ the Car-olina Theatre (GSO) Wednesday-Thursday

The 48 Hour Film Project is a com-petition in which filmmakers and their production teams generate short films within 48 hours. The Carolina Theatre holds three screenings – one on Wednesday at 9 p.m., and two on Thursday starting at 9 p.m. General admission tickets are $10, but to see all three screenings it’s $25. To buy tickets, visit carolinatheatre.com or for competition information, visit 48hourfilm.com/Greensboro-nc.An Iranian mysteryAbout Ellie @ Geeksboro Coffeehouse (GSO) Friday

Critically acclaimed About Ellie comes from award winning Iranian director, producer and writer Asghar Farhadi. The film won several awards and was Iran’s official submission for ‘Best Foreign Film’ section in the 82nd Academy Awards. The film begins with a group of middle-class Iranian friends taking a trip to the coast. Elly is meek kindergarten teacher, and after she falls for a man who has feelings for her, the trip becomes mysterious. Elly is not who she seems, and the others begin asking questions. For more information, check out Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema on Facebook.

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Now Playing by Daniel Wirtheim

Got a show coming up? Send your theater info to brian@triad-city-beat.com.Bryan King searches the Family DVDs for a movie to take home to

his family.CHRIS NAFEKH

Existential BroadwayTick, Tick… Boom! @Winston-Salem The-atre Alliance (W-S), Wednesday

Tick, Tick… Boom! is an autobiographical musical about an aspiring musical com-poser trying to make it in the big city. It’s a three-actor piece written by John Larson, the playwright credited to Rent. It follows Larson’s personal struggle to find balance between financial and artistic success as a composer for Broadway musicals. For showtimes visit wstheatrealliance.org.These walls are too thinThe Apartment Complex @ Carolina The-atre (GSO), Saturday

This play, made up of seven 10-minute plays, claims to conjure up bone chilling memories of Bitter Blood. Seven different scenarios steeped in dark humor tell the tale of the apartment complex, where everyone is a little off. A great author writes a suicide note to his strongest critic, two teachers receive disturbing phone calls and Christian man demands to be killed. The Apartment Complex is free to the public.What love can doTake One Step @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), through Sunday

When rats invade the city of Metropolita, the Pied Piper comes to show the citizens how friendship and trust will prevail over money and greed. This is a musical retelling of the classic Pied Piper story to celebrate the play’s 50th anniversary. You can find more information at childrensmuseumofws.org/take-one-step.The little, little mermaidThe Little Mermaid Jr. @ Community The-atre of Greensboro (GSO), through Sunday

Played by young actors, Little Mermaid Jr. stays true to the Disney classic all the way to the soundtrack. Kids from Guilford County have been working hard to bring the heart-warming tale of mermaid-turned-girl to the main stage. Visit ctog.org for more information. Like a little prayer before you eatLegends @ The Barn Dinner Theatre (GSO), Friday

Madonna, Billy Joel and Elvis Presley are just a few of the celebrities scheduled to crash this dinner party. The play is about a young man who gets caught in the middle of a hurricane on his way to an audition and decides to wait it out in a diner. Through-out the storm, a good song is never too far away. Check barndinner.com for more information.

nected to a Starbucks, which pays rent to Family Video.

The company also generates revenue through subsidiary ventures. In several locations, Family Video is connected to a restaurant chain, Marco’s Pizza. Re-cently, the company bought out Digital Doc, a computerrepair chain.

With a generation entranced by online streaming, it’s hard to imagine video rental making a strong comeback. But Family Video offers a number of things Netflix can’t. The feeling of a razor-thin disc around your finger, for instance, or high quality Blu-Ray that streaming isn’t capable of matching. Some people still collect DVDs for home entertainment, like family man Bryan King.

“I own a thousand movies, easy,” King said, “not counting a couple hundred they have.” He gestured towards his children, a young boy and girl. Togeth-er, they were searching the High Point Family Video for an evening of enter-tainment on a recent Wednesday night.

Family Videos customers are primarily families. Children’s videos are free to rent and Family Video boasts having their new releases 30-60 days before Netflix. This alone attracts customers like King.

But Family Video has one challenge.“The people who come here,” said

Bonenzi, “obviously they don’t stream a lot, and those are the customers we’re targeting too.”

In a world of increasingly accessible online media, Family Video could easily lose momentum. The industry has already been decimated by competi-tion, leaving Family Video the last store standing. If Netflix increases its variety, improves streaming quality and is able to make new releases available sooner, the service could pose a real threat to Family Video’s business model.

“I was skeptical when I started,” said Bonenzi, who has been with Family Video for three years. “Then, seeing how much they care about their customers and employees…. A lot of them are just smart about how they go about things. I can’t really talk about numbers, but it’s a very profitable business, like very profitable; we’ll leave it at that.”

PULLOUT: Family Video currently has three locations in the Triad. There’s one in High Point at the corner of Eastches-ter and Main, and two in Winston-Sa-lem, on Reynolda Road and on Old Salisbury Road. For more information, go towww.familyvideo.com

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Dulce et decorum estWasteland.

Hell… I’m still only in Waste-land.

Every min-ute I stay in this room I get weaker, and every minute

my matched opponent Tilby squats in the desert, he gets stronger.

Patunka Games, a new Greensboro game development company, threw Tilby and I into this godawful, crazy mess with Wartime Cronies, their turn-based, WWII-era strategy game for Android phones. It’s the compa-ny’s first release and it’s free to play.

At least, for your first nation.I signed up with the United States

to take advantage of the M4 Sherman tank, P-51 Mustang fighter plane and USS North Carolina battleship — a nod to the company’s origin. I could’ve shipped out with any of 15 other countries, including the seven other major powers and their allies like Brazil, India and Yugoslavia.

Each nation has its own strengths and weaknesses. German ground troops — like Tilby’s — fight hard, but they’re expensive to maintain and take a long time to reinforce.

The units encompass everything from infantry and tanks to heavy bombers and battleships, fighting on terrain ranging from jungle and marshland to snowy mountains and the open sea.

Moving on grids composed of hexagonal spaces, your units capture villages, cities, ports and airfields, all holding strategic significance.

Depending on the nation you serve with, you can fight on historical bat-tlefields in a custom match. If you’re Russian or German, you can engage the Eastern Front with the Barbarossa map. The Germans can invade France in a mock-up of 1940. The Americans island-hop against the Japanese in Pacific War.

Quick Match serves as the standard mode of play, randomly setting you up with a player on an open map.

Like how I met Tilby in Wasteland — the sun’s anvil.

I didn’t ask to be sent to the desert for my first mission. I hate the heat. It’s a dry heat, but the whipping sand chaps the skin of your cheeks raw and drives diamond flecks into your eyes.

But if you play it right, the desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped.

On this ocean, my Shermans and motorized divisions strike where they please. And they strike efficiently in the desert. Though the Egyptians perform the best of any nation in the terrain — naturally — the American tanks, planes and halftracks receive a 20-percent attack boost when fight-ing in the endless, rolling dunes.

And the Americans can produce units quicker and cheaper than most other nations — wartime produc-tion at its finest. All it takes is two turns and $12 to produce a motorized division. Three turns and $25 gets you a Sherman. Add $10 to that, and you have a Mustang — best fighter of the war.

After I took a nearby village and airfield, codenamed Wichita and Witt-stock, I could spy Tilby, my faceless nemesis, through the fog of war. He’d taken the airfield on the other side of a small mountain range splitting the middle of the map.

All it would take was a hop over the mountains, and I could crush him.

But Tilby struck first.His motorized divisions slammed

Wittstock before another flank took Wichita from my exhausted infantry. I couldn’t access my reinforcements in time before a Panzer group annihilat-ed my halftracks north of the capital.

When my Shermans rolled out of my capital’s factory, I avenged my fall-en comrades. I then moved a motor-ized division back into the airfield.

But Tilby kept rolling Panzers out of his capital. They recaptured Witt-

stock.It was a digital war of attrition.

Wichita and Wittstock quickly be-came killing floors.

I dispatched some B-25 Mitchell bombers to knock out Tilby’s defenses at the airfield, but without fighter support, they became fodder for his Bf-109 fighters stationed there. Yossarian of Catch-22 would not have been pleased.

We stayed in stalemate for what seemed eternity.

A deep sense of panicked defeat settled in, and morale slumped to a new low. Any frontal assault to-wards Wittstock turned out to be in vain. I lost division after division of Shermans, Mitchells, Mustangs and Avenger torpedo bombers. Burnt-out carcasses of wrought steel littered the dunes outside of the airfield.

I halted all offensives. I began building an eastern front close to the capital. If Tilby wanted to defeat me, I figured he’d have to come at me with all he had.

My nerves are bad tonight. I’m stuck in rats’ alley, where the dead men lost their bones. Posted in a de-fensive line ringing Washington. And we haven’t moved in eight hours.

In Wartime Cronies, hours seem to last ages.

Finally, my phone rings.A lone Panzer group peeked

through the fog of war. My massed materiel idled within striking distance of this division and the desert beyond.

I had him.“Ready to finish this?” I asked him

via the in-game chat function.“Sry my English is not good,” Tilby

replied. “I am from Saxony.”Then he said something which

made me smile: “I don’t give up.”To think: If we’d met in different

circumstances, we’d probably be good friends.

I went over the top.After 26 turns, Berlin fell.

GOOD SPORT

by Anthony Harrison

On Deck by Anthony Harrison GOOD SPORT

altervapes.com(336) 938-0070602-A S Elm St • Greensboro

Aesth-leticismField Day New Sports Camp @ Elsewhere (GSO), Thursday

As I’ve mentioned before, Elsewhere has featured artist Tom Russotti of the Institute of Aesthletics every Saturday in July for Field Day New Sports Camps. An extra field day has been added for this week, though. Meet at the City Market on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to participate in the new games Russotti has created, or you can show up at Elsewhere on Saturday at the regular time of 10 a.m. The camps are free and open to the public; just bring your sneakers, some water and an open mind.Cat/Dash feverLynchburg Hillcats @ Winston-Salem Dash (W-S), July 19

At press time, the Winston-Salem Dash sit at the top of the Carolina League Southern Division with a 10-7 record. Not bad! From Wednesday through Saturday, they’ll be taking on the Carolina Mudcats (9-10) over in Zebulon, but they’ll be back at BB&T Ballpark for a three-game homestand against the Lynchburg Hillcats (9-8). See what I mean with the cat thing? There’s just a lot of cats. Visit milb.com for tickets and game times.Sweet Georgia BrownHarlem Globetrotters Summer Basketball Camps @ Greensboro Sportsplex (GSO), July 20

Fun facts about the Harlem Globetrot-ters: They were actually founded in Chi-cago in 1926. Wilt Chamberlain was once a Globetrotter, and honorary members in-clude Whoopi Goldberg, Henry Kissinger, Pope Francis and Nelson Mandela. Most importantly, they’re hosting their summer camp for kids aged 6-12 on July 20 and 21, teaching fundamentals like dribbling, passing and shooting. To register, call 336.358.2100 or visit ncbasketeballacade-my.net for more information.

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204 S. Westgate Drive, Greensboro(336)323-1288 // gatecityvineyard.com

Engaging with God, one another, and the world.

Whatever your thoughts about church, whatever your beliefs about God … you are welcome here.

Sunday services @ 10:30am

©2015 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

Answers from last issue.

GAMESGAMES‘We’re On the Air’ and the path is clear.by Matt Jones

Across1 Where SSTs used to land4 Curve segment7 Come in12 Indie rock band ___ Kiley13 Mayday call14 Insect with a 17-year life cycle15 Rent-___ (airport service)16 “Uh-oh,” in kiddie talk18 Chase doggedly20 Spread over21 American-born former queen of Jordan22 Coloring agent25 Assoc. formed in Bogota26 “Wanted” initials29 Go paragliding30 Little round hill32 Planet explored by Voyager I34 It has its ups and downs37 Truck stop purchase38 Back twinge39 Lofty poems40 Angular prefix41 “Much ___ About Nothing” (“Simpsons”

episode)44 Chinese cooking need45 Euro fraction49 “Green Acres” costar Eva51 “Dallas” spinoff54 Island resort town in South Carolina57 “Garfield Minus Garfield” character58 Balance sheet heading59 Wayne LaPierre’s org.60 Walter ___ Army Medical Center61 Big serving spoon62 In the closet, or out of it63 Suspicious element?

Down1 Starchy root used in salads2 Cereal bits3 Divided Asian nation4 Beginning at5 Housetop6 “Washington Journal” airer7 Duck with soft feathers8 “First in Flight” st.9 Mai ___ (bar order)10 Cutting crew, for short?11 “A drop of golden sun”12 “Midnight Cowboy” hustler Rizzo14 ___ Institute (D.C. think tank)17 Airport northwest of LAX19 Fake-tanned22 Gloomy23 Needlework supply24 Geographical suffix27 1980s-’90s chancellor Helmut28 Ctrl-___-Del29 Flute part30 What X may mean31 Old albums32 Walk of Fame award33 Punctuation in an email address34 Cousin of Rover35 Bulbed vegetable36 On target37 Financial barometer, with “the”41 “The Dude ___”42 Small horses43 Pushed hard45 $100 bill, in old slang46 Billions of years47 “Ultimate” degree48 Taiwanese golfer Yani ___, youngest to win

five major championships50 Love like crazy51 “Hooked on Classics” company52 “Tomb Raider” heroine53 One-___ (multivitamin)54 Talking computer of film55 “Love ___ Battlefield”56 Psychedelic stuff

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Gumballs while you wait.

High Point Road (aka Gate City Boulevard), Greensboro

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

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Frank Slate Brooks Broker/Realtor®336.708.0479 cell 336.274.1717 office frankslate.brooks@trm.info

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The inevitable lawsuit

Over these last few months, Tony Wilkins’ hair has gone from charcoal gray to stark white. It’s like he’s aging in

Obama years. Or seen a ghost.The District 5 representative to

Greensboro City Council has been living in a lonely world since state Sen. Trudy Wade unleashed her plan to reconfigure the city in the pages of the Rhino Times, with presumptive succor from both the editor and publisher.

As the only sitting councilmember to embrace — nay, espouse — Wade’s gam-bit, and the only one who hasn’t been double-bunked with one of his peers on council or displaced from his district in the new configuration, he’s an outlier, a lone voice in the woods, the pube in the soup.

Wilkins and his snow-white head of hair stoically took to the dais last week when council took comments from the public on the new law as it consid-ered whether to sue the state under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Why should Greensboro be the one city in the state denied the right of self-determination?

Everybody who knows stuff knows that Wilkins would sooner sculpt his white hair into a spiked Mohawk than endorse this lawsuit, which goes against the wishes of Senate President Phjl

Berger the man he’s called “Big Daddy” in Raleigh; Wade, his political mentor; and a secret cabal of ‘business lead-ers” who have yet to make themselves known.

Wilkins has a cadre of boosters and useful idiots by his side on this one, too. They showed up early at city hall, some to stack the list of commenters and others to hold signs out front for the TV cameras. Their specialty is to create the illusion of greater numbers, like a mind-less school of fish whose herd instinct has been triggered by fear.

Let’s be clear: Wade’s law eventu-ally passed, a sleazy story unto itself; the governor, who is against it, has no opportunity to block this local bill; the lawsuit filed on Monday, which appears to have a 50-50 chance of success at this point, is the city’s only recourse against what looks and feels an awful lot like bullying.

Even before this public hearing, everybody who knows stuff knows that this lawsuit was as certain as spring showers. Not only has the new council makeup failed to gain public buy-in, as one local newspaper publisher put it — despite publishing the results of a crap poll saying exactly the opposite in that very same newspaper — but half the people on council would be gone under the new rules.

For the political class, having an office from which to operate is as essential as oxygen.

That knowledge made the Wednes-day night council meeting something of a farce.

But like all good government meet-ings, the tale was in the subtext.

Former councilman and former state Rep. Earl Jones — incidentally, also a newspaper publisher — lobbied me on the way in, toeing the party line set by his business partner Skip Alston, possi-bly in the upstairs library of the Inter-national Civil Rights Center & Museum underneath their own portraits.

Inside Melvin Municipal Office Build-ing, Alston had already staked out a space in the back near former Mayor Bill Knight, Alston’s ally in this cause who headed the failed conservative coun-cil that somehow managed to launch Wade into the state Senate.

To make these bedfellows even stranger, Knight chatted up community lawyer Luther Falls, who would later go on record against the new config-uration, in the moments before the meeting began.

The chamber filled to capacity well before the hearing began, with an overflow crowd of more than 100 filling the lobby to watch on a closed-circuit screen. Media in the balcony had the opportunity to watch the proceed-ings below, while also hearing crowd reactions through the thin doors. Like when Mayor Nancy Vaughan announced Alston’s turn for comment, everyone in the lobby laughed. And while he was speaking through the microphone, they booed.

Former Mayor Robbie Perkins, who tied his unsuccessful re-election cam-paign of 2013 to Alston’s coalition, got similar treatment.

Their pitch — that the new district election could allow for more Afri-can-Americans on council — rings hollow, if only for the fact that the architects of this plan would never do anything that expressly benefited black people. Remember, this is the same crew that once wanted to reopen the White Street Landfill.

But really, no one knows for sure how these new districts would play out. And that’s part of the problem.

Marty Kotis, one prominent Greens-boro businessman who came out against the plan from the get-go, hung by the perimeter of the lobby on July 8, and when the chance to sign up for a speaking slot arose he jumped at it.

He’s well known in the state as a sup-porter of Republicans and their causes, but when it comes to his hometown Kotis is neither red nor blue. He’s green.

The problem, he said, is not the shift in power from left to right, though he notes that Greensboro is and always has been a reliably liberal city going back to its Quaker origins. The problem is in not knowing where the districts are and who the candidates will be, and whether the real election will be in October or November.

Instability, he stresses, is bad for busi-ness. And thus far, besides the preter-natural whitening of Wilkins’ hair, it has been the only byproduct of this most recent political takeover of Greensboro.

Nicole Crews returns in August with All She Wrote. Find her archive at triad-city-beat.com/all-she-wrote.

by Brian Clarey

Sketch by Jorge Maturino

triad-city-beat.com