Category: January 2017

Reconciling Resolutions

Forget dropping 20 pounds. Just be nice

By Susan Kelly

My father could be depended upon for two things. One, he always, always, had a ChapStick in his pocket. At church, on a car trip, watching TV — if you’d licked your lips raw, usually in January, he had ChapStick on him. And secondly, at every opportunity, every introduction, he’d say to me, “Shake his hand hard and look him in the eye.”

Come January, you might as well look winter in the eye, too. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. If I were still the parent of a 12-year-old, I’d say, “Deal with it.” As in:

“But the teacher hates me.”

“Deal with it.”

We’re all adults here, and it just seems uncommonly unfair to have to deal with both winter and January resolutions. The thrill of a new year (Finally! Stash that tired 2016.) feels, well, compromised. We’re slightly cowed, perhaps a bit weary, before we even get into it. What you call a resolution — finally finish Moby Dick, drop 20 pounds, no more Cheetos, ever — I call a grand catalyst for failure. This is why another grownup in my past advised “keep it private” regarding what I was giving up for Lent, another winter downer.

Still, the antidote to January blues, blahs and frostbite is to do something. When you’re feeling small, start small. “When all else fails, clean,” my mother has said to me. Let’s rule that one out. Instead, haul in the empty trashcan of the single mom or stooped gentleman who lives a few houses down, when the trash-gobbling truck has thrown it carelessly sideways on the curb. Neighbors do this for my 86-year-old mother, which eases my mind that she won’t lift up the lid and fall inside — a real possibility given the cavernous size of the city bins.

And go ahead: Let that guy in your lane. What’s it gonna cost you, 20 seconds of travel time? Motion him over, wave in the rearview. We’re Southerners with a reputation for manners and politeness, traits worth saving and using. The fellow making you crazy with constant braking is lost, and looking for a specific street. That was you in Charlotte, remember, frantically checking your GPS, and fully aware that someone behind you was also steaming with impatience.

Before it snows or, more likely, ices, you’re going to be making soup or something tomato-y and taco-y in the Crock-Pot. Scribble “Enjoy the Extra” on a note and leave a container on a friend’s stoop, a grand gesture I call the drop ’n’ dash. Even hermits can participate. But I’m not sick, she’ll think. But Christmas is past, he’ll think. And by every definition, both of you will feel warm and fed.

Then there’s that grocery bagger, trying his best to make an honest buck. The girl behind the counter at Bojangles’, the clerk at Belk, and the loader at Lowe’s. Most of us have been there at one time or another, been one of the service industry’s taken-for-granteds. You may deserve a break today, but they deserve a connection. Let them know they count. As they hand over your books/biscuits/bananas, look them in the eyes. When resolutions seem lofty, instead do something resolutely simple.

It’s January. It’s winter. American poet James Russell Lowell wrote, “Take winter as you find him and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow with no nonsense in him.” Which is just another way of saying, shake his hand hard and look him in the eye. And carry ChapStick.  OH

When she isn’t performing small acts of random kindness, Susan Kelly spends her time freelancing for O.Henry, among other publications.

How to Beat the Holiday Hangover

Surefire drinks to upgrade your new year cocktails

By Tony Cross

Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to regroup and get it together. For most of us that means back to the gym, reintroducing new, or old, diets, New Year’s resolutions — you still do those? — and moderation. There’s nothing wrong with most of these; I usually take a cleanse of some sort to detox the ridiculous amounts of excess that I happily ate, drank and whatevered to my body. Most articles from various publications preach about what you should or shouldn’t do at the beginning of each year. So, in the tradition of cliché January columns on the subject, I bring you: how to drink better this year. I’ve mentioned in previous columns how it’s good to have a handful (maybe I used the word “arsenal”) of drinks in your mental reservoir whenever you’re at a bar or restaurant. This piece of advice still stands.

Cocktail historian David Wondrich once wrote that if you’re a vodka soda drinker, you should probably just continue to drink vodka sodas. Clever, and more than likely true. Most vodka soda fans aren’t drinking for flavor, but if you are, keep on reading. One of my favorite tricks to play on guests is giving them gin instead of vodka. Whenever a patron asked me to come up with something inventive on the fly that used vodka as the main spirit, I would more than likely use Uncle Val’s Botanical Gin. Distilled in Sonoma, California, it tastes nothing like any gin you’re used to. This gin is a huge lemon and citrus bomb. I’ve converted plenty of gin haters with this beauty. Add a splash of organic grapefruit juice, and you’ll your new allegiance to gin.

Hangovers are the worst. The only real cure for them is time, but the best way to make crippling pain hurry up and go away is, you guessed it, a drink. Everyone does the mimosa or bloody Mary, and using fresh ingredients with both will get you a better tasting drink. There are a few ways you can switch up these weekend morning staples. First, replace your bloody Mary vodka with a London Dry Gin. A good two ounces of Beefeater’s turns your bloody Mary into a treat. Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you? You can’t taste the vodka in a bloody Mary unless you put an insane amount in, and with the gin, the myriad of botanicals blend with all the flavors from the bloody Mary mix. I always order them with gin. That’s a great way to switch it up at brunch. Have you had a Corpse Reviver No.2? This is a classic cocktail dating from the pre-Prohibition era. Don’t get this confused with the first type of Reviver (made with brandy, sweet vermouth and applejack); the Corpse Reviver No.2 is made with gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, and fresh lemon juice (served up in an absinthe rinsed coupe glass). It’s perfect in the mornings, but if you’re having one of those days where it’s taking your funk a little longer to wear off, try my go-to cure from Chef Warren’s, in my hometown of Southern Pines. This is an equal parts recipe, minus the absinthe. Don’t be afraid, the absinthe is primarily for the olfactory senses.

Corpse Reviver No.2

Absinthe (or Pernod)

3/4 ounce Conniption Gin (distilled in Durham)

3/4 ounce Lillet Blanc (available at Nature’s Own)

3/4 ounce Cointreau

3/4 ounce lemon juice

Take a half bar spoon of absinthe (or Pernod) and swirl (rinse) it in a chilled cocktail coupe, making sure the absinthe completely coats the inside. Discard any remaining absinthe and put the glass back in the fridge/freezer while making the cocktail. Place remaining ingredients into your cocktail shaker. Add ice, shake very well, until the drink is ice cold, and strain it into your coupe glass. Take a swath of orange peel, expressing the oils over the drink. Thank me later when you’re feeling better.

OK, Jamo and ginger guy/gal, you’re next. Probably more popular this generation than a Jack and Coke is the infamous Jameson Irish Whiskey with ginger ale. Popular at restaurants and your local pub — just ask the crew at your favorite watering hole. how many bottles of Jameson they go through in a week. More than likely, any establishment with a liquor license that you frequent will be able to mix this up for you, and that’s great, but this is about loading up the arsenal, remember? Enter: Monkey Shoulder Blended Malt Whisky. Before you judge, know that Monkey Shoulder blends three Scotch single malts from Speyside, and it sits in used bourbon barrels for three to six months, giving it more of a mellow characteristic. A cocktail that can take the edge of is aptly called Penicillin. Monkey Shoulder mixed with organic ginger, a local honey syrup, lemon juice and a splash of peaty Scotch whisky makes this a perfect wintertime concoction. Bringing this cocktail up to your nose, you’re tricked into thinking that the drink will taste smokier than it actually is.

Penicillin (Sam Ross, Milk & Honey, New York City, 2005)

1/4 ounce Laphroaig (or other smoky Scotch)

2 ounces Monkey Shoulder Whisky

3/4 ounces honey syrup (3:1)

3/4  ounce lemon juice

2 pieces ginger root

Put the ginger in your cocktail shaker, muddle to release the juice. Combine whiskey, honey syrup and lemon juice in your cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake until ice cold. Pour over ice in a rocks glass. Float Laphroaig on top of the cocktail (do this by pouring the 1/4 ounce over the back of a bar spoon on top of the cocktail). Garnish with a slice of fresh ginger, or candied ginger.  OH

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern pines.

Toast of the Town

How the custom got its beginning

By Robyn James

Beginning a new year is a classic time for a toast. So are weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and basically any occasion for a social gathering of family and friends.

But where did the custom of clinking glasses come from? There are many theories of the origination of the toast, but the most common is attributed to the Greeks in sixth century B.C. when deliberately poisoning people was a frighteningly common practice.

Sick of your spouse, neighbor or politician? Just a pinch of hemlock and be done with it. So, in order to convince people that you didn’t intend to off them, the Greeks would pour the wine from a common jug, then clink glasses together. By clinking, the wine would slosh back and forth between glasses, demonstrating that the host was willing to drink what everyone else was drinking and the wine was untainted.

The Greeks made a practice of offering libations to the gods and toasting to each other’s health. The Romans took it a step further by actually passing a law that everyone must drink to Emperor Augustus at every meal. Apparently, the wine was of such poor quality that the Romans discovered if they placed a piece of stale bread in the jug it would not only absorb some of the acidity, making the wine more palatable, but the bread would become edible again. Hence the name “toast.”

In the 1800s, the Toastmasters Clubs were founded to practice the art. Supposedly they became the referees of toasting, making sure participants kept it simple and civil. It was common then to toast beautiful women, which coined the expression “toast of the town.” One famous toastmaster compared a good toast to a short skirt: “It should be short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the essentials.”

Here’s mud in your eye? Why would you wish that on anybody? OK, two theories exist on the origin of this common British toast. The first is a reference to horse racing, since this was a popular toast in fox hunting circles. The winning horse in a race is kicking mud into the eyes of the spectators, so it was a desirable thing. The second, and probably more common, theory is a biblical one where Jesus spat on the ground and rubbed the mud into a blind man’s eyes, restoring his sight.

“Cheers” is a term associated with toasting, and is believed to have originated from the French word “chiere,” meaning “face.” By the 14th century it was interpreted as a mood on the face, and by the 18th century it became the term it is today, a show of support and encouragement.

Here are some of the more popular and clever toasts of our times:

Here’s to Champagne, the drink divine,

That makes us forget our troubles;

It’s made of five dollars’ worth of wine

And twenty dollars’ worth of bubbles.

***

Here’s to the nights we’ll never remember with the friends we’ll never forget.

***

May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old age.

***

May we live as long as we want, and never want as long as we live.

***

May misfortune follow you the rest of your life but never catch up.

***

Here’s to mine and here’s to thine!

Now’s the time to clink it!

Here’s a flagon of old wine,

And here we are to drink it.  OH

Robyn James is a certified sommelier and proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

Rasslin’ Hitchcock

Confessions of the ultimate fan

By Grant Britt

What a cool thing to get paid for: throwing people around, talking trash about them and achieving fame for basically being a bully. For a 12-year-old, it was a great exposure to the job market. We’re talking wrestling — or in these parts, rasslin’— toiling in the squared circle, an arena for modern-day gladiators to strut their stuff, sharing blood, sweat and tears with an audience of starstruck kids and rowdy adults. Interactive before that term came into being, rasslin’ let you get to get your ya-yas out up close and in person, shouting at the bad guys and rooting for the good ’uns from a ringside seat.

John Hitchcock couldn’t figure out a way to make a living at this ancient-sport-turned-raucous-theater, but he did manage to get involved — to a degree that most fans only dream about. He got to know some of the big stars, including Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, and even got some ring time as a bodyguard, actually taking hits from some of the renowned grapplers of the day.

He didn’t get any formal training in the sport, getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Greensboro College instead. Then, he went back and got a teaching degree, but he found that things were rougher in the classroom than in the ring. “I’d love to be a teacher,” Hitchcock says. “But there’s no such thing as discipline.” So he went to work for a comic book store, putting in five and a half years at ACME comics before opening his own store, Parts Unknown, in 1989. But rasslin’ was still his first love, as the title of his store reflects: “That’s the way they always used to announce the masked rasslers,” Hitchcock says.  “‘Ladies and gents, weight unknown, from parts unknown’ . . . and that’s where I got it from.”    

Pro wrestling came to North Carolina in 1959 via WRAL-TV in Raleigh. It looked and sounded dangerous. Hosted in its infancy by local sports announcer and voice of the Wolfpack Ray Reeve, who always sounded as if he had just been resurrected and still had a throat full of graveyard dirt, the show was a brawling slugfest staffed with hulking bruisers who could talk smack as effortlessly as they could toss like-minded behemoths around. In ’64, promoter Jim Crockett brought the sport to Greensboro, with WGHP’s Charlie Harville as announcer. Championship Wrestling had a ten-year run here and changed John Hitchcock’s life.

“There were a lot of guys,” Hitchcock says, then goes on to name a who’s who list of rasslin’s golden age heroes and villains: Rip Hawk/Swede Hanson, Weaver/Becker, the Bolos, the Infernos, Aldo Bogni, Bronko Lubich. Haystacks Calhoun, Nelson Royal, Tex McKenzie, Brute Bernard and Skull Murphy, Wahoo McDaniel. “All that stuff is not a blur, it’s just there was such an amazing cast of characters — and characters is the key word. Every one of them was very different, and very odd,” Hitchcock remembers. “I was attracted to the oddity of it and the humor of it. It made me just fall in love with it. The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing.’”

So cool that many of us desperately wanted to be our newfound heroes and set about taunting our peers, trying out holds on siblings, schoolmates, casual acquaintances, or anybody small or young enough to have the misfortune of crossing our paths. And every week we were glued to the TV, soaking up more potentially deadly embraces and insults to share with unsuspecting opponents.

The show, broadcast when Harville worked for WGHP, became a weekly ritual for Hitchcock. “I was addicted to it. Even when I was working as a bag boy, I would get off at 11 on Saturday, get home as soon as I could so I could watch the 11:30 thing after the news. I always kept up with it and if I had an extra buck, I’d go to the show. [It] became part of my heritage, in a way — everybody went, everybody knew about it.”

But Hitchcock wanted more and worked himself up into a religious fervor to fulfill his ambition. “I sent a letter to [promoter Jim] Crockett, saying that I was a reverend in a small church and had a group of us [who] wanted to go to the show; could they please make sure we got in? They wrote me back a nice letter, said ‘Dear Rev. Hitchcock, we’d love to have your congregation.’ But I could only get three guys to go. My ‘church’ didn’t have a lot of followers.” The ruse, however, was successful, as Hitchcock recounts: “Crockett walked out and said, ‘We’re looking for Reverend Hitchcock and his followers,’ and I went, ‘We had a problem with the bus.’ We got to go in first, and they put us in the top of the bleachers in Raleigh and put us in like sardines, but we got in.”

From the get-go, Hitchcock had a little inside help getting to know the rasslers he so idolized. His older brother Sparky was an usher at the Greensboro Coliseum, and one of his duties was bringing refreshments to the athletes — “drinks and oranges” as Hitchcock notes in his rasslin’ tribute book, Front Row Section D. Sparky also provided John with backstage glimpses of the participants and hipped him to some of the sport’s jargon.

One of the first things he learned was how to identify the losers from their introductions. “Whenever they said  ‘a wily veteran,’ he was gonna lose. And if it was a young guy, and if they said, ‘a young lion,’ he was gonna lose. Like a code. One guy’s up and coming, one guy’s fading out. They’re not gonna be players but they’re important to what’s going on.”

In rasslin’ lingo, the opposing groups were the heels, who were the bad guys, and the baby faces, the good guys.

“I used to cheer for the bad guys. There was just something about them. I always felt the bad guys were the guys that did all the work and all they got were boos and had drinks thrown on them, but without the bad guys there couldn’t be good guys.” Realizng early on the bad guys were much more entertaining, more humorous than the good guys, Hitchcock explains, “In the world of booking, the easiest way to make a baby-face guy is to create a heel that everybody hates. Then no matter who you put him against, they’re gonna cheer him to beat that guy up.”

But Hitchcock didn’t just cheer for his favorites. He and some buddies started getting front row seats to the matches here and making signs to carry in and hold up during the contests. The signs reflected Hitchcock’s acerbic sense of humor and quickly got noticed by fans and rasslers alike.

If you were ringside between 1984 and 1991, you saw Hitch: “I only missed two shows, and that was because of kidney failure,” Hitchcock says. “We were there on the front row, with our coats and ties and hats and sunglasses, stylin’ and profilin,’ cheering for the bad guys. And those guys would look forward to us; they were into it.”

Arn Anderson was one of the bad guys Hitchcock admired, and he returned the favor. “I got lucky, got to meet Arn on a couple of occasions. He always remembered me because I was the guy with the hat in Greensboro holding up the signs and cheering for him.” He first met Anderson when a buddy called Hitchcock on a pay phone from the Chicago airport and told him “You won’t believe this, but right beside me is Arn Anderson talking on the phone.” “‘Well, hell, man — put him on!’” Hitchcock told his friend, recalling the excitement of that first conversation with his idol. “And he tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘Your biggest fan wants to talk to you.’ And he handed [the receiver] to him, and he said ‘Hello,’ and I said, ‘Double A! You’re my hero!’ and he said, ‘Thanks, man,’ and I said, ‘This is John, the guy from Greensboro with the signs.’ And there was a pause and he said, ‘Greensboro. How’re you doing?’ and he started talking.”

Hitchcock says he doesn’t claim to be tight with Anderson, but the rasslin’ superstar always had time to visit when their paths crossed. “One of the times I went up to him and said, ‘We still love you in Greensboro,’ and he looked at me and went, ‘I know that voice, I know that face — Greensboro.’ And he said ‘Come on over here,’ and we sat down and talked for about forty-five minutes. Gave me that time; he was great.”

Some believed the access that Hitchcock had to the rasslers was from schmoozing with them in dens of iniquity after the shows, but Hitch says that was the furthest thing from the truth. “It’s funny, everybody thought we were going to bars and hanging out. Guess what? I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do illegal drugs. I’m the straightest guy that ever walked the planet. What those guys would do is get in their cars and go to the next hotel or go to next show.” Hitchcock just had the nerve to walk right up and introduce himself, relying on his ringside persona to get close.

But others weren’t as gracious as Anderson. Hitchcock had it in for Dusty Rhodes and Rhodes actively hated him for it. Hitch got on Rhodes’ hit list with a sign that read “You Can Tell the Wrestler By Looking At His Blubber” (a riff on Rhodes’ theme song that played whenever he entered the ring, “You Can’t Tell a Book By Looking at the Cover”). Hitchcock later sharpened the barb with a caricature of Rhodes as the Michelin Man. Rhodes, who apparently was sensitive about his chubby physique, tried to spit on the Michelin sign but missed, marring the blouse of an older lady at ringside. Rhodes never actively came after Hitchcock, but there was an encounter in Florida during one of the rare times Hitchcock ventured into a bar. It was almost his last.

He was talking to WCW announcer Tony Schiavone when Rhodes’ son Dustin walked in, followed a minute later by “Michelin Man” himself. Hitchcock had greeted Dustin by razzing him about being rassler Dick Murdoch’s son, because he didn’t look anything like his daddy. But when Rhodes Senior came and sat down across the bar he looked over at Hitchcock and realized who he was. “I’m Greensboro,’” Hitchcock says. “And he smiles and he drinks his beer, gets up and walks over to Dustin and says, ‘You realize who you’re talkin’ to? Don’t talk to him anymore.’ The pudgy rassler took a more proactive approach with Schiavone, grabbing him by his coat lapels, pulling him face-to-face, “You’re talking to that asshole from Greensboro. Don’t talk to him.” Hitchcock was plenty uneasy at that point: “I was worried he might swing on me cause I’d heard he was pissed. And he didn’t — he just looked at me and smiled, finished his beer, grabbed Dustin, walked out of the bar. And I went to Schiavone and said, ‘He told you not to talk to me.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s the weirdest thing. He’s never done that before. But man, he really does hold a grudge. He really hates your guts.’ And I went, ‘Well I hate his guts too.’”

Rhodes passed away in 2015, and Hitchcock has mellowed a bit on his Rhodes hate-fest. “He was one of the most charismatic guys in history of the business, one of the best talkers, one of the biggest stars in the world from’74–’86,” Hitchcock says before adding a caveat. “Had one of the biggest egos in the history of the business. And when I found out he was the booker, telling everybody who’s gonna win and who’s gonna lose, and then he won all he time, he put a target on himself as far as I was concerned, to make fun of him.” Hitchcock could get away with what the guys in the ring couldn’t and they encouraged him to keep it up.

Hitchcock acknowledges that when somebody of that stature passes away, you should point out the good as well as the bad. “I give credit where credit is due, but it’s hard to cheer for somebody when every time they’d come out they’d either grab their crotch or try to spit on you. So it was serious — it was a lot of heat.”

Hitchcock doesn’t bring much heat anymore. He’s as banged up as some of the famous rasslers he idolized. From a kidney transplant in ’88 and from a brief stint as a bodyguard in New Dimension Wrestling. “I would take one punch, fall down, act like I was knocked out, and that was it,” he says of his days in the ring.

These days, most of the superheroes he sees are on the walls and in the bins at his comic book store. He still watches rasslin’) on TV on Monday nights, and will go to one of the Indy shows if the accommodations are right. “If I sit on bleachers, it kills me,” he says.  “I just turned 60, I know I’m no spring chicken anymore. I gotta have something with a little back support. If I have to sit on bleachers, screw it. But if they’ve got a metal chair, oh yeah, I’ll go.” At this point in his career, Hitch is at last content to leave the rasslin’ to the pros, and be just a spectator, in his corner, from parts unknown.  OH

Fired up by the images of Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson on his hometown station, WRAL-TV, Grant Britt grew up rasslin’ everything ever suggested to him and has never stopped. 

Photograph credit: Edward Cheslock

Two Gents on a Porch

Another overheard conversation at Rosehaven Assisted Living in rural North Carolina

By Clyde Edgerton

“How do you control the climate, anyway?”

“That’s simple: The more you run air conditioning, the colder it gets. Air conditioning controls the climate indoors. That has an overall cooling effect out of doors too, because people used to keep their windows open and now they can’t. So now the air that used to cool houses can be used to cool the climate. It’s figured out with a climate formula. I think Ben Gore came up with it.”

“But I keep hearing ‘global warming.’”

“Very true, but air conditioning has been going on for what, over 60, 70 years. Cars heated up the air for about 50 years before air conditioning ever got started and then the climate started cooling down the Earth’s surface, especially in America. Air conditioning has now cooled down the early hot effect from cars.”

“But they say that temperatures are hotter than ever.”

“That’s because of airplanes. They started building great big airplanes with jet engines in the middle of the last century. Big engines spew out a lot of heat.”

“What do the scientists say? I heard they were saying something.”

“You mean ‘what do weathermen say?’ Those are the ones who know about how hot or cold it is. Scientists know about rocks and trees and chemicals and are usually just professors. I mean, why would you go to anybody but a weatherman to learn about the weather? It’s like why would you go to anybody but a cook to learn about how to cook? Common sense stuff.”

“I guess if you did away with cars and airplanes, then the air conditioning could make global cooling. Yes, common sense. Maybe we can move into an era of common sense.”

“Which had you rather have? Global warming or global cooling? Since we have a choice now.”

“I don’t know. I don’t get around much anymore, so I guess I’d rather keep air conditioning and cut back on cars and airplanes.”

“You know, I remember the times before air conditioning.”

“Oh, yes. Me too. It’s hard to remember how we kept cool.”

“You’d sweat, you’d get damp, and then the air from a fan would cool you down. Before electricity, my mama had a great big hand-held straw fan. You don’t see them anymore.”

“You don’t see a lot of things anymore.”

“Those were the good old days. No erectile dysfunction commercials.”

“No commercials at all. I mean, you had commercials on the radio, maybe for Tide, but they were only every half hour or so.”

“Yeah. Those were the good old days. I remember in our little house we had this big old window fan planted in a window so that it sucked air out instead of blowing it in, and on hot summer nights you’d close every window in the house except for windows beside a bed, and that window fan would pull in cool night air, gentle like, and you’d sleep in just your underwear without a sheet. You’d have that cool night air gently pulled in, keeping you nice and cool, and you’re sleeping with night sounds instead of air conditioning sounds. Before morning, you’d need a sheet. I woke up more rested than I have since.”

“I understand that President Trump is going to recommend opening up houses with the air conditioning on so that we can cool down global warming.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Oh yeah. It was on the news. That’s what he’s hearing from his advisers.”

“I’m glad Trump doesn’t drink like Bill Clinton did. Remember what Clinton’s nose looked like?”

“You mean ‘looks like.’”

“Yeah. My Uncle Pierce had a nose like that and he drank like a fish. But remember, we said we were not going to discuss politics.”

“Sure. Right. But I’m not so sure letting air conditioning out of your house will stop global warming.”

“But you can. I promise. Think about it. And there are all kinds of benefits. If we go that route, we burn more electricity; if we burn more electricity, we use up more coal, and that gives us more coal mining jobs, which means more coal transportation jobs, which means more jobs making soap. Presto. You kill several birds with one stone.”

“Soap?”

“You handle coal, you get dirty hands.”

“What about a high electricity bill from all that air conditioning?”

“That’s easy. You pay for your air conditioning with the money you save on taxes. It’s called the clean energy credit. Air conditioned air has all the nasty stuff conditioned out of it. It’s clean. Clean energy. Come on, man.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“The future is so bright I have to wear sunglasses.”

“I never thought about it that way. I don’t have any sunglasses.”

“Well, you better get some.”  OH

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently,
Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

The End of the World as We Know It!

Periods of change bring on the jitters — until we all feel fine again

The new year brings some changes to the American landscape, and periods of change are often fraught with concern and fear. Of course books and literature provide plenty of opportunities to examine life on the brink of apocalypse, and sometimes offer ways to walk back from the precipice. And sometimes they dive right into the abyss.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Penguin Classics, $15) is a novel that goes over the edge. It was the source material for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which aptly transports the corrosive colonialism at the heart of Conrad’s work to Vietnam. Also at the heart of Conrad’s work, as Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe has noted, is a casual racism. Black British novelist Caryl Phillips said in 2003 that, “Achebe is right; to the African reader the price of Conrad’s eloquent denunciation of colonization is the recycling of racist notions of the ‘dark’ continent and her people.”
The view from the brink has never been better than in Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Picador, $16). Neither hopeless nor naively optimistic, Kolbert offers a pragmatic synthesis of how we know what we know about Earth’s major extinction events and what we can do to minimize the scope of impending mass die-offs in our time. Don’t be dissuaded by the dark subject matter. The next major extinction is coming, but we have the power to decide how extensive it will be. In this gap between denial and despair lies the hope for our species. This is required reading for all realistic citizens of the 21st century.

In Roberto Bolano’s 2666 (Picador, $23) more than 250 pages are devoted to the constant and random murders of women in Juarez, Mexico. The chapter is called, “ The Part About the Crimes.” Ostensibly concerned with the lives of a few Mexican policemen attempting to work with the murders as well as the messy details of their own lives, “The Part About the Crimes” eventually becomes an ongoing list of how the women were murdered, who they were, where their bodies were found, and how they were dressed when found. These murders are never solved (as they usually aren’t in Juarez and as many murders never are) but the fidelity and humanity with which Bolano ruthlessly documents each one builds to an experience in the reader of what political philosopher Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil” — the slow accretion of horror that gradually overtakes a culture, becoming commonplace.

A handy all-in-one guide to late 20th-century leftist apocalyptic thought is available in the collection of essays called Apocalypse Culture (Feral House, $15). The book is a reminder that doomsayers have long been part of American subculture, and this compendium juxtaposes reasoned looks at political culture at the breaking point alongside unhinged predictions of imminent demise. For a fundamentalist look at imminent demise, there’s LaHaye and Jenkins’ series of Left Behind books. For those of us left behind by the rapture, we can only hope that the books themselves are not left with us.

For a much more tender look at the end of time, try Ted Mooney’s beautiful novel of atomic war, Traffic & Laughter (Vintage, $23):

“You know what?” she said, meeting his gaze. “I’m not ready for this.”
“Well, of course not,” he replied. In the context, the notion of preparedness made him indignant. “Who’s ready to see their world go up in a cloud of smoke?” It seemed to Michael that she was smiling at him. “I wasn’t talking,” she said, “about the world.”

No novelist moves us quite like Ted Mooney; his work is a reminder that all our lives are worth saving and art is one way we save lives. To the future!

NEW RELEASES FOR JANUARY 2016

The publishing industry takes a bit of a break in January as it recovers from the holiday mad dash, but still a few notable books usher in 2017:

January 3: Let Them Eat Chaos, by Kate Tempest (Bloomsbury, $16). Tempest’s powerful new narrative poem — set to music on her album of the same title — illuminates the lives of a single city street, creating an electric, humming human symphony.

January 10: Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations, by John Avlon (Simon & Schuster, $27). George Washington’s Farewell Address was a prophetic letter from a parting friend to his fellow citizens about the forces he feared could destroy our democracy: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt and foreign wars.

January 17: My Life, My Love, My Legacy, by Coretta Scott King (Henry Holt & Co., $30). The life story of Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center) and singular 20th-century American civil and human rights activist as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds.

January 24: Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, by Carlo Rovelli (Riverhead Books, $26). Let’s hope he’s right! By the author of the bestselling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.

January 31: The Blood of Emmett Till, by Timothy Tyson (Simon & Schuster, $27). Tyson, a North Carolina writer and African-American historian, is the author of Blood Done Sign My Name and a state treasure. Catch him at Scuppernong Books on February 6 at 7 p.m.  OH

The Scuppernong Bookshelf was written by Shannon Jones, Brian Lampkin and Steve Mitchell.

Alive and Kickin’

For The Grand Ole Uproar, rock never stopped rolling

“We’re trying to make rock ’n’ roll,” The Grand Ole Uproar’s Josh Watson says. That unruly beast has been ailing in recent years, but fortunately there’s still some up-and-coming musicians willing to keep rock off life support, standing it up on its hind legs and roaring.

But the Greensboro band’s singer/guitarist/composer feels that term and that sound aren’t fashionable now. “It has to be called Americana, or something. I feel like rock ’n’ roll is not a cool term now.” But rock never was in fashion. It was always rebellious music, always looked down on, and that, as well as its raucous presentation, was a badge of honor for those who played and lived it.

The Grand Ole Uproar upholds that tradition with pride, their scruffy look and sound a beacon for old souls looking to rock. Watson came to his craft after getting an M.F.A. in creative writing from UNCG in poetry. He knew he wanted to write songs when done with the academics, but got a severe case of intimidation from a recent Nobel Prize winner. “I’d stopped writing because [of] the anxiety of influence of Bob Dylan; you listen to his songs and you go, ‘Why bother? What could I do that’s any better than that?’”

Watson got cured by the Grateful Dead. But it wasn’t their jamminess that attracted him.  What he found so appealing was the eclectic influences they wove into their music. His first efforts were from 2008–10 in the alt-country acoustic duo One Horse Jethro with Emily Stewart. “I wanted to start a band that grew from Waylon Jennings, the Grateful Dead, early electric Dylan. I wanted to go electric.” Watson got his wish with the help of Britt “Snuzz” Uzzell (Majosha, Bus Stop, Ben Folds), who produced the band’s eponymous EP debut, The Grand Ole Uproar, in 2010 and their 2014 follow-up, Good Long Spell, with some vocal assistance from Whiskeytown’s Caitlin Cary.

Over the last six years, the band’s been a musical collective with a constantly shifting roster. Watson and percussionist Jeremy Parker, who favors the cajón, a Peruvian wooden box drum, are mainstays. Bassist Danny Bayer, guitarist Sam Bailey and Wake Clinard, on lap steel, round out the current cast.

“We draw from stuff that was made pretty much from 1978 on back,” Watson says. “The band has been like a countrified Steely Dan. I’ve tried to assemble bands on record I wanted to hear in my head: The Band, the Dead, Little Feat, Allen Toussaint, the Exile [on Main Street]–era Rolling Stones; a gumbo of all the ingredients of rock ’n’ roll.”  OH

— Grant Britt

Cool Beans!

Or rather, hot beans, at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market (501 Yanceyville Street), which presents the sixth annual Chili Challenge on January 28th. From 8 a.m. to noon, teams of local chefs and market vendors square off with their combinations of beans and sauces, ranging from mild to fire-breathing hot. Their mission? To use a variety of local produce and pasture-raised meats (vegetarian entries excepted) that win your vote. What’s in it for you?  Takeout, along with the recipes . . . and a full belly. Info: (336) 373-2402 or greensborofarmersmarket.org.

Olé Smoke!

And where there’s smoke there’s fire — as in, the fires of love, passion and jealousy of the ill-fated love triangle in Georges Bizet’s Carmen. On January 13th and 15th, Greensboro Opera presents the ever-popular opus at UNCG Auditorium (408 Tate Street). Its wide appeal is one reason the company is staging the work, says Artistic Director David Holley. “Also, we want to vary our repertoire,” he adds, especially after presenting lighter fare —Daughter of the Regiment and Cinderella — in previous seasons. Heading up the cast is Metropolitan Opera’s mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy in the title role of the gypsy seductress and baritone David Pershall as the bullfighter, Escamillo. Tenor Dinyar Vania (known to local audiences as Cavaradossi in Piedmont Opera’s recent staging of Tosca) assumes the role of the long-suffering Don José. Varied casting is also part of Holley’s mission; “I like to bring the best vocal talent to Greensboro and combine it with the best North Carolina has to offer.” So come, all you would-be toreadors and gypsies: Love awaits! Tickets:  (336) 272-0160 or greensboroopera.org.

Three Outta Four

Most Piedmont gardeners would agree: We’ve literally struck pay dirt, living in an area that has three growing seasons out of four. But how do you get the most out of the temperate conditions that Nature has so generously bestowed? Answer: Have a plan and consider succession planting. With the help of the Guilford County chapter of the N.C. Cooperative Extension (3309 Burlington Road) and Master Gardener Jeanne Aller, you can plot your plots at the January 19 seminar, “Planning the 3-Season Vegetable Garden.” Bring a pencil and paper and plenty of imagination to assure the bounty that will flourish on your own South Forty. To register: go.ncsu.edu/2017demogardeneducation.

Mega Mashup

Visual arts, dance, music, theater and comedy — on one stage? Nope, it’s not a three-ring circus, but Artrageous. The touring show, which comes to the High Point Theatre on January 14th (220 East Commerce Avenue) defies categorization with its melding of media. While singers perform, say, a Broadway tune, or a classic rock or Top 40 song, hoofers give a physical interpretation to it, as a painter creates a masterpiece to the beat; another number might incorporate a light show or standup comedy. Whatever the outcome, expect color, pizzazz, lights, cameras and lots of action. Tickets:  (336) 887-3001 or highpointtheatre.com.

Happy Trails to You

The holidays may be over, but walking in a winter wonderland is just getting underway, thanks to the Greensboro Parks and Recreation department’s Winter Hike Series. If you missed the December 3rd trek along Reedy Fork Creek on the Laurel Bluff Trail, no worries. You can ring in the New Year on January 1 at 11 a.m. by intersecting the abandoned Atlantic & Yadkin Railroad bed hiking along the Nat Green Trail that offers unobscured views of Lake Brandt this time of year. On February 4, begin your hike near Strawberry Road and cross Lake Brandt via tressel on Piedmont Trail, which ends at Bur-Mil Park. Finally on March 4, loop the loop at Lake Brandt via the Palmetto and Nat Green Trail, with unusual geological features and a variety of plants and critters. Be sure to dress warmly, pack a lunch and plenty of H₂O. Participation is limited, so call (336) 373-3741 for tickets or visit www.greensboro-nc.gov/lakes.

Catch the Drifts

There’s still time to appreciate the stillness and beauty and the winter season — inside. Two months into its run, In Falling Snow: Japanese Prints from the Lenoir C. Wright Collection will continue to light up Gallery 6 at Weatherspoon Art Museum (500 Tate Street) through February 26. The exhibition draws from the museum’s holdings of woodblock prints reflecting the vibrant life of 18th-century Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and consists of colorful, linear images that capture the quiet of a snowfall, the sting of cold air and the icy brilliance of starry winter nights. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.

Fin-ishing School

Maybe they read too much Hans Christian Andersen as children, or saw the 1984 flick Splash one time too many; or perhaps they have an addiction to Chicken of the Sea tuna, or maybe they, er, harbor, a Neptune complex. Whatever the reasons, for the second year, would-be mermaids, mermen and mer-children from around the world answer the siren call of N.C. Mermania on January 20 and 21 at Greensboro Aquatic Center (1921 West Gate City Boulevard). Like the performers at Weeki Watchee Springs, Florida, these enthusiasts dressed as half-humans, half-fish — some very elaborately — convene for water safety programs, kids’ story times, underwater photo ops and more. Most come for the sheer fun of playing out a fantasy, others to hone their skills as potential performers or to call attention to the ecology of the world’s oceans. So check out the spectacle where reality meets make-believe, and if you’re brave enough, don a fin and get your Esther Williams on. Tickets: ncmermania.com.

Pine Women and Song

And art, film and just about anything that sprouted from the imaginations of “women creatives,” as Anna Cone describes the muses for the inaugural issue of her and cousin Laurie Cone’s art magazine, Pine. Based in New York, the Greensboro natives launched the hefty, 144-page, ad-free tome last month at Scuppernong. With the subtitle “Brazen,” the publication salutes daring female artists including filmmaker Chantal Akerman, rock ’n’ roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Turkish artist Burçak Bingöl and a dozen more trailblazers. Expect more of the unexpected from subsequent issues of Pine, whose ethos, explains Laurie in the editor’s note, holds that “unabashed is beautiful, unretouched is brave, facades are cowardly, a printed piece beats an online piece, and talent shines.” Hear! Hear! Info: pine-mag.com.

OGI SEZ

Generally the best antidote for the post-holiday blahs is a healthy dose of live music among friends. But this January, I’ve still got a case of the post-election blues, so I think I’ll make mine a double. Bottoms up.

• January 5, O.Henry Hotel: The Thursday jazz series gets 2017 off to a rousing start with the enchanting Carrie Marshall. The Raleigh chanteuse will raise the already high bar even higher. It’s her first time in but I promise you it won’t be her last.

• January 6, Haw River Ballroom: If Donna the Buffalo can’t pull you out of your funk, there’s a chance you should seek professional help. As the organizers of Shakori Hills, clearly this merry band knows how to throw a party.

• January 12, Cone Denim Entertainment Center: You may know Aaron Lewis as the frontman for post-grunge rockers Staind. But after seven albums and five chart-topping singles, Lewis has morphed into a bona fide country singer. He’s probably not mainstream Nashville, but that is actually to his credit.

• January 14, Carolina Theatre: Time to get “In The Mood,” boys and girls. Big band swing is now into its third generation of aficionados, and the biggest of the big bands, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, is still leading the way. A fourth generation awaits.

• January 21, High Point Theatre: The group that is synonymous with ’60s folk music is Peter, Paul and Mary. While Mary Travers died in 2009, Peter Yarrow is carrying on the tradition. A master storyteller as well as vocalist and guitarist, Yarrow is the folkie we all wish we could be.