Month: August 2012

Categories
News

UVA to fight pair of wrongful death suits

UVA has been named as a defendant in two separate wrongful death suits in three months, fallout from a tragic year at the University. But how much blame lies at school’s doorstep in the unrelated 2010 deaths of lacrosse star Yeardley Love and Virginia Quarterly Review managing editor Kevin Morrissey?

Love’s mother filed a $30 million suit against UVA in May, claiming the coaches of killer George Huguely were partly to blame in her daughter’s death, because they should have known Huguely posed a threat. Morrissey’s family’s $10 million lawsuit alleges former VQR editor-in-chief Ted Genoways caused Morrissey emotional distress that eventually led to his suicide. In both cases, families have named defendants far above the University employees’ heads, with UVA and the Commonwealth itself topping the list.

Proving the liability of an institution like a university—or any third party—often isn’t easy, but it’s not uncommon for people to try. The families of two students slain in the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech won damages when they sued for negligence. Penn State is bracing for a flurry of claims from sex abuse victims in the wake of a guilty verdict for former football coach Jerry Sandusky. And the University of Colorado is facing questions about its failure to follow up on concerns about Aurora movie theater gunman James Holmes’ mental state while he was still a student there.

There is case history to back up such claims, said Charlottesville civil attorney Robert Yates, pointing to a 1970s ruling known as the Tarasoff case in which the Supreme Court determined college psychiatrists had a responsibility to report a man’s intent to kill a fellow student. But for the Love family to prove George Huguely’s coach Dom Starsia had a duty to protect Love, they would have to prove Starsia knew there was a specific threat against her, said Yates.

The Morrissey case is even more complicated, he said. Morrissey took his own life, so proving the University was in some way to blame would require plaintiffs to show his employers were aware of the extent of his distress. “What it hinges on is how much everyone knew about this,” Yates said.

So if pinning responsibility on a school is tough, why name them? There are a few reasons, according to lawyers.

Local wrongful death attorney Yvonne Griffin said including an entire chain of command is a common legal strategy. “In law school, they tell you to put everyone and the kitchen sink [in a suit], because you don’t know who’s going to be kicked out,” said Griffin. “Better to have everyone who’s playing on the team, so to speak, in the ballpark when the game starts.”
Yates said there’s another factor at play. “It all starts with one issue, and that’s money,” he said. “Lawyers look for a deep pocket, and institutions tend to be that target.”
Details on the legal arguments employed in the cases may not be clear for some time.

Criminal proceedings in the Huguely case are still going on, and UVA said last week that the Morrissey suit had not yet been served to anyone at the University. Plaintiffs have up to two years after filing to serve parties with a suit. Attorneys at the Richmond firm Hairfield Morton, which is representing Morrissey’s family, did not return calls for comment.

But consequences may come before court appearances. Becoming the subject of wrongful death suits can have negative effects beyond bad press, said Yates.

“Is there going to be a knee-jerk reaction every time somebody gets upset?” he asked. “It becomes a balancing issue on how much it affects the overall institution.”

And then there’s the issue of the financial burden, said Griffin, whether it’s legal fees or a settlement. Should the tab add up for the University, the state legislature could conceivably withhold funding to counter the expense.

“The costs of a case like this are going to be huge,” she said. “The taxpayers are totally on the hook.”

Categories
The Editor's Desk

The best reason to get into journalism

The back entrance to Southwood Mobile Home Park. John Robinson photo.

There’s a direct connection between the cover story I wrote last week about immigration policy’s affect on the local Latino community and Laura Ingles’ story this week, which looks at Habitat for Humanity’s plan to redevelop trailer parks. It’s no secret that Southwood Mobile Home Park is home to immigrant families and that many of them are undocumented.

Habitat bought Southwood in 2007 with the idea of redeveloping it, part of a broader plan aimed at alleviating the area’s affordable housing crisis through mixed income models that adhere to the Places29 master plan’s high density standards in the designated growth area. Southwood sits between The Covenant School and what is to become Biscuit Run State Park, a highly desirable location, but for decades it’s been a refuge for what these days people call “the working poor.” Habitat bought it because its leaders recognized that the land would likely end up in the hands of a developer, displacing families and pushing the housing stock farther into the county. Two problems then—affordable housing for working people and a community that lives and works under the table—intersect in one place, where a nonprofit is tasked with finding concrete solutions to endemic social issues.

You get into journalism for altruistic reasons: the desire to speak truth to power, the urge to live by your wits, the call to catalyze change. But the profession and the industry, which each have their demands, can turn you cynical. Readers, for instance, will typically gobble up the same stories they most complain about, while they’re prone to ignoring stories a reporter feels are most important. In government, the squeakiest wheels too often get the oil, even when it’s scarce. Public figures rarely say what they mean, and private people never say anything, unless they’re after something. No one ever really knows what they are talking about, precisely, except lawyers, and they make everything so intricate you can hardly write about it. The truth, your greatest motivation, proves frustratingly elusive. Then there’s the never-ending deadlines… and the pay.

But all of that is just clouds in front of the sun. Another connection between the stories I mentioned above is the one between two writers who care about a subject and want to dig into it. In this profession, that’s always where you find the people who inspire you to love what you do, which is really just to ask questions and write down the answers.—Giles Morris

Categories
News

Romney and Obama campaigns rally local volunteers

Americans go to the polls to pick a president in three months, and the battle is on in Virginia. New campaign offices for both candidates are springing up on a weekly basis across the state, and in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, three local campaign offices are currently running at full steam. Obama organizers have a Downtown Mall storefront and another outpost on Greenbrier Drive off 29N, and a Romney Victory Office has set up shop in Albemarle Square.

Neither camp is interested in talking about how many paid staffers and volunteers they have on the ground in the area, because of worries that sharing such information would amount to tipping their hands.

But the volunteer count from the Obama campaign’s July 28 “Day of Action” event in Charlottesville and Albemarle—a day of intense canvassing that was duplicated in towns and cities all over the state—was about 150, according to a campaign official.

Meanwhile, Albemarle County Republicans Committee Chair Cindi Burket said the Albemarle Romney campaign has about 200 volunteers, with 30 to 40 regulars. Victory Virginia Chairman Pete Snyder also said Republicans have the greater share of enthusiastic and willing workers. That wasn’t the case last time around, said Snyder. If you look at the set of Virginians who didn’t vote in 2008, “they’re much more likely to be Republican in leaning. It’s a totally different story in 2012.” Now, Republicans say they’re scoring 20 points higher when they ask Virginians how enthusiastic they are about their candidates, and the campaigns are looking to put that energy to work, Snyder said.

“We’re looking to bring in some of our folks that have sat on the sidelines,” he said. “Base voters, independent voters, and undecided voters.”

They’re canvassing and running a phone bank, soliciting donations, and handing out signs and bumper stickers. “Nothing extraordinarily unusual, but we’re doing it in earnest,” said Burket.
And while the Romney headquarters’ location in the county underscores the fact that consistently left-leaning Charlottesville is unlikely to go red, Snyder said the campaign intends to up its visibility in the city in the coming months. “We’re going to see a much greater presence in Charlottesville, with Romney signs, bumper stickers, and surrogate speakers. Students are coming out as well,” he said.

For its part, the Obama camp isn’t willing to give ground. It opened six new Virginia offices over the weekend, including one in Fluvanna, bringing the total number of campaign hubs in the Commonwealth to 31—two more than Romney organizers could claim as of last week. Jim Nix, a Charlottesville Obama volunteer coordinator, said Democrats had the advantage of not having to fight a primary battle this year, so the organizing started much earlier than in 2008.

“We’ve had more time to hit the ground running,” he said.

Nix and other Obama volunteers in Charlottesville explained that their grassroots effort to rally support for the president involves carefully drawn-up geographical territories called “neighborhood teams,” which work autonomously to decide the best way to connect with potential voters, whether it’s through phone banking, canvassing, or other methods.
It’s largely a field campaign, Nix said, with a major focus on face-to-face meetings with potential voters.

The personal appeal is more effective than a one-size-fits-all approach, said volunteer Camilla Griffiths. “When we talk to them, it’s something they feel isn’t coming from a script or from a Barack Obama website, but something about why you support the president and not why Barack Obama’s campaign says you should support the president,” she said.
As busy as the phone banks may be in central Virginia—and as much as both camps want to tip the swing population of Albemarle their way—the area probably won’t decide Virginia, said Geoffrey Skelley, an analyst for the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Charlottesville represents a solid source of Democratic support, but for both candidates, more densely packed northern areas in the state are the real prize, he said.

“In the urban crescent, there are big populations, so that’s where they’ll have a lot of focus,” said Skelley.

There’s no denying Virginia as a whole is considered a key battleground state in the presidential race—perhaps even more so than in 2008, when Obama succeeded in turning the formerly reliably Republican Commonwealth blue.

Part of the reason for the intense focus on the Old Dominion, said Skelley, is that Virginia was closest to the national popular vote average in 2008. Obama won by 52.9 percent nationally, and took 52.6 percent of the vote statewide.

“Virginia’s 13 electoral votes are really key in Obama and Romney’s campaign,” said Skelly. “Put it this way: it’s hard to see Obama winning without Virginia, but it’s also hard to see Romney winning without Virginia.”

Categories
News

On Facebook and mea culpas

Notes from the news desk

Usually, the best way to correct a misstep is to talk about it. We found ourself in that position last week, so we’re here to start a conversation—and eat a little crow.

Last week’s story on a dispute over permitted partying in the Market and Meade area included some quotes that it shouldn’t have, quotes that, it turned out, were taken from a private Facebook page.
Our unwritten rule has been to use input from Facebook only if the post is publicly viewable, i.e., only if it’s visible without having to “friend” the person first. And that’s pretty standard for news outlets these days.
But on a busy deadline day, when we were short one news team member, we made a bad call. We saw the posts we ran with only as screen shots, and thought they were public. The poster explained that they weren’t. They were written with privacy settings adjusted so only friends could see them, and they were taken down not long after they went up.
The poster, Victoria Dunham, was understandably upset—I, too, am very careful about social media, especially what’s visible to whom on my Facebook page—and she called us. We had a good conversation about it, talked about the value of revisiting the issue, and decided we should—for several reasons. Chief among them is simply setting the record straight, and letting Victoria respond in her own words, which should have happened before. Here are her thoughts.
“When I contacted Graelyn Brashear regarding the Moto story, I had two major concerns. First, to set the record straight regarding my Facebook comments and the strange journey they took on their way into the media. Second, this: Before a story in our local media reaches the public’s eyes, we need to know that all facts have been checked, and reporters and editors have performed their due diligence. I was personally disappointed and upset regarding the events that had transpired prior to getting this story to press,  and saddened for the general public. The media shouldn’t print anything that’s been thrown over their transom unless those items can be verified first.  In this particular case, verification didn’t happen.To set the story straight, here’s a brief timeline of the events. A neighbor, then a Facebook friend, grabbed screen captures of some comments I had made over the course of a conversation with others. He then cropped and edited the comments, removing the original context and his own angry commentary, and sent the new (his) version to two members of my board and Matteus Frankovich. He included spin on both the meaning of the comments and whom he felt were the intended targets. Shortly thereafter, one of the recipients then sent the edited comments to the C-VILLE Weekly and Hook, along with additional spin.

“After the neighbor’s outburst on my page, I deleted the post entirely. The post was up for fewer than 2 hours and seen by a limited number of my friends. In printing it, however, this brief blip in time has now become immortal via the marvel of internet searching. The fact that the intent of the neighbor and sender was to harm, has only made matters worse.

“As WMNA president over the past years, I’ve been an unpaid volunteer.  I’m not rather than an elected official or a public figure.  When I took the position, I didn’t agree to give up my privacy. The Woolen Mills has faced many challenges through the years, some of them quite serious. We’ve met them head on and have succeeded for the most part.  My recent resignation as president was primarily driven by my work schedule and resulting lack of time for volunteer activities. My decision to resign preceded the media stories and they did not factor into that process. I’ve been disheartened that the most disputed issue in the Woolen Mills is a nightclub zoning variance rather than increased transit, cut-through traffic, or affordable housing.

“From the moment I contacted Ms Brashear, she has been professional, responsive, and considerate.  In making this an open and transparent conversation, it’s obvious to me that she feels a high degree of responsibility towards her readers as well as the public. The C-VILLE Weekly editorial staff could have chosen to act defensively and circle their wagons. They didn’t, and for that they have earned my respect.”

This is also a good opportunity for us to explore how we use social media, and what’s OK and what isn’t. We realized we needed a stated set of rules: Before quoting somebody’s comment or post, confirm it’s a public statement with our own eyes, give the poster a fair chance to respond, and then use it only if it contributes something significant to the story that we couldn’t get elsewhere.
But the discussion can’t really end there. The way people—reporters, editors, readers—use social media is always shifting and evolving. Ten years ago, Facebook didn’t even exist. Who knows where we’ll be in another decade. Point is, it’s something we should talk about, and often. Would you be upset to see a news outlet take a public comment you made on Facebook and use it in a story? In my last job as a web reporter and editor, I once used a photo and a comment from an 18-year-old convicted arsonist’s Facebook page when I couldn’t reach him any other way, or get a mugshot. Was that an overstep? (His family and friends sure thought so, and I can tell you they weren’t nearly as gracious about it as Victoria was.)
What do you think?
Categories
News

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter is popular here, but does the model hold up?

Use of the crowdfunding site Kickstarter is booming in Charlottesville, and it’s no wonder. The website was created in 2008 as a low-risk fundraising platform for creative projects, and it’s been embraced with a good deal of success here, where indie-minded artists and musicians—and those willing to shell out a few bucks to support them directly—are thick on the ground.

More than 50 projects started in the Charlottesville area have had successful Kickstarter campaigns. Local band Sons of Bill financed its third album through the site, and other area musicians have followed suit. Singer John Thackston, a UVA fourth year whose Kickstarter campaign footed the bill for his first record, deemed the site “the single most important development in the music industry since magnetic tape.”

But as Kickstarter has grown, some see it facing a kind of mission creep, making the company and observers revisit the question of what defines a creative project—and what’s reasonably enforceable.

Unlike other crowdfunding initiatives, Kickstarter doesn’t offer backers a cut of project revenues. Instead, creators post projects online and offer rewards to entice donors. The better the incentives you offer, the better the odds of reaching your funding goal. Fall short of your goal, and those who pledged won’t get charged, and you won’t see a dime.

The model has proved popular—and successful. Since its launch, Kickstarter users have funded 26,000 projects. Two Kickstarter-funded films have received Oscar nods, and site-funded art exhibits have been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and the prestigious Whitney Biennial.

Still, backing a project is always a gamble, because creators aren’t obligated to complete their projects as promised. Kickstarter spokesman Justin Kazmark said most people organizing campaigns do follow through when they get funded, largely because there’s a good deal of accountability in small, creative networks. “A lot of times the backers are actually people the creator knows—friends, family, fans,” he said. “It takes a lot of work to get fans and maintain friendships, and you don’t want to burn those bridges.”

Local photographer Peter Krebs used Kickstarter to fund his exhibit Monticello Road, which debuted at The Bridge PAI in April. Krebs wanted his photographs to be “completely accessible to everyone—far beyond the usual suspects who go to openings.” He explained, “Everything was either free or pay-what-you-can. Yet it all cost money.” That’s where Kickstarter came in.

“I wanted to find a way to fundraise that was completely optional and that would allow people with little means to make small contributions and have it be really meaningful,” Krebs said. “The whole thing is about community, and this allowed really wide participation.”

Crowdfunding liberates artists from the traditionally sales-driven art world, said Krebs, who praised Kickstarter for “taking the whole selling business out of the equation.”

But some are seeing serious profit potential in the model. While Kickstarter doesn’t allow people to request money for general support—“fund my paycheck” pitches get pulled down from the site—businesses are increasingly using the site to boost sales and launch new products. Here in Charlottesville, clothing company Robert Redd launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise nearly $300,000 to fund a new T-shirt line. Director of operations Todd Campbell explained, “We’ve been mulling different ways to finally launch our ladies’ offerings, and Kickstarter crowdfunding is really catching on right now.”

Connecting with consumers is crucial, and crowdfunding could help bridge the producer-consumer divide. “It gives your customers an opportunity to validate what you’re doing and give their input at each step,” Campbell said. In e-mails promoting the campaign, the company called on people to “support Robert Redd’s growth.”

But the approach didn’t appear to be paying off for the company. With a little more than a day left for pledges, the project had still garnered less than $20,000.

The growth in use by those pushing business ventures has also opened the door to flops, and even scams. People looking to fund tech projects have raked in millions for their inventions—even though many lack the know-how to turn their wild ideas into tangible products.

Take Seattle company “Eyez” for example. Last year, the would-be creators of video-recording glasses earned a whopping $343,415, meeting their goal, but the backers have yet to receive finished products, and many fear the creators have abandoned the project altogether.

Who’s to stop them? No one, it seems. Kickstarter can’t take legal action, and since the average donation is small, few backers have a big enough stake to sue the project’s creators.

So are companies twisting Kickstarter’s original mission by painting purely profit-driven projects as creative exercises? And does the chance for scams make the business model suspect?

No and no, says Kickstarter. According to Kazmark, there’s room for everyone. “Kickstarter is in some ways arts patronage,” he said. “In some ways it’s commerce.”

And though Kickstarter employees aren’t scouring the site for scammers, Kickstarter users act as their own police force.

“You’re not on something like eBay where it might be one-to-one, and in order for something bad to happen, you just have to pull the wool over one person’s eyes,” Kazmark said. “On Kickstarter, there’s a lot of people looking at the projects, making sure they are who they say they are.”

Categories
Living

King of cluck: our judges rate the town’s best fried chicken

Wayside fried chicken. John Robinson photo.

Buttermilk or brine? Floured or battered? Peanut oil or lard? Pan-fried or deep-fried? These are just a few of the secrets behind fried chicken so crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside that it’ll make you weep. Each method has its devotees, and nary a one of our 11 contestants spilled the beans (baked or otherwise) as to what makes their chicken so finger-licking good, but that didn’t stop us from filling a bucket with a piece from each. We might be a little bit country and a little bit city, but we’ve got a coop full of places frying up chicken that’d make a real southerner proud.

We chose non-chain places known for bone-in chicken fried fresh (read: not frozen!). All selections were gathered the day of the contest and judged blind by Harrison Keevil, chef/owner of Brookville Restaurant; Jenée Libby, The Diner of Cville blogger; and Joel Slezak, co-owner of Free Union Grass Farm.

Keevil went for breasts (“They’re the hardest to do well, since they dry out the fastest”), Libby went for legs, and Slezak went for thighs. They judged each piece’s crispiness/texture, tenderness of meat, seasoning, and overall taste. Appetites were waning around the halfway point, but our professionals soldiered on and crowned the winning bird…then went back for more.

Drumstick—er, drumroll, please!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Michie Tavern

683 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy.

977-1234

Daily 11:15am-3:30pm

It’s hard to make the last mile of the Saunders-Monticello Trail after smelling southern fried chicken wafting up from this historic tavern where the staff members still dress in colonial attire. It’s juicy (“It would still taste amazing in the morning”), perfectly seasoned (“It has flavor throughout the meat too”), and fried ’til dark (“It’s gotta be the grease they use”), and none of us could get enough (Slezak ate three more pieces following the judging). Take a free tour of the museum and then belly up to the buffet every day in the summer and fill your plate with chicken (baked or fried) and 18th century sides liked stewed tomatoes and black-eyed peas for $16.95.

First clucker-up

Wayside Takeout & Catering

2203 Jefferson Park Ave.

977-5000

Open Monday-Thursday 7am-9pm, Friday-Saturday 7am-9:30pm

The only thing keeping chicken lovers from crossing the road is the massive construction site that’s set up outside this 40+-year-old institution. Wayside is still open for business and its chicken scored big for the peppery coating that reminded Virginia-raised Libby of the Golden Skillet’s. The skin stayed crispy long after the judging was complete. Breakfast biscuits and wraps are ready by 7am and “ole Virginia” chicken is fried (or baked) until 9pm/9:30pm every day but Sunday. There are plenty of other things to eat, but the chicken dinner’s the winner. A 12-piece family deal comes with two large sides and six rolls for $21.28.

Second clucker-up

Preston Avenue Shell Station

601 Preston Ave.

296-2004

Monday-Sunday 6am-9pm

Only in Virginia do we know how good the food at gas stations can be, and this Shell Station next to Bodo’s is no exception. It even took our judges by surprise, but for 12 years now, the food counter in the back’s been frying up top-notch chicken (“very tender!”) and dishing up southern sides fresh every day. Its legion of fans swears by its spicy seasoning and the Monday night special, which gets you two pieces of chicken with one side, a biscuit and a 16 ounce drink for $3.99.

Other contenders

Brown’s

1210 Avon St.

295-4911

Monday-Friday 7am-9pm

Formerly Stoney’s Grocery, this pitstop in Belmont is handy for replenishing that toilet paper you ran out of last night. But it’s also garnered quite a following for its fried chicken, which owner Mike Brown became known for when he served it at his mini-market in Esmont years ago. A Sunday special gets you 12 pieces and a two-liter Pepsi product for $19.99.

Brownsville Market

5995 Rockfish Gap Turnpike, Crozet

823-5251

Daily 5am-10pm

This Shell station shop’s been keeping the area’s construction workers and locals in gas, cold drinks, and freshly grilled and fried food for more than 30 years. Its classic fried chicken and traditional sides make the ideal picnic contribution or dinner for the family when you don’t feel like cooking.

Chicken Coop

40 Front St., Lovingston

263-7818

Monday-Thur. 10:30am-7pm, Friday 10:30am-8pm, Saturday 10:30am-7:30pm Sunday 11am-5pm

Chances that there’s chicken at a place with such a name are good. But only Nelson County locals and those who happen upon it while fueling up the car at the Exxon station that houses it would know. Our judges were drawn to an herb in the batter that they couldn’t identify. A 12-piece meal comes with potato wedges, coleslaw, and six rolls for $17.99. And there’re plenty of six-packs or 40s to choose from too.

Foods of All Nations

2121 Ivy Rd.

293-7998

Monday-Saturday 7:30am-8pm, Sunday 8:30am-6pm

It might sell foods from all nations, but the fried chicken is from right here in the U.S. of A.—and this upscale grocery store that’s been around for more than 50 years does it well. Head straight for the deli to stock up on it, plus classic sides like Shirley’s potato salad. Then swing past the bakery for a sweet treat or two.

Lumpkin’s

1075 Valley St., Scottsville

286-3690

Monday-Tuesday, Saturday 7am-3pm, Thursday-Friday 7am-8pm

The giant rooster out front’s a surefire sign that fried chicken’s one of this 50-year-old restaurant and hotel’s specialties. But life shuts down early in the country, so come for breakfast or lunch any day but Wednesday or Sunday, or an early bird dinner on Thursdays and Fridays. The pies are made fresh every day before even the roosters are up.

Mac’s Country Store

7023 Patrick Henry Hwy., Roseland

277-5305

Monday-Sunday 6am-6pm

This convenience store on Route 151 sells your choice of moist white or dark meat chicken, sides, and dinner rolls on your way to or from the area’s growing number of breweries, cideries, and vineyards. A few tables and chairs in the back serve a purpose for those who can’t wait to tuck into the spread. Get a 32-piecer for $36.19.

Mel’s Café

719 W. Main St.

971-8819

Monday-Thursday 10am-10pm, Friday-Saturday 10am-11pm

Soul food’s on the menu at this West Main throwback that’s been in operation and family-owned for “a long, long time.” The fried chicken, which was Keevil’s choice for third place, comes out hot and impossibly crispy (“Are these cornflakes in the coating?” crowed one judge) with two southern comfort sides. Or get a fried chicken leg sandwich and a sweet tea and save room for a slice of their famous sweet potato pie. Whatever you order, they’ll treat you real nice.

The Whiskey Jar

227 W. Main St., Downtown Mall

202-1549

Monday-Thursday 11am-midnight, Friday-Saturday 11am-2am

This Downtown Mall newcomer from Rev Soup owner Will Richey satisfies cravings with its local chicken that’s raised on a Mennonite farm and drenched in flavor from the outside in (“It tastes like it’s been injected with Texas Pete!” a judge observed) then served over local collards studded with Kite’s Country Bacon for $12. A drink made with one of the 46 bottles of whiskey on the wall sweetens the deal.

Categories
Arts

Josh Ritter talks about songwriting, novels, and the open road

Josh Ritter.
C-VILLE Weekly’s Graelyn Brashear sat down with singer/songwriter and novelist Josh Ritter for a radio interview live on WTJU before his show last night at the Jefferson Theater. Ritter, a remarkably candid interview and a compelling communicator, talks about his friendship with C’ville musicians, his attachment to Appalachia, and his love of writing.
Graelyn Brashear: Glad to have you back in Charlottesville. We were talking about the fact that you’ve had several visits here recently, you’ve been back in this area a couple of times, and you set your novel, Bright’s Passage, in Appalachia. Do you have connections to Charlottesville in particular and this part of the country in general?
Josh Ritter: Well this is pretty mythic American country out here, you know, with the history of some of the intellectual fiery cradle of this country. So it’s pretty great to be here. And it’s an amazing town. There’s so much good food, and there’s music, and it doesn’t hurt to come back.
GB: I wanted to ask you about your novel. It was a really interesting change of hats for you. I know you get asked about that a lot, the difference between songwriting and moving into a different writing style. What was that like, and what’s it like to take different tacks with your storytelling?
JR: I’ve thought about it a lot. When I was growing up, a teenager, I had a lot of words, and I had a lot that I felt like I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what it was, you know? And I discovered songwriting, and it was like i found a bucket for the words. It was a form, and it was so exciting. But I never really thought that that was the only way that a writer could write.
For me, I find that it’s mostly a temperament thing. You have to adjust your temperament. With songs there’s  chance you’ll write a song in an afternoon, or a week. I’ve had a few songs I’ve written over a long period of time, but in general, songs are short things. and a novel takes years. I think that finding your freedom and the excitement of creating something in the morning and then setting it down and coming back to it the next day is something that I had to learn how to do. In general, the two things are very similar—you have words, and you’re trying to put the right word after the right word after the right word, like a tightrope walker.
GB: With Bright’s Passage, I was curious about the juxtaposition of the settings and the themes there. It follows the story of a man really traumatized by World War I who comes home to West Virginia, and the trauma sort of weaves its way into his life. So what drove you to juxtapose those two settings—Europe in World War I and Appalachia at the time?
JR: Well World War I was this moment at the cliff’s edge there. In 1913, we thought we had everything figured out. We thought we had things pretty much sussed. Niels Bohr was told not to go into physics, because physics had all been figured out. So all these things happen, and then suddenly the world explodes, and the modern world came in like a rush of water and washed everything away. Horse and cavalry, cannons—these things, they disappeared and were replaced by new things, by planes and poison gas, and all these technologies that have gone on to be good for us as well.
And I think Appalachia has always been a symbol, I  think for me, of a place that is at the edge of time. it’s always on the edge. If the future happens, it’ll happen in Appalachia, and the past is happening, too. It’s a place that stands for something, where time is under different laws. I thought the two worked well together.
GB: Do you think you have more books in you?
JR: Definitely. I’m working on a second one right now.
GB: Can you tell us about it?
JR: it’s a big, rowdy novel with lots of terrible language. My mom’s going to be mortified. It’s gonna be fun.
GB: And you’re working on other projects. You were saying you’ve wrapped up your next album as well.
JR: Yes, it’s getting real close. There are still some finishing touches to go, but I hope to have it out in the first part of next year.
GB: What can you tell us about it? From what you’ve been saying, it opens a door into a more personal part of your life than fans might be used to.
JR: I’d always shied away from that, with the very specific idea that there is more to write about outside your own personal experience, and that’s good. It’s good to write that way. Autobiography makes the focus a little smaller a little tighter, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable for the listener and the writer. So I haven’t always done that, but now with this one, I feel it—it’s a lot of short, sharp little songs. I’m pretty excited about it.
GB: Big rowdy novel, short sharp songs— a lot of emotion in both.
JR: Yeah.
GB: Bringing it back local again—you actually toured in ireland with Love Canon, a local band.
JR: I am very proud of my assoc with Love Canon. They’re amazing. Zack Hickman, who I’ve played with for almost half my life, on the bass here, he knows some incredible musicians. Two of them are fantastic—Adam Larrabee and Jesse Harper. They’re (from) right around here, and we got to play some great songs together.
GB: What was it like to tour alongside them?
JR: It’s like standing in the middle of a hurricane. You’ve got to hold on.
GB: Thinking about the arc of your career—you’ve come along way since your first album, which you recorded while you were in school. Do you miss anything about the early days, and the process of figuring out who you were as a musician?
JR: It’s really interesting. Nobody’s ever asked me that. What I really get out of playing music and why I do it…to be creative and impress yourself and entertain yourself, is the idea that it should always feel new, hopefully. The two things you have as an artist that really matter are confidence in your work and excitement about the future. If you don’t have that, what’s the point? You’d end up doing medleys. It scares me to even think about it. So I always hope that things are just getting more and more exciting.
GB: Anybody’s who’s seen you live would feel that you bring that to the stage still. Is that a conscious effort? You’re a performer for sure—you interact and you smile a lot, and its very much a live show. Is that part of channelling that energy and bringing newness to it?
JR: Absolutely. If you love somebody, hopefully every dance you have with them is your first one—you know, that feeling. And that’s how it is with songs, and that’s why it’s really important to write and write until you get thing exactly how you want them, because when you do that, that’s your partner for the next 40 years, or 50 years, and you want to always be proud of it. Some songs, they start to lose their love, and other ones gain more love with your experience in life. I love performing. You write a song, and it’s like making an animal in a laboratory. And when you’re performing, it’s like the animal’s out there on the stage, and you don’t know what it’s going to do.
GB: So it is new when you bring it to the live audience.
JR: Every time, depending on what’s going on in the audience, us—it’s totally crazy.
GB: You’ve lived a lot of places in the country. Is it strange to go back to them as a performer, as a musician, and go back to a place where you spent time before this career really started?
JR: Yeah. It’s said that Abraham Lincoln said he had more hometowns than anybody else in the world. The great thing about being a musician, a traveling musician, is you get to see the whole place. You get to see how it’s stitched together. And it’s funny, what we learn as a band about places that we go. We’ll learn about places to eat, or the place that gave us a free coffee last time. Its great. There’s all kinds of memories that get rolled up into this. You may not remember the stage, but you definitely remember the good sandwich you had, and the good show.
GB: Your songwriting influences are clearly varied. I wonder how much comes from seeing new places all the time, and how much that influences your writing and how you go about the process of bringing these things to the page.
JR: I used to get so wound up about it. I write prose stuff on the road a lot. But I used to get the physical act of putting words on a page confused with the act of writing. Writing is 90 percent listening and picking things up and reading and watching and meeting people, and 10 percent reorganizing those ideas. It’s like visible light. There’s so much more light that’s going on that we can’t see, but that 10 percent is what we see by, and that’s how we judge ourselves. Being out on the road is a chance to meet all kinds of crazy people, do all kinds of crazy things and have experiences, see things out the window, walk down the street, see a movie, hear music. It’s all in there. And for me touring is what powers this, the writing. I don’t know what I would do without it.
Categories
Living

Meet the man who’s quietly bringing ancient Tibet to Charlottesville

Gyaltsen Druknya is working to bring traditional Tibetan medicine to the U.S. with his organization, Arura Medicine of Tibet. John Robinson photo.

Gyaltsen Sangpo Druknya was born in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in a region called Amdo, a land of arid grasslands, huge blue lakes, and deep, pine covered valleys. Three of Asia’s most famous rivers—the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Mekong—have their beginnings in the snow-covered mountains that ring the area. Amdo is the birthplace of the current Dalai Lama, and a quarter of the Tibetan population, about 1.6 million people, live there, despite the fact that it lies outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, largely subsumed by the Chinese province of Quinghai.

The village where he was born is home to about 500 families. Like 80 percent of the Tibetans in Amdo, they’re traditional nomadic farmers, raising yaks, goats, and sheep on the steppes of the highest and largest plateau on earth.

Gyaltsen’s first name is pronounced like “Jyultson,” but he tells everybody to just say “Jensen” and leave it at that. His last name is familiar as the name of the Downtown Mall hair salon, Salon Druknya, which he co-owns with Tashi, his wife of seven years. They have two kids, a 7-year-old son, Namkia, and a daughter, Chukyi, who is 6. He’s a happy, successful man, but he just can’t seem to relax and enjoy it.

“My personality likes keeping busy,” he said. “That’s why my wife complains.” What keeps Gyaltsen busy is a lifelong interest in traditional Tibetan medicine and a consuming desire to do whatever he can to help his homeland. Last year, he founded a nonprofit company called Arura Medicine of Tibet, with the sole aim of bringing traditional Tibetan medicine to the U.S. Every Sunday and every Monday is spent working towards this goal—and every other spare moment he’s not in the salon. All his spare money is going to that venture too, and he’s not getting paid for the work. But that’s O.K., he’s not in it for the money. And that’s why his wife nags him. “She says, ‘If you spent all your energy on [the hair salon], you and I by now don’t have to work.’”

Tibetan medicine is old. Some say 1,200 years old, others say 6,000 years, but it’s old. In fact, the first international medical conference was held in Tibet in the 7th century, and there’s evidence of Tibetan doctors performing brain surgery way before the current era.

But the ancient tradition has been seriously modernized. Arura Tibetan Medicine Group is a state-financed (read: Chinese Government) company that includes a Tibetan pharmaceutical company (worth $62.5 million in 2006), Tibetan Medical Hospital, Tibetan medical school, Tibetan Medical Research Institute, and the Museum of Tibetan Medicine and Culture, all under one umbrella and all in the Amdo region. If the medicine is holistic, so is the business.

Gyaltsen left Tibet at 18 and went to school in India before setting up a business selling rugs and gems, splitting his time between India and Nepal. Later, he traveled to Singapore, Hong Kong, and lived for a year in Taiwan. In 2001, the then 27-year-old went to visit his sister in Charlottesville, where she was living with her husband. His third day here, a woman asked him if he was going to stay in America permanently. “If you find a horse for me,” said the Tibetan nomad, “I will stay here.” The next day she called his bluff and took him out to Braeburn horse training center in Crozet. As soon as he got on a horse, he was hired, and for the next two years he trained horses for a living.

But then in 2003, Gyaltsen was in a bad car accident. His face was filled with broken glass and needed numerous stitches and his back was so badly damaged he couldn’t work at the horse farm anymore. Taking the bad luck in stride, he decided to open a restaurant. He had no experience as a cook, mind you, but his father owns restaurants in India and Nepal, and he thought he might be able to make it work.

When he first arrived in 2001, Gyaltsen met Tashi, also Tibetan, through the town’s small Tibetan community. She was cutting hair at Carden Salon on the Downtown Mall, and owner John Carden started helping Gyaltsen look for a location for the restaurant. While he looked, he fell back on what he’d done before, selling gemstones from India and Nepal on the Downtown Mall. John asked him if he might want to try cutting hair.

“I thought, ‘No way.’ I have this wild personality,” he said.

But after almost two years with no luck, John asked again. Why not, Gyaltsen thought. He could set his own hours and keep looking for something else. But he turned out to be pretty good at the hair-cutting thing, and in 2005, after only three months on the job, John asked if he and Tashi wanted to buy the business.

“That’s probably [what made] me stay as a hairdresser,” Gyaltsen said. Except for his time at the Horse Center, he’d never worked for other people, he’d always done his own thing.

“I always had a feeling to help Tibet, inside Tibet. I want to do something. …I feel like just work here is not satisfying the goal [I had] when I left home.”

When Dr. O Tsokchen, the head of Arura Group, came to Charlottesville in 2008, it was because he’d heard that a guy named Gyaltsen Druknya had been holding numerous successful fundraisers for the Tibetan Healing Fund, a group working to improve the health and living conditions of women and children in rural Tibet. Dr. O asked him to spearhead the efforts to bring Arura Medicine to the U.S., but Gyaltsen wasn’t interested. He wanted to help Tibet, not America.

Still, he began visiting American medical facilities and talking to doctors and nurses at UVA, and he started to see that not only could Tibetan medicine be a big boon to America, bringing the “mindfulness part of medicine,” but coming to America could also help Tibetan medicine.

“All the hard work, and what they did inside Tibet, if we establish some new place here in America, could be preserved.”

So when Dr. O came back in 2009, Gyaltsen said yes. And then he proposed holding a Tibetan Medicine conference in Charlottesville.

“You sure you can do it?” Dr. O asked.

“Why not?” Gyaltsen said.

Last year, Gyaltsen started Arura Medicine of Tibet. They’ve got a Board of Advisors that includes Jeffrey Hopkins, professor emeritus in UVA’s religion department, the man who built the Tibetan Buddhist Studies program and served as translator for the Dalai Lama for 10 years. They work with numerous Tibetan groups, as well as with the UVA School of Nursing, the UVA Tibetan Center, and the newly minted UVA Contemplative Science Center.

And they need big partners, because they have big plans. The goal is to build a Tibetan Medical Shangri La here in Charlottesville, with a training center, old folks’ home, museum, medical library, meditation hall, Tibetan marketplace, and a Tibetan inn.

I ask Gyaltsen what he does other than cut hair and work on Tibetan causes.

“That’s my wife’s complaint,” he says. But then he thinks a bit and says, “I like bars. I go to bars a little bit.”

He admits that perhaps less of his energy goes into the salon than it should, but his wife and employees keep the place running well, while his heart and mind are with his passion project.

Both he and Tashi are U.S. citizens. Gyaltsen made the leap just last year in a small, unobtrusive ceremony at the Federal courthouse Downtown. He had the option to do it at Monticello, but he didn’t want to make it a big deal.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’m a citizen of the world, yeah?”

Categories
Living

Who/What/Wear: All maxi’d out

I ran into local student PANSY on UVA Grounds while she was taking a walk with friends. Seen here wearing a maxi skirt from Urban Outfitters and a simple black tank, this easy, breezy summer look is elevated with a vintage Coach bag handed down from Pansy’s mother —and Pansy’s own outstanding curls.

I saw EMILY, a floral designer for Hedge and visual associate at Anthropologie, outside Anthropologie’s Barracks Road store. The Richmond-born New York City transplant is wearing a Michael Stars tank top with a skirt and sandals from Urban Outfitters and a sculptural necklace made by Brooklyn-based artist Hali Emminger. “Part of what I love is nature and I really like the idea of incorporating that in what I wear,” Emily said of her laid-back style. “I really like matching feminine things with things that are easy.”

I came across JEN, an urban planner for AECOM, while shopping at the farmer’s market. “[I’m] trying to be good about sun protection so I’ve invested in some hats this year,” said Jen, who was scouting seasonal vegetables with a friend who works at The Whiskey Jar. Layering has been another priority this season because of the weather’s ups and downs, and leading an active lifestyle means Jen goes from shopping to hiking in the same day. Jen is wearing a skirt and shirt from the Gap, accessorized with a hat from H&M and sandals from Forever 21.

 

Categories
Arts

Wilco cruises into Pavilion with good vibes

Bassist John Stirratt (far right) is the only original Wilco member other than front man Jeff Tweedy, but the band’s a happy, well-oiled Americana machine. Feel the love on Thursday at the Pavilion.

Wilco is in a good place. The band’s near-two-decade slog through the music world has had its fair share of adversity: addiction, line-up shuffles, and a gut-punch rejection from Reprise Records of what turned out to be its most successful album (2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). Now, the band has held the same crew together for the past seven years—a dynamic sextet that has solidified the group’s evolution from alt-country pioneers to big-stage experimental rock heroes.

An encompassing tour of the group’s sonic tastes was released last fall in its eighth studio album, The Whole Love. The effort runs the gamut of Wilco’s broadly constructed cosmic Americana. From to the sunny pop-rock title track to Nels Cline’s explosive free-form guitar licks in the off-kilter opener “Art of Almost,” to the wandering, finger-picked 12-minute folk meditation “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend),” the group found plenty of different aural avenues for the ever-expanding songbook of front man Jeff Tweedy.

Bassist John Stirratt, the band’s only remaining original member besides Tweedy, took questions by phone before Wilco’s return to the nTelos Wireless Pavilion on Thursday.

C-VILLE Weekly: When I first heard The Whole Love, the immediate impression was that it was all inclusive of the sounds Wilco has touched on over the years. Did the band have this sense as well?

John Stirratt: “There was an idea that the record didn’t have a linear quality from a sound standpoint—the way Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost is Born did. That’s a challenge we wanted to take on—making something sprawling that’s all over the map, but still a great listening experience. We tried to not be afraid to present songs that might seem incongruous to other people.”

How does the band determine if a song should be more experimental or straightforward?

“That’s all part of the work. We generally move forward until we’re all enjoying a song. Often, there are different threads that seem to present themselves during recording sessions. We’ll start doing some spacey country stuff, which yielded “Open Mind” and “Jane Smiley” on this album. Generally, we reach a point on a song where we’re comfortable, and at that point we know there’s no other way to present it.”

Would you say the band is in the most stable place it’s ever been as far as the line-up?

“Without a doubt, having this line-up together for the past seven years has allowed us to get really deep, especially from a live standpoint. It can be daunting when you’re making a record, because we have so many options with this big of a band. But there’s so much musical empathy and everyone listens to each other; we’re in a really good spot right now.”

You’ve played a staggering number of shows over the years, and your road schedule has been pretty constant since releasing the latest album. What keeps it fresh from night to night?

“There’s a great culture and intensity around the fandom of the band. On a tiny level, it’s a little bit like what the Grateful Dead had. It’s great when people care that much. There’s a celebration existing outside of the band, and that vibe definitely keeps us inspired. The other thing is the catalog. Since we’ve been around for so long we can mix up the tunes and find new ways that songs work together. Little things like that can make a difference.”

Wilco had a well-publicized record label struggle. Was it a relief to start your own label and have that part of the equation removed from the business of making music?

“I don’t know if relief is the right word, because now it’s a lot more responsibility. We’re happy that we started the label, but it’s honestly the only way it can work. It’s great to have the creative freedom, but on the business end it’s challenging to sell records. We’re doing the best we can.”

What’s the plan after this touring cycle behind The Whole Love—back to other musical outlets like your band Autumn Defense with fellow Wilco member Pat Sansone?

“We had a big session with Autumn Defense earlier in the year, so we have a few things recorded. I think we’re sounding better than ever, and we’re planning to squeeze some more things in between Wilco dates. There are quite a few other projects on the table. Jeff is going to be working on another Mavis Staples record, and as the touring eases up next year Wilco will get back in the studio.”