TCB Dec. 2, 2015 — Block by Block

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point

FREE triad-city-beat.comDecember 2 – 8, 2015

Burr, in the saddle PAGE 10

Landlocked yacht club PAGE 21

Anthony’s first buck PAGE 26

The annual assessment of downtown growthPAGE 16

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In Eric Ginsburg’s cover story this week, Block by Block be-ginning on page 16, the author bemoans the pace of change in downtown Greensboro, which he perceives as too slow.

I can understand that — for someone his age, a couple of years can seem like a lifetime. And I too feel like I’ve been looking at the scaffolding on the Southeastern Building, the fenced-off site for the performing arts center and Roy Carroll’s dirt pit since I was a much younger man.

But really, when I actually was a much younger man, down-town Greensboro was one of the saddest business districts I’d ever encountered in my life.

I got here 15 years ago, at the age 30, and I had never seen such wasted potential as I did in the sprawl, dilapidated buildings and outdated storefronts — there was once an appliance store on South Elm Street, as if anyone would ever buy a washing machine from a mom-and-pop concern, even way back in the year 2000.

I worked in the building that once stood on the corner that now holds Center City Park back in 2001, not too long after Pete Schroth took a chance on the Green Bean, the only cultural light in the blighted corner of Hamburger Square besides the Paisley Pineapple and the upstairs Sofa Bar in a building that once caught fire twice in the same night. It became Natty Greene’s not too long afterwards.

The stretch of South Elm Street known as the Medaloni District, a string of clubs overseen by nightlife doyenne Joey Medaloni, presented the only action after dark on the main strip, and the Rhinoceros Club gave life to what is now a quieter stretch of Greene Street. The old Rhinoceros Times faithfully documented the scene with party pics that, to look at them now — the fashions, the hairdos, the pervading mood of optimism — seem almost charmingly provincial.

Erik Beerbower and a crew of young artists intended to turn what is now the Railyard and South End into an Arts & Antiques District, a burst of optimism before the closing of Jules Antiques. It was but one of a dozen ideas swirling around the potential of downtown Greensboro.

There was talk back then of digging a waterfront, building a baseball stadium, attracting a grocery store, allowing hot-dog vendors to operate on the sidewalks past 9 p.m. Mayor Keith Holliday finally pushed that last one through after realizing in 2004, following the opening of Natty’s, that there were more people on the streets of downtown at night than there were during daylight hours.

I thought that was the tipping point, way back in my early thirties, which would finally bring some life into that sprawl-ing wasteland. And in some ways it was. Downtown today is unrecognizable from that pupal stage I encountered when I first got here, and in a couple more years it will have moved even further away from those quiet days in the city.

I’m more patient now that I was then. But still, it’s not hap-pening fast enough for me either.

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

I remember

UP FRONT

3 Editor’s Notebook4 City Life6 Commentariat6 The List7 Barometer7 Unsolicited EndorsementNEWS 8 Weaponized noise10 Burr makes re-election bid12 HPJ: Gifting open space OPINION 14 Editorial: The power of the lie 14 Citizen Green: Citizen Trump

15 IJMW: Public shunning15 Fresh Eyes: ‘Blame it on

Aristotle!’COVER 16 Block by blockCULTURE 20 Food: Boned21 Barstool: Beached yacht22 Music: Possum party 24 Stage & Screen: Lane on

Beautiful StarGOOD SPORT 26 My first buck

GAMES 27 Jonesin’ CrosswordSHOT IN THE TRIAD 28 West Lewis Street,

GreensboroALL SHE WROTE 30 Start spreading the news

by Brian Clarey

BUSINESSPUBLISHER Allen [email protected]

EDITORIALEDITOR IN CHIEF Brian [email protected]

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric [email protected]

NEST EDITOR Alex [email protected]

EDITORIAL INTERNS Daniel [email protected]

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING INTERNNicole ZelnikerARTART DIRECTOR Jorge [email protected]

SALESDIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING & SALES Dick [email protected]

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar [email protected]

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl [email protected]

NESTAdvertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every [email protected]

CONTRIBUTORSCarolyn de BerryNicole CrewsAnthony HarrisonMatt JonesAmanda SalterCaleb Smallwood

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St., Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320Cover photography by Eric “Bunny” GinsburgElsewhere facillitated art on the side of ReAligned.

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

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

CONTENTS

QUOTE OF THE WEEK“He earns his paycheck playing with Donna the Buffalo, but we’re going to put him on retainer. Which means we’re going to take him to an old house out in the county and lock him up until the next gig.”— Possum Jenkins’ David Brewer, on guest keyboardist David McCracken

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WEDNESDAY Autism in Love @ Salem College (W-S), 7:30 p.m. RiverRun International Film Festival and the positive-thinking foundation iCan House present a documentary film following the romantic lives of four individuals with autism. Autism in Love sets out to prove that genuine romance can happen in the lives of people diagnosed with autism. The film is a part of the Indie Lens Pop Up screenings and is followed by a discussion. Visit riverrunfilm.com for more information.

CITY LIFE December 2 – 8 by Daniel Wirtheim

THURSDAY

Holiday decorating lecture @ Muddy Creek Music Hall (W-S), 10:30 a.m. Michael Ausbon, the decorative arts cura-tor of the NC Museum of History, speaks about the history of decorative traditions in Bethania and North Carolina as a whole. He’s demonstrating how he makes his fantastic historically inspired Christmas wreaths so that you can put the cheesy Christmas décor back in the garage. Visit townofbethania.org for more information.

FRIDAYArt in Odd Places/LAB @ Downtown (GSO), 5 p.m.UNCG students who studied the New York version of Art in Odd Places are bringing their installations, performances and interactive art to downtown Greensboro. They also hint that you should turn on your radio as you approach to participate in some interactive sound art. Find the Facebook page by searching “aiopLab.”

First Friday @ (GSO), 6 p.m.Festival of Lights is hosting this First Friday, which brings the holiday spirit to the monthly self-guided tour of downtown. Christmas carolers and lights are part of the scenery. Visit downtowngreensboro.net for more information.

Gallery Hop @ Downtown Arts District (W-S), 7 p.m.Streets are closed for the monthly gallery hop. The arts district is alive with the sound of street performers and shoes on the asphalt as Winston-Salem galleries show off their best. Visit dadaws.org for more information.

Miracle on 5th Street @ the Millennium Center (W-S), 7 p.m. You’ll need a toy to get into this party. Drink beer or wine, snack on hors d’oeuvres listen to live music hosted by the Garage while you help Twin City Santa get a toy into the hands of every child this Christmas. Find more information at twincitysanta.org.

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SATURDAY Holiday parade @ Downtown (GSO), noon A giant balloon parade with marching bands, drill teams and floats hit the streets of down-town as part of a Greensboro holiday tradition. If parading is not your thing, at least beware of street closures. Visit gsoholidayparade.com for more information.

Holiday Stroll @ Uptowne (HP), 10 a.m.Children make crafts, community performers do their thing and the historic homes and churches of Uptowne High Point are open for your viewing pleasure at this holiday fes-tival. Horse-drawn carriages take visitors through the streets of Uptowne as the word on the street is that Santa Claus himself is planning an appearance. Visit uptownehighpoint.org for more information.

Community Cultural Market @ Bethel AME. Church (GSO), noon“Market” might be a misnomer. Maybe “festival” is a better way to describe the group of African drummers, spoken-word poets and African clothing vendors along with speakers and various black businesses that are holding it down at the Bethel AME Church. You’ll have to find the Facebook page for more details.

Candlefest @ Greensboro Arboretum (GSO), 6 p.m. Luminaries light the paths of Greensboro’s Arboretum as walkers sip hot chocolate and stroll the grounds to the sound of Christmas carolers and horse-drawn carriages. Santa Claus (who’s scheduled for a busy week) is there as well. Bring a can of food for the food for the Urban Ministry and get more details at greensboro-nc.gov.

Spirit World @ the Marshall Free House (GSO), 3 p.m.Sarah Poole, an ambassador from spirit makers Beam Suntory, leads the first part of an educational series on spirits. She enlightens listeners to the nuances between small batch and single barrel bourbon, and more. Find the page on Facebook for more details.

Collector’s Choice @ Greenhill Center (GSO), 7 p.m. You’re spending more time indoors, where it’s warm. So why not get a good win-ter-themed piece of art for your home? The Winter Show exhibition is going up and here is a chance to take something home and talk with the exhibiting artists. Visit greenhillnc.org for more details.

SUNDAYWinter Walk @ UNCG (GSO), 1 p.m. To commemorate World AIDS day, which was Tuesday, Triad Health Project hosts a 5K walk and run on the UNCG campus. Free and confidential HIV testing is available and the run-ning or walking is optional. Email [email protected] for more information.

Holiday Open House @ High Point Museum (HP), 1 p.m.High Point Museum hosts historical reenactments, music and other hands-on activities at their 43rd Annual Holiday Open House. Glenn Chavis, historian and author of Our Roots, Our Branches, Our Fruits of Knowledge — Black Schools of High Point & Surrounding Area… 1868-1968 is signing books. Santa Claus is scheduled to make an appearance. Visit highpointmuseum.org for more information.

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Dear white peopleI agree with you, Chelsea: As Latina that studies

intercultural communication in southern Illinois, I get oppressed for advocating to better our world [“Fresh Eyes: Why colleges are not neutral spaces”; by Chelsea Yarborough; Nov. 15, 2015]. My at-tempts to improve public pedagogy are sometimes denied because of my skin color. This is applied as colorism. If I advocate for my Latino commu-nity and for social justice, but I do not appear to look “ethnic,”, then “I have nothing to complain about” and “I have no struggles.” This is absolute nonsense. We all have the space to educate our community with the correct neutral pedagogy. Great job expressing this issue, as we must all act against it.

Dominique Crespo, via triad-city-beat.com

In my view, powers-that-be — almost inevitably white — believe that the solution to oppression in higher ed (systemic racism, social injustice, unfairness, etc.) rests in sitting through lengthy discussions, formation of subcommittees, collection of “data” and of course, a succinct “definition of the problem.” This devotion to process is supposed to indicate how much the institution cares, when really what people of color want, whether they’re stu-dents or employees, is for the oppression to stop. “Tears of white guilt” are about as useful as sub-committees and data collection are when a house is on fire. Brown University just announced it’s going to spend $100 million over 10 years to improve race relations, which sounds like a good start to me.

Andrew J. Young, via triad-city-beat.com

Setting the record straightI usually always enjoy and appreciate your work

but I especially enjoyed your opinion piece about the Community-City Working Group meeting on Nov. 19 [“Citizen Green: Nelson Johnson: The ag-itator becomes the conciliator”; by Jordan Green; Nov. 25, 2015]. Not only did it do justice to Nelson Johnson, it helps settle the record about whether the CCWG fully endorsed the purported proposals of BLM, which we did not. We did agree to collab-orate to further discuss those items and others.

We are lucky to have you in this area as we all struggle to make a better world. I really believe Greensboro has the history and talent to become a national leader for a progressive city.

Cheers and thanks, Lewis Pitts, via email

8 songs about downtownby Daniel Wirtheim1. Petula Clark — “Downtown”

With an orchestra playing one of the most infectious melodies ever written, Petula Clark’s telling of the endless possibilities within a flourishing downtown make this the quintessential downtown song. English writer and produc-er Tony Hatch wrote the melody to the international hit when he mistook Times Square for downtown NYC. But whatever, because he really nailed what a good downtown is all about.

2. The Pretenders — “Downtown (Akron)”The Pretenders channel the raw, primitive stimulation

that is downtown on a Saturday night. With a driving punk-rock rhythm and the aggressive whispering vocals of front-woman Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders command listeners to “get to the heart, baby, the heart of the city.”

3. Tom Waits — “Downtown Train”Sometimes downtown is the place of longing, like in

Tom Wait’s night-time ride on a downtown train, a yearning journey in which he hopes to run into the woman who’s captured his heart. Probably the most accessible and affectionate track from Wait’s Rain Dogs, a cover version of “Downtown Train” became an immensely popular hit for Rod Stewart.

4. Raveonettes — “Downtown”Danish noise-pop band the Raveonettes prove that the

key to a great downtown is collaboration, especially when it comes to vocal harmonies.

5. Hall & Oates — “Downtown Life”In the daytime, downtown is only a mess of wound-up

sexual energy ready to burst into the night with Hall & Oates’ “Downtown Life.” It’s a bass-driven love note to the part of the city that keeps these soulful guys hanging on.

6. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — “Downtown”The Seattle-based hip-hop duo explores the down-

town-theme by moped in their song “Downtown,” which dropped in August. With plenty of horns and musical changes, it’s an exhilarating ride through the part of the city concerned with speed, style and romance.

7. Neil Young & Crazy Horse — “Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown,”Neil Young shares a songwriting credit with Danny Whit-

ten on this one. It’s a sort of joyful tune accompanying lyrics about scoring heroin when the night comes around. It goes to show that sometimes a good downtown song comes from the seedy underbelly.

8. KEM (featuring Snoop Dogg) — “Down-town”

Borrowing the hook from Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” KEM visit downtown as the master of classic R&B with the perfect windows-down cruising sound. Snoop Dogg is also on board for this sensual drift through the heart of the city.

Triad City Beat is hiring motivated full and part-time sales people for

commission based advertising sales.

HIRING

College degree and prior successful sales experience preferred but not required.

Local travel and light lifting included in sales responsibilities. Occasional evening and weekend work. Must be a team player.

Send resume to [email protected].

No Calls accepted.

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MST3K Kickstarterby Anthony Harrison

Perhaps no television show ever endured so successfully on such a simple premise.

The obtusely-named “Mystery Science The-ater 3000,” or “MST3K,” championed the notion, “It’s so bad, it’s good,” by making fun of terrible movies — mostly cheesy horror and science-fic-tion films from the Atomic Age.

That’s all they did. But they did it well.Despite humble beginnings, MST3K ran for

11 seasons comprising nearly 200 episodes, spawned a feature film and nurtured a devout cult following which survives to this day.

Fans may not have to rely on reruns any longer.Joel Hodgson, “MST3K”’s creator and original

host, launched a Kickstarter campaign intending to crowdfund a reboot of the series.

In the Kickstarter video, Hodgson muses, “We can send ‘MST3K’ back into the wild… [on cable] or an online platform.”

After first viewing the spiel, I did three things almost immediately: I said aloud, “Holy hell — Netflix,” pledged enough to receive a metric ton of memorabilia and shared the link with friends.

The campaign didn’t excite me alone: The effort raised over $1 million in a single day, nearly half of its $2 million goal to shoot three new epi-sodes. Now all the producers need is an appropri-ate outlet. And more money.

Reaching the minimum was practically a given; this landmark was met within a week.

But, considering the quick ascent, the cam-paign slowed. And they aim to make a full, 12-episode season.

The interest and audience must exceed the thousands who have already contributed. And I’m sure some of you, dear readers, may be “MST3K” fans.

As of this writing, the Kickstarter raised $3,437,471; the amount changes steadily but slowly. They’ll shoot at least six episodes, which already makes me ecstatically happy. But for a full reboot of the series, they need $5.5 million. Support from as many pledges as possible sends a strong message to producers and executives.

And it’s in the nature of “MST3K” to rely on word-of-mouth; after all, this endorsement is simply “circulating the tapes.”

MST3K influenced me as much as the Beatles, Ernest Hemingway, Calvin and Hobbes, the Vel-vet Underground and Steven Spielberg movies. It’s one of the reasons I am who I am.

If we raise enough, “MST3K” could resurrect for everyone in the not too distant future.

Best Triad holiday tradition?It is definitely that time of year again. With Thanksgiving be-hind us, Christmas music blaring and Hanukkah around the corner, we asked folks about their favorite holiday traditions around here. There were way too many to list them all as options, but a clear winner did emerge.

Brian Clarey: I grew up the Northeast, where every city, village and town has a holiday wardrobe it brings out of storage when the weather gets cold. Skating rink? Seen it a million times. The lighting of the big tree? Old hat. Christmas concerts and parades and elaborate light dis-plays, too, are common in every part of the country. But I’ve never seen anything quite like the Christmas balls that take over Greensboro’s Sunset Hills neighborhood, 100 houses or more each festooned with these glowing, cheery orbs suspended from the trees. It’s freaking magical. And that the people of this neighborhood took this on all by themselves, with no official decree or organization, makes it all the more amazing — that, and the fact that it’s free to behold.

Jordan Green: The Sunset Hills holiday balls are really cool, but I think my favorite Triad holiday tradition might be one the survey didn’t include as an option: First Moravian Church’s annual candle tea on South Elam Street in Greens-

boro. Scheduled for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., it combines crafts vendors, hot cider and cookies, and caroling.

Eric Ginsburg: I’m with you, dear readers. The Sunset Hills holiday balls/lights are totally awesome. I take out-of-town-ers through it, and drive through meditatively a few times on my own as well. Tanglewood sounds great (I’ve never been) but I hear it’s a real hassle to get in.

Readers: The Sunset Hills holiday lights came out on top (47 percent) trailed by the Tanglewood Festival of Lights (18 percent) and Winston-Salem Jaycees Holiday Parade (16 percent). Down a little lower in the ranks, Piedmont Wind Symphony’s concert (11 percent), Other (5 percent) and the downtown Greensboro attractions (3 percent) didn’t register much support. Rebecca Post-May explained her position: “I voted ‘other.’ Candle tea at First Moravian Church in Greensboro is my favorite holiday tradition. It doesn’t feel like the Advent/Christmas season until candle tea! Me second vote would be for the Sunset Hills lights. So beautiful and spirit lifting :).”

New question: Business 40 is being renamed, but what should it be called? Vote at triad-city-beat.com!

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A crowd-control device flies under the radar, on purposeby Eric Ginsburg

NEWS

When the Greensboro Police Department publicly rolled out a new piece of technology, it intentionally downplayed one of the equipment’s primary uses: crowd control.

After more than a year of discussing it, the Greensboro Police Department acquired a long-range acoustic de-vice — or LRAD — in July. When the department publicly announced the $13,000 purchase a month ago, it hadn’t yet developed protocols for the equip-ment’s use, according to emails obtained by Triad City Beat through a public-re-cords request, but it did have a plan for how to talk about the device.

In a Sept. 30 email to Chief Wayne Scott, department spokesperson Susan Danielsen wrote: “May I publicize the LARP, LERP or whatever the big bullhorn thing is?” Scott’s response was short, but telling.

“It’s the LRAD…” he wrote. “I want to concentrate on the communication features… not crowd control… if you know what I [am] getting at…”

Danielsen responded a few minutes later, saying she’d work with Capt. Jon-athan Franks to set up a demonstration of the tool, and would “stress the utility of the device in crisis management (e.g. barricaded subject) and looking for missing persons.”

Franks, who championed the de-partment’s purchase of the LRAD, appeared to be relieved by Danielsen’s response. He forwarded her email to retired police captain Robbie Flynt, and wrote, “Just an FYI — She knows better.” Franks couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday, and it is unclear exactly what he meant by the comment. But Flynt said via email that Franks mistakenly emailed him, adding that he retired in 2008 before buying an LRAD came up.

In a Nov. 2 press release, Danielsen emphasized the ability to broadcast messages and make public addresses, though it does mention crowd control as one of the machine’s functions.

The LRAD 300 purchased by the department in July is indeed designed for communicating messages in vari-

ous scenarios, as Scott and Danielsen discussed. But it can also broadcast a “deterrent tone” for crowd control purposes, a component highlighted in a sales brochure supplied to the depart-ment.

On July 31, 2014, Bill Rankin, a Raleigh-based representative of equip-ment company Safeware, presented the LRAD to Greensboro police officers at the department’s Swing Road station. The next day, he emailed a brochure that explains the device’s uses.

“When SWAT officers arrive one scene, notifying the surrounding neigh-borhood quickly and effectively that an operation is underway is paramount for public safety,” it reads, going on to extol the benefits of communicating with an armed suspect from farther away than a bullhorn would allow and giving exam-ples of scenarios in which the LRAD is useful, like talking a subject down from a bridge.

But an important component of the device’s function, stressed in the brochure, is subduing volatile protestors or crowds.

“LRAD can create standoff and safety zones, support the resolution of uncertain situations, and potentially prevent the use of non-lethal and lethal weapons,” it reads. “In hostile situations, unlike tear gas, Tasers, rubber bullets, pepper spray and other non-lethal and lethal responses, LRAD can be modu-lated in response to a subject’s actions. When LRAD’s deterrent tone is used at close range, protesters sense audible discomfort, cover their ears and move away.

“Just the act of covering ears with hands reduces the sound pressure level by approximately 25dB and could prevent protesters from throwing projectiles,” it continues. “LRAD can be quickly modulated in response to protestors actions by controlling audio output through a prominently posi-tioned volume control knob.”

The text is accompanied by an image of Pittsburgh police in riot gear, using an LRAD to “communicate with and disperse unruly crowds during the 2009

G20 Summit.”The short brochure ends with a quote

from Raymond DeMichiei, Pittsburgh’s deputy director of emergency manage-ment and homeland security: “Every police officer I talked to thought it worked famously, the bottom line is we could maintain order with the protesters without hurting them.”

The brochure isn’t the only explicit reference to using an LRAD in a protest or civil unrest scenario in the lead up to the department’s purchase. Communi-cation between Rankin and department employees continued throughout 2014, and two days before Christmas last year, he forwarded an email composed by the LRAD Corp. a few days earlier.

“Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring police in Ferguson, Mo. from using tear gas and other agents to disperse peace-ful protesters without first issuing ‘clear and unambiguous warnings,’” the origi-nal message reads. “Activists are pushing for similar measures in other cities.”

In his email, which is copied to an employee of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, Rankin wrote: “In light of what has been going on FYI. Happy Holidays.”

Rankin visited Greensboro to demon-strate the device’s use repeatedly, includ-ing a cheaper LRAD 100x model that is smaller and cheaper than the version the department ultimately bought. An

April 20, 2015 quote listed the LRAD 300x and associated equipment at $20,620 and the smaller alternative and gear at $9,662.

In an April 24 email to Franks, Lt. Leslie A. Holder expressed her support for the LRAD 300, which she described as “exponentially superior for both sound quality and distance,” among other benefits.

The device’s use in protest and unrest scenarios wasn’t lost on her.

“The LRAD could be used in a multitude of situations and by multi-ple special teams/units for enhanced communication in events such as civil unrest, crowd control/dispersal, barricaded subjects/hostage situations, evacuations, and missing/lost persons,” Holder wrote.

Rankin returned for another demon-stration of the LRAD on May 20, and Franks requested to hold it in a new location.

“Can we do the demo down at GTCC on their driving area — we will be teaching another Crowd Control class at that time there,” he wrote. “Good large area for a demo.”

A month later, on June 19, it appears as though Chief Scott was unconvinced. In an email to Franks, another employee wrote, “Get Wayne onboard that you need one. He’s the one that put the kibosh on it.”

But by that point, Rankin was selling

The LRAD mounted on a police cruiser in a photo obtained as part of the public-records request.

COURTESY PHOTO

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his LRAD 300 and 100 demo units for 25 percent off. When Franks emailed Scott, asking, “Anyway we can look at this?” Scott replied: “How much…? I would only consider the larger unit… Let me know.”

The cost for the demo unit of the LRAD 300x, with tax, came out to just above $11,200, and the city jumped on the offer, purchasing the device with op-erational funds in July once the current fiscal year began.

The request for public-record emails related to the long-range acoustic device turned up other messages too, including a May 6 email directly from the LRAD Corp. to Mayor Nancy Vaughan that was almost identical to the company’s earlier message regarding Ferguson protests. An unrelated June 22 email to Capt. David Robinette included various news articles including one titled “NYPD uses LRAD-sonic weapon on Eric Garner protesters.” By then, the purchasing plan was already underway.

After the Nov. 2 press release, internal emails between Danielsen and other officers involved in the buy welcomed news coverage stressing the equipment’s communication functions, including a Time Warner Cable News piece titled “Greensboro Police Department is now loud and clear” and another in the News & Record with the headline “New device designed to help Greensboro police shorten search times, find missing people.”

But not everyone was impressed. Blogger Roch Smith emailed the mayor, city council, city manager and others with a link to a Slate article bearing the headline: “This is the sound cannon used against protestors in Ferguson” about an incident less than two weeks after Rankin’s first demonstration of the

LRAD to Greensboro police.Smith worried about the device’s

actual uses and protocol.“Although this press release briefly

mentions the use of this device for crowd control, it does not convey the extent of its capabilities to cause pain and permanent injury when deployed as a weapon,” he wrote. “Is city leadership aware of why this has been acquired and the intentions for its deployment? Is there some policy governing its use that can be shared with the public?”

Wesley Reid, the assistant city manag-er who oversees public safety, respond-ed. “In this case, I was unaware of the purchase of the LRAD system but have spent some time with Chief Scott discussing its use,” he said. “Our intent is to use LRAD as stated in the press release for search and rescue, crowd control, natural and man-made disas-ters, hostage situations, active shooter, or missing persons searches… I believe all of us share similar concerns about how LRAD systems have been used in other cities and we are incorporating those concerns into our use of the system. There is no policy in place yet.”

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Burr plays up national security experience ahead of reelection bidby Jordan Green

US Sen. Richard Burr touts his national security experience as he prepares for what looks to be a smooth reelection bid.

Richard Burr had considered retiring from the US Senate, but last December made the decision to seek a third term.

What swayed him, the Republican lawmaker told a group of conservative citizens at a Golden Corral luncheon in Winston-Salem on Monday, was the realization that he was one of only two people whose membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee pre-dates Sept. 11, 2011. The other is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California.

“I realized that with what we were faced with in this world, if people who had the knowledge decided not to stay but to run, that that was sort of selling out the next generation,” he said.

As chairman of the intelligence com-mittee, Burr has played an increasingly significant role in national affairs, from dealing with the fallout of National Security Administration whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about domestic surveillance to gauging the threat posed by the Islamic State. He recently returned from a whirlwind, two-day visit to four countries in the Middle East.

As North Carolina’s senior senator, Burr holds a stature that would seem to insulate him against the tumult of what promises to be a closely-fought election next year in 2016, with races for presi-dent and governor also on the ballot.

With evident relish, he handicapped the election, predicting that Republicans will retain control of the Senate while ticking off five key races across the coun-try. He didn’t bother to mention his own race or either of his potential challeng-ers. Deborah Ross, a former member of the state House, and Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey, both Democrats, have said they plan to run for the seat.

Burr said in an interview with Triad City Beat after the talk that he is un-daunted by the prospect of running for re-election in a year when Democratic voters will be activated by the opportu-nity to vote in a presidential contest.

“I’ve actually run best every time

I’ve been in a presidential election,” Burr said. “If people believe that you’re doing a good job, then the more people that turn out, the better you should do. If you’re not doing a good job, then it doesn’t matter what turnout is; you’re not going to get re-elected. So I actually look at this as an opportunity to grow my margin.”

After serving 10 years in the US House, Burr won his first race for US Senate against Democrat Erskine Bowles, in the seat once held by John Edwards, by a margin of 52.3 percent to 47.7 percent in 2004. Six years later, he expanded his percentage to 54.8 per-cent in a mid-term bout with Democrat-ic challenger Elaine Marshall.

The relative security of Burr’s position also insulates him against the polarization driving politics in North Carolina and other battleground states. During the question-and-answer session of the luncheon on Monday, the senator passed up an opportunity to stoke fear about what might happen under a Hil-lary Clinton administration. He chose his words slowly and deliberately.

“I’ll just be real frank: The division in the country has become much more pronounced and I’m not sure that there is a comfortable middle for leaders to go to,” Burr said. “Someone will have to create that ground again because the country can’t continue like this. I don’t see her being the one to do that.”

He added: “I would not take it to the bank yet that she’s the nominee.”

During an exchange with a young voter in the audience, Burr acknowl-edged significant division in his party over the balance between security and liberty.

Pattie Curran, who is challenging US Rep. Virginia Foxx for the House seat Burr held from 1995 to 2004, assailed the National Security Administration’s domestic surveillance program as an violation of constitutional safeguards against warrantless searches in the same forum in June.

Burr steadfastly defended the pro-gram on Monday, arguing that if not for Snowden’s revelations “this pro-gram would still be ticking along, and Americans would be safer, and nobody’s

privacy would have been breached. “We collected telephone numbers

— no content, just telephone num-bers,” he continued. “And if we got the telephone numbers of a known terrorist in Syria, we would take that number and test it against every number in the database. If it hit on one, meaning, let’s say your telephone number was in there and it hit on your telephone number, then the NSA would go to court and ask a judge — say, ‘We’ve got reason to believe this person is trying to reach someone in America.’ And get a court order to go in and try to figure out who it is, number one, and what the conver-sation was about.”

While the senator has struck a moder-ate tone compared to some in his party, he criticized the Obama administra-tion’s track record in Syria, as would be expected coming from a leader in the opposing party. Burr charged that the administration holds no strategy to defeat the Islamic State, and mocked Obama’s emphasis on containment, ar-guing that the United States needs proj-ect leadership to eliminate the threat.

“Leadership does not mean necessar-ily boots on the ground,” he said during the talk. “But I think everybody in the room knows that to provide leadership that is effective it means some element of the United States military has to be there to aid those countries that are committed to putting boots on the

ground.”Afterwards, he elaborated that he

believes the United States needs to arm the Kurds and establish a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians from attacks by the government of President Bashar al-Assad as a foundation for assembling a global military coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

Also consistent with majority sen-timent his party, Burr reminded the conservative voters at the Golden Corral on Monday that he called for the suspension of the US refugee program, drawing applause. He said his reason for doing so was so that officials could lay out for the American people the process for vetting refugees before they are resettled.

He went on to say that it takes the av-erage refugee 18 months to get into the United States and that from a national security standpoint he is far more con-cerned about the Visa waiver program.

“If I’m a radical in France and I’m a French citizen and I want to travel to the United States and commit a terrorist act, I’m just going to go the Visa waiver program,” Burr said. “If I’m not on the no-fly list and I’m not on the watch list, I can fly right into the United States, no questions asked.”

Rather than conclude his remarks with a swipe against President Obama, Burr took a rhetorical tack rare in Washington these days: He talked about

US Sen. Richard Burr spoke to conservative voters at the Golden Corral in Winston-Salem on Monday.

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working across the aisle with a member of the opposing party to solve a prob-lem. Burr said he and Sen. Feinstein are looking at ways to tighten up the Visa waiver program to ensure “the indi-vidual flying is the individual that’s on

the passport.” It will take time, he said, quickly adding that the last thing he and his Democratic counterpart want to do is hurt the US hospitality industry by making it more difficult for European tourists to visit.

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Committee pushes back against gifting open spaceby Jordan Green

Talk of transferring the Rich Fork Preserve from Guilford County to the YMCA of High Point reopens a disagreement over whether mountain biking should be allowed on the property.

Talk between leadership of the Guilford County Commission and the YMCA of High Point about potentially transferring the Rich Fork Preserve to the nonprofit agency is causing conster-nation among a group of High Point citizens and a larger cohort of natu-ral preservation advocates across the county.

The latest eruption of bad feeling builds on a deadlocked disagreement over whether the public land should ac-commodate mountain biking as well as frayed trust coming out of the Republi-can commissioners’ decision to dissolve the open space committee, which had guided acquisition and stewardship of several properties.

Guilford County Commission Chair-man Hank Henning, who lives in High Point, said he initially reached out to the YMCA because he thought the agency could help resolve a challenge over ac-cess for mountain bikers to the property. The YMCA is located at the north end of the preserve just across West Hartley Drive; the preserve stretches down to Northwood Elementary on West Lexing-ton Avenue at the south end. Under the most recent draft of the master plan for the preserve, mountain bikers would have access from Homestead Avenue at the east side of the property, which alarmed residents on the street.

“They didn’t want droves of moun-tain bikers coming through to access the park,” Henning said. “I can sympathize with that. We don’t want to make the park intrusive for the neighbors.”

The proposal has drawn quick op-position from members of the defunct open space committee, along with a High Point group that was formed at the request of the open space commit-tee to develop a stewardship plan for the Rich Fork Preserve. Dot Kearns, a former Democratic county commission-er and school board member from High Point, chairs the local committee.

“It seems to me that if the intent of the referendum, which was passed, is not carried out according to the infor-mation that was given to voters, then the voters it seems to me have very little trust that the next one will be carried out,” Kearns said. “It seems to me un-wise to change the format of what was approved.”

Henning attempted to allay con-cerns about a potential transfer of the property in a recent interview with Triad City Beat.

“We can’t just give it to them; we could do a stewardship agreement,” he said. “They would have to honor the deed restrictions and honor the open space restriction. If they wanted to get rid of it or develop it, it would revert to us anyway.”

Henning said he doesn’t understand why anyone would oppose a collaboration between the county and the YMCA.

“I was con-cerned about the neighbors,” he said. “We talked about the access, but also the budget. Look

at the master plan: There’s speculation of spending anywhere to $1 million on this. If someone else wants to manage it and they want to develop the trails, why not do that? The cost is taken off the taxpayers.”

The point about saving taxpayer money by outsourcing stewardship is likely to strike open space advocates

and their allies on the local Rich Fork committee as a supreme irony: They’ve always opposed mountain biking on the preserve and advocated that it be limit-ed to low-impact recreational activities like hiking.

The local committee embraced the advice of outside experts brought in to visit the preserve, including Preserva-tion North Carolina President Myrick Howard, Kearns said. She added that Howard counseled: “Don’t spend a lot of money on it. Keep it like it is.”

Henning said the latest draft of the master plan for Rich Fork Preserve, which has yet to be approved by the county commission, allows mountain biking on 15 acres of the 116-acre tract. A potential transfer of the property to the YMCA would have no bearing on whether mountain biking is allowed or not, he said.

“Since that is a board of commis-sioners’ decision, that’s almost moot,” Henning said. “We could put in an agreement that they definitely have to allow mountain bikes or not. That topic has nothing to do with the YMCA.”

Kara Millonzi, an associate professor of public law and government at the UNC School of Government in Chapel Hill, said it’s generally legal for the county to transfer land to a nonprofit entity for less than market value. The biggest potential legal hurdle, she said, is that if the debt on the bond has not been paid off, the lender might want the county to keep the property as security.

Under state law, Millonzi said, the coun-ty can convey property to a nonprofit agency with restrictions spelling out that the agency must use the property for certain public purposes.

Beyond the question of whether mountain biking should be allowed, Kearns’ group and the county’s Repub-lican leadership have expressed similar aspirations for the preserve.

“The property is wedged between Northwood Elementary and the YMCA,” Henning said. “What better opportunity do we have to engage the community for the benefit of High Point? Having youth activities in there to experience nature, if you want to pre-serve something you’ve got to teach it to the next generation. I don’t see anything negative about this.”

Although she does not agree with transferring the property to the YMCA, Kearns said her group has never op-posed bringing in an outside group to act as a steward of the preserve. She added that she’s always recognized that the county commission holds the ultimate decision-making authority, but that she thought the Rich Fork commit-tee had been working on the county’s behalf.

“We came with great joy and with hope that it would be a wonderful place,” Kearns said. “We thought that the history was a little unusual for a preserve like that, but we hoped it would be a boon for citizens and students throughout the years.”

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

The Hedgecock farmstead is part of a 116-acre nature preserve in High Point that is owned by Guilford County.

FILE PHOTO

GET INVOLVED: The Guilford County Commission discusses options for long-term manage-ment and ownership of the Rich Fork Preserve on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. when it meets on the second floor of the Old County Courthouse, located at 301 W. Market St. in Greensboro.

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CITIZEN GREENA keeper of High Point’s black education history

When Glenn Chavis and I talk on the phone, the conversation usually veers to some or other inaccuracy in the historical record as it pertains to African Ameri-cans in High Point. As often as not, the perpetrator is a lazy reporter.

Probably the most egregious is the fiction that jazz luminaries Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstein performed at the club attached to the Kilby Hotel, which collapsed during a storm in 2014 while un-der a condemnation order from the city of High Point.

It’s nothing more than fanciful speculation, a rumor elevated to gospel through repetition by credulous reporters. Despite Chavis’ tireless efforts to correct the record, it is a myth that refuses to die. The inaccuracy has been dignified with publication as recently as Sep-tember, when it cropped up in a News & Record article about the loss of another building important to the history of black High Point — First Baptist Church.

Chavis challenged me when I was writing about efforts to save the Kilby in October 2013. Didn’t I think that if such famous entertainers had performed at the club, someone would at least be able to produce a newspaper advertisement, he asked at the time, adding that there’s not one shred of evidence to back up the claim? Chavis did discover through his research that Geechee Robinson & his Band and Hartley Toots & his Orchestra played at the hotel club.

Now, that sounds like a story.A High Point native who went to work as a finger-

print technician for the FBI after graduating with a bachelor’s in English from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, Chavis brought a forensic approach to history when he took up the avocation after retiring from Abbott Laboratories in 2000. His historical re-search is comprehensive with an emphasis on the many strands of human endeavors that have shaped the black community in High Point, as opposed to a series of highlights on great men and women. The result of that work was Our Roots, Our Branches, Our Fruit, High Point’s Black History… 1859-1960, published in 2010. Chavis has written that his mission is “to find, docu-ment, and make known the history and contributions of High Point’s African-American community that has been long overlooked.”

Over the weekend, I picked up a copy of his most recent volume that he left for me at the Heritage Research Center at the High Point Public Library.Similar in format to the first volume but with a focus on education, the title of the book is Our Roots, Our

Branches, Our Fruit, Black Schools of High Point & Surrounding Area… 1868-1968. The story begins with the founding of one or more freedmen’s schools — the historical record is unclear on the exact number — after the Civil War and ends with the closing of William Penn High School when public schools across the state finally desegregated.

For someone looking for a reference to an ances-tor who taught at or attended one of the freedmen schools, High Point Normal & Industrial Institute, Wil-liam Penn High School or Fairview School, the granular detail of this book, including rosters of names and details of commencement exercises, will be invaluable.

Beyond any personal connection readers may have with the teachers and students, stray details provide an experiential texture of black education in High Point. For example, the commencement program for High Point Normal & Industrial Institute in May 1901 included a talk by Nathan R. Roberts on the topic of “Agriculture as a Base” and vocal solo of “The Amorous Gold Fish” by Nettie L. Brown. The following year, according to Chavis’ research, Gov. Charles B. Aycock and Charles McIver, the president of what is now UNCG, visited the school. That Aycock was both an architect of white supremacy and a champion of public education goes unremarked in Chavis’ account.

He’s less sparing in discussing educational discrim-ination by the city of High Point. Drawing from city council minutes, Chavis reports that city council voted in 1915 to pay teachers at High Point Colored School $12.50 to $15 per month, while Principal Ossie Davis received $5. Yes, you read that right: $5 per month.

In contrast, teachers at four white schools received salaries ranging from $45 to $55 per month while their principals earned from $70 to $150. With supplemental pay from the Society of Friends of New York, the black teachers still received only $25-$27.50 per month, with Principal Davis earning $30 per month — less than half of what their white counterparts earned.

“To add insult to injury,” Chavis writes, the city council “even contracted to pay an allowance of $5 per month to cover a janitor’s salary. It is hard to fathom that sworn officials would place the same value on the education of High Point’s black youth at the same level of someone hired to clean the school. This showed a total disrespect for educated blacks that were trying to help educate a people that had been denied what their hard-earned tax dollars entitled them to receive — an education.”

by Jordan Green

EDITORIALThe power of the lie

It’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain, but the sentiment is as old as the human race.

A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on.

That’s especially the case when the lie is something that people want to believe. All good con jobs start with a lie that the mark desperately wishes were true.

It becomes particularly problematic when the lie itself is so despicable, and so many are willing to take it as truth.

That’s the case right now in North Carolina, where our gov-ernor — and his strongest opponent in the coming election — are both embracing the notion that the frightened, nearly starving Syrian refugees pose a serious terrorist threat to the people of this state.

About half of Americans feel the same way, with a few points leaning either way depending on which poll you cite. More interesting is the Gallup poll that found only 6 percent of the 4 million or so people who have fled that war-torn nation have any desire to come to North America. Europe, 39 percent, and the Middle East, 35 percent, were much more desirable destinations among those polled.

The other truth is that Syrian refugees pose about as much a threat to North Carolina as Montagnards — which is to say none at all, unless what we fear is a new infusion of authentic restaurants and markets. And the Syrian Menace is nothing when compared to the actual residents of North Carolina, born and bred, who have unleashed a wave of domestic ter-rorism on this nation dating back to 1996, when Eric Rudolph of Macon County set off a bomb during the Olympics in Atlanta, and even further back if you count the Klan.

Slate has a neat accounting of five violent terrorists from the Old North State, culminating with the most recent offender, Robert Lewis Dear, a white man who moved from Black Mountain to Colorado Springs, Colo., apparently for the express purpose of shooting up a Planned Parenthood clinic.

He left three dead, including a 44-year-old police officer, and 10 injured. But more chilling than even the blood spilled after the five-hour standoff was the lie repeated by Dear after he was apprehended — alive, for those of us who keep track of such things.

“No more baby parts,” he said, alluding to a debunked video that accused Planned Parenthood of selling aborted tissue.

But while the lie was discredited almost immediately upon being uploaded to the internet, it has become a talking point among those who wish to represent the Republican Party in the presidential election and has echoed through the low-in-formation ranks, gaining traction and gravity as it did.

It is likely the truth has not yet found its way to Dear. Nor has the truth made contact with GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, who described the overtly religious Dear as a “trans-gendered leftist activist,” which is a lie so big that even Dear himself might not believe it.

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IT JUST MIGHT WORKPublic shunningby Jordan Green

When I was a teenager I had a friend, two years younger than me, who began a flirtation with white su-premacy. After being bullied by a black student in eighth grade, he observed — rightly or wrongly — that black stu-dents tended to stick up for each other while the same was not true for whites. The racial solidarity demonstrated by white power groups appealed to him.

Around that time, in 1992, a coalition of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis held a rally at the state capitol in Frankfort, Ky. Armed with two cartons of eggs, my friends and I showed up at the rally to shout profanity, ridicule and laugh at them. I can’t say my own aim was true, but I have a newspaper clip-ping with a photograph of a skinhead with egg yolk dripping down his cheek to prove that at least one of the projec-tiles we distributed found its mark.

My friend who was toying with white supremacy went along with us to the rally, although he tried to talk us out of it, saying he didn’t know what it would accomplish and that the Klan had the right to free speech just like everyone else.

In hindsight, I feel that our stand probably made a greater impression on my friend than the organized racists in robes and paramilitary uniforms. When I visited with him in Lexington, Ky. a couple years ago, my old friend was dating a Chinese woman and remarked to me that the more he experienced life the more his politics drifted to the left. In that light, I think we staged a pretty effective intervention on a kid who at one time was at risk of being recruited into the white-supremacist movement.

I’ve been thinking about the militant tactics we employed to drive a wedge between white supremacists and their potential supporters in light of the frightening political rise of Donald Trump. Maybe it’s time for people to forcefully denounce Trump and make it clear in no uncertain terms to those who are attracted to his message that it’s not cool. In other words, if you’re supporting Trump we can’t be friends

anymore.Trump’s fascist tendencies are

beyond dispute at this point. Other media outlets have done the heavy lifting of laying out the evidence, but let’s consider some salient factors.

There is his exploitation of fear and scapegoating of outsiders, as exempli-fied by his defamatory characterization of Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” There’s his openness to suspending due process and registering Muslims citizens in a national database. There’s his mockery of a reporter with a physi-cal disability. And, again scapegoating the marginalized and exploiting race as a tool of division, there’s the tweet Trump sent out with the outright lie that blacks are responsible for 81 percent of the homicides against white victims. Not least, there is his statement condoning the thuggery of supporters who punched and kicked a Black Lives Matter activist at a rally in Alabama.

As a political reporter whose livelihood depends on the ability to hold mutually respectful conversations with people whose political beliefs might be diametrically opposite of my own, I know it’s perilous to close the door on dialogue with anyone. But, as with the Klan and — sorry — Adolph Hitler, there are certain people who so brazenly cross the line of bullying, lying and demagoguery that dialogue is no longer possible. While you to reason with them and accord them due re-spect, they bulldoze past you, all while consolidating power.

It’s time for peaceful protest outside Trump’s rallies and for brave souls, if they feel so moved, to go inside and speak truth to the mob. It’s time for all of us when we go back home for Christmas to tell old friends, uncles, aunts and cousins that it’s not okay for them to support Trump. The threat is so serious that we may have to force people to choose between our friend-ship and their misguided ideology. Nothing less than the survival of the republic and our very humanity is at stake.

FRESH EYESBlame it on Aristotle!

Given the state of our world, it seems we to want to blame or accuse others for what-ever is happen-ing. And when we do, many

of us do so in the broadest of strokes — Muslims are terrorists, the police are racists, Syrian refugees are suspect, you always leave the light on in the kitchen! Whatever the case may be — big or small — however true or untrue, the blame-game is largely our modus operandi.

But if we’re going to blame someone, I say we blame Aristotle — for everything. The philosopher of Greek antiquity, tutor of Alexander (the Great), and supposedly the first person to classify all living things, is also the person who came up with the “law of the excluded middle” — the idea and approach which has come to dominate much of how we think about ourselves and the world. This philosophical tenet purports that things can only be “A” or “not A.” Unfortunately, this binary approach to logic (and life) limits our development.

Why? Because it is anti-becoming, it is anti-emerging. As any parent, caretaker or teacher displays through their actions, we relate to children as if they are growing, as if they are developing; but we stop doing this with each other as we get older. We literally say, “Stop playing around and get to work!” But what if some of our most important work now, at this historic moment, is to become more playful, more philosophical — that is, to relate to each other in more developmental ways as a way of moving forward?

The notion that we are either this or that — that we’re either smart or not, racist or not, sexist or not, good or not — not only lacks nuance in its bifurcation and rigidity, but is fundamentally undevelopmental.

By thinking of ourselves and others in such constricted and (largely) ungenerous ways, we undermine our power to develop environments where everyone can grow. And we desperately need to grow. Indeed, we must develop — that is, increase our capacity to recognize opportunities and do something with them — in order to make a better world. Why? Because justice without development will only continue to leave us

wanting.In our rush to be right, largely focused on

ourselves and how we think and do things as the only way of thinking and being, we often miss out on opportunities to build something with others who are, by defini-tion, different from us. We miss out on all kinds of opportunities to grow and support others’ growth.

The early 20th Century Russian psychol-ogist Lev Vygotsky put it best when he said that we relate to children as a “head taller” than who they are when it comes to them learning language. Language speakers (parents, older siblings and teachers, for instance) relate to young children as if they are already language speakers (when they are not yet). By doing so, those children become language speakers. Vygotsky and the work of the American developmental psychologist Lois Holzman, who takes play (performing, pretending) as fundamen-tal to development, points to a powerful methodology that we can practice in order to develop ourselves and our world.

A practical way of doing so is to do what improv theater performers do on stage: “Yes, and.…” In improv, “Yes, and” is acknowledging (no matter what) what another person gives you (“an offer”) and then creatively building on that (whether it is a phrase or a gesture). In contrast to “real life” where we are mostly organized around notions of “truth,” “Yes, and” offers us a performative, playful way of relating to each other as ever growing and ever developing beings.

So I say let’s engage in the playfulness of “Yes, and” — a way of building community across all kinds of perceived differenc-es and divides. Things are too dire, too serious, for us not to use this powerful approach to cultivating learning, develop-ment and growing environments. We have each other, even if we don’t agree with each other. So, as Newman wrote, “Let’s develop!” How? By relating to each other — even Aristotle — as if we are becoming.

So, come play the becoming game with me, your loved ones... and total strangers. It’s a way for all of us to build community, develop and help make a better world.

Omar H. Ali is the 2016 Carnegie Foundation North Carolina professor of the year and interim dean of Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG.

by Omar H. Ali

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A city’s downtown is both its doormat and its heart. It’s the throbbing core that pumps life into the veins of culture throughout the surrounding neighborhoods as well as the

A new, colorful mural decorates the wall of Showfety’s on East Market Street in downtown Greensboro.

welcoming committee for strangers, a sort of compass or table of contents for what the place is all about.

That’s why for the last two years around this time of year, I’ve attempted to compile a comprehensive list of what’s changing in downtown Greensboro, and what else is coming down the pipe. Part of that process demands thinking about

the things we still need.And so after a strong reception in November 2014, I’m

doing it again, taking a close look at the shifts happening in the city’s core and what remains to be done.

What happens downtown reverberates in the rest of the city — political power, cultural currency, historical memory and economic vibrancy emanate from these blocks. So regardless of whether or not you live, work or play in down-town Greensboro, if you live in the city, what happens there affects you.

The annual assessment of downtown growthby Eric Ginsburg

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What’s new, and planned• Outwardly, almost nothing has changed at the former

Cascade Saloon building at the train tracks crossing South Elm Street by Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in two years. The city gave it to Preservation Greensboro to restore, and though the organization announced a construction company as the main tenant, progress is far behind initial projections.

• This time last year, we still didn’t know the theme for the second Crafted restaurant. In the spring of 2015, the street-food restaurant and adjacent Preyer Brewing opened and were welcomed like a first grandchild into the north end of downtown.

• Though a mixed-use development had been planned nearby across the Eugene Street intersection, it stalled out and never materialized. But then in October, Triad City Beat broke the news that the city’s latest brewery, Joymongers, would open on the empty lot. Construc-tion began almost immediately.

• A short block of Battleground Avenue in front of the planned Joymongers brewery closed this fall as part of the planned Downtown Greenway and a pocket park.

• Construction of the greenway nearby, including the area between Prescott and Spring streets along Smith Street, is behind schedule. The construction had to be re-bid in

October 2015 due to a high cost from an initial bidder.• But design for the greenway “innovation cornerstone” at

Lindsay Street and Murrow Boulevard was also approved in October, with work slated for the coming months.

• The Greenway at Stadium Park apartments, owned in part by Jim Jones who is opening Joymongers brewery with his son as well as former Natty Greene’s brewmaster Mike Rollinson, opened during the last year. Following the model Jones created with his brother with the Gre-enway at Fisher Park apartments across the street, the apartments add residential units that help create density downtown.

• Two downtown churches played a little musical chairs in 2015, as Center City Church took over the former Christ Church building next to Local House Bar on Smith Street. The newer tenant is renovating, emulating the style of Crafted and Preyer around the corner, and members say it will include a small coffeeshop and gal-lery. Christ Church relocated to North Church Street.

• Triad City Beat’s Brian Clarey has dubbed the area transformed by apartments, breweries, Crafted and Deep Roots as LoFi. We’re using the nickname — which derives from Lower Fisher in reference to Fisher Avenue and the Fisher Park neighborhood — to describe the for-merly blighted corner that suddenly is one of the city’s most promising areas. The Elsewhere area is called the South End in some circles, and we argue LoFi’s unique identity should be reflected with a hip name.

• By this time last year, we knew about the planned complex run by Iron Hen owner Lee Comer on Spring Garden Street. Nothing’s happened outwardly since then, save for some recent suggestions that things are now starting to get underway.

• As planned, 1618 opened its third location downtown. The building owned by developer Dawn Chaney also contains residential units upstairs, similar to Scupper-nong Books a couple doors down South Elm Street.

• That 300 block of South Elm saw other considerable change this year. Though the folks behind Josephine’s Bistro (the Lindley Park restaurant that has since closed and reopened as Scrambled) planned a restaurant and raw bar one door down from 1618 Downtown, things fell through. But Harlem Express restaurant opened in the space. Across the street, Cheesecakes by Alex expand-ed and underwent a redesign that makes it feel much more modern.

• Loaf Bakery closed in May. The bakery operated where Simple Kneads used to stand, and in November, Triad City Beat broke the news that the Table Farm Bakery in Asheboro plans to reopen the area in 2016. The folks at the Table are already using the building as a satellite baking location, but no retail as of yet.

• While we’re on the subject of restaurants, a few more opened in downtown within the last year, most notably LaRue, a French restaurant across from the Carolina Theatre, and PB & Java – a coffee shop with sandwich-

es, soups and a pay-it-forward option. The café’s owners have plans for a future community theater space in the back of the building.

• A couple restaurants shut their doors, including the longstanding Thai Pan. But in that case, former Fincas-tle’s proprietor Jody Morphis opened a new joint, Blue Denim, in the space a few weeks ago. Try the seafood beignets.

• Great Balls of Fire, a dueling piano bar, opened, upping the number of entertainment venues downtown. Cone Denim Entertainment Center just hit its one-year anni-versary, but the total number of entertainment-oriented spaces dropped downtown in the last year thanks to the closing of Lotus Lounge and nearby Vybz Nation in the South End.

• Developer Andy Zimmerman closed on the former Lotus building this year after a shooting near the club, which was across the street from a line of buildings he already owns. HQ Greensboro, a co-working space, opened this summer in one of these West Lewis Street storefronts (and speaking of co-work spaces, Collab on the other end of downtown just marked one year in operation).

• Zimmerman plans to move the Forge, a maker space where people buy memberships primarily for access to expensive, advanced machinery, to the former Flying Anvil building, he said this year. The site had housed Vybz Nation, a nightclub that played hip hop and reggae music.

• Triad City Beat broke the news in late October that Greensboro Distilling signed a lease for the Forge’s cur-rent space on West Lewis Street. The distillery — which will be the only one in the city — plans to move into the building at the start of 2016.

• Zimmerman nixed plans to purchase the former Gate City Motors building across from the Greensboro Chil-dren’s Museum. Wise Man Brewing intended to move into part of the property, but after the deal fell apart, Wise Man announced it would be opening on the north side of downtown Winston-Salem instead. Zimmerman also owns the building where Crafted: the Art of Street Food and Preyer Brewing are located.

• Developer Marty Kotis had hinted at plans for a beer garden, possibly in town, at this time last year. Since then, Triad City Beat broke the news that Kotis intends to open one on the former Carolina Tours property off Federal Place, complete with a restaurant and maybe a speakeasy-type feature. Kotis said the venue might also welcome live music, and in February 2015, he said he’d like to open it that summer or next. Guess it’ll be 2016.

• Growth at CityView apartments in Southside near the Depot continues, most notably a change in ownership giving developer Roy Carroll a firmer hold on downtown residential properties.

• A planned medium-sized performance and rehearsal space at the Greensboro Cultural Center quickly came

A new, colorful mural decorates the wall of Showfety’s on East Market Street in downtown Greensboro. ERIC GINSBURG

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It’s almost hard to believe, but Preyer Brewing just opened in the spring of 2015.

HQ Greensboro, a co-working space, opened earlier this year.

Developer Marty Kotis plans to turn an unused lot into a beer garden.

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to fruition thanks to a generous gift from Jan Van Dyke. The choreographer passed away this summer, according to the News & Record.

• LeBauer Park broke ground, and the area is still under construction, though slightly behind schedule due to weather, according to Downtown Greensboro Inc. head Zack Matheny. He said it’s scheduled to open in May, but may be a little later.

• The National Folk Fest in Greensboro was just a glint in Tom Philion’s eye at this time last year, but in September, the ArtsGreensboro leader enjoyed the massive festival with tens of thousands of other residents and visitors. It’d be hard to see the folk festival as anything but a gigantic success, and it will return in late 2016 and 2017.

• Downtown Greensboro Inc. scuttled plans for a parklet program that would put little pop-ups in parking spots, activating more public space. But the organization’s new president, former city councilman Zack Matheny, said he’s bringing it back, though he prefers the name “streateries.”

• Remember all that talk about hotels downtown? Well the only one with visible progress is Roy Carroll’s over at the corner of Bellemeade and Eugene streets. And calling that progress is pretty generous — the property barely looks any different than it did a year ago at this time, save for the closure of a block of Lindsay Street. Better luck next year.

• Here’s a sentence lifted directly from last year’s article, because it still rings true: “Construction continues on the Southeastern building at the corner of Market and Elm streets, though it is not clear when the project will be completed and tenants will move in.”

• Anybody seen the new Charles Aris building? Greensboro’s starting to look more like a real city!

• Construction is much more evident at the Union Square campus on the southern edge of down-town by Gate City Boulevard. The development will house joint programming between several area colleges and Cone Health.

• In the last year, two things happened across Elm Street from Union Square at the Mill run by Eric Robert — a controversy about a beloved mural being replaced by a Duck Head logo, represent-ing the lone business occupying the renovated space, and further development of a lawsuit by Robert against the city relating to the investment. That’s still working its way through the courts.

• The former Showfety’s building on East Mar-ket Street sold to a new owner, and Downtown Greensboro Inc. head Zack Matheny said he’s trying to lure a breakfast place into the building.

• DGI itself is moving to a storefront location,

something the organization intended to do long ago, leaving its office space in the Self Help building downtown. No news yet on exactly where it will be located.

• Stir Creative Group, a small design firm currently located near Elon Law School, is buying a building around the corner from its existing office and will make some serious beautification upgrades to the spot on John Wesley Way.

• Jules Antiques, run by DGI board chair Gary Brame, announced it would be closing before too long. That area of South Elm Street used to brim with antique stores, but another on the corner of South Elm and Lewis streets is for sale and anoth-er across the street closed (and has been bought by Eric Robert, mentioned above, who is fixing up the roof and looking for a tenant).

• Around the corner on East Lewis Street, a new business called ReAligned tilts the scales the other way, suggesting that maybe antique and vintage items aren’t on the way out. But, Nosilla Vintage did close in July after a brief stand near the tracks. The business still operates an online store and booths at both Design Archives locations, includ-ing in downtown Greensboro.

• Area Modern Home & Lighting hopped to a dif-ferent storefront, just a few doors closer to where Nosilla used to be.

• Urban Grinders, a café and art gallery (in a truer sense than most coffeeshops in the area which more accurately display some art), welcomed its first customers this year in its storefront a little ways down from Center City Park.

• The folks behind Suite 300 and Kress Terrace announced their plans to open the W on Elm, another event space — and this time, a restaurant — where Ham’s used to be located not far from the Green Bean.

• More than a year ago, Elsewhere Artist Collabo-rative received a grant to transform several public places in downtown — check out the side of ReAligned, the corner of the unit above Table 16 restaurant a stone’s throw away and in particular the functional yet artistic picnic tables built on Bragg Street near the Mill.

• Thanks to a $6,000 grant from SunTrust, there are plans to add some sort of public art feature to Collab or the area immediately surrounding the co-working space — something bright, eye-catch-ing and three dimensional, if Matheny has his way. On the same front, Wrangler plans to place iconic public sculptures throughout downtown, and the Janet Echelman piece planned for LeBauer Park is quite promising. And if Ryan Saunders’ outfit No Blank Walls makes some headway, murals will adorn a downtown wall or two before next year is over (see page 16).

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The vibrant door on PB & Java, one of the city’s newest and most unique food ventures.

ReAligned fits with some of the existing quirk in downtown’s South End.

Urban Grinders coffeeshop and art gallery is quickly growing in popularity.

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The wish listMaybe it’s because I’m approaching 30 and feeling a sense of urgency, or it

could be the short amount of time since my last detailed accounting of devel-opment in downtown Greensboro, but even with the long list of changes above, progress feels slower in some regards this year.

The initial excitement, which seemed to burst from so many mouths 12-18 months ago, has waned. When news comes about a planned brewery, instead of celebrating like Carolina Panthers’ fans this season, people are more inclined to ask if the market is already oversaturated here. Several businesses closed in the last year, and some of the city’s bigger projects — most notably the downtown performing arts center — show minimal progress.

Some of that will change by next year; think of LeBauer Park and Union Square Campus, and with any luck, some genuine movement on the Downtown Greenway. But other big projects, like turning Greene Street into a two-way stretch, have been forgotten as far as the public is concerned (though Matheny swears that one is nearing the final approval stages and is imminent).

Maybe we’ll see Lee Comer’s Spring Garden Street plans, Roy Carroll’s Bel-lemeade Village and Marty Kotis’ beer garden come to fruition in 2016. And it may be wishful thinking, but there’s at least a chance we’ll see some action on the Cascade Saloon as well.

Yet downtown Greensboro is not without its victories. It would be hard to argue that the biggest coup d’état is the National Folk Festival, a thoroughly enjoyable experience that showcased dozens of artists as well as the city’s core.

One of the festival’s accomplishments was its ability to spread people out throughout downtown rather than clogging the main thoroughfare, something that the center city needs more of in general. For the same reason, I’m particu-larly stoked on LaRue and the LoFi sub-neighborhood for helping to expand the pockets of culture in downtown.

The same is true of the much-heralded changes on West Lewis Street. And though I’m partial to plans for a distillery there, if Andy Zimmerman can con-vince Bestway or another grocer to open in the former Lotus Lounge, or if a mid-sized music venue winds up in the building (something he’d like to see happen), either would be a true game-changer.

There are a few specific things I called for in previous years, including some that are happening besides the aforementioned growth off South Elm. More vacant storefronts on the crucial 300 block of South Elm Street are occupied, including increased residential upstairs, and that’s huge. Downtown boasts more public art, and more is on the way. And though I still want a burrito place like Cosmic Cantina, I realized that the Korean burrito at El Nuevo Mexican Grill near Urban Grinders is fantastic and cannot be overlooked.

Some ideas almost came to fruition, but stopped short — something at Gate City Motors, as I suggested in 2013, or a possible skatepark downtown (it’s going in the Latham Park area, so not too far away). DGI had talked about a possible culinary school downtown that didn’t pan out, and more significantly, the organi-zation went through so many roster changes I doubt most readers can keep track.

Several specific suggestions pitched last go-round continue to be ignored; there’s too many surface parking lots, too many vacant storefronts with absentee landlords and nowhere near enough affordable housing. But the most glaring difference between downtown Greensboro today in the place it could be, needs to be, is something else I raised last year — nobody is learning from downtown Winston-Salem.

In the last few years, downtown Winston-Salem has only continued to raise the bar. It beat Greensboro in attracting a distillery, not to mention a chocolate fac-tory, as well as Wise Man Brewing. And though we called for a barcade at least three times in the last year, the one that opened — Camel City BBQ Factory — is in Winston-Salem, too. There’s Bailey Park now, and restaurants like the Honey Pot and Side Bar, not to mention a bunch of awesome recurring festivals.

It’s not that Winston-Salem is better; don’t get me started down that road. It’s that Greensboro, much as I love this city that I’ve made my home, seems to be lagging behind.

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one broth might be the symbol of hipsterdom in Brooklyn, but at Winstead Farm, it’s a sign of practicality.

Gwen Roach and her husband Graham implemented new eating habits when she started dealing with some health issues a few years ago. The process led them to farmers markets and away from processed foods, and when the couple moved to Winston-Salem from the Houston suburbs, they took another jump: They started a farm.

The 11-acre family farm, where they live with their children, Ephraim and Emily, primarily sustains itself by raising meat chickens. With about 900 sold last year and a huge jump to about 1,700 for 2015, it’s not sur-prising that the Roach family has an excess of chicken backbones, necks, feet and wingtips.

And that’s where the bone broth comes in.There’s nothing new about the concept of dropping

bones in a pot of water and letting them simmer, but in the pursuit of convenience, that cross-cultural cooking practice apparently fell out of favor. It sounds easy enough, but when Gwen spells out the process for people, folks will often ask if they can just buy her finished product.

And now they can.Gwen Roach sold her first batch of Caldero Nourish-

ing Bone Broth on Nov. 14, but there’s already a pool of people in Winston-Salem who turn to her home-cooking for health and flavor. Her broth, which comes in 32-ounce containers, doesn’t contain MSG or high sodium levels like a store-bought alternative, she said.

There’s usually a bone broth going in the Roach family kitchen at their home on the farm, not far from Winston-Salem city limits. On a recent Friday, Gwen Roach stood over a deep pot filled with turkey bones from a Friendsgiving celebration accompanied by carrots and onions. She generally uses the broths as a base for soup, but this time she strained the mix and poured the flavorful concoction into coffee mugs, to be sipped like hot tea.

The most common Caldero bone broth consists of a simple recipe — chicken bones, vegeta-bles and apple cider vinegar — brought to a boil, skimmed and left to simmer for about 24 hours, Roach said. Beef or lamb would take even longer, she added.

Ephraim — who is inclined to eagerly show off his Legos, plastic basketball hoop in the driveway or the family donkey to strangers — interrupted his parents’ story about bringing chickens to a meat processor to proclaim his joy when they stop for doughnuts along the way. But though it isn’t surprising that he may not buy into the healthy eating principles of his parents, Ephraim still loudly proclaimed his enthusiasm for his mom’s latest

entrepreneurial foray.“Great job, mom!” he said, almost theatrically after

sipping some of the Friendsgiving broth. “Best bone broth ever!”

Winstead Farm, a name that intentionally sounds like “Winston” and “homestead” combined, has been selling meat at the Cobblestone Farmers Mar-ket in Winston-Salem for several years, but just recently spun off Caldero bone broth for sale at the market, Let It Grow Produce on Country Club Road and eventually online and at more businesses. Roach uses a commercial kitchen up in King to prepare the broth, she said.

The transition to running a farm hasn’t been an easy one; Gwen has run a kiosk at the mall during the holidays to bring in some extra income, and Graham is considering the pros and cons of pursuing an unrelated part-time job. In that environment in particular, find-ing a way to utilize the leftover chicken parts and turn a habit into an enterprise makes sense.

Plus, it tastes delicious. The difference between what Roach cooks up and the soups I’m used to — be it in a restaurant or prepared at home from pre-made stocks — is astounding. It’s enough to make you wonder why we ever allowed ourselves to accept substitutes for this long-standing and rich tradition.

But now with Roach’s help, we can put the “grandma love process” as she calls it back into our soups, and just in time for winter.

Gwen Roach stirs a big pot of turkey-bone broth made with leftovers from a recent Friendsgiving dinner.

ERIC GINSBURG

The bone-broth resurgence has arrivedby Eric Ginsburg

CULTURE

Pick of the WeekSoul searchingSpirit World @ The Marshall Free House (GSO), Saturday 3 p.m.

An ambassador from Beam Suntory, the popular bourbon makers behind brands such as Maker’s Mark and Knob Creek, take drinkers through a tour of the bourbon world. Don’t just drink, understand the nuances between single-barrel bourbon and the small-batch variety, while enjoying some fried food courtesy of the Marshall Free House. Search for the page on Facebook for more details.

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Find Winstead Farm (4235 Thomasville Road, W-S) on Facebook or buy Caldero Nourishing Bone Broth at Let It Grow Produce (4825 Country Club Road, W-S).

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A yacht club in Greensboro?I thought I had adequately prepared

myself for the West Market Street Yacht Club.

I knew, for instance, that there would be a boat parked outside, beached in front of the house-like building, and that this would be where the similar-ities to a real yacht club could end. College had prepared me well for this; the geek squad, some of whom lived in “Pirate House” which had an S&M dungeon in the basement, formed an official student group called the Yacht-ing Club, though it wouldn’t surprise me if none of these “indoor kids” had ever been on a stately sea vessel.

I knew, too, that the West Market Street Yacht Club wasn’t actually on the Greensboro thoroughfare that shared its name — I found out later the bar moved back off the street where it began years ago. And I figured that I’d look wildly out of place, rightly assum-ing everyone else would probably be a regular and a few decades my senior.

But despite steeling myself for what the yacht club might be like, I never could’ve guessed what the next two hours would hold.

And worse yet, I had invited a friend to join me.

The West Market Street Yacht Club is invisible unless you know where to look, past Southern Firearms and American Flag Storage on a side street out past Super G Mart. But if you drive back far enough, the white boat pointed at the street is impossible to miss. When I pulled into the parking lot at 5 p.m. on a recent Friday, cars and trucks filled half of the gravel side lot.

As soon as I walked into the Good Ship, I realized most of the people around me could probably remember when Shirley Temple first sang the clas-sic lollipop song. By the time my friend Bekah walked in a couple minutes later, everyone in the place had sized me up and the only two women in the bar seemed to have vanished.

“There were two women over there a minute ago,” I said to Bekah almost im-mediately, already feeling self conscious about the environment I’d invited her into without checking it out myself first.

When people say “the Good Ol’ Boy Club,” I don’t think they realize it’s an

actual place. Adorned in NASCAR mem-orabilia, a Marines flag, televisions play-ing golf and football and posters of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, the yacht club is the sort of place you can overhear conversations about women serving in combat roles, the bartender’s grandma and duck hunting. I heard all three.

Want to try a drink you haven’t had before? Well, there’s ChocoVine choco-late wine. Actually, just go somewhere else.

I felt more uncomfortable than I’d expected, and I could only imagine what Bekah might’ve be thinking, so I suggested we check out the back patio I’d seen when pulling up. Through a small but open rear room in the bar, we opened a door to a porch with what I later compared to a back-room Mafia table, and the only two men sitting there stopped their conversation until we passed through to a picnic table out back.

As the sun dipped behind the treeline, cold set in, and we made our way back to the end of the bar. And then, par-tially thanks to the two Coronas in me, I started looking at the West Market Street Yacht Club differently.

Bekah, who like me is in her twen-ties, pointed out that this is exactly the sort of place she would want to drink if it were populated with regulars and friends who more closely aligned with our demographic. Just as we were discussing the beauty of a communi-ty hangout like this where everyone seemed to know each other and get along, the inevitable happened.

It didn’t surprise me that a white-haired gent named Jeff walked over to us and asked what the deal was; I’m just surprised it didn’t happen as soon as I walked in the door.

Jeff is one of the bar’s unofficial ambassadors, a good-natured guy who lives nearby but works in Winston-Sa-lem. The more we chatted, the more we realized that although we were outsid-ers, we weren’t unwelcome. I still felt like I’d pulled over to a hole-in-the-wall on a road trip through Arkansas rather than a bar in the city I’ve made my home for almost a decade. But that’s Greensboro for you — just when you think you’ve seen it all….

Eventually Jeff politely excused him-self to go talk to a friend about hunting, and I decided I had seen it all. By then I knew that the yacht club began about 20 years ago, and the clientele gener-ally looks like this, though at that point the male/female ratio was closer to equilib-rium. I’d learned that Jeff likes dining at Salvinos on Battle-ground, and that a portion of the bar’s former patrons now drank around the corner at some place called the Sawmill.

The yacht club had won us over, but the most unusual part of our night

hadn’t occurred yet, something that added to our overall sense of disbelief and wonderment.

As our bartender — who seemed to know Jeff and everyone else like family

— closed out our tabs, she handed each of us a poker chip. In the center, under a pic-ture of a sailing yacht, it said: “YACHT CLUB Good for 1 Beer.”

Come back and use this next time, she said, and as we said goodbye in the parking lot, Bekah and I promised each other we would.

by Eric Ginsburg

Visit the West Market Street Yacht Club at 290 Edwardia Drive (GSO) and say hi to Jeff for me.

The beached boat at the landlocked bar says something about the vibeinside the West Market Street Yacht Club, I’m just not sure what.

ERIC GINSBURG

[email protected]

1162 Revolution Mill Dr. 336-505-9685On iTunes, Stitcher, and at BradandBritt.com

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bout halfway through Possum Jenkins’ annual post-Thanksgiving show at the Garage in Winston-Salem, Molly McGinn took the stage

with an acoustic guitar. She played a couple songs, accompanied only by electric guitarist David Willis as the rest of the band took a break.

They tried out some covers — “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers” and “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round” by John Prine — more as a concession to the sentimentality of the holiday season than as an artistic statement, and then moved through a triad of tunes written by McGinn. By the third number, a song called “John Cash Jeans,” all but two of the players had returned to the stage.

“I’ve been severely pining to be an honorary member of Possum Jenkins since I saw them at a battle of the bands at the old Ziggy’s about 10 years ago,” McGinn confided, before bandleader David Brewer and guest keyboardist David McCracken returned to the stage to join her for a bluesy rendition of the civil rights anthem “Eyes on the Prize.”

With more than a decade of playing in and around northwest North Carolina and handful of albums worth of original material, Possum Jenkins has become more of an extended family gathering than a self-con-tained unit. It’s no wonder McGinn never received an official invitation to join the band as a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist: Brewer, Willis and Nathan Turner all sing and play guitar, with each rotating through drum duties. Willis’ restrained honky-tonk vocals complement Brewer’s gospel-leaning soul-singer ap-proach, while Turner delivers straight on, heart-tugging country. As the most developed guitarist in the group, Willis accents the songs with tasteful licks and atmo-spheric texture, but the band’s lead instrumentalist is clearly harmonica player Brent Buckner.

It’s a perilous exercise to try to categorize Possum Jenkins’ music. They draw as much from the outlaw country of Confederate Railroad as the punk-inspired alt-country of Son Volt, both of whom they covered at their Nov. 27 show at the Garage. Much of the band’s music carries an overlay of twang. Their vocal hollers and stomping rhythm proudly represent Appalachia, while they’re also capable of delivering a sinuous country-funk sound that could place them in northern Mississippi hill country as easily as the southern Louisi-ana bayou. Buckner’s high, piercing harmonica playing, which would sound just as at home with George Jones as with the Staple Singers, is the special ingredient that holds everything together.

While the drums were stationed forward onstage, Buckner projected his big sound from the background, positioned side by side with bassist Jared Church, while peering over Willis’ shoulder. Buckner frequently riffed off Church’s monster groove, with the two sharing a strong musical and personal chemistry.

McCracken, who plays Hammond organ and piano

with Donna the Buffalo, joined Possum Jenkins for their annual Winston-Sa-lem Thanksgiving show — past concerts have taken place at Ziggy’s and the defunct Rubber Soul — for the second year in a row. A Greensboro resident now based in upstate New York, McCracken said after the show that Possum Jenkins exemplifies North Carolina music to him. His reverb-heavy piano and ecstatic, going-to-church flair made a perfect com-plement, drawing out the band’s funky side.

“He earns his paycheck playing with Donna the Buffalo, but we’re going to put him on retainer,” Brew-er joked from the stage. “Which means we’re going to take him to an old house out in the county and lock him up until the next gig.”

As the night wore on, the Possum Jenkins’ set be-came increasingly raucous and loose. Starting around 9:15 p.m., they played until just after midnight. In con-trast to the current indie-rock paradigm of hour-long sets tightly curated to put across a signature sound, Possum Jenkins went long, providing ample space for stylistic exploration and permutations of the lineup. The format also fits the time-honored tradition of holding the crowd in thrall to keep them going back to the bar for more. Both Brewer and McGinn made a point of exhorting the crowd to tip the bartender generously, displaying an old-fashioned sense of their function as entertainers.

McGinn’s talent as a songwriter and vocal stylist is estimable, and she is a spare but effective guitarist. For various reasons, it made more sense to create an offshoot than to officially incorporate her into Possum Jenkins. She started performing with members of the band, with the exception of Brewer, several years ago at an open mic at Old Winston Social Club. Thus was born Wurlitzer Prize, a band that showcases McGinn’s material. It’s the same lineup — adding McGinn while subtracting Brewer. The lineup of Wurlitzer Prize also makes sense geographically and logistically, as all the members of Possum Jenkins live in Winston-Salem, while Brewer resides in Boone.

As McGinn was leaving the stage at the end of her interlude, Brewer magnanimously talked up Wurlitzer Prize’s forthcoming album, which will be produced next year with funding from the Arts Council of Win-

ston-Salem & Forsyth County.As a collaborator, McGinn brought a different

chemistry, particularly with Willis. She played percus-sive rhythm guitar as a handshake to Willis’ mercurial lead electric guitar on her song “Overtime.” Losing all the tentativeness of her two cover selections, she fully committed to the vocal on “Does Your Man Drink?”, a deep classic country song that brings to mind Loretta Lynn or early Dolly Parton.

And when the band fumbled to get the music right for “John Cash Jeans,” the rough faith implied in the song’s refrain made a certain kind of sense: “Seems these days I’ve been skimming more than I’ve been sliding/ Oh, without even trying/ Seems these days I’ve been quitting more than I’ve been trying/ Oh, you just keep driving.”

David Brewer, left, and David Willis of Possum Jenkins, trade licks during a homecoming concert at the Garage.

JORDAN GREEN

Possum Jenkins goes long at the Garageby Jordan Green

CULTURE

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Pick of the WeekHomecomingBen Folds with the Piedmont Wind Symphony @ LJVM Coliseum (W-S), Tuesday 7:30 p.m.

Probably the most successful power-pop piano player ever born in Winston-Salem, Ben Folds returns for the holidays with the full force of the Piedmont Wind Symphony to guide him through his greatest hits, tunes from his newest album So There, and a handful of Christmas classics. Seats are still open to see one of the Triad’s biggest stars on his homecoming night. Find tickets and more information at piedmontwindsymphony.com.

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reston Lane is the writer and director of Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity, a heart-warming play imagining the nativity as

if it had happened in Appalachian country. Folk sing-er-songwriter Laurelyn Dossett composed the score.

Triad City Beat: What is it that keeps people coming back to Beautiful Star? I mean you’ve been doing this since 2006 and it’s still a big hit.

Preston Lane: When Laurelyn and I decided to write the play I don’t think either of us had imagined that it would have found the love that it’s found in this com-munity. We just wanted to write a play for the holidays that used great music that we loved.

TCB: So how do you keep the material fresh?PL: I have noticed particularly in this 15th anniversary

year, looking back at the past years at Triad [Stage], how much I have changed as an artist, as a director, as a writer and as a person. And I couldn’t go back and direct the production I did back in 2006 or whenever it was. I just simply couldn’t do that because I wouldn’t know how to do that and it wouldn’t feel right to me. So I brought in different designers than I had originally and we imagined the play from a different perspective.

TCB: You’ve said that English mystery plays inspired your writing. Which plays are you referring to?

PL: “English mystery plays” makes them sound like they’re by Agatha Christie, but they were actually performed by a trade union or guild [during the English Renaissance]. The shipbuilders would often be charged with doing Noah and the Ark and the carpenters would be charged with doing the play Jesus on the Cross.… They would do a daylong procession of plays, they would be performed on wagons and they would travel through the city and stop at different locations and you would see the entire story of the Bible brought to life by the community members of your city. They were really extraordinary pieces of theatrical history… and the way they dealt with Bible stories not as these reverential religious things that happened in old days, but they made them very real to the life they understood. I wanted that, that feel of people taking the Bible and trying to under-stand it in the context of their own lives. For me it really is that sense that the stories in the Appalachian Mountains came over from those regions in England and in Scotland where all of this was happening. So that sense of oral tradition made the journey over in the 17th and 18th centuries.

TCB: What made you want to write about Appalachia, though? I know you were born in Boone but you also studied and lived in New York City.

PL: I wanted to be an actor from my earliest mem-ories. I studied acting in college and then I realized

that what I really wanted to do was to direct and so I shifted my focus to directing and that took me into grad school [at] Yale and to work in New York and to Texas and other states and cities across the country. And through it all I didn’t foresee myself as a North Carolinian artist, except that I felt a tug to come home. I love the state, I love the Appalachian Mountains and every time I came home the more I thought, “This is really where I want to make my work.”… What I feel

is there is a really big absence of great work about the Appalachian Mountains and so my work is increasingly rooted in the Appala-chian Mountains.

TCB: So what are the elements that make a really good Appala-chian Mountain story?

PL: I think there’s a sense of place and that, to me, is most important. We live in a world in which places are so easily avoided by our cell phones and computers and tablets. And we are connecting globally, we can go to Wendover Avenue and eat in the same restaurants and shop in the same stores as people all over the country. And I think the thing that I’ve learned and is so incredibly important in my work, and what really excites me about Greens-boro, are those things that are really infused with a strong sense of place; they are authentic, they belong. I think that my work can sometimes be critical of things in the Appalachian region and things in the Piedmont region. But at the same time it’s written with a great love and respect for the place itself.

A series of traveling English folk dramas were inspiration for Beautiful Star. COURTESY PHOTO

On making an Appalachian Christmas classicby Daniel Wirtheim

CULTURE

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Pick of the WeekBallooning itHoliday Parade @ Downtown (GSO), Saturday, noon

Greensboro hosts a surprisingly large holiday parade. Drill teams, marching bands and full-sized floats parade downtown in what was the state’s first giant-balloon parade. The Macy’s-style balloons are still a huge part of this parade while the crowd and excitement has only grown. Visit gsoholidayparade.com for more information.

Beautiful Star opens on Thursday at the Pyrle in Greensboro. Visit triadstage.org for more information.

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The rut is a beautiful thing,” my cousin Madison told me.

“Bucks’ll come in with their nose down, lookin’ for that pussy, and sometimes you gotta say somethin’ to ’em to get ’em to stop.”

“Say something?” I asked.“Yeah, just make a noise,

like, ‘Ey,’ a sound that’ll get their attention. ’Cause they got a one-track mind.”

We were flying down Interstate 85 in his mom’s SUV at around midnight after Thanksgiving, heading down to his home in Gold Hill, a tiny town in Rowan County halfway between Salisbury and Albemarle. We were fulfilling the second year of what’s become a new tradition: Gorge ourselves and watch football with the family in Beaufort, then drive halfway across the state to hunt deer in the morning.

This would be my fourth deer hunt, and I’d only ever seen does. And I didn’t want to kill Bambi’s Mom for my first deer.

Our alarms failed to stir us on Friday morning, so we woke up late — 7:30 a.m. We saw nothing.

We went out again at about 3:30 p.m. and stayed in the woods until dark. Still nothing.

And then, under my own power, I somehow woke up at 6:50 a.m. the next morning. I practically shouted at Madison to rouse him. Things aren’t looking up when you have to wake up your guide.

Again, no dice.I’d been out three times in two days and not seen

even a doe. And while the weather was cooler and

cloudier than originally forecast, it was still unseason-ably warm for late November.

My chances at punching my big-game tag were not good.

After lunch, I had a conversation with my uncle Dar-rius outside the town antique shop.

“I figure I might go out there again, just myself,” I told him.

“Yeah, they’ll be moving,” he said. “You just gotta keep going out there ’til you get lucky.”

“Right. The law of averages.”He laughed and returned to the shop.I struck out around 2:30 p.m. Despite the clearing

clouds, the temperature was slated to drop starting around 4 p.m. Heading out in the midafternoon grant-ed me plenty of time to prep and settle.

It would be my seventh time out for deer this week-end.

I drove the Gator — Madison’s decrepit ATV — out to a meadow behind a farmhouse across the street. Along the meadow’s left side was thick hardwood forest surrounding a creek bottom. Madison had installed a two-man stand 15 feet high on an oak, overlooking a game trail leading into the woods which served as a shooting lane. One of his buddies said he’d seen a large spike — a young buck with single-tined antlers — pass right under the stand a few days prior.

I spread estrus — doe piss — in a 50-yard radius around the stand, then climbed the ladder to the stand, a narrow, metal seat with arm rails.

Under my camouflage, I was sweating in the relative warmth. Estrus stank all over my hands. I rubbed it in my hair, beard and chest. The rank, musky stench caused a headache, but I was desperate to remain

concealed.I waited.Deer hunting is counter-meditation.

Your mind clears, sure, but you become hyper-sensitized to the point of para-noia. Every stirring leaf, every cracking branch, every rustle in the woods might be your deer, so you move in extreme slow motion and mute every sound. Even turning a rifle’s safety latch turns

into a four-second ordeal.I sat in absolute silence for an hour before I heard

crashing to my left. I began slowly craning my neck over until five does literally high-tailed from the meadow into the woods, bounding with reckless grace towards the creek bottom.

I certainly hadn’t spooked them. So I figured a buck must be on their tails.

Back in sniper mode, I scanned the meadow period-ically.

About 45 minutes after the does’ dramatic entrance, I looked left 90 degrees and halted when I spotted movement about 100 yards away, at the crest of the hill.

A lone deer. Likely a buck… maybe a buck.I’m unashamed to admit I was so nervous I could

barely zoom in my scope. I breathed sharp and heavy through my nose. I could barely keep a steady view for shaking.

But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Pine needles obscured the deer’s head and shoulders, so I could neither con-firm it was a buck nor take a clean shot.

Eventually, I lost track of it in the treeline across the meadow, disappointed yet glad I stuck to my princi-ples.

I breathed easy for another 45 minutes.Then, I heard a clack like a muted clave tap, slightly

behind me to my left.I watched through the oaks, pines and hickories as

the spike buck re-entered the meadow about 50 yards away, nose down, just like Madison said.

The geometry proved difficult. The buck was quarter-ing toward me, but heading behind me.

I unlatched the rifle’s safety and brought the scope to my eye, following the deer’s path through tree trunks.

When I spied the buck’s left shoulder through a few trees, I was turned about 135 degrees left, my back and core muscles aching after holding this position minute after minute.

He wasn’t stopping. So I said something.“Yo.”The buck stopped.I took the shot.

My first buckGOOD SPORT

by Anthony Harrison

“

Pick of the WeekElite DeacsNCAA Men’s Soccer Championship Quarterfinals Game @ Wake Forest University (W-S), Saturday

No Deacon blues for the Wake Forest men’s soccer team. With wins against UNC-Charlotte and Indiana University in the Round of 32 and the Sweet 16, the No. 1 seed looks strong as nine rows of onions. This will be the last chance to catch them at Spry Stadium before possibly heading to Kansas City, if they beat visiting Stanford University. The game starts at 7 p.m.; tickets are on sale now at wakeforestsports.com.

Sorry, Bambi. Sorry, PETA. Hello, meat. ANTHONY HARRISON

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Answers from previous publication.

‘V: The Invasion’ sounds weird, but it works.by Matt Jones

GAMESAcross1 Tyler of “Archer”6 “Omnia vincit ___”10 “Pygmalion” playwright14 Athletic team15 The 29th state16 When repeated, a Billy Idol hit17 Chinese leader born in Norway?19 “This is for,” on an env.20 One in Wiesbaden21 “Yes way, Jose!”22 Elton John collaborator Bernie24 Messy digs25 Chopping tool26 “Free Space” game27 Prefix for pod or corn28 Subtle signal29 April 15 payment32 Complaining when you have to stand

during that stadium thing?36 Gas used in signs37 Like a fossil38 Elevator pioneer Elisha39 Part of my Ukraine itinerary, maybe?44 Card issued by the DMV45 Tabula ___46 Bud on a tuber47 Number of legs on a daddy longlegs49 Beats by ___ (headphones brand)50 Law school grads, for short53 1950 Isaac Asimov book

55 PBS’s “Science Kid”56 “The World According to ___” (1982

film)57 Spend fewer bucks58 Economist Bodie at an animal

attraction?61 Company whose product names are in

all caps62 Collect from work63 Barbershop tool64 Presidential run?65 “Let It Go” singer66 Fashion sense

Down1 Stubborn beasts2 Work release statement?3 Cheerful4 “Airplane!” star Robert5 Letters on a toothpaste tube6 Window alternative, on a flight7 “Out of the way!”8 Get behind?9 Carrying on10 Dragon faced by Bilbo Baggins11 Touchy topic, so to speak12 Apt to vote no13 Las Vegas casino mogul Steve18 2004 Britney Spears single23 “My Way” songwriter Paul25 Gallery wares

26 Irwin who won this season of “Dancing With the Stars”

27 Work the bar28 Name yelled at the end of “The Flint-

stones”30 Tel ___, Israel31 Marks a ballot, maybe32 “Felicity” star Russell33 Narration work34 Bring up35 Made a tapestry, e.g.36 Org. of Niners, but not Sixers40 2012 Affleck film41 Game played with five dice42 Tiny Willy Wonka candies43 Solid caustic48 Steel girder49 “The People’s Princess”50 Like most “Peanuts” soundtracks51 Dog slobber52 Mold particle53 “___ just me ...”54 Zen garden tool55 “Dear” group56 Winged pest59 “Batman Forever” star Kilmer60 Apr. 15 addressee

Sunday service @ 10:30amCoffee and snacks at 10:00am

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Mondays 6:30 – 8 pm

Join us in a walk through each book of the Bible!Women’s Bible StudyEvery Tuesday 7 – 9 pm

Men’s Bible StudyTuesday, Dec 8th 7 – 9 pm

Join one of our Life Groups today!

Visit gatecityvineyard.com/events-2 for more Life Groups and Events.

Upcoming

Gate City Youth (7th–12th grade) We hang out, play games, eat, worship, have a

Bible Study, and just talk about life.Wednesdays 7 – 9 pm

First Friday donut GiveawayWe will be around distributing a little Christmas cheer by giving away free Krispy Kreme Donuts

with no strings attached!December 4th @ 6pm

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Dixie Lock and Key on a Sunday afternoon.

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e (stamping my foot Marisa Tomei-style from My Cousin

Vinny): Why? Why? Why are you selling the New York apartment? I’m just getting old enough to use it!

Mother: You just answered your own question, Socrates.

My family has a long and dubious history of bad real estate decisions. They begin brilliantly with the acquisi-tion of an underpriced and up-and-coming piece of pie only to be sold when there’s a crusty downturn.

My mother’s cooperatively owned, two-bedroom apartment off Central Park is a case in point. An airy, rent-controlled, parquet-floored, pre-war pied a terre optioned by my mother’s cousin for decades went condo, and with it so did my mother and two of her furniture-industry colleagues.

“It’s an investment,” she told my father, sitting co-zily in the den of our Davidson County, North Carolina home, “I can write it off.”

This announcement didn’t seem to evoke any mar-ital discord. Mother was a sought-after furniture and interior designer with much business in Manhattan that brought her to the city on a monthly basis. Where she hung her hat didn’t seem to be an issue. Dad was happy to “fly his little airplanes,” live in his renovated ancestral home, raise his quirky daughter, have Miss Ruby Mae Wilson run the house with an iron fist and cook collards with fatback when mother was out of town.

None of this arrangement struck me as odd until I introduced an elementary school friend to mother and she whispered in my ear: “I thought your mother was that black lady.”

To a degree she was right, but this story is about my other mother, Joann.

So from then on, mother eschewed the big luggage (she had a closet in the city now) and packed her lus-cious suede carry on and headed to Manhattan every three weeks. Often, under the guise of culture and “exposure” to my elementary and junior high teachers,

she dragged me along. Yes, she took me to MOMA, the theater, galleries and exhibits, but more often it was restaurants, cocktail bars, nightclubs and boozy business meetings where I spent my time obnoxiously fanning away the cigarette smoke and surreptitiously sipping cocktails.

The first time I was ever passed a joint I was in line for the ladies room at a now defunct cowboy bar (it was the era of Urban Cowboy and that sort of thing was in vogue) that claimed itself to be “the biggest honky tonk this side of Abilene.” I behaved like any sophisticated 11-year-old would. I took a puff and kept on passing.

Mother: Well it looks like you had fun tonight in your new Stetson.

Me: Yeah, I like that place.Mother: Why are your

eyes so glassy? Did you sneak some of my wine?

Me: I have better taste in wine than that.

Mother: I think it’s time to get you back to North Carolina young lady.

Yes, I was a brat — and an idiot. Had I played my cards right I could have had a high school and colle-giate crash pad in Manhat-tan that would crush the living daylights out of any Myrtle Beach getaway my contemporaries had on hand.

She held on for a few more years, but about the time that Billy Idol was rumored to be buying in the building, mother sold her share in that glorious space and went back to hotelling it.

I could feel the leash tightening around my neck — and it wasn’t the Madonna choker I had bought in Soho. Probably a good parenting move, but it changed the course of my destiny.

So this week, on the six-month mark of mother’s deathiversary I’m heading back to the city.

I’ve got a thimbleful of her ashes socked away in my carry-on and, barring any interference from TSA — or the doorman — I’m dropping off a piece of her in the city that has informed both of our lives. Once again, she’s “going to be a part of it, New York, New York.”

by Nicole Crews

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Selling Lindley Park

Nut City Beat 2015 (4.75x10) .indd 1 12/1/15 1:35 PM

Illustration by Jorge Maturino

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TCB Dec. 2, 2015 — Block by Block

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Transcript of TCB Dec. 2, 2015 — Block by Block