Stairwell sessionsPAGE 3

Movin’ on up PAGE 8

Art of destructionPAGE 24

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point

FREE triad-city-beat.comMay 18 – 24, 2016

Business owners offer advice to up-startsPAGE 16

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Precision guitar tune-up

The ultimate fret dress!For more information, call Keith Roscoe @

336.274.8810

$225$150 for( )

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensborogeeksboro.com • 336-355-7180

Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee!

Playing May 21 – 26

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

TV Club Presents “Preacher” SERIES PREMIERE!Based on the hit comic book series! 10 p.m. Sunday, May 22

Free Admission With Drink Purchase!

Star Trek CountdownFeaturing the TOP 50 EPISODES of Star Trek. 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 25

FREE ADMISSION

Totally Rad Trivia8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 26. $3 Buy In! Up to Six Player Teams!

Winners get CASH PRIZE!

Disney’s “Aladdin” BREW n’ VIEW SCREEENING!8:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 21st Includes Princess Party &

Sing-A-Long!$6 ticket includes FREE

BEVERAGE

Mary Lacklen • Allen Broach • Bob Weston(336)210–5094

abroach@earthlink.net

Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

Presented by

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

504 Ashland Drive 2 Bedroom/1 Bath $174,900

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It started with something my daughter said.She was explaining to me, on the morning drive to school,

the difference between sex and gender.“Sex is biological,” she said. “Gender is who you are.”She’s 11, by the way, and in those two sentences — one, if

you give it a semicolon — managed to explain something that most of the state’s General Assembly cannot grasp, let alone old farts like me.

But that’s not the thing I’m talking about.Right after that, she mentioned a girl at her school — a kid,

who really didn’t know any better — who said something that just about any adult would identify as hate speech. It sort of blew me away, and I could tell that my little girl caught the brief look of shock on my face.

“What did you say?” I asked her.“Nothing,” she admitted. “It just got kind of awkward for a

couple minutes.”I couldn’t blame her. How many times in my own youth —

hell, in my adulthood — have I heard someone in my white, hetero circle say something repugnant about the others? Too many to count, that’s how many.

She rides up front on the way to school, a deal she cut with her brother who takes the shotgun seat on the ride home. And she doesn’t like it when I don’t look at the road. But I turned to her then anyway and told her what was up.

“I don’t think we can be quiet about this stuff,” I told her. “I think maybe that’s the problem.” This, too, she intuitively grasped.

“It’s because of Trump, right?” she said.“Pretty much,” I said.Because while most white folks are good people, there

are those among us who feel the pinch of encroachment on our privilege, who envision themselves on the losing end of shifting demographics, who lash out at everything and every-body they don’t understand. And sometimes they say stuff that reveals this poisonous thinking — which is a good thing, because they’re letting you know who they are.

So it’s important when people say those things, I told her, to let them know who we are. And we, I reminded her, don’t like that kind of crap.

Silence is tacit approval. Silence is enabling. Silence gives the crackers the impression that people agree with them, even when they don’t.

But my daughter and I reckon there are more of us than there are of them at this time in North Carolina — we’ll find out for sure in November, I suppose — and our numbers grow every day.

And I suppose it’s possible that we’re wrong, that North Carolina is an irredeemably racist state where “the other” will always be demonized and fear rules the day.

But we’re still not gonna shut up about it.

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Sometimes they say stuff

UP FRONT

3 Editor’s Notebook4 City Life6 Commentariat6 The List7 Barometer7 Unsolicited EndorsementNEWS 8 Movin’ on up10 In police shooting video, little

clarity12 HPJ: O the humanityOPINION 14 Editorial: Drowning UNC in the

bathtub 14 Citizen Green: Five Row, WSNC15 It Just Might Work: Rubberneck-

ing screens15 Fresh Eyes: Candyland in

GreensboroCOVER 16 Trust us: Business owners offer

advice to up-startsCULTURE 20 Food: A great big convoy21 Barstool: Topo vs. Tito’s,

Round II22 Music: Studio shaman 24 Art: Art of surrenderFUN & GAMES 26 Hanson digs in

GAMES 27 Jonesin’ CrosswordSHOT IN THE TRIAD 28 Lake Brandt Rd, Greensboro

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Fan Fiction

by Brian Clarey

Cover photography by Eric GinsburgTim Cox of Stir Creative sits at the head of the table.

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CONTENTS

QUOTE OF THE WEEK Always remember: You can die from exposure. Exposure doesn’t pay the light bill. If you do decide to say no, another opportunity will come along. And if you do decide to not take monetary compensation, make sure it’s for something you want and not just because you’re excited to have been asked.

– Nikki Miller-Ka, in the Cover, page 16

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320

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

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

BUSINESSPUBLISHER Allen Broachallen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIALEDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clareybrian@triad-city-beat.comSENIOR EDITOR Jordan Greenjordan@triad-city-beat.comASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburgeric@triad-city-beat.comNEST EDITOR Alex Kleinalex@triad-city-beat.comEDITORIAL INTERNS Joanna Rutterintern@triad-city-beat.com

ARTART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturinojorge@triad-city-beat.com

SALESDIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Graydick@triad-city-beat.comSALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibsonlamar@triad-city-beat.comSALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Greencheryl@triad-city-beat.comSALES EXECUTIVE Korinna Sergentkorinna@triad-city-beat.com

NESTAdvertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every month!nest@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORSCarolyn de BerryNicole CrewsAnthony HarrisonMatt JonesAmanda SalterCaleb Smallwood

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ALL WEEKENDDar He: The Story of Emmett Till @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S)NC Black Repertory Company present this story of a 14-year-old black Chicago teenager who traveled to the Mississippi Delta in 1955, “into a world he could never understand,” says the company’s teaser, “a world of thick color lines, of hard-held class systems and unspeakable taboos.” After whistling at a white woman, Till was brutally murdered by her family members. The play chronicles the murder, trial and confessions of the men accused of Till’s murder. Shows run Friday and Saturday. Visit ncblackrep.org for ticket information.

CITY LIFE May 18 – 24 by Joanna Rutter

WEDNESDAY13th Congressional District Democratic candidates forum @ Young Democrats of Guilford County HQ (GSO), 7 p.m.Due to all the musical chairs and redrawn maps of late, you may find yourself now in the 13th Congressional District if you used to be in the 6th District, or vice versa... so get that checked out, then head over to this forum to get educated on how these five Democratic candidates measure up on pertinent issues. Adam Coker, Bruce Davis, Mazie Ferguson, Kevin Griffin and Bob Isner will be in attendance, gunning for the Democratic nomination on the special June 7 election. We’re hoping for a Republican forum as well, with all 17 candidates on a stage together. A paper can dream. More info on the Young Democrats’ Facebook page.

THURSDAYSalem Creek tour @ Central Park tennis courts (W-S), 12 p.m.Attention eco-nerds and history buffs: As part of 250th anniversary celebrations for the founding of Salem, two experts from Old Salem will lead a tour down to a creek that’s played a surprisingly major role in the history of Winston-Salem. No spoilers, you’ll have to go hear about it from them. Shoes for soggy ground and uneven terrain are suggested. Although the event is free, registration is required. Call 336.721.7307 to reserve your spot.

Open Thinking: An Innovation Showcase @ Innovation Quarter (W-S), 4 p.m.Hear about the latest in health-care product development at this year’s Open Thinking conference from Wake Forest’s school of medicine. The keynote speaker will be Art Pap-pas, a life-science venture capitalist and investor from Durham. Topics for presentations include “A Solid-State Nanopore System for Quantifying DNA/RNA” and “Bordetella Bronchiseptica Animal Vaccine.” Do we know what these things are? No. Can we assume they are groundbreaking and important? Absolutely. Check it out and register at events.wakeforestinnovations.com.

City Market summer season begins @ the Railyard (GSO), 6 p.m.The summer season of festivals in Greensboro can now be said to have officially begun, with City Market back in town for its fourth year. Kicking off the summer is May’s theme of Homebrewing, spotlighting local brewers in the Piedmont. Crafted, Urban Street Grill and Dusty Donuts will have their trucks there, and about 65 artisans will peddle their wares. Southern rock group Monks of the ’Boro will provide ambiance for corn-hole games. Visit gsocitymarket.com for more info.

Torch fire enameling @ Shelf Life Art + Supply Co. (GSO), 6 p.m.Y’all, two words: Portable. Torches. Now, longer sentences: Laura Guenther of Blue Antiquities will lead this intro to enameling workshop, teaching torch safety and basic techniques including flat pieces, sifting and rolling. This is not your crazy aunt’s DIY jewelry class. Because things will be on fire, the class is 18 and over. Buy tickets through Eventbrite via the link on the Facebook event page or register in-store.

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The Slocan Ramblers @ Centennial Station Arts Center (HP), 7 p.m.Join the High Point Arts Council for the last Third Thursday concert of the spring season with visitors from the Great White North — Toronto, to be specific. The Slocan Ramblers debuted their banjo-janglin’ bluegrass on their freshman album “Shaking Down the Acorns,” and performed in this year’s Merlefest. If you like Mumford and Sons or the Oh Hellos, you’ll probably want to make your way to downtown High Point this Thursday. For more information, contact Clint Bowman at programs@highpointarts.org or at 336.889.2787 ext. 26.

FRIDAYWhistle Stop concert series kickoff: Boom Unit Brass Band @ Amtrak Depot (HP), 6 p.m.Ignite High Point and the City Project return with their Whistle Stop concert series, which will run Friday nights through June 17. First up, an eclectic and funky group equipped with sousaphones, saxophones, trombones and trumpets playing jazz and funk. Park for free at the city parking deck, or heck, take the train straight to the con-cert. Food trucks and local craft beer will be available in the former baggage room.

SATURDAYSlide the City @ Freeman Mill Rd. (GSO), 9 a.m.If you’ve ever dreamed of sliding down a slip-and-slide the length of three football fields, first of all, you have very creative dreams, and second, that dream can now come true. Slide the City’s tour rolls into town this Saturday and invites you to bring water guns, buckets and enough gumption to hurtle down its slick vinyl in an inner tube. Dress appro-priately. Tickets for each slip down the slide can be found at slidethecity.com

A Visit with George Washington @ Old Salem Museums and Gardens Historic District (W-S), 9:30 a.m. This spring festival, “A Visit with George Washington,” celebrates the 225th anniver-sary of Washington’s visit to Salem. In 1791, Washington toured the Southern states, completing his inaugural promise of visiting every state that ratified the constitution. He arrived in Salem on May 31 and totally chilled with the townspeople like a bro. (Historical paraphrase.) There will be a Washington impersonator. One of the activities listed is making “hoe cakes,” and that is not a joke. For the ultra-competitive wedding gift-givers, there’s a pottery fair that will run in conjunction with the festival beginning at 10 a.m. in Salem Square. Tickets at oldsalem.org.

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The tenuous existence of music venuesRIP Baity’s, Ziggy’s, Flying Anvil, Ziggy’s again… mean-

while places like the Orange Peel (Asheville), Fillmore (Charlotte) and of course Cat’s Cradle keep on chugging [“One hot minute: An oral history of the Flying Anvil”; by Brian Clarey and Eric Ginsburg; May 11, 2016]. Good on everyone here for making a real run at building a local regional venue. I enjoyed every show I saw there; wish I had a T-shirt!

Rsmithing, via triad-city-beat.com

Mental illness and law enforcement — deadly combina-tion

In January 2014, a Brunswick County teen was shot to death by police [“Police body-camera video of the shoot-ing of Chieu Di Thi Vo released”; by Jordan Green; May 11, 2016]. Mentally ill. In March, a 38-year-old mentally ill man was killed by Albuquerque police who said he had pulled two knives and threatened their lives. Seventy-five percent of those shot by Albuquerque police were mental-ly ill. In September, it was reported that more than half of those killed by San Francisco’s police were mentally ill. In 2015, NPR reported that of all police shootings, one fourth involved the mentally ill. That same year it was reported that one third of police shootings in Los Angeles involved the mentally ill. A few days ago Charlotte police shot and killed a Lao refugee, Bong Ackhavung. He was mentally ill.

Andrew Young, Greensboro

If people are mentally ill and chasing folks with a butcher knife, when they call in to 911, they should ask for mental health professionals or EMT vs. the police. The first thing people do is call 911, which is the police. If you don’t want your loved one killed, then don’t call the police — handle it yourself.

Li, via triad-city-beat.comEditor’s note: In this instance, neighbors called the police.

Homegrown artsPlease actually support the great work that the Greens-

boro Mural Arts Project is doing! [“Want to design a mu-ral?”; by Eric Ginsburg; May 13, 2016]. Don’t bring in some artist who isn’t from Greensboro and who isn’t doing the hard work that is on-the-ground community uplifting stuff!

BidBidBid, via triad-city-beat.com

Ch-ch-changesThat’s a relief, at first glance I assumed you were going

to start wearing a lace bustier [“The Unsolicited Endorse-ment: The personal reinvention”; by Brian Clarey; May 11, 2016].

Jack Webb, via triad-city-beat.com

4 brilliant flashes from Dylan’s Blonde on Blondeby Jordan Green1. “ Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues

Again”Among the treasured albums of my dad’s vinyl

collection was a copy of Bob Dylan’s 1966 masterpiece Blonde on Blonde with the cover neatly divided into quadrants by strips of blue tape. He explained to me that the album — which was released 50 years ago this week — was at the top of a stack of records that he brought back east after a stint living in San Fran-cisco. He’d gone out west in ’66 at the age of 18. The stories he told me have acquired the weight of lore: an argument with my grandfather that precipitated his departure from Baltimore ending with a bathroom sink coming loose from the wall under my dad’s weight; taking acid and wandering along the Great Salt Lake; a late-night hitchhiking ride with two Native-American men who interrupted the journey to poach a deer. The songs on Blonde on Blonde perfectly capture the frustration and disaffection of being 18 in almost any generation, with lyrics that come across as a fevered hallucination, as in this line from “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”: “Mona tried to tell me/ To stay away from the train line/ She said that all the railroad men/ Just drink up your blood like wine/ An’ I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that/ But then again, there’s only one I’ve met/ An’ he just smoked my eyelids/ An’ punched my cigarette.’”

2. “Visions of Johanna”I have to agree with music critic Greg Kot, co-host of

WBEZ Chicago’s “Sound Opinions,” that the best track on the album, maybe the quintessen-tial song of Dylan’s career, is “Visions of Johan-na.” It captures what Dylan describes as a “thin, wild mercury sound” that had been in his head but theretofore unattainable. The Rimbaud-like imagery is vivid yet elusive, prompting Kot to speculate that the lyrics actually describe a vision of hell: “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?/ We sit here stranded, though we’re all doing our best to deny it/ And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it/ Lights flicker from the opposite loft/ In this room the pipes just cough/ The country music station plays soft/ But there’s nothing really nothing to turn off.”

3. “Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands”Recorded at 4 a.m. with an ace crew of Nash-

ville session musicians and filling the entirety of Side 4 of the double album at 11 minutes and

22 seconds, “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” is epic in sweep. No less a figure than Tom Waits has compared it to Beowulf. “I think of a drifter around a fire with a tin cup under a bridge remembering a woman’s hair,” Waits said in 1991. “The song is a dream, a riddle and a prayer.”

4. “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”

The title of the song that opens Side 3 of Blonde on Blonde supplies the epigraph for my friend Ron White-head’s poem, “Music Saved My Life and Bob Dylan Saved My Soul: The Impossible Dream.” (A fellow Kentuckian, Ron plucked me out of rural obscurity, booked a poetry reading for me at the University of Louisville when I was still in high school, and roped me into road trips to read poems in New York City and New Orleans, but that’s a story for another day.) As an epigraph, “Most Likely You Go Your Way” suggests a cleavage, a conscientious decision to forge a new path. But in Ron’s telling, Dylan’s music sutures wounds and reconnects the poet with expressions of song that reach back earlier in his life, including Pentecostal holiness music like “Brother Matthew’s Gospel Quartet with my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Duncan banging on that piano like I’d never heard in no Baptist church….” Ron reflects, “… Every time I turned to Bob Dylan’s music life/ Became bearable again I thought about Resurrec-tion/ Again I thought about redemption again.”

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As of next fall, I will have two kids at Greensboro’s Weaver Academy, the arts magnet high school in Greens-boro. I’m there all the time — art-school kids have a lot of performances — and every time it seems to me like an episode of “Fame,” or maybe the movie Fame, depending on how old you are.

So it seems crazy that it took so long for Patrick Lui, the guitar teacher, to start committing some of this talent to a series.

The Weaver Academy Stairwell Sessions allow students from every discipline to show what they’ve got: guitarists, vocalists, fine artists, string players, drama-tists, with most of the performances going down at the

foot of the large stairwell that dominates the interior of the school.

They’ve got more than 20 of these uploaded to the YouTube channel, including a performance by Thommasaht Nhouyvanisvong, the guitar senior who in February won the statewide Hayes Young Artist Competi-tion, earning him the top music scholarship at Appalachian State University.

There’s also some Bach from violinist Dwyla Pearson, a watercolor slideshow

from painter Cassidy Harding, a monologue from drama student Abby Burris and a performance by the entire vo-cal chorale, with more scheduled as the school year wanes.

It’s as local as it gets and it’s completely compelling, even if you don’t have a student at Weaver. And if you do, it’s pretty amazing to see your kid’s ridiculous friends (talkin’ to you, Joey Radomski) execute acts of genuine artistry.

Thommasaht Nhouyvanisvong COURTESY PHOTO

The Weaver Academy Stairwell Sessionsby Brian Clarey

Do you work for a small business?In line with this week’s cover story, we wanted to survey

our readers and see how people are connected to small businesses (if at all). Here’s what our editors and some of our readers said.

Brian Clarey: These days, I am the majority partner in a small business — you’re holding the fruits of our labor in your hand. But before then, throughout my career I worked almost exclusively for small businesses: restaurants and bars, small papers and websites. For many years I was a freelancer, essentially a small business concern. There are more than 5 million small businesses in the United States, defined as firms with fewer than 500 employees, and about 90 percent of those firms have fewer than 20 people working at them. That’s us. And not only that, most of our advertising support comes from small busi-nesses, too.

Jordan Green: I can actually say that I both own a

small business and work for a small business: As a share-holder in Beat Media (Triad City Beat’s parent company), I’m an owner. But I’m also an employee with a salary. It’s a distinction with a difference, considering that Brian Clarey, as our president, actually owns the controlling share of the company, and the newspaper is his vision. As a key employee and shareholder in a start-up company, I know firsthand that operating a business is both thrilling and harrowing, but I haven’t gone through anything like Brian, who sweats sales, billing and collections on a weekly basis to make payroll and has literally experienced many sleep-less nights. But I think I speak for Brian and my colleague Eric Ginsburg in saying that it’s tremendously fulfilling to see something blossom from our financial investment and hard work.

Eric Ginsburg: Ditto to what Jordan said. And prior to this, I’ve mostly worked for small businesses as well — a valet company, the Juice Shop smoothie joint, a shift or

two at Deep Roots back in the day — but other than that, it’s only been for nonprofits, unless you count a couple freelance writing gigs.

Readers: Looks like a lot of owners out there are reading the paper (45 percent), though we’re guessing these folks don’t all qualify as part of the owning class. Like many of the folks included in this week’s cover story (on page 16), these readers likely own small or very small operations on the whole. Thirty percent of respondents (of which there honestly weren’t many this week) said they work for a small business. “Work for and dream of open-ing one” and “None of the above” tied for 10 percent, while the remaining five went to “I dream of opening a small business.”

New question: Which congressional district do you live in?

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Find the Weaver Academy Stairwell Sessions channel on YouTube.

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New rental housing in Winston-Salem skews to the wealthyby Jordan Green

NEWS

New multifamily rental housing projects in Winston-Salem tilt heavily towards high-in-come residents.

Winston-Salem is at the bleeding edge of a nationwide trend of developers increasingly catering to the wealthy, while people with modest incomes find themselves ever more squeezed by high costs.

That’s according to a recent report by RentCafé, a nationwide apartment search website that used data from sister company Yardi Matrix on large-scale, multi-family properties of 50 units or more.

The report found that Winston-Salem is one of only 14 cities where 100 per-cent of new apartment buildings — not counting projects accommodating less than 50 units — delivered only luxury, or high-end apartments in 2015. Many of the worst offenders are clustered in the Southeast. Durham is also on the list, along with Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale, in Florida; Alexandria, Va.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Kansas City, Mo.; and a Sunbelt arc of cities from San An-tonio, Texas to Scottsdale and Tempe in Arizona, and San Jose, Calif.

While it might be a stretch to call all of the major multifamily housing proj-ects that came online in Winston-Salem last year “luxury,” new housing did skew toward higher incomes. Because of the way the study was structured, Rent-Café’s report did not include Camden Station, a public-housing community that opened in November, adding 30 units of subsidized housing. And the timeline parameters excluded Rock-wood at Oliver’s Crossing, an apartment complex with 64 units renting from $535 to $750 per month that opened earlier this year.

“Lured by rising rents, the prospect of steady income and stable cash flows, developers are rushing to build apart-ments that appeal to more sophisticated generations of renters,” the RentCafé report states. “The new wave of rental properties offers more than just apart-ments for rent; it offers an upscale life-style. In addition to top-quality interior

finishes, high-end appliances, beautiful building structures, designer landscap-ing and coveted locations, they also provide exclusive access to resort-style amenities, first-class fitness centers, con-cierge services, socializing opportunities and other resident services.”

The report goes on to say: “While lower-income households have been struggling with rising rates for decades, middle-income renters are affected the most by this trend. The rent crunch is climbing up the ladder to middle-in-come renters. With fewer affordable options, many double-income profes-sionals who used to populate the urban

cores are being priced out of the areas where they want to live. They are forced to choose between spending more than they can afford on rent and utilities, or settle for older buildings, in less attrac-tive locations.”

The report found that while all regions of the country are experiencing an upward trend in new luxury apart-ment construction, the most significant increase from 2012 to 2015 took place in the Southeast, a region that includes the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, with the number of projects leaping by 119 percent.

The Edge Flats, an apartment

complex touting “oversized windows with panoramic views” for units renting from $1,400 to $1,800 per month that opened last year, is representative of the location-driven criteria of many new luxury apartments in Winston-Salem. The apartments tower over Business 40, facing towards Baptist Hospital, and is close to Thruway Shopping Center and Whole Foods.

Similarly, Link Apartments Brook-stown opened last year across from BB&T Ballpark, touting “the urban living experience of your dreams,” stainless steel and granite kitchens and “private patios with spectacular ball-parks views.”

Two other large-scale apartment communities that came online last year, Stafford Place Luxury Apartments and the Lofts at Little Creek, also market themselves as “luxury,” but Chris Mur-phy, deputy director of planning and development services for the city, ques-tioned if the term is really meaningful.

“If I’m in the apartment business and I want to tout my apartments I’m going to tout them as ‘high-end, luxury,’ that could be just a marketing tool,” he said. “Some of them certainly cater to that. I just have a hard time believing that all those apartments that came online are luxury if you were looking at them.”

The RentCafé report defines “high-end” or “luxury” rental properties as “renters by choice” — those who who are capable of owning a residence but who choose to rent, including empty nesters and high net worth households, who generally demand exceptional quality — and “lifestyle renters,” includ-ing dual-income-no-kids, or DINKs, who also demand excellent finishing quality and seek a “more social experi-ence.”

The definition for “luxury” or “high-end” excludes apartment communities designed for working professionals such as police officers, firefighters, teachers and technical workers who are renters of necessity, and housing for blue-col-lar workers who can only afford lower market-rate rent, along with subsidized housing.

Link Apartments Brookstown exemplifies the trend of multifamily rental housing that is integrated with the surrounding community.

JORDAN GREEN

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The Lofts at Little Creek near Hanes Mall, with rents ranging from $915 to $1,075 —are well below the affordabil-ity threshold for families earning the city’s median income of $52,339. And rents start at $759 per month at Stafford Place Luxury Apartments, located on the south end, Families earning from 30 to 60 percent of the city’s median income can afford to spend $393 to $785 on rent — barely enough to afford the community’s most basic offering — based on the rule of thumb that households should spend no more than 30 percent of income on housing.

Andrew Brod, an economist at UNCG, counseled skepticism about the findings of the RentCafé report.

“They’re looking for a quick hit,” he said of the study. “They’re looking for the clicks. It’s a blog. What is the purpose of RentCafé? A blog is a great way to draw traffic to your site. The [search engine optimization] people tell me that.”

He added that excluding projects with fewer than 50 units is a significant flaw of the study.

“What it tells us is that there are no big projects built with affordable units,” Brod said. “You could spin that in a way that makes that good news. Nothing excites NIMBYism so quickly as a big complex of affordable housing. As soon as the neighbors hear the term ‘afford-able housing’ they start asking questions about traffic counts and crime.”

Construction of the Edge Flats near Baptist Hospital tells a story in micro-cosm about how poor and working poor people are being displaced and scattered to the outskirts of Winston-Salem.

The site was previously occupied by the West Side Apartments, whose sick, poor and disabled residents flooded a Winston-Salem City Council meeting in 2012 to oppose the rezoning re-quest allowing the redevelopment of the property. Residents of the 75-unit community told council members they had nowhere else to go and were at risk of ending up homeless. Council members approved the rezoning under the condition that the developer provide assistance to help the former residents move.

Meanwhile, the newest affordable housing project, Rockwood at Oliver’s Crossing, is as far from the city center as possible. The complex, whose 64 units

range in price from $535 to $750 per month, is located behind Griffith Fire Station, scarcely a half-mile from the Davidson county line and at least 10 minutes from downtown. The Shops at Oliver’s Crossing, a bustling shopping center anchored by a Lowes Foods grocery and provisioned with fast-food restaurants, a drugstore and barbershop, is only a half mile away, but the apart-ment complex’s driveway empties onto south-bound Peters Creek Parkway, forcing residents to drive in the opposite direction and make a U-turn to get back to the shopping center and other desti-nations towards the city center.

While council members overcame whatever misgivings they might have had about displacing poor people with their 2012 decision to approve a rezon-ing to make way for the Edge Flats, they could not bring themselves to pull the trigger earlier this month when neigh-boring residents turned out in opposi-tion to an affordable-housing project.

The proposed 54-unit apartment complex geared for lower-income seniors at the intersection of Reynolda Road and Briarcliff Road was almost a textbook example of the kind of urban multifamily project that planning staff sees as a replacement for the utilitar-ian apartment complex of the 1980s, which typically lacked a connection to the surrounding community. The new multifamily housing, staff argued in a 2015 presentation, should be “respon-sive to consumer desires for connectivity, walkability and livability.”

The two-story apartment complex would have been built within easy walk-ing distance of Reynolda Library and Reynolda Manor Shopping Center, and on a significant public-transit corridor.

The project also met a market need, with rents ranging from $235 to $605 per month so that residents with income between 30 and 60 percent of area median income would not spend more than 30 percent of their income for rent and utilities. As a reward for ensuring affordability, the developer would have qualified for tax credits through the NC Housing Finance Agency.

Developer Bill Scantland told council members during the May 2 hearing for the rezoning request that a market study commissioned by the state housing finance agency “indicates there’s a net demand in our city in that particular

region for about 709 units that are need-ed. That means those are folks who are overburdened today or in substandard housing. We are proposing 54, which addresses only 8 percent of that need.”

The proposal raised immediate objec-tions from residents of Town & Country Estates, whose residents use Briarcliffe Road to access Reynolda Road.

“Approval, as you might imagine, will lower our property values, greatly increase congestion on Reynolda Road, possibly affect the crime rate, and gener-ally have a negative effect on the safe and quiet enjoyment of our properties,” William and Jeanne Piodela wrote in an email to staff.

The age of the future residents only partly assuaged the misgivings of the neighbors.

“This apartment complex is real-ly 55+ low-income housing,” Debby Browder wrote. “While it would not have the problems that an apartment complex would have that was not restricted to 55+, the low income aspect causes some concern for our property values in T&C.”

Of particular concern to Browder

and other Town & Country Estates resi-dents was two dumpsters. Despite plans for 6-foot “opaque screens,” Browder objected, “We still know what is behind those screens. I assume that screening is something like what fast food restau-rants use. This is not something I want to see when turning into our neighbor-hood.”

Scantland agreed to enclose the dumpsters in brick matching the exteri-or of the buildings, but he said he was not able to fulfill a request by Council-man Jeff MacIntosh to reduce the height of the buildings and set them back further from the road. At the lead of MacIntosh, who represents the North-west Ward where the proposed project was located, council members voted 5-2 to defeat the rezoning request.

Normally, he would be inclined to support a project like the one proposed, Councilman Dan Besse said, but he felt obliged to go with the recommendation of the ward’s representative.

“I would like to be able to support affordable housing for that site,” Besse said. “It’s the kind of site that that fits.”

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16 In police shooting video, little clarity

by Eric Ginsburg

After extensive community pressure and a call from the family to make the tape public, Greens-boro City Council released body cam footage of the police shooting of Chieu Di Thi Vo last week. Council agreed to the move in order to maintain public trust, but some residents say the officer didn’t act appropriately.

The statement from the Southeast Asian Coalition couldn’t be much stronger.

“Watching the Vo video makes it clear that police have a permit to kill people who are neurodivergent/mentally ill under the guise of their training,” it begins. “We find this unacceptable.”

The Charlotte-based organization is one of more than 30 community organizations around the country that is “standing by the Vo family,” according to the statement.

It took two years for the fatal police shooting of Chieu Di Thi Vo to rever-berate out from Greensboro. Mounting public pressure to consider police body camera footage a matter of public record and recent vocal calls from Vo’s family to privately view and then public-ly release the footage led to its disclosure last week.

While some could argue that the re-lease is a step towards transparency for the city, as the Southeast Asian Coali-tion statement shows, deep frustrations and anger over the shooting persist.

Defense lawyer Graham Holt, who has represented Greensboro residents in police mistreatment cases, said the footage shocked him.

“I think it’s absurd,” he said. “I think [the officer] didn’t have to use deadly force. She was walking like an infant walks and had a knife in her hand. I honestly think if he had kept moving to the left she would’ve walked right by him. She was clearly following the path from what I could tell.

“I wouldn’t have been in fear for my life of an older woman waddling down a path with a knife in her hand and with the look on her face that she had,” he continued. “He could’ve just as easily have stepped out of the way. He could have tased her or subdued her. There are many other non-deadly options available to him.”

The footage is available on the Triad City Beat website, and the full footage of the city’s press conference in which it released the video is available on the police department’s website.

The 2014 incident unfolded rapidly, as then-officer Timothy Bloch respond-ed to two 911 calls about Vo chasing her mother with a knife and one caller say-ing she felt threatened as well. As Bloch exited his car, a 911 caller greeted him and he pushed his glasses and the police body camera mounted to them onto his forehead. Because of this, much of the footage of the incident shows the sky instead of the scene, complicating attempts to determine what happened. Bloch can be heard ordering Vo to drop the knife and firing five shots moments later.

The first 911 caller tells the dispatcher the woman with the knife is “Lao, Viet-namese or something,” and the second caller three minutes later describes a woman with a knife, possibly Hispanic, who isn’t speaking English.

In the press conference releasing the footage, Chief Wayne Scott described “an extremely complicated” situation in which Block retreated about 12 feet

as Vo moved towards him with a knife. Scott said Bloch “instinctively” put his glasses — and thereby the body camera — on top of his head on that cloudy afternoon, saying the department ac-knowledges there are “some deployment issues” with those versions of cameras.

Department spokesperson Susan Danielsen said police directives “do not prohibit officers from plac[ing] glasses on their heads,” adding that “whether cameras are mounted on glasses or collars, occasionally the lens can be obscured.” She did not respond to a question about how the Greensboro Po-lice Department can be confident in the usefulness of body-worn cameras if it isn’t against protocol to aim the camera skywards.

Chief Scott explained that Bloch didn’t just act to protect himself, but also the 911 caller who stood directly behind him. In the press conference, the department provided the audio from the initial 911 call, police radio commu-nications and the body-worn camera footage including slowed down versions of the video that make it easier to see Vo moving towards Bloch with a large knife.

“It is a tragedy for both our police department, for the Vo family and this community in its entirety,” Scott said.

The State Bureau of Investigation and the district attorney’s office both looked into the incident and agreed with the police department that Bloch acted appropriately. Bloch later quit the force but was cleared by the department of any wrongdoing in the incident, Daniel-sen said.

Holt said that even if proper proce-dures were followed, reform is needed to address the use of deadly force.

“We all know that [Bloch] had other options, but the culture gives him permission to not choose those other options,” Holt said. “He’s protected if he doesn’t choose those other options. If he can say there was a deadly threat and there was some evidence of that then he doesn’t have to choose the other way, and that is barbaric when the default is kill.

“A moral society does everything it can to not pull the trigger,” he contin-ued. “Here, he just had to yell at her to stop and if she doesn’t stop that means he can kill.”

Holt also said that “if reasonable

Greensboro police Chief Wayne Scott leads a press conference in which the city released the police body camera footage.

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people agree” that Bloch had non-le-thal options “easily available,” then it isn’t reasonable to argue that the officer feared for his life and was thereby justi-fied in using deadly force.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan, who support-ed the release of the footage, said in an interview that she hadn’t considered the possibility of a taser in the situation. She had a very different initial reaction to the video than Holt, she said.

“I have a whole bunch of different reactions,” she said, adding that she has sympathy for the Vo family, and for Bloch and his family. “Certainly I would say the police have a very difficult job, and that there was only a few seconds to assess the situation, and I would not want that responsibility.”

The footage also makes Vaughan wonder about alternative camera place-ment and possibly something with a wider-angle lens, which she said the city is currently exploring.

Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter called the video “very disturbing” and “tragic” for the family in an interview.

“I can only imagine they’re reliving every moment again,” she said. “I’m

not an expert, I am not a professional on this, but it appears to me just as a person and not as a council member that the offi-cer was justified. The 911 tapes were very important to me. The woman who called in was terrified. She said the lady had been at her door with a knife. All around, it’s a sad state of affairs.”

The initial 911 call, played at the press conference, aligns with Abuzuaiter’s ac-counting. The second call, made available by the police department upon request, provided a similar yet more stoic de-scription of Vo wielding a knife.

Community activist Andrew Young said he was “pretty aghast” that city council members seemed “cool, calm and collected” after viewing the video. He reacted much more strongly, he said.

“It was pretty awful to see,” Young said. “Quite frankly, it was something I’d been dreading…. As we marched towards the anticipation of having the video released, I found my stomach being pretty tight the last few days.”

Young said the family shouldn’t have had to wait two years and fight so hard to view the footage, and criticized coun-

cil for not acting to view or release the footage earlier.

Lewis Pitts, a former lawyer who helped lead the charge for the release of the Vo footage, said it appears that this was a preventative death.

“I watched intensely, the video, and found that I think reasonable minds will differ on what they see,” he said. “I can see and understand the argument that the officer was under an intense amount of pressure.”

While Pitts said he is glad that council “finally” released the Vo video, he said he strongly opposes the fact that the same night council decided to release it, council approved a new policy on body-cam footage release that is too restrictive and violates basic democratic principles.

Holt agreed.“They used the release of the video to

ensure they don’t have to do something like that again,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.”

Read more about the footage release policy and the arguments on both sides of the matter at triad-city-beat.com.

The video shows Chieu Di Thi Vo falling to the ground after being shot.

COURTESY PHOTO

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Habitat projects bring new residents, investment to neighborhoodby Jordan Green

Two new houses are going up in the Washington Terrace Park neighborhood, where Habitat for Humanity has built 25 houses in the past decade, boosting property values through a partnership with the city of High Point.

Antoine Curtis, an assistant site supervisor with Habitat for Humani-ty of High Point, Archdale & Trinity, watched a volunteer roll her fourth or fifth wheelbarrow of gravel and unload it in a drainage trench along the side of a property in High Point’s Washington Terrace Park neighborhood on May 14.

“Her intensity is off the charts,” Cur-tis remarked. “I need her in my group.”

A moment earlier, Curtis had been enthusing about a group of street mu-sicians he encountered. He applied the same inspiring approach to motivating and directing volunteers at the Habitat housebuilding site.

“I need to be surrounded by awe-someness,” he said. “You know what happens when you’re surrounded by awesomeness? It’s like a supernova of love.

“When people see you giving your all, they want to match your intensity,” he explained. “Goodness draws people in. Habitat is about goodness whether it’s a building site or our store.”

Habitat launched a two-week “building blitz” to put up two houses on adjacent tracts in the Washington Terrace neighborhood of High Point on May 14. The two houses will be the 100th and 101st houses completed locally by the agency.

Susan Wood, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of High Point, Archdale & Trinity, said she expects 600 volunteers over the next two weeks. A crew from Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church and Covenant United Methodist Church shaped up at 8:30 a.m. on May 14, the first day of the campaign. The smell of fresh-cut two-by-fours wafted in the morning breeze as the crews set to work at the two house sites, which were previously occupied by Friendship Holiness Church and a rental house it owned. By the end of the day, stud walls would be erected on all

four sides of the two houses.“Today we were joking that we’re all

Amish,” said Mirsa Nieland, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary. “We’ll have a whole row of people holding up the walls.”

Nieland and her husband have been volunteering with Habitat for about sev-en years. She owns and operates a sleep center in Cary and her husband works as an engineer in the Burlington-Me-bane area. The couple, who lives in Jamestown and goes to church in High Point, will likely become more involved with Habitat when they retire in the next decade or so, Nieland said.

What draws her and many others to volunteer with Habitat is the opportu-nity to work side by side with people of different backgrounds, she said.

“You have all kinds of people, every-one from a CEO to the family that’s going to move into the house,” she said. “You get to meet so many different peo-ple — people you might not otherwise get to know. We were working one time

with students from A&T University. We had such a great time together. It’s a chance to make community with people you don’t normally get to see.”

Volunteers from Keller Williams Re-alty, Woodforest National Bank, Ralph Lauren Corp. and ThomasBuilt Buses are also pitching in to build the two houses, Wood said.

Habitat has five additional houses un-der construction in the neighborhood, she added. Habitat has built a total of 25 houses in the Washington Terrace Park neighborhood, a small community wedged between the park of the same name, University Drive and Washington Street.

“This neighborhood is a partnership between Habitat and the High Point Community Development & Housing Department,” Wood said. “The city secures the lots — usually rundown rental houses — and tears them down, and gives them to Habitat. We have 25 families in the neighborhood. You take one family and put them in a house in

a neighborhood, and it doesn’t bring up the value of the neighborhood, but if you bring several families in it makes a difference.”

Most of the modest, one-story houses in the neighborhood were built in the 1950s, with a handful dating back to the 1930s. Whether rentals or in rare cases owner-occupied, the older houses range in value from about $27,000 to about $42,000. The newer houses built by Habitat in the past decade list on the Guilford County tax rolls from roughly $85,000 to $108,000.

When the two new houses are completed, they’ll be part of a row of seven on the 1700 block of Brooks Avenue were all built by the agency in the past five years. Property tax revenue collected by the city of High Point and Guilford County has either doubled or tripled from the time the properties were owned by absentee landlords to when the new homeowners took posses-sion, according to tax records.

The families that have taken owner-

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Volunteers and staff filled in a drainage ditch on May 14, the first day of a two-week building blitz to put up two new houses in the Washington Park Terrace neighborhood.

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ship of the Habitat houses in Washing-ton Terrace Park are a mix of Southeast Asian, African-American and African. Wood said prospective homeowners go through an application process, allow-ing the agency to review their financial status. To qualify for the program, ap-plicants must earn 30 to 60 percent of area median income, which Wood said equates to about $16,000 for a family of two. Each adult in the family is expected to put in 250 hours of sweat equity to defray some of the cost of construction.

Dhan B. Tamang, a Bhutanese refu-gee, is anticipating moving into one of the new, almost complete houses. He and his family fled to Nepal because of employment discrimination in his native Bhutan, and were resettled in High Point five years ago. Buying a house through Habitat turned out to be an affordable option for his family.

A first-time homeowner, he said he is happy to be moving out of the rental market.

“If I own my house, it will be mine forever,” he said.

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CITIZEN GREENUndoing Reynolda’s whitewash

Winston-Salem is a city that cares about its histo-ry, as Mayor Allen Joines noted during the May 14 unveiling of a historic marker to commemorate Five Row. He might have added that the city’s reverence for history

sometimes amounts to memorializing what’s been lost rather than sustaining what has value.

The community was home to the African-Amer-ican workers who helped build and maintain Reyn-olda, the early 20th Century country estate of the Reynolds tobacco family.

Segregation, which had been well established for almost two decades by force of law and custom by the time the Reynolds family took up residence in 1917, decreed separate and parallel communities for the white and black workers that supported the estate.

The American Country House movement, of which Reynolda became an exemplar, emphasized self-sufficiency and healthy, country living. It was in many ways a reaction against the industrializa-tion that created the wealth to make these utopias possible. The working farm and landscape gardens at Reynolda employed a brigade of dairy farmers and horticulturists, providing the economic basis for Reynolda Village, whose residents were exclusively white, with the exception of Katharine Reynolds’ major domo and chauffeur, according to the official history of the estate.

Black workers, who mowed, drove, hauled, cleaned and trimmed the estate according to a new photo journal produced by Reynolda House Museum of American Art and Peppercorn Children’s Theatre, were housed in a separate community down a dirt road on the banks of Silas Creek. Both Reynolda Village and Five Row had their own schools.

Compounding the initial insult of segregation — the implication that blacks must be inferior by the requirement of separation — the aftermath treated the black community as an aspect of Reynolda’s history that should be erased to cover up the embar-rassment of institutional injustice.

While developers and preservationists saw fit to retain the handsome, English-style white buildings of Reynolda Village and give them new life as a retail center — a Chinese dumpling shop, bistro, salons, yoga studio and restaurants currently inhabit the complex — the separate black community along Silas Creek was treated as an impediment to progress.

The community was demolished in 1961 to make way for the new Silas Creek Parkway, which connects Wake Forest University to Hanes Mall, and enabled the development of affluent, new subdivisions on the west side of the city.

Gigi Parent, an administrator at Wake Forest University who has researched Five Row, described a modest but well-loved community of 10 houses, five on either side of the road, along with a church and schoolhouse. “All the houses had four rooms, a kitchen and a wood stove,” Parent said. “They had a screened front porch, wood floors and ceilings, and they were painted white. There was no electricity or plumbing in Five Row. They used gas lamps, and they had an outhouse.

“There was a dirt road down the middle, but the houses were lined with hedges and lawns,” she continued during her remarks before the marker unveiling. “Each of the houses had a flower or a veg-etable garden — most had both. There were awards given for the best flower garden by Mrs. Reynolds, when she was alive.”

Perhaps the rarified atmosphere of Reynolda, as a model farm and a world set apart from the industrial behemoth Reynolds’ tobacco works, allowed the black residents to take advantage of professional opportunities that were other otherwise denied in the larger Jim Crow society. Parent recounted that when Katharine Reynolds discovered that her maid, Lovey Eaton, held a college degree and had worked as a teacher, the lady of the estate said, “I can get another maid; you’re going to be the principal of the school.”

Subjects of study included history, geography, spelling, arithmetic, the Palmer writing method, health and hygiene, art and music. The students per-formed operettas for audiences that included Katha-rine Reynolds, and produced plays using scripts from New York that would have been considered novel in Winston-Salem for any school, black or white.

While the destruction of Five Row cannot be un-done, the community and its descendants have now finally received a long overdue recognition.

Reflecting on the experience of walking from Wake Forest University to Reynolda, Parent laid out a vision. “I can see the men and women who worked in the woods when I walk on the paths,” she said. “This marker will allow me to see the houses, the gar-dens, the school and the church, the boarding house where multiple families and the school teacher lived.”

She choked up with emotion.“They were here,” Parent said. “They were import-

ant. They made this community. They deserve this.”

by Jordan Green

EDITORIALDrowning UNC in a bathtub

OPINION

Maybe it’s just reflexive thinking, a subconscious shift towards cynicism that no longer registers with us in the newsroom as it’s taking over.

But when the contents of SB873 — the Access to Affordable College Education Act — came across the state legislature’s website, it immediately gave off a perceptible stink.

Unlike some of the bills foisted upon decent and hardwork-ing North Carolinians over the last few sessions, this one does exactly what it says: lowers tuition at a handful of schools to the UNC System to make it more affordable.

Way more affordable: The proposed tuition at Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State University, Winston-Salem State Univer-sity, UNC-Pembroke and Western Carolina University would be $500 per semester for in-state residents, down from an average of more than $3,000 for those schools. That’s like an 85 percent discount, which sounds incredibly generous, and indicative of a real shift in values by a General Assembly whose members typically drag their heels on calls for investments in education.

But take a look at the schools affected: Three of the five are HBCUs. And UNC-Pembroke serves the large Lumbee popula-tion of Robeson County. Western Carolina’s inclusion on the list seems designed, if anything, to provide racial cover.

The more cynical among us might also ask: How are these school supposed to meet their financial obligations with a tuition drop of 85 percent?

And this is not an investment in education. It’s a divestment.Anyone who’s ever heard a Republican describe shrinking

something down until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub might be suspicious of a proposal like this, particularly when at least one of the schools, Elizabeth City State, was on the chop-ping block as recently as 2014.

There’s good stuff in this bill, too, most notably a freeze on tuition and fees for the duration of each student’s educa-tion — fees at those five schools averaged more than $2,000 a year — and an overall reduction in fees from 10 to 25 percent. And it establishes a full merit scholarship at NC A&T University and NC Central University, the two other HBCUs in the UNC System, for 50 students a year.

There’s one other provision: an allowance to increase the per-centage of out-of-state students at the five targeted schools up from its current rate of 18 percent, which one might think could cover any budget shortfalls these schools might experience — Western Carolina, for example, charges non-residents more than $14,000 a year in tuition.

But SB873 drops that number, too — down to $2,500, giving the out-of-state kids a discount of more than 80 percent at Western Carolina.

And so we find ourselves asking the question that conser-vatives like Sen. Tom Apodaca, who introduced the bill, are supposed to be posing: Who is going to pay for all this?

It’s possible the answer might be: No one.

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IT JUST MIGHT WORKRubbernecking screens

Last weekend I called my girlfriend while she was on her way up to Pennsylvania, and she told me the ride had been smooth aside from 20 minutes into her trip, when she was halted by an accident outside of Winston-Salem. No sur-

prise: Business 40 is notorious for wrecks. But she also mentioned a possible additional cause for the delay: rubbernecking.

Rubbernecking — the act of slowing down to check out traffic accidents and the like — is something I abhor. It is one of my biggest driving pet peeves, alongside cruising at the speed limit in the fast lane.

For one, rubbernecking lengthens delays already caused by an accident, inspiring a specific term for the traffic jams it creates: gapers’ blocks. But it’s not just annoying; it also causes additional accidents. A 2014 study published by the Journal of Transportation Technologies estimated that 10 percent of all accidents are caused by rubbernecking.

The study concluded that higher concrete barriers along freeway medians would reduce the occurrence of gawking at other peoples’ misfortune. Makes sense — physically block drivers’ views of any possible trage-dy in the opposite lanes. Granted, constructing higher barriers would prove costly.

Some countries have experimented with accident screens, or portable barriers shielding the site of an accident from inquiring eyes. The United Kingdom’s Highways Agency has reported remarkable success in reducing the number of wrecks and delays due to distracted driving. However, the screens take up to 20 minutes to set up, and despite holes near the top of the screens, they can also become vulnerable to wind. An enterprising mind might find a way to more effectively stabilize screen bases.

There’s an obvious fix — just keep driving normal-ly — but we can’t rely on all people to change their behavior. People do dumb things on the road, like text and fix their hair, no matter how dangerous these acts may be. The inability to enforce such a radical measure leads us to no better solution than to shield accidents from public spectating.

After all, I shouldn’t cast stones; I’ve checked out highway accidents in my life, but at a reasonable speed. Blame morbid curiosity.

We humans are an inquisitive species. We investi-gate everything. This curiosity has led us to consider what makes the apple fall from the tree, whether or not there exists a higher power running this seemingly random universe, whether life itself holds any meaning.

But often, we should mind our own damn business.

by Anthony Harrison

FRESH EYESA Candyland called Greensboro

When I decided to move my husband, son and three dogs halfway across the country, I never expected Greensboro would be my landing pad. Heck, I didn’t even know how to spell it! To me, Greensboro was a mere dot on a map of southeastern

states that boasted warm weather, four seasons, low prop-erty taxes, and two lifelong friends from my hometown of Chicago.

My family railed against my moving efforts as if I’d booked them on the Titanic. “I feel your pain,” I respond-ed, mimicking the same degree of emotion President Bill Clinton used when he mouthed that sentiment 20 years ago. Like him, they were just going to have to trust me.

Two of our Chicago friends had moved to Greensboro, and two to Charlotte within the last 15 years. Janice and Dick, our Charlotte friends, provided a delectable menu of what life looked like in their neck of the woods: Two temples on one campus, a Jewish Community Center, and four outdoor pool and indoor pools. I love to swim! They also mentioned Raleigh and Columbia, SC. I painstakingly plotted Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh and Columbia on a map. I spent hours online, researching what goodies (or you can use amenities) each area had to offer. Hubby was happy to review my research as long as I confirmed I’d be flying solo. My younger daughter want-ed us to stay in Chicago, but it was rare — and expensive — to find a townhouse complex that allowed three dogs. Besides, staying in Chicago wouldn’t solve our problems.

My hubby had just retired from driving a school bus. His nephrologist suggested we ditch our 2,600 square-foot, three-story home and move to a one-story townhouse in a snow-free climate. My plan was to say goodbye to my real estate career and restart the spe-cial-education tutoring service I’d operated in Chicago for eight years.

Juggling all the pieces of my visit to North Carolina was grueling. I struggled to guestimate what time I’d arrive in each area so I could book hotels. Mel Kriegsman, my Greensboro real estate broker, said I was crazy to visit such a large geographic area and meet with three differ-ent realtors in a span of four days. But when he saw I was resolute, he counseled me to “just work the plan.”

Those four days in the Carolinas were intense. Every night on the phone, my husband would calm me down. “It’s all good, wherever you decide.” I finally ruled out Charlotte as “too spread out,” Raleigh as “too expensive,” and Columbia as “too transient.” Greensboro was can-dyland! Yes, Cassandra, the laws your legislature focus on makes one question the sanity of those involved. There are more homeless folks begging on local street corners than there ever was in the suburbs of Chicago. And one out of five children goes to bed hungry each night in

Guilford County.Yet, Greensboro is still candyland to me. Why?Numerous community groups come together to

problem-solve homelessness, poverty and political and civil rights issues. Temples and churches work together to promote economic justice.

Temple Emanuel Membership Director Brenda Henley enabled my husband and I to join the congregation at a reduced rate and participate in a wealth of activities that we never thought possible. Only five months into our membership, Rabbi Fred Guttman reached out to a temple in Jacksonville, Fla. and secured a rabbi to preside over my oldest daughter’s interfaith marriage.

On the lighter side, Greensboro offers meetup.com groups for everyone from spiritual enthusiasts who thrive on yoga and meditation to adventurers who crave zip-lin-ing and whitewater rafting. Hubby and I enjoyed the Triad over 40s twice-monthly dinners at (I can’t remember the name of the restaurant that is off of Spring Garden, lower level, is next to tracks, and had performers and vendors last year), Halloween and New Year’s Eve parties. There’s live theater to experience. A few months ago, hubby and I signed up to volunteer at Triad Stage and the Caro-lina Theatre. Distributing theater bills and working the concession stand is a fun activity we enjoyed doing in Chicago because we got to see plays, concerts, dance performances and independent movies for free.

Another new favorite activity of mine is participating in Open Mic at Scuppernong Books, Greensboro’s inde-pendent bookstore, where I join other authors to read excerpts from our novels. I also frequent Sisters in Crime in High Point, which hosts monthly “how to” workshops for both new and experienced writers.

My rendition wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the potpourri of Toastmasters Clubs we have in Greens-boro and High Point. I’m area director of four of these clubs, which enable both newbie and advanced speakers to achieve their business and social communication goals. Although I already can yack up a storm, I eventually plan to be a motivational speaker.

There are art galleries, music concerts, parks, libraries, a plentiful number of colleges and an evolving downtown area. For all these reasons and so many more, thank you Greensboro for welcoming my husband and me into your community with open arms!

Wait; I do have one question. Do you guys have a real newspaper like the Chicago Tribune? A newspaper with in-depth local, national and international news? Yeah, I get it. Another time, another article….

Jennie Spallone was a Chicago freelance journalist for local and national newspapers and magazines. She is the author of three mystery novels. She looks forward to writing more articles for Triad City Beat! Find her at jenniespall-one.com.

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After the housing market crashed, isn’t the real American Dream starting your own business and working for yourself?

Unless you’ve opened a business before, it’s hard to know what to expect. It’s easy to be intoxicated by your own idea and plow ahead without adequate planning or research, to assume that hustle and gumption can overcome any obstacles.

For me, more than two years into helping launch a company for the first time, there are easily a dozen things I can point to that I wish we’d known at the outset, a couple mistakes so big that it’s hard to believe we survived making them. If someone had convinced us of a few basic things, it likely could’ve saved us a buttload of headaches and plenty of sleepless nights, not to mention a pile of cash.

Most entrepreneurial lessons you’ll likely need to learn on the go, as you sort out the minutia of what your business will do and how it will operate. You will make mistakes, and plenty of them.

But the insight afforded from experience is invaluable. These 10 Triad business owners — some full-timers and some side-hustlers working in a wide array of industries — as well as two start-up business advisors might be able to save you from making common and avoidable errors.

Tim Cox: Stir Creative Group, stircreativegroup.com (GSO)

“Everyone needs a name and logo for than the new thing they are doing. After 20-plus years of being a part of this process, I have actually contemplated writing a book titled something like, ‘The graphic designer already knows what your new business is doing wrong.’ As I think about writing this, it’s easy for the lessons learned to start sounding like a bunch of soundbites from business books. With that said, there’s really a lot of truth in some of the old stan-dards. ‘Cash flow is king,’ — totally agree. ‘Under-promise, over-deliver,’ — gold. ‘Mind your knitting,’ —agreed.

“Find a mentor. Even if they don’t know they are one. To succeed, you need to get very good at your business and be good at business. These two things are worlds apart. Anyone can go into business, but not everyone can stay in business. If you don’t how much money you need to earn today, or this week, you need to find out now.

“Get some recommendations on a few good business books. They are boring as hell but I guarantee you’ll get something out of each. In general, they all espouse the same basic advice just in the clever wording of the day. The Power of Thinking Big, Good to Great, Lean In; it’s all

applicable.“Know what your strengths are, I mean really know.

Knowing your strengths is [a] strength. Choose your business partners well. Know who your competitors are. Be better than them. If you don’t think you’re better than them, neither will anyone else. Where you are weak, outsource.”

Cox also offered advice specific to the design industry, but it’s easy to see lessons for independent contractors of various stripes.

“I work with clients and it’s important to do great work for them as a company and for the professional career of your contact,” he said. “The term ‘scope of work’ is the single most critical phrase in my industry. This stops projects from

becoming never-ending rounds of revisions that never get produced.

“Find out what other people do in your industry, and keep finding out. Bill at certain progress-points. Let your client know in advance you are going to do this. It’s easy to start a small project that will ‘just bill when it wraps up’ and then the after an initial work phase and a couple of revisions the projects stagnates... for months. Then when you send an invoice you can often hear, ‘But we decided not to do that and we never took delivery of anything?’ Yeah... no.

“People always think they are in charge of the size of their company. In reality, the marketplace is the driver here. I see people put certain restrictions/expectations on their com-

Business owners offer advice to up-startsby Eric Ginsburg

Revolution Cycles added beer taps to create more of a community feel in the bike shop.

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pany’s growth and fail to adhere to obvious marketplace signals. People like this are often standing in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

“As part of the Google Partners program, we do a lot of online advertising campaigns. Many clients want us to have their ads show up when certain phrases are listed in search engines. We more often than not find out that what our client thinks people are searching for is not how people are finding them.

“Don’t show any ideas that you wouldn’t want to be chosen. They will pick that one, like, every time. Establish

a real, bona-fide trusting relationship with two or three key vendors and give them your business. They will save your ass one day.”

Beau Tate: the Honey Pot, Tate’s Craft Cocktails, tates-bar.com (W-S)

“Ah, the long and distinctive list of mistakes and mishaps. Most entrepreneurs and especially [food and beverage] folk are prone to learning best practices through a series of thumps to the head that eventually strengthens the cranium to the point that you can head-butt nearly any obstacle out of your path.

“I helped open Tate’s [Craft Cocktails in downtown Winston-Salem] as a barback, worked a variety of openings in New York City, opened the Tate’s in Dallas —which we later sold off — as a manager, and helmed the Honey Pot’s opening as an owner. This gave me the opportunity to watch from a safe distance the first go-round and wade in a little bit with each opening. With all of that being said, I’ve certainly encountered more than my fair share of sticky situ-ations that resulted from mediocre preparation or generally knuckleheaded thinking.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that gamut of ‘sound business advice’ including ‘plan for inspection delays,’ ‘over capital-ize,’ ‘make sure you really get along with your partner,’ and ‘buckle up.’ These are all spot-on and essential to staying in business for longer than 12 months, but they don’t pay much regard to taking good care of yourself and your re-lationships. I’ve seen a lot of really talented and savvy folks burn themselves out because they discounted the need to maintain one’s humanity.

“I’ve fallen victim to this mental trap a few times before and it manifests itself in really funny ways — after enough time and distance. I remember being brutally tired and getting pitched a fastball by one of our first guests. I was so tired that I let my tongue slip and made a comment about being a capitalist outfit that was in the business of making money, and those words showed up in our first Yelp review, which I never let myself live down. I burned the candle a little bit too hard on that opening but walked away with a pretty good lesson — you can’t give it everything you’ve got if you don’t have anything left to give.

“Get some sleep!“Other than that, I think I see a lot of folks get caught up

in the romance of opening a small business [and] fail to plan strategically and attend to the basics of business adminis-tration [such as] finances, lease negotiation, HR, etcetera. There’s a reason almost all of the successful businesses in the world have either done these well or paid somebody to. They are essential. I don’t think that they detract from doing what you’re passionate about; if you dive headfirst into the challenge, I find that they’re actually really interest-ing facets of your core business that require a lot of skill and can be a fun diversion.

“Finally, mentor and invest in your staff. This is the only way to shift your life from being manageable to being pleasant. That and get out of the way once they’re better than you are.”

Hillary Wilson Kimmel: PTB Farm, ptbfarm.com (out-side GSO)

In its third year of business, Pine Trough Branch Farm is rebranding after missing Tim Cox’s first piece of advice about a name and a logo. It’s too complicated, co-owner Hillary Wil-son Kimmel said, and now she and her husband are dubbing the operation PTB Farm for simplicity’s sake.

“I don’t feel like we have a strong brand identity, mainly our farm’s name,” Kimmel said. “It’s a mouthful, and then some people think PTB is a label like ‘grass-fed’ or some widely used thing. That’s been a struggle. Pick an easily explained name. Even long-time co-op members are not sure what PTB stands for or can’t remember it. Finding a

name that stands out and sticks out in your brain is huge. The best part of a brand identity would be a strong name, which we don’t have.”

That’s true for any business, but Kimmel also offered tips for people who might want to start a farm or agricultural business.

“Only grow things that you love growing and eating. I think you’re going to care for things better if you love them. And you can actually sell them well that way, too. Have a real sense of how you’re going to sell it. That’s something that’s specifically a big thing within farming.

We lack a wholesale channel. I don’t really know how to talk to restaurants, even though I’m great at selling at the farmers market [in Greensboro]. But not enough people come to the farmers market to sell 100 heads of lettuce a day, or whatever the figure is. I think for small farms like this [one], being able to do the market and do the social media — I could go on and on about social media — but I think it’s great using those tools.”

Molly Grace: Kleur lifestyle goods, kleurshop.com (W-S)

“Learn everything about taxes beforehand! Everything. What taxes you pay, when they are due, how to file, where to file, and how to calculate what they are.

“Have a tight money system before you open. If you have more than one person involved, have clear duties for each and make sure you know all duties that need to get done. Break things down into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily ‘to do’ lists, and post them in a visible place. Make sure everyone is on the same page about them and that you check in on them daily or they’ll get away from you.

“Delineate days of the week for certain things, i.e. an-swering non-urgent emails, housekeeping, etcetera. Read correspondence carefully. Stick up for yourself, but take good advice from people who know better than you.

“Market, market, market, brand, brand, brand, and don’t ever stop! Momentum in marketing is the hardest thing to keep going.

“Finally, don’t overwork yourself and don’t think you can do everything you want when you want to. If you have oth-ers your working with, know your schedules — personal and professional — and work together to keep an open mind about what everyone is capable of. Recognize the skills you have and do not have, and take on what makes sense for those skills.”

Dan Besse: Lawyer, Winston-Salem city councilman, danbesse.org (W-S)

“I can tell you about my experience but it’s so atypical that it might not be the best example to use. Essentially, I’m an example of what you could call an accidental business owner. I have almost always worked for private nonprofits and originally it was in one or another staff role. Over the past few years, more and more of my time has gone into independent contracting work, that is, I’m not considered an employee of the groups I’m working for.

“That comes with good and bad news. As an indepen-dent contractor, you set your own schedule and you don’t answer to a boss on a minute-by-minute basis. You have a

Revolution Cycles added beer taps to create more of a community feel in the bike shop. ERIC GINSBURG

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particular set of work chores you do and you negotiate what they are on an ongoing basis. The downside is, and this applies to whatever field it is… the downside is you don’t have the reliability of an employee’s paycheck. You don’t have employment benefits like health insurance cov-erage. That’s all stuff you have to arrange on your own. That part of what I do is fairly typical.

“The thing that’s unusual about what I do as a lawyer is that it’s not courtroom work and it’s not things like deeds or wills that are legal documents. I do policy research. I write up articles explaining issues, I advise clients on their own policy development that has to do with public issues like healthcare or environmental problems, and that’s an odd little niche to have.

“The things that might’ve been handy for me to know years and years ago are the degree to which personal relationships are the key to business. People hire you — whether it’s for an employed position or contract work — because they know you, they like you, they trust you. It’s not typically because of an ad or a résumé, it’s because of a personal connection.

“For those who are not natural extroverts, that’s a hard lesson to learn. I’ve learned how to deal with people over the course of half a lifetime, but it’s hard work for me. I’m not one of the folks for whom one-on-one conversation or interaction is energizing. For me and other introverts, it’s an energy-intensive process when I’m talking with people one-on-one or dealing with people in an unstructured social environment…. but it’s an absolutely central part of any business.

“It took me years to realize that. I was and remain a firm believer in doing things on the merits, selecting people — whether it’s candidates for office or businesses — on the merits of who has done the best work, who has worked the hardest, who’s the most capable. And it always bugs me when I see selections made on whose family are they part of, who’s their dad and what neighborhood do they live in, things like that. Reacting strongly in an adverse way to the conventions of social privilege predisposed me to undervalue the importance of earned relationship building. The personal relationships don’t have to be based on those unearned social perks. It’s actually more important when they’re based on the time and effort you put into learning what people need, what helps them, and what they’re looking for.”

Nikki Miller-Ka: food blogger and private chef of Nik Snacks LLC, niksnacksonline.com (W-S)

“The only thing I can think of is undervaluing my own work. When it’s time to talk money, as a freelancer, it can be scary. I’ve never been good at putting a dollar amount on my work and I practically gave away my food, time and expertise in the past.

Even if you’re starting out, don’t give it away for a can of beans. Make sure all of your partnerships are beneficial to all parties at every turn of the project. You might hear the line ‘This will give you and your business exposure,’ which is code for, ‘Will you do this for free?’

“Always remember: You can die from exposure. Exposure doesn’t pay the light bill. If you do de-

cide to say no, another opportunity will come along. And if you do decide to not take monetary compensation, make sure it’s for something you want and not just be-cause you’re excited to have been asked.”

Mallory Phelps: SweetFeathers Studio design compa-ny, sweetfeathersstudio.com (W-S)

“First and foremost, when making wedding invitations for someone who is essentially a stranger, it is imperative that they proofread carefully because I wouldn’t know spellings, pairings, titles. It was the last day before we could send the invites to the printer on time to meet our post deadline and I finally got an approval on the design. Excited, I sent the various components to the printer and thought nothing of it. They arrived, looked great, and I set to assembling all 125-plus of them.

“Once you stare at something for hours, you don’t see words. Just shapes and design components. After deliv-ering the assembled invitations to my bride, her fiancé texted me that night with a very stern and upset message. We had [mis]printed ‘Son of of Mr....’ on the first thing that guests would see upon opening their invite.

“I immediately agreed to overnight replacements if they would just pay for the shipping. I ended up just eating the cost of everything — which was about $100 of material — because I felt so badly. Lesson learned was that, even though I love every client I’ve had, you have to assume that they don’t know anything and to double and triple check behind them despite getting an approval. I also learned that I needed to include a ‘proofreading’ clause in my contracts that states I’m not financially responsible for proofreading and spelling errors after they’ve approved.

“When I was very first starting, I would constantly offer discounts and free labor because I wasn’t confident in the fee I was charging despite the fact that it was still considerably lower than it should’ve been. I assembled one bride’s 150-plus invites with nine or 10 different components for free because she was my first client and I wanted to make a good impression. The assembly process

probably took me about 20 hours in total and I charge $20 per hour now for assembly. I’ll let you do the math on how much money I lost out on.

“I also wish I knew that I didn’t need to try to force myself into a mold that wasn’t me. I can’t offer my clients a genuine experience if I’m not being my genuine self. Sappy sweet, blushing, uber-conservative vendors are a dime a dozen in the wedding industry nowadays. It’s my edge that sets me apart and I need to embrace it to carve out my niche in the business.”

Watts Dixon: Revolution Cycles bike shop, revolution-cyclesnc.com (GSO)

“Revolution is my first business, and I definitely had some hard lessons early on. For one thing, I made it hap-pen right when the recession hit. I’d been ready for lean times, but didn’t anticipate how lean it would get. And almost didn’t make it. Multiple times.

“One of the hardest lessons was trying to be every-thing for everyone. And that wasn’t where we [shined]. If anything, it diluted our real strengths. So when we started focusing on what we really liked and knew... and even pre-sented ourselves in a more natural way, instead of a bland facade of ‘professionalism,’ things really started to stick.

“I’d say do not expect ‘If you build it, they will come.’ In this day and age, when you can literally buy anything on-line, just being a retail store doesn’t mean s***. You have to offer something singular. Something that brings people in, or at least sets you apart. And ‘great customer service’ often isn’t that. Because you know what? Every f***ing business in the world prides themselves on their ‘great customer service.’ So what are you, as a business, going to do that’s different?

“Beer taps were our way to really try to galvanize the social side of what we had going on. We’ve always thrived on that, and it was the logical step. We had to sit on the idea for years before making it happen, simply because of lack of capital and infrastructure. But once we moved, it was on. And it was our way to step out from a purely retail

Nikki Miller-Ka of Nik Snacks LLC

PTB Farm makes regular use of its social media, especially Instagram with images like this one.

COURTESY PHOTO COURTESY PHOTO

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model.It could have very easily been coffee, but we like beer

more, and fostering a good relationship with the local shop across the street, [Spring Garden Bakery], seemed more legit that trying to steal their thunder.”

Megan Thompson: Wild Rituals Soap Company, wil-dritualssoapco.com (W-S)

“All in all, mistakes are really just how you’re looking at a situation. I try hard to keep a positive outlook and look at my business ‘mistakes’ as learning experiences. ‘Happy little accidents’ as Bob Ross would say.

“Wild Rituals is my first real business. When you’re an entrepreneur, you know it from a young age. So yeah, I tried a few small ventures before this that failed. In retro-spect, I’m happy they did. When it’s right, it’s right. The important part is that you tried.

“To those looking to start an artisan business, I have primarily only encouraging words. One thing I can say is that you have to work hard. Don’t go into it to escape a 9 to 5. That 9 to 5 becomes a 24/7. It’s truly hard to put the work aside but you’ll learn how to when the time is right. My biggest mistake was not knowing how to set time aside for myself.”

Lee Mecum: former Art Pear Artist Services (W-S)“I started and ran my own business, Art Pear Artist Ser-

vices, for about five years and in that time I learned many things about myself and about others. 

“You wear many hats when you own your own business. You are president, secretary, marketing department, finance department, artistic director, human resources, maintenance crew and all the worker bees.

“Consistent cash flow is a big challenge. It took me about three years to feel like I was making a regular — low — salary. You usually need more money than you think you need and always need more money than you have.

“Lots of people try to help you run your business. They say, ‘You know what you should do?’ a lot. Don’t let them

get you off course. Stay true to your mission.“One of the best things about owning your own

business is being able to let go of clients who you don’t want to work with. The secret to that is leaving them with a good feeling for what you did do for them. Try not to burn any bridges.”

Sam Funchess: President of the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, nussbaumcfe.com (GSO)

Advising small businesses is Sam Funchess’ job. He’s helped wildly divergent companies, including this newspaper and the real-estate business down the hall at the Nussbaum Center get off the ground and then stay in the air.

“What we try to do is teach three skills. The first is learning how to make decisions. You hear that people run out of money, which is true, but a lot of the time it’s because they failed to make a decision in time before they ran out of money.

No. 2: Everything is about sales. Without sales, your business has no blood. Your blood has stopped. You’re living off the oxygen in your blood called your bank account.

The third skill is learning how to manage cash. That means understanding who needs to be paid and in what order before the business is shut down. You’re never going to have enough capital, and if you have too much you’ll spend money on stupid things. I’m not a big believer in ‘I needed more money.’ I think you needed more than that.

For me, that’s literally the first conversation, and every time we meet is trying to drill on primarily the deci-sion-making because that’s usually the biggest mistakes. They don’t put the tourniquet on fast enough to stop the blood flow. Once they get decision-making, we have to focus on sales. Sales can cure a lot of problems.

You don’t know what you’re doing when you first start, so you’re going to make mistakes instinctively. That just happens and you learn over time.”

There are seven questions that Funchess will ask you if you approach him with a business idea: What do you want

to accomplish, what do you want to be known for, what is your business, what is your product or service, who is your target customer, how do you market to this customer and show us that you can make money.

Most people haven’t defined any of these areas well enough when they think they’re ready to start a business, Funchess said. When asked about a target customer, people generally describe a slice of people demographically. He’ll tell them to give him “the names of 100 people who are going to pay you money, people you can call on.”

“Most people have not thought that deep into ‘who is the customer.’ They need to be thinking smaller. There’s an old saying that niches are riches. It’s cheaper and easier to focus on that target market and actually make money if you know that [niche].”

Noah Reynolds: Lecturer in entrepreneurship at UN-CG’s Bryan School of Business (lives in W-S)

“I think the most important thing that [my students] learn is that they really have to do market research into the market and industry that they want to start their business in. They often change their business plan after they survey potential customers and compare their plan to competitors in the market.

“What I try to teach the students is that you have to have a specific niche market and how to position yourself relative to other competitors in market. To create new revenue where it wasn’t or to take away from competitors, they need to offer something that is unique or better.

“Find out what your brand is and how do you want to position yourself in the market. You really need to create a logo, an image or picture, and short name or slogan for the company that really tells the customer who you are and what you’re about. Oftentimes people want really long name or explanation, but you really only have four or five words. You really need to boil down who you are, or you just get passed by.

“Oftentimes new biz owners underestimate how much it’s going to cost and how much cash they’re going to need in the first few years. They often run out and then need to go find capital in a hurry.

“I’d want to know who’s involved in the venture team, the business team. Do you have a lawyer for organizing your business, or for intellectual property, a banker… who else is on the team, their partners, qualifications, do you have a business agreement? It’s about the relationships that they have in place. If they can answer those types of questions about the team they’ve formed around them, then I’d want to talk to them more about their ideas.

“I think the biggest problem people run into is that they do not think like the customer. They’ll have an idea and they think it’s great but they don’t go out and do a survey and ask the customers what they want. They think they have a great idea but may not ask many other people, and then they’re not going get the sales. I think that’s the mis-take people make — they’re excited about their idea and don’t ask enough other people for feedback and criticism before launching.”

The Honey Pot in downtown Winston-Salem (above) is one of Beau Tate’s ventures.

Kleur Shop posted this photo ofEmma Wallace (left) and Molly Grace on its Instagram.

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F ood-truck festivals are, generally speaking, more trouble than they’re worth. The exces-sively long lines, the terrible live music, the

accidental sunburns and the dearth of parking make such gatherings better in theory than practice. But it is possible, fleetingly, to find the unicorn and ride it into the sunset under the right circumstances.

Food-truck festivals are the modern-day food court, a hipper version of the central marketplace or square. Unlike several other street markets that shall remain nameless, there aren’t stalls filled with useless hippie garbage or reject artwork — each vendor is offering something that would rate as “pretty solid” at best, if not somewhere higher in the B+/A- range.

I broke my general policy of avoiding the fray at the food-truck festival in downtown Greensboro on Sun-day primarily because my girlfriend Kacie and I could walk from our apartment, eliminating any concerns about parking. And rolling up on the late side, about 90 minutes before the whole thing shut down prompt-ly at 9 p.m., we figured we could avoid the peak of the throngs.

We were right.Chirba Chirba, the popular Durham-based dump-

ling shop, barely drew a line by 7:30 p.m., but we kept walking to a beer tent, where only a couple people stood in front of us for some Shotgun Betty brews from Raleigh’s Lonerider brewery. For whatever reason, the crowds crushed the local trucks — y’all make great food, but with roughly 50 trucks packing Greene and Market streets downtown, I’ll see y’all at the bar next week. Instead, we walked up to Tan Durm, an Indian food truck from Bull City, and shared an order of tasty lamb samosas.

Ideally I wanted to hit Baguettaboutit, another Tri-angle truck that I’d learned about during Greensboro’s food-truck pilot program a few years back on Com-merce Street and instantly loved. Lucky for us, the late hour afforded us a minimal wait, and we were handed a queen of spades card as our “order number” — a pret-ty ingenious way to avoid mispronouncing names and to reuse the tickets.

We split a messy Buffalo chicken-chipotle sausage shoved inside a hollowed baguette and filled with “a double punch of ranch and Buffalo sauce” before head-ing over to Baozi for Chinese steamed buns stuffed with dragon fruit pork.

Tables and chairs decorated the old Guilford County Courthouse lawn, the only positive use for the space I’ve ever seen, leading Kacie to suggest that some-thing of the sort be a permanent feature of the grass. I couldn’t agree more.

Never before have I witnessed a food-truck festival so diverse, and I don’t just mean the dining options — the attendees actually looked like Greensboro does, nearly half black and numerous international populations well represented. I’m guessing it helped

that the shindig went down in the center city, and didn’t require any sort of unnecessary and complicated wristband, pre-purchase or ticketing system, inviting anyone in off the street to peruse or participate. Good for Greensboro.

By this time we’d grabbed a hold of the unicorn, me on my second drink and her scouring for something sweet as we traipsed through the fourth and final block of the festival. But by now night had started to fall, our stomachs had begun filling and we couldn’t de-cide which long line would be most worth it.

Our late arrival allowed us to miss most of the unnecessary cover-style bands, though we caught two buskers playing an unfortunate cover of Sublime, and while the alcohol flushed my face, the setting sun didn’t turn the back of my neck red.

But we’d also cut it so close that trucks started packing it in, some having run out of certain ingredi-ents early on and putting up signs declaring they didn’t have any more rice at one or beef at another.

A long line in front of the Humble Pig evaporated as the minutes ticked away. Sucked in, I asked the person running the window for the best thing they had left. The Carolina fries, he said — an $11 mountain of beer-battered fries topped with pimiento cheese, cole-slaw a heap of pulled pork barbecue and some sauces. Fincastle’s used to serve something like that called the Big South when that downtown burger spot was still in business, though it wasn’t on the menu so you had to know to ask for it. I dare say this tasted even better, though luckily former owner Jodi Morphis’ new restau-rant Blue Denim surpasses Fincastle’s as well.

While I waited for the heart-attack platter to be ready, Kacie began the hunt for a shortened dessert line. Only a few minutes remained and the crowds had thinned, but hundreds still milled about in the middle of the blocked-off thoroughfares. We’d squeeze in a dessert, we figured, before walking home.

Wrong.The mini doughnut line had dwindled, but the pur-

veyor stood at its end, directing additional customers away. We found a similar scene at another, and the options at a refurbished ambulance didn’t pique our interest. We hit a cookie truck before the windows

closed but unfortunately not before the folks inside served up their last order for the evening. A quick cruise through the rest of the fest and we realized we were SOL.

Not that we were still hungry after giving up and sitting on a curb to dig into those Carolina fries, and Kacie pointed out we had gelato at home anyway. But while we’d practically gamed the system, finding the best way to get down on a food-truck festival, we also crashed just as we reached the pinnacle, maybe 10 minutes shy of walking away with devilish grins as if we’d pulled off some sort of caper.

You can only ride the wave so long before you fall off the board, but we quickly popped our heads above the surf and paddled home, satisfied with our performance especially considering past experience battling the waves.

A diverse crowd filled the streets of downtown Greensboro for a food-truck festival on Sunday.

ERIC GINSBURG

Gaming the system at the food-truck festivalby Eric Ginsburg

CULTURE

Pick of the WeekSour patch kidsWicked Weed sour school @ World of Beer (GSO), Wednesday, 6 p.m.

Reps from the venerable Wicked Weed Brewery of Asheville host an inaugural schoolin’ on the history and process of making sour beers. For those of you who aren’t Eric Ginsburg, sour beers are a specific type of Belgian ale made with a ye-olde-timey and very unpredictable process to cool the wort of the beer. But the Wicked Weed crew will explain it bet-ter. There will be six different special sour beers to taste and learn from. For more info, find the event page on Facebook.

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Topo vs. Tito’s, Round IIThe email

arrived just three days af-ter the article ran.

“I read your article and immediately thought that you have been

duped,” it began. In February, I wrote about a liquor

tasting with Chapel Hill-based Topo Organic Spirits at the Marshall Free House in Greensboro. Owner Esteban McMahan had poured vodka from a larger vodka producer into a small plas-tic cup, placing it beside his own organic product for comparison.

And now, in the email, the Austin, Texas-based competition hit back.

Bert “Tito” Beveridge of Tito’s Hand-made Vodka alleged that it seemed I’d been tricked.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a com-petitor put crap in a Tito’s bottle and did a tasting, so maybe you should be aware and buy your own bottles to do your articles,” he wrote. “Please try a real bottle of Tito’s just so you know you got set up and taken advantage of.”

And he offered to mail me a bottle to prove it.

This may sound like competitors picking at each other and inter-industry trash talking. But there’s more at stake than that — McMahan is the assistant secretary of the North Carolina Distill-ers Association, and if he’s going around with bogus product lying to consumers, that’s a big problem. And Tito’s isn’t a small-batch operation, at least not anymore — you can find the vodka at most any bar.

Either way, I couldn’t turn down the challenge, especially with Beveridge as-serting that I’d fallen for a simple ruse.

Jay Pierce, the acclaimed chef at Mar-shall Free House who’d invited McMa-han for the event, balked at the claim from Tito’s.

“I stand by what he said,” Pierce wrote on Twitter, doubling down on his backing of McMahan. “Tito’s Vodka can’t compete with Topo Distillery.”

In the initial column, I reported that the Tito’s “smelled strongly of rubbing

alcohol” and that the Topo vodka pos-sessed “a much more appetizing aroma, as if the liquid had been filtered through a couple butterscotch Werther’s can-dies.” Beveridge claimed in his email that Tito’s doesn’t smell like anything.

But immediately after opening the bottle that arrived at our office, I smelled the same familiar scent of harsh alcohol.

Drinking is never quite the same at home as it is at a bar, and the Tito’s vod-ka didn’t smell as pungent as I remem-bered. But three months had passed, and more importantly, the allegation that Tito’s is odorless clearly didn’t hold up.

But the Topo didn’t taste quite the same, either. I sampled both again without re-reading my February piece first, and wouldn’t have said anything about a butterscotch flavor without the prompting. Indeed at the event, McMahan suggested the flavor profile to the attendees, which at the time I tried to pinpoint as Werther’s on the butterscotch spectrum.

It isn’t that the vodka McMahan poured at Marshall Free House is any different — after looking over what I’d written previously, I tried the Topo again, and immediately tasted it. My second Topo home tasting easily bested its predecessor— the power of suggestion is strong. By the same logic, McMahan’s studied accounting of Tito’s flavor almost certainly colored our perceptions without altering the substance.

McMahan chose Tito’s for the event, and for other gigs he hosts, because the Texas spirit is a standard-bearer for crafted vodka these days. But that may not be the best comparison — after all, Tito’s is produced using corn while Topo utilizes wheat.

After tasting both and clearing my palate, I reached in my liquor cabinet for a sweet potato-based vodka, Cov-ington Gourmet Vodka from eastern North Carolina. It didn’t taste much like either of its predecessors, which was fine by me — I preferred Covington out of the trio in part because of its smoother finish.

Tito’s isn’t terrible, which is contrary to what some attendees said after

smelling and sampling the vodka at Mc-Mahan’s suggestion. Without outside influence, the tasting gap between the two liquors shrank. But Tito’s still didn’t register as “good” in my book, let alone great. I’ll finish what’s left in the bottle, sharing liberally with friends who are more partial to it, which is more than I can say for plenty of booze I’ve come across.

I’m no Topo fanboy. I don’t stock it at home, and I don’t particularly like the distillery’s Carolina moonshine whiskey (though its aged whiskey suits me bet-ter). I can’t say I love Topo’s gin either,

preferring the likes of Sutler’s Spirit, Cardinal and Hendrick’s. His up-sell attempt didn’t work on me; I do prefer his vodka to Topo, but at $28.95 a bottle at the ABC store — $7 more than Tito’s, mind you — I’m more inclined to pass on both and snag Covington for just $1 more. That is, if I’m buying vodka at all.

But more importantly, Beveridge’s claim that I’d been duped, that I’d tried something other than his “tasteless” product, is a fiction. It’s laughable and insulting, but more than that, it ap-pears to be flat-out wrong.

The little guys (Topo, left) took on heavyweight Tito’s, but then the Texas vodka maker hit back.

ERIC GINSBURG

by Eric Ginsburg

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P hil Cook opened his set at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem on Sunday with “Belong,” a song he wrote for

his wife Heather.Gently picking the tune on his guitar, he built in a

melodic counterpoint, his instrument producing its own call and response, a gentle meditation against a droning overtone. Brevan Hampden lightly tapped a tambourine and Pinson Chanselle set a rudimentary beat on drums, creating a spare sound reminiscent of Sun Records’ early blues, country and rock-and-roll hybrid. As the song developed onstage, the calm and reflective sound of Cook’s guitar playing built into a hallelujah choir.

Since relocating from his native Wisconsin to the Triangle area in 2005, Cook has burrowed into the North Carolina music scene as a bandleader, producer, singer, multi-instrumentalist and sideman, founding the freak-folk group Megafaun with brother Brad and contributing to Mike Taylor’s music project Hiss Golden Messenger. Over the past five years, Cook has gradually come into his own as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation, while building a name for himself as a solo artist with a trio of albums culminating in last year’s Southland Mission.

“As we settled into the state, Phil slowly began to unravel and wrestle with the region’s complex duali-ties,” his wife Heather writes in an online essay herald-ing an album she says she “cursed” through its making because of “its interruptions and inconveniences.” Phil and his cohorts, Heather writes, “have been finding their sounds and voices within a regional paradigm that shifts and shuffles, ever so slowly, with the pass-ing of each sweltering summer. Now, over a decade into our stay, Phil has become a staple in the area’s studios. He has produced, composed, written for and recorded on dozens of regional and national releases. He is enthusiastic, steady and humble in his work. He is a partner and an ally for other musicians, drawing people together through subtle alchemy. Phil Cook has become a conduit of American music.”

Reveling in the significant life events that have unfolded for him in North Carolina, Cook took stock of his marriage, the birth of his son Ellis, the eminent arrival of a second child in about a week and a half and the way, as he put it, that “the road has widened” in his burgeoning career as a music artist during his concert at SECCA, part of the Crossroads music series. The joy and exuberance that bursts from his music and propels his legion of creative alliances springs from a likely source in Cook’s Wisconsin childhood: his dad’s LP collection. Cook noted that Chicago — where the blues became electrified — was the closest big city, and his dad’s records heavily reflected the genre. Another side of Chicago music reflected in the records was Curtis Mayfield and the Staple Singers. The latter act in particular has profoundly influenced Cook’s music.

“Pops Staples is my favorite guitarist,” he acknowl-edged. “Mavis, Cleotha and Pervis are my favorite har-mony singers. They always had a song with a message and they sang with heart. I always use as my guidepost the Staple Singers. I love them.”

Not one to try to obscure his sources, Cook also acknowledged Ry Cooder as a hero.

Both influences are readily apparent in Cook’s guitar playing, with its syncopated shuffle, mellifluous slide and joyous outpouring. The exuberant leitmotif of Cook’s playing returned again and again to gospel music during his concert on Sunday, but his skilled quartet, which included bassist Michael Libramento, in addition to percussionists Chanselle and Hampden, subtly abetted him with a variety of styles that shifted with ease from country blues to Philly soul and New Orleans funk.

Cook and his band attacked Cooder’s “Crow Black Chicken” with evident relish, with the bandleader laughing during Libramento’s bass solo and as Hamp-den made the congas pop.

Taking advantage of the sedentary theater setting, Cook played three pieces by himself, including an instrumental on his red Harmony that evoked joy and

grief in equal parts, serving as a reminder that music at its essence is an expression of the soul that largely obliterates stylistic distinctions.

And when the bandleader properly fulfills his role as shaman, music becomes a collective experience instead of merely a virtuoso performance. On two oc-casions during the evening, Cook tapped the audience for help, first with a song about indecision in which he

Phil Cook channeled Pops Staples and Ry Cooder during a concert on Sunday at SECCA on Sunday with an ace band that deftly incorporate country blues and New Orleans funk.

JORDAN GREEN

Phil Cook’s gospel-inflected playing marks a creative arrivalby Jordan Green

CULTURE

Pick of the WeekTalk about double troubleDay of UnRest with Lara Americo and Mama @ the Black Lodge (W-S), Sunday, 7 p.m.

Local NC gems shine at the Black Lodge every Sunday in their Day of UnRest series, and they’ve booked a pretty killer double header for this week-end: Winston-Salem’s Mama is mainly Latina and blends ’90s punk with influences of Andino rock, blues and grunge, while Charlotte’s Lara Americo describes herself as “A cosmic traveler...a living soul trapped inside a dying body,” and happens to be the production director for the nonprofit Girls Rock Charlotte. More info on the event’s Facebook page.

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Cook’s ace band included Brevan Hampden (left), Pinson Chanselle and Michael Libramento.

JORDAN GREEN

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had the crowd singing, “What took you so damn long?/ Done been here all day long,” and then with a song written for his young son, with the sleepy line, “El-lis… it’s time to wake up.” On the latter number, Ellis peeked out from under the stage curtain behind the stage, crack-ing up his father and drawing gales of laughter from the audience.

Cook infused politics into his set, with the band giving a simmering funk treatment to Randy Newman’s wickedly satirical “Sail Away.”

Then Cook introduced one of his own songs, “Great Tide,” which he character-ized as applicable to Gov. Pat McCrory and HB2, despite being written long be-fore the bill was signed. Cook described

the song as being about “small-minded” men who attempt to hold back the tide of history by using shopworn rhetoric of division and fear, dedicating it to “McCrory’s castle of s***.”

“If someone wants to walk out, it’s fine with me,” said Cook, who almost always wears a beatific smile. “It’s fine, and you’re wrong.”

The audience erupted in applause, and no one walked out.

“S***’s about to hit the fan, so you better hit the floor,” Cook sang before the band erupted into a hurricane groove and the musicians shouted, “Hey-yeah!”

With trouble across the land, hallelu-jah choirs might be in peak demand.

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I f Nico Amortegui doesn’t like one of his paintings, he will pour gasoline on it and light it

on fire.Or walk all over it. Or throw it

against the wall. Or perform any number of other violent measures against it.

But it’s all part of the process. When the piece is done, he said, it’s done.

On a bustling First Friday in downtown Greensboro, Amor-tegui’s art — or, more accurately, the ones strong enough to survive the very process of their creation — had made it to the upstairs gallery at Urban Grinders for his May show Color Me Bad. Nothing was on fire.

Amortegui goes by Malo, Spanish for “bad” or “villain,” which might be the perfectly mischievous title for someone who clearly enjoys challenging expectations.

“Art is my voice,” Amortegui said. “I’m able to speak to each person that my work comes in contact with, and most of my themes are of the hard realities of this world.”

The wealth of memories and emotions Amortegui said he draws from to conceive of his vibrant, architec-tural pieces — at times both joyful and jarring — are rooted in his childhood growing up among a highly artistic family and community in Bogota, Columbia.

“Everyone in my family has a connection with art,” he said.

“My grandfather is a carpenter, my dad an architect, my uncle is a painter, and my mother introduced me to art and design from childhood.”

It was also a neighborhood affair.

“I grew up in a small [neigh-borhood] where almost everyone was an artist,” he said. “Your brain collects things from your life, and that plays a role in who you become. Being surrounded by art eventually makes you want to become a creator instead of a spectator.”

When he moved to the United States when he was 17, Amortegui said he didn’t know who he was or what he was going to do. Being a full-time artist wasn’t fea-sible. He tried photography, but eventually fell in love

with painting. Amortegui‘s experience selling pottery on the streets in Bogota with family members came in handy as he continued to paint.

“It taught me how to hustle,” he said.Even though he’s shown paintings and sculptures in

cities such as Miami, Los Angeles and Washington DC, Amortegui calls Charlotte home, saying that it’s better for him to be in North Carolina as opposed to a bigger city more known for its arts scene partially because the scene is less crowded here.

The show at Urban Grinders, which will run until the end of May, is of the caliber and style found in Miami galleries, combining an structural or quilted layout style with three-dimen-sional texture and unexpected color pairings, many emulating the aesthetic he picked up from his architectural and textile-pattern family background.

In one painting, a golden halo, earthy color scheme and baleful female figure staring out from the canvas is haunt-

ingly reminiscent of Byzantine-era Madonna icons. In a very different portraiture vein, the vibrant and

stirring “Portrait of a Man II” brings to mind Mexican fresco painter David Alfaro Siqueiros’s “Jesus,” which resided this spring at the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

Amortegui’s inspirations include Jackson Pollock, George Condo, Jean Dubuffet, and Joan Miró, along with African-American folk art and Afro-Latino art. Lately he’s been inspired by Eugene Delacroix and Bible-inspired drawings by Japanese artist Sadao Wata-nabe.

Amortegui said he looks up to artists like Pollock because of his technique, energy and movement. Em-ulating his energy, he described much of his process as

Nico Amortegui, aka Malo, stands between two of his paintings on view at Urban Grinders in Greensboro until the end of May. Amortegui makes his art energetically and violently, slapping paint onto the canvas with childlike abandon.

JOANNA RUTTER

Nico Amortegui practices the art of surrenderby Joanna Rutter

CULTURE

Catch Nico Amortegui’s “Color Me Bad” show through the end of May in the upstairs gallery of Urban Grinders at 116 N. Elm St. in downtown Greensboro.

Pick of the WeekThe other side of the train tracksShowing Roots Southeast premiere @ A/perture cinema (W-S), Monday, 8 p.m.

In a small segregated Southern town in 1977, two young women — one white (Maggie Grace), one black (Uzo Aduba, of Orange is the New Black acclaim) — forge an unlikely friendship over the TV show “Roots” that sparks a search for indepen-dence, love and the perfect hairdo. The film just nabbed the best feature film award at the Mary-land International Film Festival in April. Director Michael Wilson and screenwriter/producer Susan Batten will introduce the screening. Also stars Eliz-abeth McGovern, Adam Brody and Cicely Tyson. Get tickets at aperturecinema.com.

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25“Beyond the Grey II” in Color Me Bad strikingly resembles a Madonna figure with a folk art twist.

JOANNA RUTTER

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“slapping” paint onto his canvases.“My process is extremely violent,” he

said. “It’s all energy, and it goes from love to anger. I have to have a connec-tion with the piece for her to allow me to create, but most of the time it’s fast and loud.”

The way Amortegui allows his art to organically take shape during this in-the-moment, responsive, energetic pro-cess can best be described as surrender.

“I paint like a child,” he said. “No thoughts, just keep slapping paint onto

the canvas. If something’s not there, it won’t allow me to create it. I have no power over what I create.”

At the bar at Urban Grinders, as Wolf Temper’s unsettling house beats thud-ded in the echoing space, Amortegui scrolled through his Facebook photos to show a dramatic evolution in process and color in a previous painting.

“It had to be this way,” he said. “I believe my life is predestined.

Death is inevitable. I never had control; it’s easier to just let things be.”

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T op of the sixth. Samford University right-hander Mollie Hanson — the

Southern Conference’s Pitcher of the Year — stood under the spring sun, tanned as the softball diamond. Two outs, two on, one runner in scoring position on third. Her eyes un-readable, hidden by reflective

shades, the redshirt senior coughed into her fist, picked up a dash of red-clay dirt, let the excess fall away as she twirled the neon-green softball in her cupped hand. Just like every other pitch.

You couldn’t have asked more from May 14 — sun-ny and 75 degrees, a few plops of wafting cumulus in the baby-blue sky. The Southern Conference softball championship game, hosted at UNCG’s softball field, pitted the top-seed Samford Bulldogs against No. 2-seed Furman University Paladins.

Hanson took the mound first, her Bulldogs in the field. She looked confident, ready.

But then Furman shortstop Sieara Bishop smacked a double to right-centerfield. Second baseman Hannah Reynolds turned a long at-bat into a base hit off a skittering grounder bobbled by Samford shortstop Lexi Higgins. Imposing lefty pitcher Lindsey Bert knocked a grounder between Bishop’s legs into right field.

Like that, the bases were loaded.The team met Hanson at the mound. Tense silence.Hanson stayed on.“Come on, Mollie!” a Samford fan shouted three

times. “Dig in!”And she did: With two fingers, she excavated a pinch

of dirt from the mound, rubbing it over the surface of the neon-green ball.

Paladin right fielder Candace Johnson, Furman’s home-run leader with 15 on the season, stepped up to the plate next, trying to make magic happen. She got a base hit, but only because the defense threw out Bishop at home.

Hanson next faced first baseman AnnaRose Borrelli — with 13 homers, consider her Lou Gehrig to Johnson’s Babe Ruth. But Hanson dispatched her swinging on the third strike.

Then, designated player Elise Smith chipped a slow, shallow line drive straight into Bulldog third baseman Callie Brister’s glove.

Hanson and her defense had held off the aggressive Paladins.

The Bulldogs scored single runs in the bottom of the first and second. In the meantime, their defense shut down Furman in the first four innings.

As Furman and their fans watched nervously, the Samford dugout, led by utility player Emily Small, roared chants endlessly.

“Hit it, rip it, knock it out!”“Lexi got a big ol’ bat!”“Get that junk outta here, get that junk outta here,

get YO’ junk OUTTA HERE!”For her part, Hanson quietly recorded two more

strikeouts. And she kept sneaking those tiny handfuls of dried clay.

Even after Furman third baseman Hannah Reynolds slammed a homer over the centerfield fence at the top of the fifth, making the score 2-1 and breathing new life into Furman’s chances, Hanson entrenched herself.

After Furman shut down the next three Samford batters in the bottom of that inning, the sea of purple in the right-field stands arose and chanted their own call-and-response.

“F-U!”“One time!”“F-U!”“Two times!”“F-U!”“Three times!”“F-U!”“All the time!”Hanson didn’t hear

as she reassumed her position. She just kept rubbing dirt into that ball.

After two easy outs, Paladin Elise Smith once again hunkered in the batter’s box. For the first time, Han-son’s throws went a bit wild, one foul called after the pitch tapped the bat behind Smith’s helmet. Hanson then beaned Smith — her only walk — and pinch runner Lauren Duggar took over at first base.

Catcher Emma Ogburn smacked a single, safely on-base thanks to an error at first. Duggar dashed to third base, priming herself in scoring position.

Leftfielder Taylor Collins took a long at-bat, popup foul after popup foul.

“Come on, 2-0, hit it, bay-bee, hit it!” a Furman fan yelled.

She didn’t.It all happened quick.Hanson threw another wild pitch. As catcher Abby

Sweeney fumbled for the ball, Duggar shot down the third-base line like a 9mm bullet. Hanson, formerly monolithic at her mound, darted forward to cover home, in front of Sweeney, arguably obstructing Dug-gar’s path.

Duggar slid.“Out!” grunted umpire Ricky Sexton.Cheers and boos erupted in stereo.“Pitcher’s in the way, ump!” one Furman fan

screamed.The chip cracked the Paladin faithful’s shoulder for

the rest of the inning. Shouts of, “That’s terrible, Blue!”

and “You need to go home, Blue!” rang out even as their defense retired the Samford side.

Controversial as that call may have been, Hanson stepped in when needed. She could’ve held back and not risked injury from Duggar’s slide, but her position kept the runner from evening the score and the game’s odds.

Furman did pull ahead, 3-2, in the next inning. But after Samford designated player Hannah Trombley shot a solo homer just over the leftfield fence forc-ing extra innings, Hanson kept cool. Two consecutive

flyouts at the top of the eighth, and she struck out Ogburn swinging. Still taking bits of dirt in her hand. Every pitch.

After Bulldogs second baseman Abbie Miranda sin-gled and Brister rounded third, teeth bared, Furman’s Bert didn’t cover like Hanson had, and Brister glided safely home, kicking up a huge red cloud. Samford had won their first SoCon championship, 4-3.

And the conference named stoic Hanson the tour-ney’s Most Outstanding Player.

Hanson digs inFUN & GAMES

by Anthony Harrison

Pick of the WeekThe final stretchMercer University Bears @ UNCG Spartans (GSO), Thursday-Saturday

Three teams crowd the top of the Southern Con-ference baseball standings: Western Carolina Uni-versity (25-25, 15-9), Mercer (33-20, 14-7) and UNCG (36-17, 14-7). With their superior overall record, the Spartans reign supreme, but three home games this week determine if UNCG maintains their throne in next week’s SoCon Tournament. Thursday and Friday’s games begin at 6 p.m.; Saturday’s at 2 p.m.

Samford University’s Mollie Hanson, named Pitcher of the Year in the conference this season, handled UNCG from the mound.

SOUTHERN CONFERENCE

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27©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

Answers from previous publication.

‘Freemium’ another freestyle display of words.by Matt Jones

GAMESAcross1 Brake quickly and accurately12 Zapp Brannigan’s timid, green assistant

on “Futurama”15 Interactive Twitter game on Comedy

Central’s “@midnight”16 Eggy prefix17 Part of a content warning, maybe18 Columnist Savage19 Palindromic “War on Poverty” agcy.20 Providing funds for22 Body part in a lot of cow puns25 Kind of dye containing nitrogen26 Without a stitch27 Bob Ross ‘dos28 Fault finder31 Physicians’ medical gp.32 “Cast Away” costar (in a way)33 Clearance sale container34 Herd of whales35 Grass bought in rolls36 Be the author37 Greek vowel that resembles an English

consonant38 Title for a Khan39 “Thirteen at Dinner” detective41 Bon ___ (cleanser brand)42 Stuck trying to get somewhere, maybe44 Aesopian conclusion46 Drei squared47 “M*A*S*H” soldier, briefly

48 Orgs.49 Pull forcibly on52 Hard ending?53 Comedian Notaro54 2014 bio subtitled “Paul McCartney in

the 1970s”59 Ending for winter or weather60 Assimilate a different way of life,

perhaps61 French possessive meaning “your”62 Cinematographer’s option

Down1 “___-La-La” (1974 Al Green hit)2 One of Lincoln’s sons3 Sch. for Cowboys, Buckeyes, or Beavers4 Innermost layer of tree bark5 Sleek, whiskered swimmers6 Gp. with a phonetic alphabet7 Comics outburst8 Frank Zappa’s oldest son9 1975 Leonard Nimoy autobiography

(with an “opposite” 1995 follow-up)10 “A horse is a horse” horse11 Canadian (and former U.S.) fuel brand12 Southern Alaskan omnivores (and the

largest of their kind)13 Director of “Ghostbusters” and “Ghost-

busters II”14 Bad things to use on a chalkboard21 Pugilist’s org.

22 In a difficult situation23 Render a credit card useless, e.g.24 Theater consultants of sorts25 Folk rocker with the 2014 album

“Allergic to Water”29 Jim Morrison, e.g.30 Business off the highway32 “Scratch me behind the ears!”35 Place for some “me time”40 Hilariously funny43 “Messenger” molecule44 Biz Markie vocals played over Metallica,

say45 Some blenders50 Apple that debuted 18 years ago51 It dissolves in H2O52 Caesar’s “And you?”55 Atlanta Braves’ MLB div.56 “Go, old-timey baseball team!”57 “Teach ___ Fly” (2009 single for Wiz

Khalifa)58 Make after expenses

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Don’t even think about it.

Lake Brandt Road, Greensboro

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

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Write for Triad City BeatNow accepting intern applications for July – December 2016

Send a resume and cover letter to eric@triad-city-beat.com by June 10. College grads, women, trans folks and people of color strongly

encouraged to apply.

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

1401 Sunset Dr., Suite 100 Greensboro, NC 27408

trm.info

Selling Lindley Park

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T Me: I wonder what would happen if the cast of “Empire” met up with

the cast of “Nashville.”David: That could be in-

teresting. I don’t really know “Empire.” Except for Cookie.

Me: Yum. Cookies.David: You are always peck-

ish when it rains.Me: I watch too much crap TV when it rains.

Scene: Offices of record label Highway 65 in Nash-ville, where the reigning queen of country music holds court.

Rayna James: If this label is going to make an impact, we’re going to have to expand outside of country.

Bucky Dawes (manager friend and confidant): You haven’t had much luck with that in the past.

Rayna: That was alt country. I’m thinking hip-hop/R&B and I’ve got just the artist in mind: Jamal Lyon. His lyrics are dramatic enough to warrant a country song or two. All he needs is a slightly different sound.

Bucky: A gay, black, R&B hip-hop artist on a country label? If Will Lexington — a white, gay, country singer is having so much trouble getting airplay what makes you think Jamal will?

Rayna: Ever heard of Charlie Pride? Let’s give Jamal’s mama Cookie a call.

Cut to: Offices of Empire Records, New York City, where Cookie Lyon shares the throne with ex-husband and literal partner in crime Lucious Lyon.

Cookie (to her assistant Porsha, hand-ing her the phone): What in the he-a-ll is a Rayna? Sounds like a redneck drag queen?

Porsha: Well….Cookie: Give me the damn phone. This is

Cookie. Who dis?Rayna: Miss Lyon, I run a record label

too and I think we have something in common and we should get together to talk about it.

Cookie: Girl, I know who you are and our music ain’t got nothing in common.

Rayna: Perhaps not, but our children do?

Cookie: Now how exactly is that?Rayna: Your son is estranged from his

father and looking for a new label and my 17-year-old daughter just emancipated herself and signed with a New York label.

Cookie: What does a 17-year-old white

girl know about emancipation?Rayna: More than you know.Cookie: Maybe so, but I don’t know if you get the news

down there in Nashville, but my son just got shot at the ASA Awards taking a bullet for his daddy. Now does that sound like an estranged child? Or someone in the position to be shopping around for a record label?

Rayna: It sounds like a country song to me. And a good one. And I’m willing to bet when Jamal recovers — and I hear he is doing so nicely — he will be ready for a change. I’m willing to give you full creative control and over his next album and the bulk of the profits.

Cookie: Hmph. What do you get out of this?Rayna: You sign my daughter Maddie. She’s got some-

thing your label is missing.Cookie: And what is that exactly Miss Rayna?Rayna: She can sing. She can write. And she’s a female

artist who isn’t in bed with your sons — or your husband. Cookie: I’m listening.

Cut to: The actual Highway 65 as Cookie drives into Nashville in a black Escalade from a private aviation area. She is wearing a full-length hot pink sable and a jumpsuit to rival Elvis in the 1970s.

Cookie: Lord help me. How many Cracker Barrels can there be in 15 miles?

Driver: Welcome to Nashville, Ms. Lyon.Scene: Cookie and Rayna meeting face to face at

Highway 65 Records. Rayna is wearing black leather pants and a black silk tank top covered in rhinestones and over the knee boots.

Cookie: Damn girl. Is that your real hair?Rayna: Most of it. The humidity down here gives it

most of the curl. May I take your coat? It is July.Cookie: Honey if I can take the heat for 17 years in jail,

I can handle the South.Rayna: Please have a seat then. I’ve drawn up the

agreement we discussed with Jamal after he listened to the demos we put together.

Cookie: I think that picture of that fiiiine Will Lexing-ton helped seal the deal.

Rayna: Boys will be boys. But you know he’s not on my label. He’s with my ex-fiancé Luke Wheeler’s label Wheelin’ Dealin.’

Cookie: Day-am — y’all are country.Rayna: Not anymore we’re not. Welcome to Highway

65, Cookie.

by Nicole Crews

Fan Fiction: ‘Nashville’/ ‘Empire’ mash-upALL SHE WROTE

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