PART 2: Charlotte’s 2021 highlights — and lowlights — via ‘Charlotte Squawks’
LaMelo ... Charlotte traffic aggravation ... Unending development ... Immersive art ... Country-club infighting
Good morning! Today is Tuesday, December 21, 2021. This is a SPECIAL TUESDAY BONUS issue of The Charlotte Ledger.
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PART 2 Year in Review: There was interesting non-Covid news in 2021. Let’s laugh about it.
We’re back this morning with Part 2 of our year-end review in conjunction with Charlotte Squawks, the local “Saturday Night Live”-like annual stage show that pokes fun at politics, pop culture and sports through satire and musical parodies. It’s all in good fun. (Don’t cancel us.)
In yesterday’s installment, we reviewed life in Charlotte under Covid: the empty uptown, the realities of forced family togetherness and the difficulties making the transition away from repeated Zoom calls in sweatpants.
Today, we’re exploring some of the non-virus-related happenings in Charlotte over the last year. Let’s jump right in:
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In the first few months of 2021, the Charlotte Hornets were back in action on the court. Because of Covid restrictions, no fans were allowed in the Spectrum Center. And because of limits on TV distribution, their games were sometimes hard to find from your couch, too. Still, the excitement built — particularly around the NBA’s 2020-21 Rookie of the Year, LaMelo Ball.
Was he the key we’re looking for?
“LaMelo” (Parody of Lionel Richie’s “Hello”)
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Before you knew it, Charlotte traffic returned to close to normal. And that meant a return to navigating the city’s most hair-raising intersections — like the merge to NoDa from I-277, the merge to Independence Boulevard from I-277 and, everyone’s favorite, the merge heading into uptown of 3rd and 4th streets near I-277.
What if someone took that experience and made it into a movie trailer? Oh wait, they did:
“Fast & Furious 10: The Charlotte Merge”
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One of the staples of Charlotte Squawks every year is “Bad Day” — the musical examination of local and national targets who might have benefited from hiring a crisis PR firm because they were in the news for something not-too-positive.
One of the local examples Squawks chose this year will be familiar to Ledger readers: Myers Park Country Club. To us, it seemed like a riveting story: infighting at the prestigious club over plans to expand a men’s-only area into an area that had been home to a coed bar and restaurant. The decision led to a lawsuit from a member. The Ledger stayed on the story, and Squawks picked it up and dialed it up:
“Myers Park Country Club Bad Day” (Parody of Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”)
(Note: If you’re interested in the full medley — which additionally skewers Sen. Ted Cruz and CNN commentator Jeffrey Toobin — you can access that here. But be warned that some of the language is salty. Particularly the Toobin bit, with some highly imaginative/crude idioms. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.)
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Starting in the summer of 2021, it was hard to escape the hype of “Immersive Van Gogh,” the show at Camp North End that brought the Dutch painter’s work to life. It was a hit and lasted for months.
In a parody video of the exhibit, Squawks wondered what might be next in this vein — what other famous painters might be suitable for immersive video treatment?
“The Immersive Georgia O’Keeffe Exhibit”
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Like the sun rising in the morning, one thing you can always count on in Charlotte is the continuing pace of development. From the suburbs to uptown, from South End to Beatties Ford Road, developers kept building. Residential construction never really took time off during the pandemic, and the office and retail markets have started returning to life, too.
The development pressures in a growing city, though, can spell trouble for older parts of Charlotte’s character — such as NoDa, the Plaza-Midwood Dairy Queen and Price’s Chicken Coop:
“Soon the Development Comes” (Parody of the TikTok Sea Shanty “Wellerman”)
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And that’s a wrap! Thanks for having a sense of humor, and we hope you enjoyed this nontraditional look back at Charlotte in 2021.
Many thanks to our friends at Charlotte Squawks for making the videos available. Their show is co-produced by Blumenthal Performing Arts, Mike Collins of WFAE’s Charlotte Talks and local attorney Brian Kahn. There are plenty of others to credit for this creative work, too — some of the videos were written, directed, produced and edited in collaboration by LeAnn Caton, Brian Kahn, John Merrick, Tim Miner, Matt Olin and Jay Thomas. The video of the performance was shot by John Merrick Media.
You can follow Charlotte Squawks on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@CltSquawks). Next year’s show starts in June.
Editor’s note: Because of the holidays, this is the final planned Ledger of this week. We’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Merry Christmas to you and your family. —The editors
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project