Chase Ingrande (He/Him) lives the best of both worlds. By day, he is a 28-year-old software
developer for Bravo. Whenever off work hours, he’s focused and working on his drag queen
persona, Chase Runaway (She/Her).

“Drag is a combination of all the things I love put together,” Ingrande said.

Ingrande grew up in Last Vegas Nevada, and was always a very artistic person. As a kid, his
interests included musical theater and painting, and he studied comedy writing in College.
Chase was introduced into the drag world by his first boyfriend as they performed as a duo
together. Once their relationship ended, Chase had to find his own identity and independence in
drag, and Chase Runaway was born.

“I was like okay, what does this look like to do on my own,” Chase says as he uncrosses his legs
and unclenches his coffee cup on the stoop of a random brownstone in his neighborhood.

Chase says that he is thankful that drag is not his full time job because he can rely on it as a
creative outlet rather than burning out and turning an enjoyable hobby into a job he has to do to
make a living.

“I have always thought of my drag as my art,” he said. “And if you are forced to do art it is barely art
because you are pulling it out of you rather than letting it flow out of you.”

Chase says that he feels the most vulnerable in drag because he is the art.

“I feel very much that I am using myself as the canvas,” he said. “And it is the art and the artist coming
together.”

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New York is the birthplace of many trends, especially in fashion. One of these trends is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year: hip-hop.

Since Cindy and Clive Campbell’s (aka DJ Kool Herc) legendary back-to-school party in the recreation room of their apartment building in the Bronx on August 11, 1973, hip-hop has spread around the world like wildfire. It’s influenced culture and fashion like hardly any other musical genre. Probably the most visible manifestation of hip-hop in society is its influence on luxury labels and everyday street styles, famous fashionistas, and small town teenagers alike. Some significant movements are streetwear and athleisure, sneakers and logomania as well as the extra touch of bling.

The exhibition was born from an idea that FIT professor Elena Romero, who wrote a book about hip-hop fashion in 2012, pitched to the museum in 2018. She and Co-Curator Elizabeth Way began working on it in 2019. 

“We usually have a slightly shorter timeline,” Elizabeth Way said. And they used their time wisely, producing a book to accompany the exhibition. 

”This one is a very large kind of loan lender-heavy show, so we have pieces from over 50 different private and designer archives,” she said. “It was a large undertaking.”

The exhibition shows how the style evolved as hip-hop spread, influenced by regions and neighborhoods. While hip-hop in many areas is very male-dominated, to Romero and Way it was important to emphasize women’s style equally with men’s.

“We really focus on fashion and the evolution of hip-hop style,” Way said. “Both, the brands that were important to hip-hop, but also the personal style of so many in hip-hop.” 

To her, the exhibition’s aim is to celebrate all these creators. And while she hopes that the important debates about appropriation and the wrongdoings will continue, she wants people to walk away from this exhibition knowing where these styles came from.

Hip-hop is the invention of the working-class youth, predominantly people of  color, and has endured many of the same hardships that most cultural expressions of marginalized communities face from institutional racism. Hip-hop is inventive, customizing and remixing existing forms – in music and in style. Pushing boundaries in a way that has meant that even to this day it’s often perceived as “over the top” or “too much.” And still, inevitably maybe, mainstream culture began to adopt, adapt, and appropriate aspects of the influential musical genre.

Way says there has been an exceptional amount of interesting and heartfelt personal stories around the objects in their exhibition. One example she gave was that her co-curator, Romero, born the same year as hip-hop itself, 1973. Romero also grew up in Brooklyn with hip-hop and she remembers how, as a kid in the 1980s, it felt like a rite of passage to go to Delane Street and haggle for your sheepskin coat. Way said she loves those personal stories that are all about New York City. 

“All about kids on the street,” she said. She explains how the popularity of tracksuits for instance is credited to hip-hop group run-D.M.C., but it was really the neighborhood kids who popularized the style. 

While most might associate the fashion with tracksuits, sneakers and bling bling, with oversized shirts and baggy jeans – a look popularized as hip-hop made its way into the mainstream in the 1980s and 90s – hip-hop has a lot more to offer. The exhibition portrays the bandwidth, from 1970s shearling jackets to seemingly preppy brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Timberland claimed by the movement in the early 2000s. Young, black-owned labels such as Telfar are included, a brand which has hugely grown in popularity in just the past three years. The curators wanted to bring to light Black and brown creators, whether they are designers, kids who were styling themselves, or stylists working with celebrities. Way called attention to these stories specifically to honor the culture’s origin.

After opening the exhibition with a party on Tuesday, February 9, it will run until April 23, 2023. Romero and Way will be speaking at the Queen’s public library and a symposium will be held at the Museum at FIT on February 24.

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On Livonia Avenue, Brooklyn, the L train rumbles past above; below, a colorful food truck is parked, and inside of it stands Akeelah A. and her partner Mikell S.. The pair are the owners of Kinky Taco, and they say their business is the only food truck in the area that sells cheap fresh food. The couple says they don’t earn much from their truck, but they won’t move locations because they want the business to serve the people in their community who are usually not able to afford fresh food.  

“Nobody wants to do it,” Akeelah said. “But we were willing to come to the poorer parts too. Hopefully, it’ll encourage more businesses.” 

Akeelah was born in California. After her parents divorced during her senior year of high school, she went to New York with her mother and soon started college. She worked two jobs to support herself through school before graduating in 2001 with $100,000 in student loan debt.

She spent the next 17 years working at a clinical research firm before she was finally able to pay off the last of her student loans and save enough money to start a business in 2020. Akeelah says that the COVID-19 pandemic provided her with a good opportunity to research and seriously think about what it would mean for them to open their business. Finally, the couple began the five-month-long affair of transforming a USPS truck into the food truck it is today. Then came the process of getting the truck inspected.

Due to the long and difficult inspection process, Akeelah and Mikeell weren’t able to open their food truck until Nov. 2021, a low season in the food truck industry. At that time, it actually cost them $150 to open the truck every day, only $50 of which they were making back. Things got better after March, as clients began booking their truck for catering jobs. 

Today, the business is stable, but Akeelah still has two jobs. She stayed part-time at the clinical research firm, working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays while Mikell and two other employees operate the food truck. She is hoping the work she does will allow her to support her 16-year-old son through college next year. She wants him to be able to enjoy the experience and graduate debt-free, instead of having to work two jobs and pay back student loans like she did.

Akeelah and her partner recently decided to move to Queens, in an effort to divide their work and personal lives, but they want to continue feeding the community in Brooklyn. They have bought a larger food truck to meet their business’ catering needs and they have their employees open the current food truck on the street for daily business. 

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From ages six to 12, I spent 24 hours a week at Go for the Gold Gymnastics, a warehouse off the highway with giant garage doors and gymnastics equipment spread out at random under heavy fluorescents. Every weekday morning, I woke up and went to school from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.. Then I went to gymnastics from 4 to 8 p.m. On weekends, I either traveled to a new part of New Jersey for competitions or spent 10 hours a day in the gym. 

I didn’t have a lot of free time to play with barbies or my classmates outside of school. My childhood was filled with chalk, blistered hands, leotards that ride up, a hair-sprayed high ponytail, and pointed toes. I spent most of my time flipping and bouncing in the hopes that I would earn a 10 out of 10 on the judges’ tiny scoreboards. 

Now I’m 23, and certain behaviors from gymnastics have stuck with me throughout my life. I always ask if I can use the restroom because my coach thought the word bathroom was unprofessional. Every time I do something correctly, I make sure to do it again over and over to make sure I don’t lose it. When I walk around the house, I always find my chin up, shoulders back and stiff and my palms sweaty. 

Lauren winning first place on vault at the 2010 New Jersey Level 6 State Championships for age 11 girls. She won second place All Around as well. January 31, 2010.

Nearly every athlete at the Olympics describes how they spent their entire childhood working to get to where they are now. They talk about how, without their sport, they wouldn’t be who they are today. For Simone Biles, Shawn Johnson and Sunisa Lee it all paid off. But what about me? 

I missed sleepovers, summer camp and hangouts every weekend. I trained five to six days a week and spent my Sundays competing all over New Jersey. I faked a smile, never painted my nails and climbed the rope every time I messed up my floor routine at practice. I can’t help but ask myself where it got me. Sure, I’m not a failure, but I’m not a gymnast either. What did I gain from years of physically straining my body and sacrificing a balanced adolescent life? 

The truth is, there are so many people like me- so many people who dedicated their childhood to working hard instead of just being a kid. So many people who didn’t land a brand deal with Subway and national fame. The ribbons and medals were nice and shiny, but I was robbed of building meaningful connections with people. Besides that, I was a young girl who didn’t know who she was without gymnastics. 

I eventually dropped the sport when I was 12 because of the “twisties,” a term for when a gymnast gets a mental block that does not allow their body to perform anymore. I just spent hours staring at the bar, beam or vault frozen in fear. Instead of jumping on the springboard and gracefully tumbling over it, I’d run down the vault track and crash into the horse. I’m lucky to have had parents who supported my decision to stop when I fell out of love with gymnastics, but when I told my coaches that I was quitting they barely looked me in the eyes. They told me I would regret this for the rest of my life. I was 12 years old. Simon Biles announced she had the “twisties” at the Summer 2021 Olympics, and she was applauded for her decision to drop out and take care of herself. Mental Health matters, but only when you’ve made it to the top I guess. 

Lauren with coaches Vivian (left) and Juan (right) after competing at
The Shining Stars invitational. January 6, 2008.

Gymnasiums need rules that will protect child athletes and limit the amount of time a child or teen athlete can train per week. As it is, parents and coaches alone determine a child’s schedule. If state regulations were created it would allow athletes to have their own time for a life outside practice. 

Project Play’s Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports was developed by human rights and sports policy experts, and it corroborates the argument that former child athletes like myself are making, that children need to be allowed to be children first. The bill has eight rights, with number four emphasizing the need for developmentally appropriate play. 

“Children have a right to play at a level commensurate with their physical, mental and emotional maturity, and their emerging athletic ability,” the bill says. “They should be treated as young people first, athletes second.”

Besides providing more time for kids to just be kids, this will level the playing field. If everyone has the same amount of time to practice each week this will ensure everyone has a fair and equal chance at succeeding. It will also allow more time for child athletes to relax, rest and focus on improving their mental health, which is just as important as physical health in the sports world. There are regulations for child actors, why not child athletes? 

Coaches and competitive training centers need to emphasize the small percentage of athletes who make it to the top. According to the NCCA, less than two percent of student-athletes make it pro. It’s important to tell young people to follow their dreams, but if their dedication to a sport is impacting their mental health and ability to grow in other ways, then maybe they should be encouraged to consider other career and life options. 

Finally, the gymnastics world needs guidance counselors and human resource representatives in gymnastics. There needs to be an outlet besides a coach or a parent that an athlete can go to for open and honest communication. There are conversations that children need to have that they might not be comfortable having with a parent or a coach. Children need proper resources to ensure their health and protection. It would also give children a safe space to speak up if there are incidents with peers or coaches. 

Gymnastics made me who I am today, but it also defined me when I was a child. Those are two very different things. 

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“Luckily, I didn’t have a chemical or biological dependency. So in that sense, I didn’t have an addiction,” Glascoigne said. “But I did feel like I had a lot of peer pressure and more of a psychological dependency on my identity as a party girl or like the cool girl thing that I wanted to be.”

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glascoigne with a guest at Friendsgiving sober pop-up event.

Now, she’s hosting a sober pop-up event at Kobrick Coffee Co. in West Village with a crowd of 75-150 people in their mid twenties and upper thirties. Next to the row of canned and bottled CBD-infused non-alcoholic drinks, a short line waits in front of the coffee bar with drink menus in hand: lychee martini, pumpkin spice martini, hot toddy — all remakes of their alcohol infused counterparts. A range of hippies, wellness influencers and ordinary New Yorkers alternate between playing cards, taking pictures against a backdrop of the event logo and mingling with each other. They all purchased tickets for this event for the same reason — to connect with others without the presence of alcohol. 

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. guests playing games and drinking mocktails at Friendsgiving pop-up event.

The term ‘sober curious’ refers to individuals that classify as just that — people who are interested in reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. The term carries a broad range of interpretations because each person has their own journey in the space. While most people who experiment with this trend take a break from alcohol for a fixed amount of time, some merely try cutting down on their drinking habits and others remove it entirely. The movement began to rise in popularity about three years ago and has since expanded to various markets, like social media platforms, retailers and bars. Now these alcohol-free businesses are at a tipping point and this new form of nightlife may be signifying a larger shift in American drinking culture.

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glasoigne holding mocktail menu at Friendsgiving event.

Glascoigne established her new pop-up bar business, Absence of Proof, earlier this year. It’s one of several new curated community events for the sober and sober curious community. Other similar venues include Kava Social, an elixir bar in Williamsburg or Listen Bar, another alcohol-free pop-up bar. These locations have opened within the last few years in response to the sober curious movement. 

Glascoigne created Absence of Proof as a way to give people like herself options for nightlife that don’t center around drinking. Before she stopped drinking earlier this year, Glascoigne found that alcohol was embedded in every social situation and she felt a disconnect with that kind of routine. 

“I feel like the majority of my weekends were wasted by either being hungover or being out with people that maybe I didn’t really care about being out with.” Glascoigne said. “It was less like a single night and more so just like a series of weekends being like, ‘what am I doing with my life?’”

Glascoigne decided to cut out alcohol as a way to find more meaning in her life. It’s not her first time taking a break from alcohol — Glascoigne recalls going through a “wild child” moment in her teens, which she characterizes as a period of heavy drinking and partying. Following that phase, she decided to give up alcohol for the next three years before returning back to drinking after college. Her first experience with cutting out alcohol draws a stark contrast from what it is now. 

“In college a lot of your social life revolves around partying and drinking,” Glascoigne said. “So I did feel pretty isolated from my peer group and felt like a lot of people didn’t understand what I was doing and maybe didn’t wanna be my friend anymore. So that was super hard and I was isolated.” 

In the past, Glascoigne felt like she had to give up social activities, which is why she ended up reintroducing alcohol in moderation when she moved to New York City. Given that so many social outings and events revolve around alcohol, she found herself returning to her former lifestyle. Now that she has joined the sober curious community, she feels like she has finally  been accepted for her decision to abstain from alcohol. 

Shea Gomez, a 30-year-old living in New York, who has gained over 35,000 followers by documenting her sober curious journey and hosts a podcast called, NoBoozeBabes, had a similar experience. She originally cut out alcohol because she felt unhappy with the decisions she was making when she was drunk. Gomez says that while she wouldn’t try to black out, she would often get carried away during the night and it would inevitably happen because every bar and social activity involved a drink. 

“When I would drink too much and black out, like I would just do things that made absolutely no sense. I would be super emotional.” Gomez said. “My hangovers got so bad in my late twenties and I just felt horrible about myself.”

When she first stopped drinking, she stayed away from nightlife to reduce temptation. Today, she still goes out partying and dancing with her friends, just without alcohol.

“I’m still out there honey, sipping my club soda with cran or non-alcoholic beer,” Gomez said. “And I’m able to get home, even if it’s four in the morning.”

Gomez feels relieved to get a good night of sleep without worrying about a hangover in the morning. She also noticed other positive changes, like feeling less bloated, losing cellulite and gaining more control of her life. 

October 18, 2022 – Shea Gomez posing with a non-alcoholic aperitif at Dante West Village. Image credit: @noboozebabes Instagram.

These discoveries aren’t news to most people. Medical studies proved the negative long-term effects of excessive drinking patterns decades ago, but binge-drinking and partying has remained a social norm among Americans, especially in college. As of 2019, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that 33% of full-time college students ages 18-22 reported binge drinking in the last month. These kinds of patterns have led to addiction, but also tragic events and misbehaviors. Each year, 1,519 college students ages 18-24 die from alcohol-related injuries, including car accidents. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcohlism (NIAAA) 696,000 students ages 18-24 are assaulted by someone under the influence and 97,000 students ages 18-24 report alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. 

People are finally starting to vocalize these issues on social platforms and encourage others to reconsider their drinking patterns. Companies in the Silicon Valley have reshaped their business events and working lifestyle. Pop-up bars and non-alcoholic social spaces have started to enter the nightlife scene in major cities. Influencers, like Glascoigne and Gomez, have gone viral based on documenting their wellness-driven lives without alcohol. 

Glascoigne says that she thinks the sober curious trend took off because the pandemic led people to focus on wellness and reassess their drinking patterns. While the pandemic may have halted many social functions and led to an increase in focus on health and self-care, this concept of intermittently cutting out alcohol as a form of self-exploration and improvement actually goes back to before the pandemic began. 

Tom Santangelo, the Chief Marketing Officer at Spiritless, a non-alcoholic liquor brand that started in 2019, credits the rise of sober curiosity to a few factors. First, he says that many people in the movement are in the post-college period and have reached a life stage where excessive partying and drinking is no longer as exciting or sustainable. Spiritless targets an audience in their upper twenties and early thirties. 

Additionally, the rise of social media has shifted the way people interact with each other and share personal experiences. This has allowed people to voice their opinions in authentic and relatable ways that weren’t necessarily tolerated before and couldn’t be shared on a wide scale. 

“Millennials and sort of lower millennials if you will, are just more open and transparent online, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, et cetera, about how they’re living their lives and what they’re doing,” Santangelo said. “I think people are picking up trends and themes from other people.”

Santangelo says that this shift is even visible in the world of pop-culture. Twenty years ago, celebrities rarely discussed sobriety unless they ended up in treatment because of misuse. Now, mainstream personalities like Blake Lively and Katy Perry have their own non-alcoholic drinking brands and talk about abstaining from alcohol because they don’t like it or never wanted to try it. 

Cutting down on alcohol or cutting it out isn’t solely glamorized through celebrities though. In fact, the way ordinary people normalize this trend is what has given it its widespread appeal. Garrett Thomas, a 31-year-old investment banker living in New York City, gave up alcohol three years ago because he could no longer ignore the mental and physical impacts of drinking. He began to post about his experience on TikTok, which essentially led him to create his own non-alcohol seltzer called DrinkGoldies.

“Now with TikTok, with this interest based graph, you search ‘sobriety New York City’,” Thomas said. “And it’s like, hey, wait a second, there’s this regular person that’s just living life and nothing’s changed and they’re not like a recluse. It’s kind of like this really organic discovery.”

@garrettfromgoldies

For those hoping to use Dry Jan as a catalyst for more substantial change. I did in 2019 and havent looked back. Sometimes it doesnt happen in a month, there is power in momentum!! #dryjanuary

♬ where is my mind (piano version) – your movie soundtrack

People don’t just have to search up terms like sobriety though, the algorithm is built so that Thomas’s videos can end up on any user’s “for you” feed, sharing this alternative side of living and socializing that wasn’t formerly displayed in mainstream media and film. In the past, Thomas notes that centralized distribution of advertisements through print, radio and television allowed the alcohol industry to create any narrative that made their product sell. Drinking was consistently branded as necessary for people to have fun and relax. That kind of programming encouraged people to associate partying and having a good time with alcohol. 

“That’s how advertising used to work up until TikTok. It’s stealing the narrative away from alcohol and big alcohol advertising,” Thomas said. “With the rise of interest based social media, now I pop on your screen, nobody and a million people can watch a video of me saying, ‘hey, dude, I stopped drinking and everything in my life got better’.”

Thomas says advertisement distribution has shifted from largely funded corporate projects to average individuals competing for a story that will bring new and interesting perspectives to viewers.

“People buy from people,” Thomas said. 

In addition to the digital age colliding with the new emphasis on health and wellness, Santangelo believes that the legalization of other substances has altered consumption habits. In the last decade, vaping, CBD, Marijuana and mushrooms have become more widely legalized across the U.S., which has introduced a new set of options for people looking for mind altering substances.

“It’s just changed the ability for you at a younger age to interact, and incorporate some of these things in your life,” Santangelo said. “If there are more avenues available to you in a legal forum, there’s a likelihood that, you know, something that was sort of the only outlet for social recreation will just shrink in terms of its percent of consumption.” 

Even though these substances are gaining popularity, they might not become completely mainstream for a while.  Still, they’re entering the market and providing different alternatives to alcohol. Santangelo doesn’t think alcohol will go away, but he does think the consumption rates and perception of alcohol might change.

“I don’t exactly see it being an avalanche,” he said. “It seems more like chipping away, kind of like erosion of stuff starting to grow.”

Although many in the sober curious movement view alcohol negatively, they don’t necessarily feel that way about all substances. Absence of Proof serves CBD infused drinks and Kava Social offers elixirs, which are drinks that contain medicinal properties. Glascoigne says that she receives frequent messages from people on social media asking if she partakes in microdosing.

The rise in conversation around psychedelics in the wellness space reflect the findings of several new studies that have emerged over the last few years which indicate that psilocybin, the active agent in mushrooms, can be used to treat OCD, substance abuse, and anxiety, among other mental and physical disorders. These findings began to become even more widely publicized when How to Change Your Mind, a Netflix documentary on hallucinogens came out this past summer.

This mindset draws a stark contrast to traditional alcohol recovery programs. Participants in AA groups are vehemently deterred from trying any kind of mood-altering substance out of concern that it could trigger old habits or kickstart a new dependency. Meanwhile, people in the sober curious space have loosely defined goals and don’t necessarily cut out the use of other substances. 

Dazee Mae, a 25-year-old recovering alcoholic from Missouri, thinks that this movement is still beneficial, even if people in the community don’t permanently give up alcohol and all other substances. She feels this way because people in the sober curious community don’t have a chemical and physiological dependency on the substance and she doesn’t think they need to approach sobriety from the same extreme perspective. 

Mae has been completely sober for over a year after years of alcoholism that led her to flipping her car three times while drunk driving. Unlike people who experiment with sober curiosity, Mae had to take medication to subdue the effects of withdrawal during her month and a half detox period. She also had to remove all triggers from her household, including mouthwash and vanilla extract, among other unexpected items.

Mae’s experience differs drastically from sober curious people who mostly deal with disruptions to their social life and lifestyle, but she believes the sober curious movement represents a major leap for American society.

“I think going online and seeing someone be adamant or even advocate for sober curiosity and just living a less alcohol related life is amazing,” Mae said. “Ultimately, if it stays this way, it could be incredibly beneficial.”

At the peak of her alcoholism, Mae consumed a baseline of seven to eight shots of 99 proof alcohol each day — and nobody in her life knew. Since her friends viewed it as normal to drink in every social setting, whether it be at dinner or during a night out, they never realized that she developed a problem with it. 

“I’m so confused why my friends weren’t like, ‘Dazee, why are you showing up drunk to the pregame? Like why are you so sloppy when we’ve only had three beers at this club?’” Mae said. “I didn’t have anyone in my life who made me double think or evaluate my relationship with alcohol.”

Mae believes that this movement is causing people to rethink their drinking habits because in the past, people have often dismissed or failed to notice unhealthy patterns. Addiction remains a stigmatized disease and people feel reluctant to put themselves in a category that might attract speculation and judgment. Glascoigne felt this firsthand when she first stopped drinking a few years ago and Reynolds still experiences it with older clients who may not know about the new movement. 

When Reynolds cut out drinking a few months ago, she also recalls feeling awkward on first dates when she had to let them know she wasn’t drinking. By normalizing not drinking, people are becoming more comfortable with taking a step back in a socially acceptable way. 

“Before there was such a stigma around, you know, either drinking or not drinking. Like, ‘are you sober or are you not?’’ Reynolds said. “It kind of removes that because sober curiosity is like a movement of empowerment and it’s all about taking a step back and analyzing your relationship with something that isn’t good for you.”

Despite initial discomfort, Reynolds ended up feeling empowered by resisting the urge to drink in these settings and even found that it made the men she was dating get more creative with their outing ideas. 

Even smaller efforts within this movement, like Sober October or Dry January represent socially acceptable and approachable experiments for people to try out sobriety. These months bring in a large number of participants and since it’s publicized so much and viewed casually, people feel less intimidated about trying it out. 

According to a study from food and drink research firm, CGA, 35% of US adults skipped alcohol in January 2022, compared to 21% in 2019. With Dry January around the corner and sober-curiosity rising in traction with young Americans, more people are considering trying out an alcohol-free lifestyle to start off the new year. 

This newfound acceptance and normalization essentially led people like Shea Gomez to start her sober journey in the first place. Initially, Gomez decided to cut out alcohol for three months. This felt like an attainable goal that would allow her to reevaluate the way she was drinking and why she was often leaning on it in social settings.

“I had an end date,” Gomez said. “I was like, great, and then I’ll go back to drinking. But I felt so good and I noticed so many positive changes that I kept extending it…And I, you know, kept extending, kept extending. And I really was able to realize clearly that this is the best path for me.”

Now that the demand for spiritless liquors and non-alcoholic beverages are growing, companies are starting to create more of these products. By having sober pop-up bars and alcohol-free beverages available, people have more opportunity to explore sober curiosity and feel included while doing so, whether that’s through a sober event or at a regular bar that offers non-alcoholic options. Now that this movement has steadily increased for over three years, Santangelo says that 2023 will be a telling year for the sober space.

“Non-alcoholic spirits and the non-alcoholic space in general, is sort of at a tipping point right now,” Santangelo said. “The tipping point for this category will be when mass retailers start to lean into it, and we’re just getting to that point now.”

Spiritless started out slow in the pandemic, but kicked off in 2021 when they signed deals with Total Wine and Spirits, Amazon and a few other wine and liquor retailers. As Spiritless and other non-alcoholic liquor brands, like Seed Lip, continue to grow and influencers create brands around this movement, major retailers, businesses, restaurants and workplaces will need to accommodate this new community.

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The vibrant red walls, fluorescent ring lights and scattered photographs of legendary basketball scenes painted an upbeat atmosphere in Tha Illest Barber Shop, located in the South side of Racine. A black and white portrait of Marilyn Monroe sits next to a washed out wall hanging with slanted words that read, “dreams to reality”. It’s difficult to imagine that several of the employees are felons or that the barber shop itself had been the site of a stabbing just a few months ago. The incident occurred between the co-owner of the shop and a man who he says came and provoked fighting and violence. 

Some of the employees at the barber shop won’t be voting because they lost their right as felons. Others won’t be voting because they’ve lost hope that politics will lead to change. After growing up in poor areas with high crime rates and frequent discrimination, these residents feel like their government has failed them — and it’s turned them off from any kind of civic participation. 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from inside Tha Illest Barber Shop. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

Ron Johnson, who won his campaign for re-election, has served as a US Senator representing Wisconsin for eight years. His campaign was largely focused on tackling crime and drugs, but not in a way that helps those stuck in the cycle of it, according to Michael Torres Peterson, a 39-year-old employee at Tha Illest Barber Shop. Rather than prevent crime in the Southern part of the city where violence is most prevalent, he believes politicans in the area have increased police presence and focused on keeping the safer areas secure from external threats. Peterson believes that the areas that need support from government services, have remained largely unaddressed.

Peterson says that he wouldn’t vote even if he had the right to do so. He feels that the tough on crime approach that Johnson has embraced, only leads to repetitive incarceration cycles with the same people in and out of prison. It also doesn’t help remediate the parts of Racine that are in need of crime reduction.

“Like you look at certain areas in Racine, it has looked the same for years,” Peterson said.  “Politicians that have been elected over the years that promise change in certain areas in Racine, and all they did was increase more police in the same exact areas. And the crime rate is still the same.”

According to Crime Grade’s estimates, Racine has a crime rate of 47.58 per 1,000 residents. To put that in perspective, 82% of cities in the U.S. are safer than Racine. 

Peterson says that in certain parts of the city, like the Northwest,which is considered safer, the streets look cleaner and feel safer than they did before — but they weren’t the areas that needed help. As someone who has been incarcerated three times, Peterson feels that increasing police presence in the south part of Racine only contributes to stagnant crime rates and increasing incarceration rates. He also says that sending people in and out of prison breaks up families, which leads the children of those in prison to follow similar paths. 

Peterson doesn’t only blame the current senator though. While Johnson, a conservative politician, has served for eight years, Governor Tony Evers has served since 2019 and represents the Democratic Party. When he looks at his community, Peterson finds inadequacy from both parties and believes both remain equally self-motivated.

“When it’s beneficial to politics, to, to utilize the black vote, that’s when black people become important, and that’s when minorities become important.” Peterson said. “But other than that, only time you’re important is when they put you in cups and chains and throw you in the system.”

He says that the Democratic party may build their platform on diversity, but they often fail to follow through on commitments. On a local level, the minority communities that need the most help often remain underserved. 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from Tha Illest Barber Shop. Employee Germaine Spears styles a customer. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

“Now you try to contact that person who is just smiling in your face and shaking your hand. You get their secretary, you get a voicemail, you get an ‘oh, we’ll call you back’, you might get an email,” Peterson said. “I’s not coming from that individual that just shook your hand, smiled in your face, and made you all types of promises.”

Peterson isn’t the only one to feel like politicians care more about the race than they do about making an actual difference to the people voting for them. In fact, when Jamie Peterson, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), introduced Senate Candidate and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes at his Kenosha rally on Nov. 6, he brought up a story that raised this exact issue. While canvassing for the South Carolina Democratic party in 2014, he recounts knocking on the door of an African American man who said he had no interest in voting. He was more concerned about the dirt road that he lived on getting paved; the road had remained untouched for multiple election cycles. 

“Everybody has that proverbial dirt road,” Harrison said.”Because you have politicians who have made promises, but they don’t do them.” 

Harrison shares this anecdote as a reminder to elect politicians that will carry out their promises and serve all residents of the area they’re elected in, a standard that he feels the acting senator hasn’t done. The example from 2014 reinforces the same message that Peterson feels in 2022. 

“You all have something very different here in Wisconsin. You have leadership in folks like Governor Evers and Lieutenant Governor Barnes who have made promises,” Harrison said. “You all committed in 2020 because you all went to the polls and elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who made promises and they have worked hard to keep them.”

Peterson’s coworker at the barber shop, Germaine Spears, 31, shares a similar perspective. Spears has never been incarcerated but has been branded by other traumatizing experiences. He vividly remembers checking in with his friend after a shooting in the area that occurred in 2013. He says that as he was walking and talking on the phone, he says he was aggressively confronted by police who accused him of matching the description of the shooter. He recalls this instance as his first negative encounter with police. Then, at age 26, Spears’ friend, Donte Shannon, died after being shot by police in a chase. 

Even though he voted for Obama back in 2012, he’s lost all interest in politics in the years since. He’s seen too much suffering and not enough change to care about who gets elected next.

“Take Biden for example, he forgets what he says,” Spears said, referring to Biden’s promise to forgive student loans. 

Spears, like many others, made financial decisions based on the expectation of student loan forgiveness and says he now has $20,000 of debt that he has to pay off. At some point, when people are struggling, they stop caring about the petty arguments between parties and hope for improvement in their lives. 

Peterson and Spears, who have dealt with the same issues their whole lives, want to see visible change. For Peterson though, it feels like the two parties are more concerned with beating eachother down than with actually creating platforms that will make a difference for those in need. 

“Why do you have to always exploit somebody’s negatives to get what you want in life?” Peterson said. “If you come into it with a negative agenda of pointing out somebody else’s negative agenda, why would I even want to vote for you?” 

Peterson’s reaction to polarization is common among swing voters. According to a 2019 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation that analyzed the 2016 election results, nearly a quarter of swing voters didn’t vote. This kind of turnout may explain why the election ended up being so close between Johnson and Barnes, a race that was expected to overwhelmingly lean conservative. 

As the country continues to become increasingly polarized, swing states like Wisconsin are losing voters by focusing more on exploiting their opponent. Even in Barnes’ rally, he focused heavily on Johnson’s faults. While he encouraged the crowd to vote blue if they want to see change, he didn’t explicitly get into his plan of action to make change happen. 

“There are no ads saying that, ‘Oh, thank you Ron Johnson for doing all this incredible work for us’, because he hasn’t, he hasn’t done anything for us,” Barnes said. “It is just wild to believe a person who’s been in office for 12 years doesn’t have a single positive ad about his campaign.”

Barnes even noted the fact that the speech primarily focused on Johnson and his failure to help communities in need.

“And I hate to go on and on and on about ’em, right?” Johnson said. “Because honestly, this should be about our values and our vision, and it is. That’s what the campaign is about.” 

Nov. 6, 2022 – Racine, WI: Scenes from outside Tha Illest Barber Shop. Photo by Tatiana Ramirez.

While Johnson focused less on his opponent, he also took part in shaming his approach to crime and mentioned that Barnes was ill-equipped for the job. Nikki Haley, who introduced Johnson, mainly discussed points in line with the larger party goals. Still though, she led a chant where she repeated the phrase, ‘not us, that’s them’, referring to all the shortcomings of the Democratic party platform. 

Without attending either rally, Peterson knows the kind of rhetoric that politicians were taking part in because he’s seen it many times before. He doesn’t want to contribute to the negativity from both sides — what he wants is a better economy and life for people in his community. 

With the exception of Trump, who gave out stimulus checks during the pandemic, Peterson says that he’s never received tangible aid from any politician. This is a factor that might change the way he views politicians. 

“At the end of the day, like he did something,” Peterson said. “He was delivering money to people’s front doors. God bless Trump.”

Peterson made it clear that he isn’t a fan of Trump but his perspective demonstrates the importance of government aid. He went as far as saying that drug dealers contribute more positively to his community than the government does, because they’re providing some kind of monetary relief. 

After years of stagnancy and financial qualms, people like Peterson and Spears have  given up. Moving forward, Spears said that the best he can do is educate his children and encourage them to stay out of trouble. 

“I don’t even want to have any type of encounters. I don’t wanna be stereotyped,” Spears said. “I lost all hope to be honest.”

The post Hopelessness in Wisconsin — where both parties have failed appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

That’s why leaders of the organization Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) said they knocked on doors, had personal conversations, and showed up to support the candidates that align with their values. 

BLOC was founded in 2016 by current Executive Director Angela Lang in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She chose Milwaukee because it is one of the most incarcerated and segregated cities in America. 

Nov. 5, 2022- Racine, Wisconsin. JoVonna Lue, the Community Organizer of the Racine branch of BLOC talks about the day-to-day routine her line of work entails during election season in her office in Racine. Photo by Lauren Peacock

“We’re building up what Milwaukee started, and we’re bringing it to Racine and Kenosha,” said JoVonna Lue, Community Organizer of BLOC. “We’re having those day-to-day conversations and making sure we are present in the communities where we live.” 

Lue said she got involved because she wanted to help people improve their lives. She emphasized the importance of having simple, genuine conversations in her line of work. 

“We want to build those relationships,” Lue said. “These are our communities so we really have to care in order to find solutions to work together.”

Kyle Johnson, Political Director of the Racine branch of BLOC, said that in the 2018 midterm elections BLOC contributed to the Democratic sweep of the constitutional offices as well as Tammy Baldwin’s win. 

“In the last midterm election in 2018, BLOC knocked on more than 175,000 doors in Milwaukee,” Johnson said.

Nov. 5, 2022- Racine, Wisconsin. Kyle Johnson the Political Director of the Racine branch of BLOC discusses their hectic schedule days before the 2022 midterm elections in Wisconsin. Photo by Lauren Peacock.

BLOC leaders are open about the candidates they support and endorse publicly. Johnson said they work to show communities how these candidates can help residents more than their opponents. 

“You can see the hostility through the policy,” Johnson said.

BLOC worked tirelessly for the 2022 midterm election by making phone calls, sending text messages and knocking on doors. 

“We sent over 620,000 text messages, and knocked over 55,000 doors,” Johnson said. “We reached out to people with a sense of education and an intent to inform.”

Johnson said the organization works this hard to ensure certain candidates don’t get voted into office —Candidates like Tim Michels, the Republican who ran for governor of Wisconsin and lost to incumbent Tony Evers on Nov. 9, 2022. 

Michels said that Republicans would never lose another election in Wisconsin after he was elected. 

“He’s willing to sacrifice democracy for his party,” Johnson said. 

Evers supports the work that BLOC does. 

“I don’t care what side of the isle you’re on, getting people to vote is what democracy is all about,” Evers said, just days before the election. 

Johnson says that some people of color in Wisconsin that he met expressed feeling shut out of specific areas by white people. 

“They’re trying to turn Wisconsin into a Sundown state,” Johnson said. “ Know your place, stay in Milwaukee, stay in Racine, stay in Kenosha. The rest of this is ours.”

Johnson believes that the Supreme Court banning ballot boxes in Wisconsin is one obstacle blocking people of color from having easy access to voting.

“We have so many barriers already to jump through,” Johnson said. 

Bryan Tanayo, a 23-year-old resident of Kenosha, believes the work that organizations like BLOC do is essential because voting is not as accessible in communities of color. 

“For example, limited access to voting places,” Tanayo said “Some voting places are put far away in communities where people rely on public transportation.”

Johnson said that BLOC’s support for the Democratic party in the 2022 midterm election was based on harm reduction for communities of color. 

If BLOC didn’t endorse Democratic candidates like Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes, Johnson  feels that it would run the risk of having a representative who doesn’t support people of color. 

“If Tim Michaels gets in, or Ron Johnson gets in, we’re the first person in line with targets on our backs and they’re coming for us,” he said.

The results of the 2022 midterm elections in Wisconsin showed that most of the candidates that BLOC endorsed ended up winning, including Tony Evers, Sara Rodriguez and Josh Kaul.  

“We saw Democrats maintain control of at least the Senate, bucking decades of the trend of midterms yielding large losses to the party that held the Presidency,” Johnson said.

The Republican candidate Ron Johnson won the senate seat over Democratic candidate Mandela Barnes by exactly 1% of the vote.  

BLOC openly supported Barnes and regardless of his defeat, Kyle Johnson said BLOC is proud of the work and role of Mandela Barnes.

“This was one of the closest Senate races we have seen in this state and it is a testament to Mandela that he lost by 1%,” Johnson said. “We need to continue the conversation around racism in this state and country if we want to truly understand many of the factors that played into this defeat.” 

Nov. 5, 2022- Racine, Wisconsin. A flier hanging on the front door of BLOC’s office in Racine lists the candidates the organization supports. Photo by Lauren Peacock.

Johnson and Lue feel that the chaos of elections brings distraction to important issues, such as getting justice for Black Lives Matter cases like Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake. 

“We need to make sure people don’t forget what we were marching for in 2020,” Johnson said. “That fight’s not over.” 

BLOC has an agenda with 10 points for issues that they believe need to be addressed on a federal level to create thriving black communities. 

These points include the creation of rent controlled housing, moving towards 100% renewable energies, raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour and various other reforms. 

“I like how they’re telling people what it actually entails, registering to vote,” Aidan Kiely said. “When I graduated high school at 18, they told me to go vote, but didn’t tell me what that actually entails.”

Kiely, 22, works at a cannabis shop in Kenosha and firmly believes in the importance of voting in the midterm elections. He applauds BLOC for teaching specific details about the voting registration process. 

Lue described what BLOC specifically outlines for voters what the voting registration process entails. 

“Sending out information on how, when and where to register, request ballots, vote early and times and locations on Election Day,” Lue said. “We also made phone calls from home on Fridays reaching out to voters and potential voters.”

Outside of election season, BLOC focuses on asking people of color what a thriving community looks like to them. Johnson said that these conversations can go anywhere. It may be about adding a stop sign at the end of a street or ensuring more public safety in areas that see a lot of gun violence. 

Johnson believes that voting should mean more to people than carrying out a civic duty. 

“You care about climate change, you care about student loan debt, you care about legalizing Marijuana, you care about incarceration,” Johnson said. “That’s the reason why you vote,” John said. “When it becomes personable, it becomes real. Voting is the last step.”

Nov. 5, 2022- Racine, Wisconsin. The back of the flier on the desk at the BLOC Racine office next to another flier, an ipad and Mandela Barnes stickers. Photo by Lauren Peacock

Lue and Johnson believe that work doesn’t end after one midterm election in one state of the country, and there’s a long road that follows.

“We have to shift the culture and reframe the conversation,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to be a fight to get justice and liberation tomorrow.”

The post Black Leaders Organizing for Communities encourages people of color to get out and vote appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

He believes that UFOs are real, 9/11 and the JFK assassination were inside jobs, and that the moon landing was a hoax. 

He also wanted to be the next representative for the first Wisconsin congressional district. 

Barman is a 67-year old man from Indiana with a sizable white beard convincing enough that he has actually played Santa Claus in commercials for both K-Mart and Sears. He is currently running as a third party candidate in the already contentious congressional battle between incumbent Republican Bryan Steil, and Democrat Ann Roe. 

Steil got reelected on Tuesday, beating Roe 54 percent to 41 percent. 

Barman received local news attention after handing in his ballot petitions in an empty Modelo beer box. 

“They thought that was funny,” he said. 

He considers himself to be a far-right Libertarian, strong on the Second Amendment and immigration, but is also pro-choice.   

His party, “The Going Away Party” which is named for a joke in the late 60’s sketch comedy show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” will appear third on the ballot, which is something Barman is putting stock in, along with general frustrations with the Republicans and Democrats. 

“I’m in the best spot to be on the ballot,” he told Pavement Pieces outside Tenuta’s, a famous deli in Kenosha. “They’ll look at the first two and they’ll say ‘I don’t want to vote Democrat, I don’t want to vote Republican’. And then they’ll say, ‘I want to vote. Look at this guy. He’s an independent, and he’s got his own party’.”  

Raised as a farmer, the grandson of union organizers, Barman has worked as a construction superintendent, managing the assembly of multi-million dollar high rises in Downtown Chicago, and also ran a heating and cooling company which had several Chicago-area Pizza Huts under contract.   

“I didn’t really know too much about politics or paid attention to it,” he said. 

That changed in 2006, when Chicago’s former mayor, Richard Daley, wanted to put a train through his town, and take some of the land from adjacent farmers. 

“So I went and tried to stop this…I did not want the city of Chicago to be in our area,” he said “And the train tracks were close to our farm.”

This led him to his first Congressional run, he lost, and then ran again in 2008.

Chuck Barman standing next to his campaign truck, which is painted with phrases including “send this truck to Washington!!” and “BarmanUSA.com.” Photo by Ryan Schwach

However, no train was ever built. 

Flooding is the other major issue that affected his old home in Indiana, as well as in Kenosha. 

“When the rain is bad in Chicago, they back us up in Northwest Indiana, and they back us up in the Fox River and then in the Des Plaines River here,” he said. “So when I moved up here 12- years ago, they did the same thing. The water is all connected to Chicago.”

If Barman had won, clearing up the water issue would be his first priority.  

“I want to stop them from flooding us here in Wisconsin,” he said. “The first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to get this water figured out.” 

Now in 2022, Barman is running for office again, this time with his “Going Away Party”. He’s arguing that Steil is nothing more than his predecessor, Paul Ryan’s puppet. 

“Paul Ryan is still our congressman,” he said. 

Barman’s ideals, which could be considered dangerous and harmful to many, come from a deep sense of distrust and even hatred for the powers that be, from both parties, he makes it known he didn’t vote for Donald Trump, and has voted for both Republicans and Democrats throughout his life. 

“When it comes down to it, I hate my government. I hate them,” he told Pavement Pieces. “Our government’s done nothing but wage war. That’s the only thing they do. Vietnam War, World War One, World War Two. That’s their industry.” 

He uses the flooding issues as an example, where the policy of officials in a major city like Chicago harms the rural counties in neighboring states. He also talks about political games played by leaders that harm trade, especially trade that feeds farmers like himself, like when then Vice President Biden called out Vladimer Putin. 

“He [Putin] stopped buying milk and cheese from our country. And it went down to $9, and it put farmers out of business, completely out of business, not just here, not just in Wisconsin, where King is cheese, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,” he said. 

He also called out the Covid closures, which shut his farm and forced him back into construction. 

“So with the COVID I was doing $125,000 a year, I would run 600 dozen eggs into Chicago. I had 14 restaurants…When we had COVID they shut all the restaurants down. Put me totally out of business. So in 2019 I did $125,000, 2020 I did zero,” he said. “So people think that those guys don’t affect small town America. They do.” 

The distrust is not exclusive to Barman, it was the same distrust that pushes the January 6 rioters, who Barman refers to as “idiots” who never should have gone to D.C, and many other Republican voters. 

“They’re not trustworthy,” Wisconsin resident Randy Quantrell said. 

“They are liars and they’re cheaters and they’re thieves,” Gary Mills, a 63-year old from Watertown, Wisconsin, said. “They have been blatantly lying to us.”

Mills said he didn’t trust Republicans either. 

Barman had a lot of optimism heading into Tuesday, despite fundraising zero dollars, and a member of Steil’s campaign only remarked that they knew Barman had once played Santa Claus. 

However, Barman remained optimistic up until election results came in, hoping his distrust is not uncommon among the voting public of the first congressional district. 

“When you do that, and you vote like that, that’s a protest vote,” he said.

Barman finished with just over 2,000 votes, about 0.7 percent. 

The post The Farmer, Santa Claus Impersonator, And Far-Right Conspiracy Theorist That Wants To Be Wisconsin’s Next Congressman appeared first on Pavement Pieces.