A view of Charlotte from Sundance

Thanks to the relative strength of North Carolina’s filmmaking industry, the state is usually represented in films at the annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

As I have for the past seven years, I traveled there recently. I go out of personal interest and usually write about Carolinas connections for The Observer. One of this year’s films showcasing Charlotte surprised me.

Called “Kicking It,” it’s a documentary about soccer teams comprised of homeless people who compete annually in a Homeless World Cup tournament. An effort spearheaded at Charlotte’s Urban Ministry Center sends a U.S. team each year, and a Charlotte player was prominently featured in the documentary. (Click here for my article from Sunday’s paper about it; here for another article about a Carolina film connection).

In one sequence, the Charlotte player, Craig Holley, walks the streets of uptown Charlotte with a camera crew, and complains that in our city, there’s often no place for a homeless person to go. If the shelters are full and homeless people try sleeping on park benches or other public property, police officers will awaken them and make them move. Many end up in tents deep in the woods, and they, too, are sometimes forced to move along.

It’s no secret that this city has a serious homeless problem. It’s estimated there are more than 5,000 homeless in our community, and uncounted numbers of them sleep outside at night.

I wonder how much our leaders will want to celebrate our appearance in this film. It points up the sad reality that for many people who have fallen through the cracks of our system, there is simply no place to go.

So, I wrote in a brief for the Observer from Sundance that the film portrays Charlotte in an unflattering light. Lawrence Cann, a founder and leader of Charlotte’s homeless soccer program, took issue with my wording.

“The streets, in Charlotte or elsewhere in the world, are never nice and hardly ever described as peachy by someone who has to live on them,” he wrote in an e-mail.

But, he noted, Charlotte is ahead of many other cities in spearheading the homeless soccer program, which is credited with helping many homeless people turn their lives around. That includes Holley, the featured Charlotte man, who now lives in an apartment and has a job.

In that respect, yes, the documentary paints a positive view of Charlotte. And, I’m glad it provokes thought about the flip side of our shiny bank-towered skyline.

I also salute the filmmakers for coming up with the concept of “filmanthropy” – the idea of making a film about a cause they believe in, then contributing the film’s proceeds to the cause. This film’s profits will go toward the Homeless World Cup program. It’s been picked up by ESPN; no air date has been set yet.

This is an innovative way to attack the problem of homelessness. What else should we be doing?

Been in the Dead Zone?

There aren't many things more maddening than a cell phone dead zone. Especially when it happens in the middle of the largest city in the Carolinas.

You know the drill – you’re driving along talking (in hands-free mode, of course) and realize you’ve been giving vital information to dead air for the last few minutes.

Or, in my case, I was recently banging on the door at a friend’s house, certain she was home but couldn’t hear me, and I flipped open my phone to call her. No service.

I have a major wireless carrier – one that has, in fact, bragged about the extensiveness of its coverage areas.

And I haven’t exactly been in the hinterlands when these cut-offs have happened. My friend is in Plaza-Midwood. I’ve dropped people while talking on Independence Boulevard and on Sharon Road, major urban thoroughfares.

In a metro area of 2 million people, is it too much to ask that our cell phone service eliminate its dead zones at least inside the city limits?

I’m curious to know how many others out there have similar complaints. Where are the dead zones you’ve encountered? Perhaps I can help pass the patterns along to the companies and see if something can be done.

Southern expressions - uglier than armpits?

I’m a fan of those joke-a-day desk calendars. A recent entry on my new 2008 calendar, focusing on humorous insults, contained this supposedly “Southern expression”: “She’s uglier than a lard bucket full of armpits.”

This made me chortle a bit, but rest assured that as a near-native of this area with family roots going way back in the South, I have never heard anyone say this.

I have, however, heard newcomers repeatedly comment on Southern expressions they find either charming or somewhat perplexing, such as the ever-present “Bless your heart” – is it cloaked insult or true empathy?

A personal favorite of mine is “tickled pink.” How could you not smile if someone told you they felt that way? And I've heard the insult that someone is "dumber than a sack of hammers." I also enjoy stories that involve hollerin’ or skeedaddling somewhere.

A friend mentioned he hears about “Adam’s housecat” down here sometimes – as in, “I wouldn’t know that guy from Adam’s housecat.”

What about you? What are some favorite Southern expressions you’ve heard – or need translation for? Post 'em here.

Does 'Southern hospitality' exist?

Anybody see today’s editorial page in The Observer?

It read like one of my old North vs. South blog entries. The first writer led off with this: “I was born in the North, grew up in the South, and now live back North for business. When people there ask about the South, it's with a positive curiosity about the great weather and the friendly people. Yet, when I return home for the holidays and open the Observer, I find one derisive comment after another about ‘Northern transplants.’

Then the woman cutting my hair the other day asked me why I'd ever move to ‘Yankee country.’ It's a shame I'll be taking back with me stories of such ‘Southern hospitality.’”

Click here to see the full set of letters.

(Side note: As I told you guys last week, while I am no longer the Observer’s official newcomers columnist, I’d like to keep in touch with you on this blog, so let me know what issues interest you for future entries).

Here’s what’s going on: People are touchy about the recent debate in The Buzz column over whether there is a difference in holiday decorating customs in the North vs. the South - and whether either region has a claim on tackiness. There’s also some sensitivity about a recent Style section article suggesting that holiday novelty sweaters are garish (for what it’s worth, one of The Observer’s top editors was wearing such a sweater in the newsroom the day before that story ran).

I’m not interested in repeating a debate on these issues – or repeating some of the North vs. South comments that the posters on this blog have already written ad nauseum. (As usual, I won’t hesitate to delete out-of-line comments).

But I am interested in discussing the concept of “Southern hospitality.” Does this phenomenon still exist here? My experience talking to newcomers is that many do still find this region to be different from other areas of the country in terms of how welcomed they feel.

One thing to keep in mind is that the people here who are doing the welcoming are often transplants from another region who may have just been here a bit longer. And we’re not just talking Northerners – the wave of newcomers transforming this region is from all over this country, and the world.

So, are we a more welcoming region because we’re a region of newcomers? Or are we no more welcoming than anywhere else?