So tomorrow, MoveOn.org is sponsoring "Inside Job" viewings in various locations, one of which is Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, 1801 Hillsborough Street. The movie starts at 4:30 p.m. MoveOn is calling this a movie party. I don't think anybody's going to be in a festive mood when it's over, but spring is coming and there may be talk of Occupying ... oh, I don't know, how about Occupying the Democratic National Convention?

You can check out the "Inside Job" trailer at the Sony Classics website.

* I did see Ferguson's first doc, "No End in Sight" (2007), which skewered the American war-industry complex and its nutty invasion of Iraq. "NEIS" was excellent. The reviews for "Inside Job" are even better.

RT @raleighplanning: Raleigh News Update Red Hat Selects Raleigh as its Global Headquarters ow.ly/1gztgj
— Jason Hibbets (@jhibbets) January 6, 2012

p.s. Yes, that's right, it is now possible to embed tweets on a blog.

No chance this technology will be overused, do you think?

• By Florio Photography for Activate Good
• Couture for a Cause 2010

Couture for a Cause is back for its 3rd annual edition tomorrow night — Friday — at Marbles Kids Museum. CC2011 is a party and fashion show put on by Activate Good (formerly ME-3), Raleigh's group of unabashed do-gooders. Amber Smith, their founding leader, won an Indy Citizen Award last year. So put this in the shameless plug category if you will: Tickets are $20 if you buy them by midnight tonight, $25 at the door. Good times for a cause.

A cause? The idea is that cool Raleigh-area fashion designers are paired with worthy local nonprofits — then each designer tries for a look that will speak their partners' purpose. For example, last year—per Amber—the designer paired with The Green Chair Project "accessorized" with hats made from lampshades. (Green Chair, you see, is a nonprofit that recycles donated furniture to families in need.)

This year, 18 of our top designers are pitching in for 17 nonprofits (International Focus gets two, apparently). Look here for the list.

The fashion show is slated for 8-10:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:30. A limited-seating dinner starts at 6:30. For all the details, and to buy tickets online, go to the Couture for a Cause website.

The reason why is that Honolulu came in 3rd on BusinessWeek.com's list of Best Cities in the U.S.

Whereas Raleigh came in — exactly! — No. 1, baby.

SOOO —

Curious Hawaiians are sure to be scoping out Raleigh soon to see what we're got (Deep South? Slim's?) that they don't. Get your list ready.

• from the LUSH website

This sounds like fun: Show up at Crabtree Valley Mall Saturday morning and, at 11:38, proceed to kiss. Best to bring a partner. (I don't know that eligible kiss-ee's will be hanging around. Maybe.) Your partner's gender is, of course, up to you. Why wouldn't it be?

Has it really been eight months since we last visited the non-issue issue of gay couples smootching at a mall? Last October, it was at Cameron Village and we were pleased to learn that CV is cool with it. This time, the kiss-in is at Crabtree Valley Mall, it's planned in advance, it's a definite publicity stunt, but then, try to draw that line ... publicity stunts are in the eye of the beholder ... anyway, y'all are invited to kiss up in front of the LUSH cosmetics store at 11:38 a.m.

Why 11:38? LUSH is glad you asked. It's because, according to their count, 1,138 civil rights that attach to marriage in this country are denied to gay folks via the so-called Defense of Marriage (DOMA) acts (federal and state).

Thus, LUSH is ramping up a a Freedom to Marry campaign to combat the forces of DOMA, and not a bit too soon. The DOMA forces in North Carolina, not content with a discriminatory law (and no doubt worried that a state court will someday rule that a discriminatory law is, well, discriminatory), are fixing to write DOMA into the state constitution by referendum in November, 2012. That is, if the voters go along with it.

But if enough people start kissing and telling ...

As at CV, I'd say decorum should prevail tomorrow. So, in other words, none of this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/arts/design/01tino.html

--->

Although ... never mind.

Per LUSH, you're supposed to do this:

NATIONWIDE KISS AND TELL TO WIN MARRIAGE
FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES

Saturday, June 18th

WHO: LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics

WHAT: Gay and straight couples in Raleigh will pucker up for a purpose
on June 18th as part of a nationwide ŒKiss and Tell¹ protest at LUSH
Cosmetics. LUSH is inviting the public and their pouts down to their
stores to kiss in support of marriage for same-sex couples and sign
postcards telling the federal government to end the ongoing
discrimination against tens of thousands of couples and families across
America.

The nationwide ŒKiss and Tell¹ will be taking place at LUSH stores at
exactly 11:38 a.m. to signify the number of protections, responsibilities
and rights that are currently denied to same-sex couples and their
families under the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

WHERE: Outside LUSH Cosmetics, Crabtree Valley Mall

WHEN: Saturday, June 18th 11:38 a.m. sharp

WHY: Exclusion from the freedom to marry unfairly punishes committed
same-sex couples and their families by depriving them of critical
support, security, and obligations in virtually every area of life,
including death and taxes. Under DOMA, same-sex couples are excluded from
1,138 rights tied to marriage because the federal government does not
recognize their marriages. The denial of marriage is one of the harshest
inequalities inflicted on lesbian and gay Americans and their families,
and it¹s a discrimination enacted by our own government.

[Update, May 16: I wasn't able to get there on Saturday before the torrential rains came and washed the last couple of hours out. Heard great things from people who did get there. Anyway, someone on Facebook (?) asked for a followup — how'd everything go? This note, sent to all the vendors/sponsors/friends by one of the organizers, contains the answer to that question —

Thank you all for such an amazing, historic festival! We were told over a year ago that this wasn't possible - to have a LGBT festival that focuses on celebrating the many diverse families within our community. With a dedicated KidsZone, we set out from the first day of planning to welcome all families and show a different side of our LGBT community than is typically celebrated at pride festivals. We wanted to bring forth a festival that celebrated both our immediate family of partners, parents, children, and siblings, as well as our extended family of friends and allies.

Many believed we would be lucky to see 1,000 attendees in this first year festival; not only did we surpass that, we flew past that within the first hour of the festival!!! With your tremendous support, even with having to end the festival 2 hours earlier than planned due to rain, we had over 6,000 attendees! There were so many children present that we ran out of community art supplies after only a few hours into the festival! With Raleigh recently ranking as having the third-highest percentage of same-sex couples with children among metropolitan areas across the US, we are confident this festival will grow larger every year.

This could not have happened without your support. I would like to share a very small subset of feedback in relation to the festival:

(Day of the festival): ""My husband and I will be bringing our soon to be 7 year old daughter. She is looking forward to seeing fabulous drag queens in person! We are looking forward to supporting ALL family types!!"

After the festival:

"My family and I visited Raleigh today for the OutRaleigh Day. It was a very nice festival. Everyone was pleasant and respectful (with the exception of the protesters). Thanks for having an outing that our daughter could feel totally accepted at...it was worth the drive from Winston-Salem."

“From all of us at Crape Myrtle Festival, Congratulations on such a well done and successful weekend. We all had such a great time. We are so proud of you and Raleigh. Can hardly wait for next year!”

“Amazing to see everyone who came out for this weekend's OutRaleigh! The first-ever festival ended up with over 6,000 attendees—many of whom signed on with Equality NC's campaign to fight the proposed anti-LGBT constitutional amendment.”

“THANK YOU so much for letting us be a part of a WONDERFUL day and having so much fun doing it!! I so look forward to the second one next year!! EVERYONE was AWESOME!!!”

“Had an awesome time today! Lets make sure this continues every year!”

“Very well organized event. Great entertainment. Had a great time. Thanks for finally bringing it to Raleigh!”

“Great sponsors, great booths, great performers, great food.....can't wait for the next festival!”

We hope that you all continue to support this wonderful festival and the LGBT Center of Raleigh into the coming years. We are very thankful for your support this past year and look forward to building upon this relationship into future years. Many pictures of the festival are available on our facebook page: www.facebook.com/OutRaleigh - we will post on our website within the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Mitch Null, on behalf of the OutRaleigh Committee
Chair, OutRaleigh
OutRaleigh@lgbtcenterofraleigh.com
[bcc: all sponsors, performers, and vendors - please feel free to forward to others]

The original post follows --

Homophobia, begone! Mayor Charles Meeker, WRAL's Pam Saulsby and other dignitaries will be in City Plaza Saturday for the first, hopefully annual OutRaleigh festival. The days of canceling "La Cage Aux Folles" ("The Birdcage") because it might give Raleigh the vapors are s-o-o-o last centuy. Out with the old, and Out as the new, inclusive Raleigh.

(Did not know the Indy was a sponsor until I clicked on the OutRaleigh website just now. Good for us. Did have the chance, on First Friday, to drop in at the new LGBT Center of Raleigh office on Hillsborough Street — a big step up from the vestibule they formerly occupied on Cabarrus. The new place is around the corner from the Flying Saucer on the south side of Hillsborough. Again, good.)

Copying the schedule of events after the jump —

• photo by D.L. Anderson
• VAE moving to CAM's neighborhood

No sooner did the new Contemporary Art Museum come to life in the Warehouse District than Flanders Gallery was discovered right next door — great space, nice works — and today the Visual Art Exchange announced that it will move in September from City Market to a new home right down the street from the CAM.

The Visual Art Exchange is, it says, Raleigh's oldest nonprofit group that's focused on the visual arts. It's also of late the management arm of Sparkcon, of which hopefully you've heard?

Put the VAE with the CAM and Designbox and Flanders, and apparently there are other galleries in the vicinity that I don't know (The Curatory — ah, it's in Raleigh Denim — and The Galleries and Studios at 311), and you have the makings of a pretty fabulous arts destination. Just add transit.

And may I say here, too, that one of my favorite places to eat in Raleigh, Humble Pie, is around the corner from the CAM? Best outdoor dining in Raleigh imho. Or maybe tied with P.R. — which is not in the Warehouse District.

Anyway, we had a great time First Friday at Flanders and then at CAM and then, as I just explained to Sarah Powers of VAE, at Flex, where my rendition of the theme from "Gilligan's Island" was very well-received. (They have this great mix videotape of show tunes and such ....)

Sarah sends this:

Visual Art Exchange (VAE) is pleased to announce that it will move a new gallery space in the Warehouse District in September 2011. The space is located at 309 W. Martin Street, just down the street from the new Contemporary Art Museum in a neighborhood that is emerging as Raleigh’s new art district. There, VAE will join The Galleries and Studios at 311, Flanders Gallery, Designbox and The Curatory.

In the last five years, VAE has grown to meet the demands of the artist community in Raleigh. Through innovative marketing and programming, expanded exhibition opportunities and more aggressive outreach into the community, VAE has seen a significant increase in revenue and participation in its programs. VAE’s budget has grown by 63% since the 2005-06 fiscal year. This increase has allowed VAE to create new initiatives as well as grow and improve its programs and exhibitions. The new space is 4,080 sq/ft, which is more than 3 times the space and will accommodate the growth of the organization.

VAE executive director Sarah Powers says, “The move will double the size of our Exchange Gallery and main gallery and allow VAE to add a new exhibition space called ’The Cube’ The Cube will allow for a year-round schedule of exhibitions and an expanded opportunity for artists who work in alternative mediums. Being able to accommodate the growing number of artists in our community is an important reason for this move.”

Visual Art Exchange // SPARKcon

Visual Art Exchange (VAE) is the longest running non-profit visual arts organization in Raleigh. Founded in 1980 as Wake Visual Arts Association, VAE’s mission is to support all artists, particularly emerging, and connecting the community to the arts. Today, VAE is a creativity incubator that provides opportunities, exhibitions and entrepreneurial training for artists. VAE is also the organizing force behind SPARKcon, an interdisciplinary art and design festival and showcase held each fall in Downtown Raleigh.

• photo by Bob Geary
• City Cemetery, East Hargett Street

You know you want to write a best-seller. And with all your worldly experience, how hard can it be?

So here's the deal. You give a few $$$ to the cause, and on May 21 you receive the critical secrets — direct from their best-selling author — of The Emperor's Tomb, The Romanov Prophesy, The Charlemagne Pursuit and many others.

First, the cause.

City Cemetery in Raleigh dates from 1798, one of those hidden jewels in plain sight that you perhaps have never noticed even though it's located literally a short trot from Fayetteville Street. It's on the northeast corner of East Street and E. Hargett Street, which is one of the places the tornados struck 19 days ago — and City Cemetery was hammered.

Huge trees are down, others are split, some headstones have been pushed off their graves or were hit by falling limbs ... it's hard to see exactly what the damage is because the city's got the gates padlocked and rightly so. But it's extensive. (Pictures on Facebook here.)

Much the same is true at nearby Mt. Hope Cemetery, another Raleigh landmark.

It turns out that there is a group called Raleigh City Cemeteries Preservation Inc. It got started in 2006, Board Chair Jane Thurman says, as a spinoff from the Raleigh Historic Districts Commission. The rationale was simple: The old cemeteries needed some TLC, which the commission recognized but it wasn't their job. So Thurman, whose commission term was ending, shouldered the task and things were going quite well ... until the tornados hit.

Now the RCCP needs some help.

Enter Steve Berry. Berry writes thrillers that are ripped from the pages of history, and he has 11 million books in print — in 50 countries — to show that he's pretty good at it. He also has a foundation called History Matters whose purpose is historic restoration and preservation. Says Berry:

History comes alive when someone is able to not only read about the past, but also able to visit the places, see the artifacts, appreciate the images, read the actual words. For most people, history starts with learning about their family or their community. Imagine trying to discover your genealogy without anything tangible to search. Preservation of our heritage is a vital link to cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies — all of the things that quite literally make us who we are. History plays a vital role in our everyday lives. We learn from our past in order to achieve greater influence over our future. History serves as a model of who to be and who not to be — of what to champion and what to avoid. Every day, decision-making around the world is based on what came before us.

Why?

Because history matters.

So Berry's coming to Raleigh in a couple of weeks to pitch his 11th book, The Jefferson Key, at Quail Ridge Books & Music — that's on Friday, May 20 at 7:30 p.m.

On Saturday, May 21, Berry is staying in town to conduct a daylong workshop for all you would-be best-seller writers. It's called "Lessons from a Bestseller," and it promises to teach the four big C's of story structure, effective dialogue, point of view and the all-important (I'm taking this from the brochure) 10 Rules of Writing. Plus pointers about the business of writing.

No, I don't know what the four C's are either, nor can I name the 10 Rules. I guess that's the point.

Or maybe the point is that Berry persisted, by his count, through 85 rejections over 12 years on five different manuscripts before breaking into print.

Berry's workshop will be held at Peace College in the Kenan Recital Hall, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It's $115, including lunch, or $30 for lunch only (featuring Berry's tales of rejection and perseverance). All proceeds go to RCCP's restorations efforts.

To sit at Berry's table at lunch (7 seats only), add $35 to either sum.

Here's the brochure:

RaleighBerrylores.pdf

(If you have trouble with the pdf, there's a link to workshop info from the QRB link above as well as from the RCCP website — go to workshops.)

So who's buried in City Cemetery? Among others, William Polk, cousin of U.S. President James Polk and kin to L.L. Polk, founder of the Progressive Farmer magazine (which became Southern Living) and one of the great populists in American history.

This is from RCCP's map of the cemetery:

William Polk (1758-1834). Born in Mecklenburg County, Polk attended the Mecklenburg Convention proceedings on May 20, 1775. At the age of 18, he was a major in a North Carolina regiment of the Continental Line, serving under General George Washington at Brandywine, Germantown and Valley Forge. Ordered South, Polk was with Gates at the Battle of Camden and with Green at Guilford Courthouse. At the hard-fought battle of Eutaw Springs, his horse was killed under him, and he was severely wounded.

A man of many facets, Polk was a legislator, president of the State Bank, trustee of the University of North Carolina, a mason (Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of N.C.) and a large landowner. He was friend of President Andrew Jackson, cousin of President James K. Polk and father of General Leonidas Polk, the Bishop-General. At his death, he was the last surviving field officer of the North Carolina Continental Line.

• Jimmy Creech at Quail Ridge Books. That's Peter Rumsey at right, who's giving "Adam's Gift" to each of his four grandchildren.

"Hero" is an overused word in our vocabulary today. When I think of heroes, I think of men and women who've risked everything for a cause they believed in, not for pay, not because they were conscripted, and not because it was popular, but because — despite the public ridicule and the certainty that what they were doing would cost them dearly — they followed their conscience.

Or in the case of Jimmy Creech, followed their understanding of what Christianity was all about.

Creech has written a memoir, "Adam's Gift," about the tumultuous years in his life when, as a Methodist pastor, he was called — in the words of his subtitle — "to defy the Church's persecution of lesbians and gays."

It begins in 1984, when Creech was the pastor of a small church in Warsaw, N.C. and was blissfully unaware of the plight of gays in society. It ends in 1998, when Creech, having followed his conscience, has been forced out of leadership in Raleigh's Fairmont United Methodist Church, recruited to lead the biggest Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska and then actually de-frocked as a Methodist minister by the UMC governing body — all because he fought the Church over its discriminatory policies towards gays.

At the center of the book is a trial — not a civil trial, but a religious one in which Creech is charged with the "crime" of having married gay couples in Nebraska. Church "law" is against him. Creech's reading of the Bible and Methodist traditions of social justice compel him to go against that law and do what he believes God would want him to do.

The drama is every bit as real as if Creech had been put on trial for his life, for indeed, being a Methodist pastor was his life — and he risked it, and lost it, having eschewed all the readily available excuses that he might've offered for side-stepping the issue.

If you don't know Creech's story, or even if you do — and many in Raleigh will remember some of it — the book is a page-turner from the day Creech arrives in Nebraska to the guilty verdict that sends him back to North Carolina.

The power of the book, though, derives from its very first pages. Creech, in 1984, isn't a young activist looking for a place in the gay rights movement. Until "Adam," a congregant, comes out to him in the spring of that year, he didn't know, as he puts it, any "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" of the kind the General Conference of the UMC has just voted to bar from ordination.

But if Creech is no gay rights activist, he is dedicated to civil rights, and having grown up in eastern North Carolina, he's all too familiar with the way religious doctrine can be misused to keep people down — black people.

When Adam comes to him, he pours out his soul about the misery he's felt in his own church and the self-loathing that the church encouraged him to feel before, finally, he decided to leave it.

Creech is distraught. "As a pastor," he writes, "my mission was to help people overcome whatever damaged them spiritually; whatever diminished their capacity to trust God's love, to love others, and to love themselves. I'd never imagined sexuality to be an issue of justice, much less a spiritual one. In fact, I knew no clergy who did see it that way. Although I didn't realize it immediately, Adam's visit that Wednesday set the rest of my life and ministry on a new course. Adam launched me on a journey with no clear destination and with no guide or maps to follow, other than an intuitive sense of what was right, just, and compassionate."

It would easy to say that Creech was confronted with a choice that day of taking refuge in church doctrine or seeking his own spiritual path. But what the book makes clear is that Creech never thought to take refuge. He thought to do what was right. Soon, having come to Fairmont in Raleigh, he was one of a trio of pastors leading the Raleigh Religious Network for Gay and Lesbian Equality (RRNGLE — "Ringle"), stepping out at the head of the '88 Gay Pride parade and conducting a marriage ceremony with a gay couple. In 1990, he talked to the Indy's Melinda Ruley for a cover story that made him a national figure. It led to his ouster from Fairmont and a stint with the N.C. Council of Churches. Then Nebraska.

Today, Creech lives in Boylan Heights. He speaks all over the country on gay rights issues and bears, no scars, but a smile.

As a friend told him on Sunday, "I've been a Methodist all my life, and today I'm ashamed of that. But one day, they'll call you blessed."

On the way out, I saw Peter Rumsey carrying four copies of "Adam's Gift" to the table where Creech was signing. Four? "I'm giving one to each of my grandchildren," he said.

Good idea. Great book.