Symphony head Early steps down

Big news from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra this afternoon. Richard Early, who has run the symphony for eleven years, resigned at last night’s board meeting. During his tenure, the symphony has seen big gains in budget size ($4.9 million to $8 million) and endowment ($695,000 to $5.2 million). But it’s also no secret that the symphony has been suffering from deficits and has been challenged to find new audiences, although attendance did rise this past season. Here’s Early’s official statement:

Early said, “After 11 years, culminating with our eventful and highly successful 75th Anniversary Season, the time is right for me to pursue new challenges and for the Symphony to identify new executive leadership to help move to the next level of organizational and artistic accomplishment. The Symphony is poised for the future with excellent leadership, commitment, and experience in each department of the administrative staff; outstanding dedication and artistry from our musicians and conductors; and a strong board, whose leadership and generosity ensures that the organization will continue to progress in its service to Charlotte and the region.”

Early will stay on through September 1. But this means that the CSO is now searching for its top two leaders, because conductor Christof Perick earlier announced that he was leaving. Looks like it will be an interesting few months at the CSO. —R.T.

How much longer until football season?

Let’s see, it’s almost July, which means it’s almost time for preseason camp, which means it’s almost time for the preseason (we won’t get into the ridiculousness of a 4-game preseason for professional football), which means it’s almost time for Panther football. Interesting column on Espn.com about second-year running back DeAngelo Williams. If you recall, a lot of “experts” thought he would knock DeShaun Foster from his starting post by mid season last year. Didn’t happen. Now he’s sort of a forgotten man. After reading this column, though, I think he could be a sleeper next year. —R.T.

Specific instructions from Starbucks

Got a press release from Starbucks touting three new drinks. Check out the drinking instructions for the one pasted below.

Tazo Shaken Blueberry White Iced Tea – This crisp, refreshing tea consists of freshly-brewed Tazo® white tea leaves complemented by a natural blueberry flavor.  Serve this shaken delight with ice, and you’ll find that this new take on a classic beverage is a flavorful, yet delicate refreshment.  Sit back with a tall cool one and catch up with a cousin before the annual family reunion. 

I don’t know, seems strange to me. This must be a very special-occasion drink. —R.T.

The dating story that won’t die

In the past couple years, no Charlotte mag story has generated more feedback than a piece that ran anonymously (as told to Lori K. Tate) in the March ‘07 issue. Tagged on the cover with “Where Are All the Men?”, the article was titled “Age-old Dilemma.” The subtitle: “Dating is always difficult, but this thirty-seven-year-old Charlottean says it’s become damn near impossible. The former investment banker (we promised not to disclose her name, but she’s hot–trust us), who had a close call with The Bachelor and was a finalist with a $50,000 matchmaker, share what it’s really like out there. You can read it here.

The letters flowed in. Interestingly, almost all the letters were from men. In fact, they’re still coming. Over the weekend, we got this one:

I recently ran across your March issue in one of my client’s offices. After reading the article by the 37-year-old single woman, I felt that I needed to reply with a single guy’s point of view.

The first thing that I would like to make clear is that the frustration with the single scene here in Charlotte is not only on the female side of the fence. I’ve been in Charlotte for 4 years now and have found that the single scene can be categorized into three groups. First, the 21-26 year olds that love to go out and party every weekend and aren’t really looking for more than that. The 27-30 something year olds that as your writer put it, “end up doing things together all weekend long because we don’t get asked out,” and then there’s the 30 plus/divorced with kids/I can’t believe I’m back out here group.

Group one is who you will find out at Cans, the attic, Ri-Ra’s Buckhead, etc every weekend doing the same thing. These are mostly people that are partying like they were still in college (and some are) and typically aren’t interested in “dating.” They just want to have a good time.

Then comes group two. This is the group that is looking for someone to date, but doesn’t want to hit all the places I just mentioned in group one, yet don’t know where to go instead. Your girl made a comment about Cans where “there are always droves of men together but no one on a date. No one is walking hand in hand.” Is it that men don’t want to date anymore? Is dating extinct? No and No. She nailed it when she asked “do we just not have the channels to meet people who are likeminded.” We guys like to go out in groups the same way that women do. A guy by himself is never looked upon as a good thing—most of the time it’s just creepy. But the women are also out with their friends and approaching a pack of women, especially in a place like Cans, is a suicide mission. There is so much going on, the music is so loud, that even if you had something to say, your intended recipient would have a hard time hearing it. I actually agree with just about everything that she said in the article, but it’s just as bad on the men’s side. Sure there are guys that are just trying to hook up for the evening, but there are just as many that are looking to find someone that they want to date. We don’t know where to look either. We go to Cans because that’s apparently where everyone else goes. We don’t know where you and your friends are having dinner, otherwise, we would go there too.

Group three is thrown into the same mix with everyone else, but tend to spend more time in the suburbs where other divorcees tend to hang. I fall into the same category as your author, so that’s where my experience comes from.

The bottom line is that dating takes a lot of effort and most of the time you go home disappointed. But as your writer said, “you just have to have a positive attitude” because if you don’t, everyone can see it. Desperation is like a little black cloud that follows you around everywhere you go, and everyone can see it but you. I believe that your best bet of meeting someone likeminded is through friends. Unfortunately, our friend network is typically limited, so we just keep going to all the same places over and over hoping that this time will be different. Personally, I’d just like to know where she and her two gorgeous single friends go out to dinner.

So what’s up guys? Is that what it’s really like? And women, where can this guy and others like him go to meet you?

We expect Jarrett to be in collisions on the field, not off

I spent a lot of time Wednesday making calls and sending emails to set up an interview and photo shoot with Dwayne Jarrett, the Carolina Panthers rookie wide receiver. Wait, let me back up a bit. We were planning coverage of the Panthers preseason for our August issue when our writer, Addie, informed me she couldn’t get Jarrett through the Panthers PR. Around that same time, Tiffany, a friend of mine who does PR and event planning, happened to mention that she had a connection to Jarrett. So Wednesday we were able to set up everything. Addie interviewed Jarrett Wednesday evening and we scheduled the photo shoot for Friday (today).

But what happened next wasn’t scheduled. Our six-foot four-inch All-American receiver from Southern California ends up getting in a car accident Wednesday night. Most of the news outlets Thursday reported that Jarrett’s car was “rear-ended” and he “walked away from the accident.” Yes, he walked away from the accident, no serious injuries. But it wasn’t just a fender bender.

When I met Jarrett and his entourage (You know that’s how star athletes roll. They were all very nice, though. Even his mom came along.) today at the photo shoot, I found out that the BMW 645 coupe he was driving was totaled. He says a car hit him and pushed him into another car and his car flipped over. And the kid wasn’t even hurt (he’s only twenty, by the way).

I said to Jarrett: “Well, aside from that, welcome to Charlotte.” Now the guy has to go and get himself another fancy new whip, which is required for all professional athletes.

Look for Jarrett in our August issue.

Sign of the apocalypse

(apologies to Sports Illustrated for the headline)

Carrie, our art director, tells me that the home decor store Garden Ridge already has its Christmas stuff out. In other news, summer officially began 50 minutes ago. —R.T.

Finally, a restaurant to fill the Palomino space

Remember a lifetime ago when Palomino Eurobistro (it later dropped the “eurobistro” and replaced it with a variety of things, each stranger than the last) was the hottest restaurant in town? Located in the O’Dell building on the north end of downtown, the beautiful crowd flocked there for months on end. Then it lost its way, struggled for a while, and closed.

After going vacant for months, renovation has begun in order to accommodate GW Fins, a high-end seafood restaurant out of New Orleans. This will be the second location. The PR rep tells me they’re shooting for a mid September opening. The New Orleans location has received a lot of press attention since opening about six years ago, including writeups in Esquire, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. Check out the web site for that and the menu, which changes daily (the PR rep also tells me that Executive Chef (and co-owner–gotta love that) Tenney Flynn plans to use Carolina seafood). —R.T.

ABC’s Nightline loves it some CLT real estate!

The internet edition of Nightline has a 8.5 minute piece on how Charlotte’s real estate market continues to boom in the face of the nationwide slump. Local realtor Carl Fochler (and former Charlotte mag softball team star shortstop!) gets a lot of airtime, and he gives reporter Kate Snow a tour of a $3.2 million house he recently sold to a NY investor who plans to–get this–flip it (good luck with that, buddy). Carl describes the huge shower in the enormous bathroom as a “carwash for the body.”

Snow also interviews Hugh McColl, who shows off the downtown greenmarket. Interesting moment near the end: Snow points out that the side effect of this booming market is “strip mall after strip mall, gated community after gated community.” She asks Fochler if anyone seems worried about that. He, of, course, replies that he doesn’t think so. Snow points out that of course he isn’t, because he’s making some serious jack from it (he says early in the interview that he’s moving over $3 million of land a month, and getting commission on all of it. At a typical 3% commission—and it may be less or more for the types of deals he’s doing, I don’t know—that’s $90K+ a month). But she lets the point linger as the camera pans over yet another gated community. —R.T.

Let me know if you spot RZA

That’s what jumped out at me the most. What? You ask. I just looked up Gospel Hill on IMDB.com and saw that RZA (pronounced rii-zah), the legendary producer and member of Wu Tang Clan, is part of the cast. Scenes for Gospel Hill, the story of a small Southern town haunted by two ghosts, one white and one black, whose families are pitted against each other because of a civil rights struggle, are currently being filmed in Rock Hill, SC. And there’s more local relevance. A staged reading of the Gospel Hill script was held at a workshop by The Light Factory in November 2005. Positive feadback is said to have come out of the workshop that the screenplay’s writer was then able to use as he prepared it for film.

Filming kicked off this month and it’s an impressive cast, including Julia Stiles, Angela Bassett, and Danny Glover. And RZA!

What’s your favorite Wu-Tang song? Mine is “Triumph”. I think the song is like six or seven minutes long, but that’s what happens when a rap group has nine members, hence the “Clan” in the name.

Code Red ozone, and here comes light rail

It’s hot today. Really hot. In fact, it’s been declared a Code Red ozone day, which is the worst level. Children, elderly people, and asthmatics are encouraged to stay inside.

In related news, CATS was testing light rail trains outside our South End office today. Regardless of your politics, it was cool to watch them glide by. —R.T.