Reality can be scarier than anything found in a George Romero movie. Just look at these folks: Charlotteans who, hardly the most frightful looking, can still strike fear into the hearts of their neighbors, voters and patrons. Whether sucker-punching co-workers, making-up fake e-mail addresses to spread acrimony, or dropping charges against habitual criminals, these people are quite possibly the scariest folks in Charlotte. And that's saying something. Lord knows, there's a ready supply of runner ups.
1. Kevin Starr
Back in 2007, one CL writer described Starr as Charlotte's answer to Andy Warhol. We're not exactly sure how that was meant -- sure, Starr, like Warhol, has his hand in many pots -- but the comparison was prescient by any standard. Starr is a polarizing figure, given to grandiosity and self-aggrandizement. But at least Warhol never cyberstalked anybody (that we know of).
Starr, né Herschel Crumbley, is an artist, hairstylist and, ahem, once-prolific Internet user who has a studio in the Plaza Central area behind Family Dollar. When nearby businesses decided to stage the Plaza Central Art Krawl, Starr got mad. Too commercial, not about art, etc., were a few of the reasons he cited for his opposition. Krawl organizers, however, contended he just wanted a bigger piece of the pie -- and a bigger place in the spotlight. Starr mounted a campaign -- online and off -- to discredit the event. Many Plaza Central businesses reported receiving hateful e-mails from Starr. He reportedly even sent pictures of human feces to elected officials.
Last December, CL published a story about the contention between Starr and Krawl organizers. A brief mention of Starr's plans to distribute, on the night of a Krawl, T-shirts emblazoned with the term "Art Nazi" appalled some local Jewish leaders, and Starr denied making the comment. Krawl organizer Tim Griffin said Starr drove by his house several times -- pointing his fingers in the shape of a gun and, in mid-June, throwing an egg from his car and striking Griffin in the eye. The egg attack earned him his first arrest; the cyberstalking and communicating threats arrests came within weeks.
In the end, Starr was accused of sending hundreds of harassing and damaging e-mails to business owners and other people involved in the Krawl, often assuming others' identities in order to spread falsehoods. After pleading guilty to cyberstalking, he was sentenced to probation with a few unconventional conditions, according to The Charlotte Observer: he was ordered to write "I will not interfere with the Plaza Central Art Krawl" 1,000 times; forbidden from touching a computer; and must agree to warrantless searches of his home for electronics.
The next Plaza Central Art Krawl (of which CL is now a sponsor) is Dec. 6.
2. Striped T-shirt guy
You've seen him before. Hell, this is Charlotte: Chances are you are him. You work hard; you play hard. And you use that expression without a hint of irony. If you have a favorite book, it's Rich Dad, Poor Dad. In line at the club, dressed up in your Abercrombie striped shirt, you're out with the boys and they're all dressed the exact same way. Were it not for the color of the stripes and the different brands of hair gel you all use, a girl could scarcely tell you apart. That's OK; the girls you're after are hard to tell apart themselves. I couldn't describe your ilk any better than this essay by Mike Polk, now compiled in Look at My Striped Shirt! Confessions of the People You Love to Hate:
"Look at my button down striped shirt! Fucking look at it! This shirt means one thing! I'm coming home with some pussy tonight! That's right! It's been a long week at the office and it's time to blow off a little steam! I am a Junior Vice President! I have business cards that say 'Junior Vice President' on them! They're glossy and magnificent! Here! Have one! Take it!"
There's probably a really nice guy inside you who calls his mom, separates his recyclables and maybe even cries a little at that commercial Sarah McLaughlin does for the ASPCA. But it's hard to penetrate the thick veneer of shallowness to see it.
3. Steve Smith
At least he's not Michael Vick. Or Rae Carruth. But Steve Smith is one scary dude, particularly if you're his teammate. The three-time Pro Bowl selection's temper tantrums have gotten him at least twice as much ink as he deserved, and his motivations have been scrutinized more than Wachovia's plummeting stock prices. At any rate, if his gig with the Panthers dries up, he may have a future in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. At least, his peers there will be ready -- and encouraged -- to take him on.
4. Torch from Purgatory
His tagline on MySpace says it all: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets." Torch, founder of SingleCell Productions and owner of Purgatory, Charlotte's famed S&M performance troupe, may seem an imposing figure, but in fact, he's a bit of a softie. Check out his goodbye notice announcing an end to Purgatory, observing that his "heart" for the show is gone, "Thank you all for taking the ride with me. It's been the most fulfilling yet heartbreaking time of my life." Alas, his goodbye is not all Nicholas Sparks schmaltz, "No tears please, this is not a funeral but a Viking pyre. When I go out I'm ending like I began, with blood, pain and flames."
5. Pat McCrory
The gubernatorial candidate is mutating from the putatively centrist Republican to Bush Lite right before our eyes.
In his seven terms as mayor, McCrory has done an admirable job positioning himself as a centrist in a majority-Democrat city, all while (in recent years, at least) setting his sights on higher offices that will require him to bed down with every corporate fat cat from here to Crawford, Texas.
The reach-across-the-aisle technique that's been a political necessity in Charlotte may be a distant memory when McCrory hits Raleigh.
McCrory recently slammed Perdue for deceptive ads that implied he wanted the state to be one big heap of steaming dung and trash. But given three bills to cite to The News & Observer of Raleigh as examples of legislation he would have vetoed, he picked the Solid Waste Management Act of 2007.
The widely supported act kept mega landfills out of the state -- in effect, kept North Carolina from turning into, as some bloggers wrote, Mount Trashmore. It just so happened that a big campaign donor was -- you guessed it -- a landfill industry bigwig. McCrory doesn't even mind campaigning with McCain and Bush -- and he even gushes over Sarah Palin, palling around at pizza parlors with her ("I'm having pizza with the future vice president," he said. "Is that not an experience or what?") and telling Brotha Fred that she's "even hotter in person," and looking quite unstatesmanlike while he's doing it.
The surprising thing? So far, McCrory's mutation seems to be working. He's locked in a tight race with Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue for the governor's office -- this in a year when a Democrat may even win N.C.'s 15 electoral votes. Sheesh.
6. Bouncers in Charlotte
The huge bouncer at Amos' (if you've spent time there, you know who I'm talking about) is one imposing dude. It pays to be on his good side. But a fearsome physique isn't what makes a bouncer scary. The unofficial Charlotte bouncer uniform -- bald head, black shirt -- can be misleading. Many who wear it are unassuming guys, just checking IDs and rousting belligerent drunks for a paycheck. They sure as hell won't be mistaken for Roadhouse's Dalton, but they get the job done. Then there's the smaller subset of bouncers: the over-steroided buffoons who see their jobs as a grand mission to act out their UFC fantasies.
7. Jeff Katz
As rewarding as the life of a radio host can be -- just ask Rush Limbaugh about that -- one thing it's not is secure. You've got to keep listeners entertained without crossing the line enough to get canned after some outcry. And Katz, WBT's afternoon host, has seen that firsthand.
Last year, some local Muslims urged a boycott of Katz's show, accusing him of hateful comments against their religion and inciting fear, hatred and ignorance. That controversy may not have gained traction, but other imbroglios have.
In 1996, a Sacramento station fired Katz for urging listeners to ram their cars into illegal immigrants who try to cross into the United States from Mexico. Katz had said that drivers should be awarded "sombrero bumper stickers" that could be redeemed for a meal at Taco Bell, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Two years after arriving in Charlotte, Katz seems content to bellow about Barack Hussein Obama and the cover-up over how the candidate paid for his student loans.
8. Mac Everett
When the board members at the United Way of Central Carolinas were feeling the heat over Gloria Pace King's queenly compensation package, leaders called on former Wachovia executive Malcolm "Mac" Everett, who has a lengthy resume of community service, to step in and clean things up.
The board immediately promised a slate of measures aimed at mending fences with United Way donors, including appointing a review panel headed by attorney Robert Sink to put together a public report on the process that led to the compensation controversy and recommend a more transparent process. Only one problem: The agency offered -- this apparently was not a number arrived at after much arm twisting -- to pay the presumably comfortable retired executive $20,000 a month at the same time it agreed to pay King's $290,000 annual salary for the next two-and-a-third years.
A tone-deaf move or adequate compensation? Donors will decide. Everett's really not such a scary figure. What's scary is his, and the United Way top brass,' seemingly continued cluelessness.
9. Peter Gilchrist
Perhaps it's not fair to lump Mecklenburg County District Attorney Peter Gilchrist in as one of Charlotte's scariest folks. Surely, it's to be expected that he cannot comment on a pending case -- a good thing for his self-interest, certainly, considering there's little he could say in defense of why a man with more than 30 arrests in 10 years was on the streets to rape a 12-year-old girl last month. It's an interesting lapse of the criminal justice system: People who've lived in Charlotte for decades might remember Gilchrist as the local official who prosecuted -- some would say persecuted -- adult bookstores so assiduously. Sure, that was a different time and place, but looking back over the news clips one might find it odd that Charlotte's lead prosecutor was able to find such time to police Debbie Does Dallas in 1998, but unable to keep a child rapist off the streets in 2008.
10. Sally Jordan Hill
If producers for the Oxygen network's Snapped haven't got this story on their radar, they're missing out. Sally Jordan Hill was working as a nurse anesthetist in 2001 when Sandra Baker Joyner came in for a facelift. It just happened that Joyner had stolen Hill's boyfriend back in high school ... and if Joyner didn't remember that, Hill did. Joyner died April 15, 2001, five days after she stopped breathing following surgery. Hill is now charged with first-degree murder.
As reported by The Charlotte Observer, plastic surgeon Peter Tucker said he told Mecklenburg County authorities that he suspected his former employee intended to harm Joyner, and in October 2003, he told the N.C. Medical Board investigators, "I think there is an element of malicious behavior here." In his deposition, Tucker said Hill, who had worked with him for nine years, wasn't herself on April 10, 2001, when Joyner suffered respiratory distress in the recovery room at his office.
"The Sally Hill that I knew was not there when I walked in the room," Tucker said. "I don't know if she had a mental lapse. I don't know if she had snapped."
Ta-da! It's made for TV.
Last but not least
The choices for top 10 were endless. We couldn't let these folks go without an honorable mention.
• Wachovia CEO Bob Steel: You may not have a job tomorrow, but rest assured this Wachovia CEO won't be behind you in the line at the Employment Security Commission office.
• Fourth Ward Neighborhood Association: When Coyote Ugly sought to move into the spot left vacant by Daddy's, this Uptown group was there with pitchforks and torches.
• Out-of-work bankers: As individuals, they may not be scary. But look in their eyes and you can see Charlotte's economy slipping -- and with it your job.
• George Dunlap: The disputed Mecklenburg County commissioner has a bit of a reputation for being a jerk towards his fellow elected officials, among others. But what's really scary this year about Dunlap is how he seems positively reasonable in the current Mecklenburg County Commission mess. Perhaps that says more about the commission -- and it's four Republican members.
• Vilma Leake: The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board member, who's likely to be elected county commissioner Nov. 4, has a strange way of targeting other Democrats.
• Nick Mackey: Needs no explanation.
• Bill James: Really needs no explanation.
