Washington City Paper (April 9, 2021)

NEWS: A TO-DO LIST FOR MPD CHIEF ROBERT CONTEE 4 FOOD: TAKEOUT-ONLY HELPS KEEP FOOD WORKERS SAFE 18 MUSIC: 50 YEARS OF NAGOYA GUITARS IN D.C. AREA 22 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 41, NO. 4 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM APRIL 2021

Throughout the pandemic, child abuse reports

have dropped in D.C. But advocates still worry

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2 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 12 Out of Sight: What happens to child abuse referrals when, due to a global pandemic, kids are away from the adults required to report abuse?

NEWS 4 Loose Lips: As Robert Contee prepares to take permanent leadership of the Metropolitan Police Department, stakeholders share issues they’d like him to focus on.

8 Shot Chasers: Frustrated with D.C. decisionmakers, Washingtonians hit the road to get COVID-19 vaccines.

SPORTS 10 Rounding the Bases: A lot has happened in the 17 months between when the Nats won the World Series and their first game of the 2021 season.

FOOD 18 Table for None: Is only offering takeout a successful pandemic survival strategy for restaurateurs?

ARTS 20 Clinical Poetics: The Good Listening Project invites poets and people in medical environments to create a poem together.

22 Chord Progress: Nagoya guitars, affordable alternatives to Martins, trace their roots to a D.C.-area music shop.

25 Museums: Robinson on Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend

CITY LIGHTS 26 City Lights: Watch local films about love or take a walking tour of cherry blossom-inspired art.

DIVERSIONS 28 Crossword 30 Savage Love 31 Classifieds On the cover: Scratchboard illustration by Julia Terbrock

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washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 3

NEWS LOOSE LIPS

Cop, A Plea A to-do list for Robert Contee as he prepares to take the helm of the Metropolitan Police Department

recommended MPD publicly release its final investigative reports into those deadly incidents and any deadly incidents going forward.

Michael Bromwich, who led the review, is encouraged by Contee’s willingness to implement his recommendations, including the release of internal use of force investigations.

“But it bears watching,” he says. “Because they said they would implement a bunch of recommendations in 2016 and they didn’t. There needs to be continued oversight to ensure it goes beyond lip service.”

Contee initially pledged to implement all of the auditor’s recommendations, but he has since backed away from that promise. In an interview this week, he says, “I’m not sure what all the obstacles are we need to overcome to get there,” but “my goal is to get to a ‘yes’ for serious uses of force, making sure the public has visibility in that.” Redacting the names of officers who are not involved is one question in his mind.

He does not support releasing investigations of non-serious uses of force, like the use of pepper spray or a takedown that doesn’t result in injury.

Courtesy of MPD

Reestablish a specialized team to investigate uses of force.

The Bromwich report also recommended MPD revive its Force Investigations Team with officers that specialize in use of force investigations. MPD merged the FIT with its Internal Affairs Bureau in 2012 after its caseload decreased. The report recommends MPD either reestablish the FIT or provide “intensive, specialized training to a select group of [internal affairs] investigators.” Contee says he’s already working to train officers specifically for use of force investigations

Robert Contee

ByMitch Ryals @MitchRyals Why the hell anyone would want to lead the Metropolitan Police Department, LL does not know. On any given day, D.C.’s police chief must juggle demands from the mayor, the D.C. Council, the department brass, rank-and-file officers, advocates, lawyers, judges, neighboring police agencies, reporters, and, most importantly, residents. Each of them have their own agenda and their priorities don’t always align.

Homicides in D.C. are spiking this year; currently, the number of homicides is 34 percent higher than at this point in 2020. Last year, D.C. recorded a 16-year high in homicides. The Council decreased Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed police budget last year, and there is political will to reduce the size of the force going forward—against the department’s wishes.

Lawsuits accuse MPD officers of using excessive force, perpetuating racial discrimination, trampling on civil rights, and withholding data.

Those statistics on police stops, when finally pried loose following legal action, show that MPD officers stop and search Black people more than any other race or ethnicity, according to the ACLU of D.C.’s analysis.

A recent auditor’s report revealed the department has failed to adequately investigate its officers’ use of deadly force, calling into question MPD’s conclusions that officers’ actions were justified in some cases.

Oh, and the entire country is in the midst of a reimagining of the role police play in a fair and just society. One of the loudest calls is for cutting police budgets to fund non police services.

Yet, Robert Contee still wants the job.

The 48-year-old, who grew up in the Carver Terrace neighborhood of Ward 5 and lives now in Ward 3, joined MPD as a cadet in 1989. He rose to the very top when Bowser nominated him to replace outgoing Chief Peter Newsham earlier this year. The D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety voted unanimously last week to move Contee’s nomination to the full Council.

A final vote has not been scheduled but could take place as soon as April 20, according to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.

In the meantime, stakeholders have laid out their priorities for the new chief in reports, public hearings, and interviews with LL over the past month. The most frequent demand is better transparency. While some believe the rot

4 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

inside MPD is too deep for any one person to fix, others are cautiously optimistic about Contee.

“I think that most of us feel encouraged by the way he has answered many of those questions, but it’s a whole other thing to put in practice,” says Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the public safety committee.

“Implementing the answers to questions and the big ideas he has into action that residents feel on the street” is a major priority. What follows is a non-exhaustive to-do list for Contee, whose confirmation as D.C.’s top cop appears imminent.

In a brief interview this week, Contee laid out his top two priorities. No. 1: Reduce violent crime. No. 2: Increase MPD’s engagement with the community.

“We want to make positive investments in the community bank,” he says. “And the only way to do that, in addition to driving down crime, is to find opportunities to positively engage the community.”

Release MPD’s internal investigations into uses of force.

The Bromwich Group, commissioned by the Office of the D.C. Auditor to review police killings of four young Black men in 2018 and 2019,

Release disciplinary records.

Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George is looking to introduce legislation later this year that would make police disciplinary records public. She notes that New York City began publishing similar records online after the state Legislature repealed a law that kept NYPD’s records sealed.

Office of Police Complaints Director Michael Tobin also believes disciplinary records should be made public. Currently, OPC can only release sustained complaints in response to a Freedom of Information Act request if the requester first identifies the officer.

“It would do great service to the police chief to support publishing all disciplinary data regarding the police department so the community can be aware of the disciplinary process and have a better understanding of what happens when a complaint is submitted and if an officer faces discipline,” he says. “It should not be a secret anymore.”

Contee says he’s not in favor of releasing records of unsustained complaints out of concern for the impact it could have on an officer’s career and safety. But he’s open to a discussion about releasing other disciplinary records.

“I’m doing a series of listening sessions and would want to have a discussion with the community about that, whether that’s of interest to the community as a whole,” he says. “And I’ll have to discuss it with the union. I don’t want

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NEWS to make that decision just because I’m on this interview. It has to be well thought out and in line with best practices.”

Collect and publish essential data.

The Police Reform Commission wants MPD to collect, analyze, and publish data on stops, protective pat-downs, searches, search warrants, arrests, uses of force, and canine use. That data should drive the department’s policies, training, supervision, and discipline.

The commission requested data and other details about MPD’s practices, but the department could only provide some of the requested information. That failure indicates MPD “does not engage in the type of rigorous self-evaluation required to properly supervise officers, correct departmental deficiencies, and improve departmental performance,” the commission’s report says. “It also suggests that MPD does not have a culture of valuing transparency, even though transparency is a core aspect of policing in a democratic society.”

Allow civilian authorization for MPD policies.

The Police Complaints Board has had an advisory role over MPD for years. OPC Director Tobin says it’s time to give the board approval authority over the department’s policies.

“That system has not worked, and it’s time to move on to a new system of mandatory consent by the community when it comes to policies and procedures of the department,” he says.

The lack of meaningful community input on police policies and procedures is one of the biggest shortcomings for the department in terms of community trust, Tobin says. “And if we can change that and if the chief is amenable to those changes, that would send a message to the community, ‘Yes, the new chief is in favor of community oversight,’ and I think that would improve community trust,” he says.

Contee isn’t going for it. “If that’s the case, OPC should be running the police department,” he says to the idea of civilian approval of MPD policies. He prefers OPC work directly with him on policy recommendations first.

“Whether their recommendations were rejected or not, it had to do with whoever was the chief at the time,” Contee says. “But at the end of the day, I think the police chief has the responsibility for the police department and an advisory capacity [for OPC], I think, is sufficient.”

Suspend the Gun Recovery Unit.

A notorious team of MPD officers known as the Gun Recovery Unit is tasked with finding illegal guns. In doing so, officers often use aggressive and sometimes unconstitutional tactics, such as “jump outs.” The unit also came under fire for its logo, which features a skull and crossbones with a bullet hole through its head and a banner that reads “Vest Up One In The Chamber.”

Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray questioned Contee during his confirmation hearing about the unit’s leadership, saying “that seemed to be the issue to me.”

After Contee indicated he is changing the GRU’s tactics, not its leadership, George echoed Gray by asking, “if we’re going to have the same

officers and the same consequences, then how are we going to get different results?”

Contee said he personally met with GRU leaders and members to emphasize his expectations. He said the unit will stop using tactics that “were particularly harmful to the community,” but did not specifically describe those tactics.

He also spoke about a renewed focus on getting the “right gun out of the wrong hands.”

The Police Reform Commission recommends suspending the GRU, along with MPD’s other Crime Suppression Teams, unless and until the department can show they do more good than bad. Contee tells LL that he will not suspend the units. Instead, he says, he is refocusing those officers, providing additional training, and changing their tactics.

“I don’t think we need to stop them from working in the community,” he says, noting a recent string of firearm homicides. “And if I’m not mistaken, all nine were committed by guns. To the extent MPD has the responsibility for keeping the city safe, I don’t think we should be taking a break from recovering guns from the hands of people who shouldn’t have guns.”

Stop consent searches.

The Council passed temporary legislation last year that requires officers to explicitly tell peo-

of the largest (by people and budget) of those agencies, Contee must proactively engage with the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, the Office of the Attorney General, and the newly created gun violence prevention director, Linda Harllee Harper, who works under the city administrator.

For now, Contee does not support a reduction in the force and believes the 3,600-member department should increase to about 4,000.

But he’s willing to reconsider.

“Is there a possibility for us to perhaps do something where we don’t necessarily need 4,000 officers later on down the line? I think that that possibility exists,” he says. “But right now, the things that are on the police officers … have not been removed. Those asks for mental health issues that exist in our community, police officers are still called upon to respond to those things.”

Conduct internal audits.

The Police Reform Commission recommendations and the Bromwich Report exposed MPD’s lack of self-evaluation due to either unwillingness or inability.

In his confirmation hearing, Contee promised to complete an organizational health assessment to analyze MPD’s policies, training, recruiting, supervision, and promotions.

“We have a responsibility to teach them how to intervene. Maybe George Floyd would be alive if one of those officers intervened.” ple they have a right to refuse a search if officers can’t articulate suspicion of a crime. The goal was to end the practice of stop and frisk.

“We really have to question whether or not someone who is standing there next to an officer who is wearing tactical gear with a gun and taser is truly [giving] consent when the power differential is so great,” says Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU-DC. The Police Reform Commission goes a step further and recommends eliminating warrantless searches altogether. Contee said at his confirmation hearing that the legislation took MPD “in the right direction.” And when asked specifically whether he believes officers should perform consent searches—which means they cannot articulate suspicion of a crime—during routine traffic stops, the chief said “not in every case,” but “the circumstances could dictate that.”

Make room for other District agencies and give up some responsibilities.

One of the most significant recommendations from the Police Reform Commission is to shift some responsibility away from MPD to other agencies and first responders. An armed officer, for example, is not the right person to respond to someone in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Additionally, at least four separate agencies work to reduce crime in D.C. As the leader

6 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

He says the review will also focus on extremism, hate speech, and white supremacy.

Patrice Sulton, founder and executive director of the DC Justice Lab, who also served on the Police Reform Commission, specifically wants to see a task audit of how officers’ spend their time.

“He should make every effort to make clear he cares about what they’re doing with their time and money,” Sulton says.

Make sure minors understand their rights.

MPD should amend its policies for interrogating children, the Police Reform Commission recommends. Their specific suggestions say an attorney must be present in order for children to waive their Miranda rights, and officers should use age-appropriate language when informing them of their rights.

In response to questions from At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson during his confirmation hearing, Contee said MPD’s current practices for interrogating juveniles are appropriate.

“I know we go out of the way to make notifications to parents, and we do all of those things,” Contee said. “But I don’t think we should necessarily do anything that would hinder justice being served.”

“The goal is not ‘Let’s try to put this young kid away,’” he added. “The goal is to get to the

truth of the matter. A lot of times they’re very violent crimes in nature.”

The commission notes in its report that the success of its proposed reforms to juvenile interrogations “depends on buy-in from MPD officers and their supervisors. Because people won’t adopt what they don’t understand, MPD must provide more training for all officers in adolescent development and adolescentappropriate policing, from brain science and the dynamics of trauma to deescalation.”

Require MPD officers to live in D.C. Several councilmembers spoke about the benefit of MPD officers living in D.C. Currently, only about 17 percent of officers are District residents, Contee said.

Gray is planning to re-introduce a bill he’s pitched previously that would give cops a break on their income tax if they lived in D.C. Contee agreed living in the community you’re policing is beneficial, but he does not believe it should be a requirement.

Actually implement and abide by the NEAR Act. Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie pressed Contee on multiple provisions in the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act passed in 2016, which aims to use a public health approach to crime. The Bowser administration claims the act is fully implemented.

McDuffie says that’s not the case.

Specifically, he questioned Contee about Title 1C, which pairs mental health and behavioral health professionals with officers and, according to McDuffie, is not in effect. He also suggested that the “community policing work groups” called for in the legislation were people who are friendly to MPD. “It sounds like you all were preaching to the choir in terms of the makeup of the group,” McDuffie added. Contee promised to follow up.

Train officers to police each other.

The reform commission recommended, and Contee said he has already started, implementing training that teaches officers how to intervene if another officer is misbehaving.

“In law enforcement we have a duty not to just say to an officer ‘you have a duty to intervene,’” Contee says. “We have a responsibility to teach them how to intervene. Maybe George Floyd would be alive if one of those officers intervened. So we have a responsibility to train that. That’s something I’m pushing forward.”

The commission also recommends annual cultural competency and anti-racism training.

Take care of officers’ mental health.

Police officers see some awful stuff, and it can impact the way they interact with the public.

The PRC recommends, and Contee says he will start, providing officers with more mental health supports.

“We have to focus internally on putting the best officer in [the] community,” Contee said.

“And when you put the best officer in [the] community, much like we care for [the] community … I have the responsibility of caring for the whole officer.”

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washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 7

NEWS CITY DESK

Shot Chasers

Illustration by Ronan Lynam

Washingtonians are venturing a long way from home to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @AmanduhGomez Natalie drove more than 100 miles on March 25 to get a COVID-19 vaccine at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration set up a mass vaccination site. She went that far, she says, because she figured she’d never get the COVID-19 vaccine in D.C., where she’s lived for the last three years.

The National Guard welcomed Natalie when she arrived at the arena in Salisbury, Mar yland. They checked if she had an appointment (she did) and requested to see some form of photo identification (which she had). She showed her D.C.-issued ID, which lists her address in Ivy City, a handful of times before she got the jab, but says no one at the vaccine site asked her about it.

“They never did a double take. They never questioned if I was moving to Maryland. I never felt judged,” said Natalie, who requested to be identified by only her first name due to the nature of her work. “They’re all doctors and nurses. I feel like they were focusing more

on their job of just helping people, as opposed to gatekeeping help that people need.”

Natalie, who is 31 and works at a global philanthropy nonprofit, says she has a qualifying medical condition that makes her vaccine-eligible in Maryland and the District. But booking an appointment in the jurisdiction where she lives proved frustrating. She became eligible in late February, when DC Health opened the vaccine portal to residents 18 and over with qualifying medical conditions. She was among the tens of thousands of people who tried to claim one of the couple thousand appointments that became available two days a week.

The Hunger Games-style system, which was riddled with technical issues, is Natalie’s main gripe with the city’s vaccine rollout.

Natalie believes the new pre-registration system that launched March 10 is better. But once her partner got an appointment through D.C.’s lottery system and family members in other parts of the country got vaccinated, Natalie decided she could wait no longer and started searching for other ways to get the shot. She became a vaccine hunter.

“I was not lying. I was not trying to get around the system just to get one,” says Natalie. “If

8 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

they’re going to bar me and say that my address is not allowed, OK. That’s fine. I can wait. But I felt like I was very welcomed in that they were flexible in letting me in. So I thought, ‘I’ll just take advantage of this.’”

Natalie booked an appointment through Maryland’s website for mass vaccination sites.

She says she saw hundreds of appointments available and used her D.C. address when she signed up. Maryland officials are not encouraging D.C. residents to get vaccinated in their state, but they are not turning away any of them for doing so either.

These “vaccine hunters” have sometimes been characterized as rule-breakers. Natalie does not see herself this way. She is one of countless individuals who have gotten vaccinated out-of-state, based on anecdotal reports.

Some people may have lied about their eligibility, while others learned of places where eligibility is open to a wider population and residency requirements are not strictly enforced. Each individual has their own reasons for getting vaccinated as soon as possible. Natalie, for example, says she lost a family member to COVID-19 and hasn’t socialized with anyone but her partner in person in the last five months.

Waiting for your turn to get the vaccine seems relatively simple. Local governments have rolled out vaccination plans that keep those most at risk of serious illness from COVID-19 top of mind, and residents are expected to trust that their elected leaders are acting in good faith. Anyone deciding to cut the line takes the place of someone who really needs the shot, the thinking goes. But what if it is your turn and you can get the shot sooner somewhere else? D.C. residents frustrated with the city’s rollout say this is true of them.

Crossing borders to receive better health care is nothing new. This phenomenon tends to happen when care in a particular area is inaccessible or medication prices are inflated.

In the U.S., access to quality health care can boil down to ZIP code. People living in rural areas may travel more than 40 miles for breast cancer treatment, and those seeking more reasonably priced insulin have gone to Canada or Mexico to buy it.

In D.C., demand for the vaccine still exceeds supply, so it’s still out of reach for many eligible people. Some cast all the blame on the D.C. government, but there are practical reasons for why doses are so scarce for residents.

Enthusiasm for the shot among the unvaccinated is higher in D.C. than most other cities and states nationwide, according to the latest Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey. The Bowser administration has also used nearly a third of its supply on nonresidents because so many of the city’s essential workers live elsewhere. 75 percent of D.C.’s 85,000 health care workers live in Maryland and Virginia, for example, and DC Health moved to vaccinate these workers first. The federal government has denied the Bowser administration’s multiple requests for more doses, given the uniqueness of its worker population. Even Virginia Sen. Mark Warner’s legislative attempt to bring parity to the allocation of doses proved unsuccessful. A request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a mass site in D.C. that would result in increased supply was also rejected.

Even if supply were to increase, it appears as though D.C.’s current vaccinators would still struggle to quickly vaccinate eager residents.

Community health centers and pharmacies that get supply directly from DC Health and the federal government are having logistical troubles. Giant, for example, temporarily requested that the federal government stop sending any more vaccines because the company needs additional personnel to administer more shots, according to the Post. DC Health has so far not requested any support from federal personnel. “We have plenty of vaccinators in the District and so that’s not very helpful to us,” DC Health’s emergency response director, Patrick Ashley, said during a March 24 conference call with the D.C. Council.

Access to the vaccine varies greatly from place to place, since states and providers receive different amounts of doses and have different eligibility standards. So many vying for an appointment have turned to social media to identify opportunities. Natalie, for

NEWS example, turned to the District Vaccine Hunters Facebook group. That’s how she learned about the appointments available in Salisbury.

The private group of roughly 6,000 members has become a forum where people offer tips on how to get vaccinated. Membership grows daily—in one day, alone, there were 1,000 requests to join. In D.C., there aren’t a lot of ways people can try and book an appointment because a lot of health providers that are vaccinators use the government portal.

Officials argue it’s the best way to avoid a freefor-all and ensure equity. DC Health has a zero waste policy, so people on the Facebook group offer one another advice on how to find spare doses in the city. One of the rules for joining the group is to be ethical.

“This group maintains the highest ethical standards w/ regard to vaccination,” says a post in the group’s “About” section. “Be honest. Do not jump line, exploit loopholes or lax verification of eligibility, or encourage others to do so.”

The woman who started the group says she did not initially allow any information on how to get vaccinated outside of the District.

She reviews every post before it goes live for thousands to see. (She requested anonymity for privacy reasons.) Part of her thought it was unfair, and part of her worried about the unintended consequences. If too many people ventured to, say, Virginia, officials there might start requiring ID and this could hurt undocumented residents.

“I just decided to allow it,” she tells City Paper. “Hopefully it’s the right thing to do. It’s kind of morally ambiguous.”

“The group has really undergone evolution.

And I haven’t enjoyed the process at all because I’m a really literal, kind of morally rigid person,” she continues. “I’m a rule follower.”

Inspired by similar online groups, she launched District Vaccine Hunters, her second Facebook page about COVID-19 vaccines, on Feb. 15. The first offered information to those who have the same medical condition she does, which makes them allergic to many vaccines.

Once she realized it was safe for her to get the COVID-19 vaccine, she decided to create an online forum to promote facts about the shot and identify opportunities. “I was imagining that I was going to be helping people that were the most in need of help. And then everybody who joined the group seemed to be people who are least in need of help,” she says.

She believes the people who join the group nowadays are those for whom pre-registering on vaccinate.dc.gov is not enough. According to Facebook’s demographic data, the group skews younger, between the ages of 25 and 44.

Polling of a couple hundred members shows most people live in Ward 1 and 6, followed

by Wards 2 and 3, the District’s more affluent wards. According to another poll, nearly 200 people say they’ve gotten vaccinated in another state. Demographic data says the vast majority of members live in D.C. Daniel got vaccinated in Baltimore after learning he could book an appointment at a mass vaccination site in Maryland through District Vaccine Hunters. He fits the group’s

demographic: Daniel, who has asthma, is 24, lives in Adams Morgan, and was not satisfied with just pre-registering. “I did a few times honestly. Like every week I was pre-registering because I wasn’t hearing anything, and I was told that I was in a group to be vaccinated right now,” he says.

“I never lied about my eligibility,” he continues. “Everyone in my family got vaccinated very quickly. I just hadn’t seen them in forever, and I just was like, ‘I really need to get one.’” Daniel, who requested that only his first name be printed out of privacy concerns, became more motivated to hunt for a vaccine when he saw people his age with asthma but living elsewhere get the shot. “I just felt completely let down by the city of D.C. … You do what you gotta do and I’m just happy I get to be vaccinated. Hopefully D.C. gets it together so I can get my second dose here and not in Maryland.” (It’s unclear whether D.C. residents will be able to get their second shot

to get vaccinated. She drove 10 hours in one day to get the shot in Youngstown. Diagnosed with asthma, she is eligible in D.C. but questioned her qualifications, since her asthma is not moderate or severe. But when her sister who still lives in Ohio told her the state was vaccinating anyone over 40, regardless of residency, she considered it. “I called my father, who was a physician, and Googled some ethics articles. And I’m a lawyer, so I really could convince myself of the ethics, pro and against, going into another state,” says Jessica, 46. “I obviously convinced myself that it was OK and I really felt more comfortable because I didn’t have to lie.”

She says she called the pharmacy ahead of time to let them know she lives in D.C. The pharmacist said that wouldn’t be a problem and sure enough, no one asked for ID when she arrived at the Giant Eagle Supermarket. (Ohio’s health department confirmed they are encouraging providers to vaccinate individuals regard-

“Anyone deciding to cut the line takes the place of someone who really needs the shot, the thinking goes. But what if it is your turn and you can get the shot sooner somewhere else?” closer to home, although those who spoke to City Paper hope so.)

Residents have justified leaving D.C. to get vaccinated in many ways. The D.C. government has vaccinated so many people who live elsewhere, they’ll say. So many people in their networks have left D.C. to get vaccinated. They’ve gone to California, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Citing national news trackers that offer muddled data, they insist other states are doing a better job than D.C. Borders are arbitrary, anyway. They have the means—be it money, access to transportation, or physical fortitude—so why not?

“The vast majority of them seem to not be from priority ZIP codes,” says the creator of District Vaccine Hunters, referencing DC Health’s way of identifying communities hit hardest by COVID-19 but with less access to medical coverage. “Maybe sending them off to Maryland and Virginia and elsewhere, where there isn’t such an access problem and where many more people are vaccinated, maybe allowing that is fine and will free up vaccines for people who really need them in D.C?” Jessica, who’s lived in the District for two decades, returned to her home state of Ohio

less of residency.) While she’s confident in her decision, Jessica worries about the public backlash. She let City Paper use her full name at first, but changed her mind after Washingtonian published an article on this topic and she saw the initial reactions to it.

Bioethics experts seem to agree that this is all very complicated. There are obvious examples of people cheating the system, like the two women in Florida who dressed as if they were elderly to get inoculated. That is different from someone getting lucky with a spare dose at the grocery store, which is different from someone traveling to another state just to get vaccinated. Bioethicists City Paper spoke to see people’s behavior resulting from anxiety, exhaustion, and failure of national leadership, which started once the Trump administration shifted responsibility to local governments.

“We’re in this kind of moral fog because a society of this complexity needs direction, and the institutions that we expect to give us direction have failed,” says Jonathan Moreno, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “If people don’t have confidence that everything is being played straight with

them, how much of their moral responsibility do they have to shoulder?”

“I’m most worried about people who really are at high risk and might be unable to get appointments because other people are snatching,” says Melissa Goldstein, an associate professor of health policy at The George Washington University and expert in bioethics.

“I’m worried about the people who are able to take advantage of the loopholes or the ambiguities or however we want to characterize it, positive or negative.”

Local officials are aware that D.C. residents are leaving the city to get vaccinated. A DC Health spokesperson says it is likely that more residents are vaccinated than what is shown on the government website, which says about a fifth of the local population got at least one dose. The D.C. government agreed to participate in an immunization data exchange run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so the agency should be receiving other states’ data “in the next few weeks,” the spokesperson adds.

D.C., Maryland, and Virginia do have a joint agreement that says they are committed to vaccinating eligible residents and out-of-state workers because there is so much spillover.

“We prefer that Marylanders are prioritized for getting a vaccine allocated to us by the federal government; however, Maryland will not turn away a person from out of state who needs a vaccine,” says a bulletin from the Maryland Department of Health.

At an April 1 press conference, Hogan said he is not encouraging D.C. residents to get vaccinated at mass sites in his state like the one in Salisbury. “They’re federal assets,” Hogan said of FEMA sites. “We’re required to vaccinate people, we do Marylanders in other states, other people from other states in our state, we have no way to change that.” However, he says federal officials intend for the site that will open at Greenbelt Metro station this week to serve residents from D.C. and Virginia in addition to Maryland.

“Our mass vaccination sites are to primarily serve Marylanders, and by the numbers, they by and large do,” writes Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan, via email. “Overall, a little under 4% of those vaccinated at mass vaccination sites are in the unknown/out of state category.”

It’s unclear what government officials really make of the phenomenon of traveling out-ofstate to get vaccinated. No D.C. officials have commented on this. This also isn’t entirely unique to the District. Pennsylvanians are going to Ohio for vaccines, for example. It is clear that some D.C. residents are taking drastic measures and traveling hundreds of miles because they’ve lost faith in the systems that currently exist. The pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis, and mistakes along the way were inevitable. Squishy guidelines and botched communication have left many people upset.

“I’m just kind of vaguely angry, but I’m not particularly angry at anybody,” says the woman behind District Vaccine Hunters. “Like whose fault was it? I don’t really know.”

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 9

SPORTS BASEBALL

Rounding the Bases

Nationals’ 2021 opening day

The Washington Nationals have been on an absurd journey since claiming their World Series title.

It finally happened. On Tuesday, April 6, the Washington Nationals played in front of their fans at Nationals Park for the first time since Game 5 of the 2019 World Series. That’s a span of 17 months and 10 days. Or, to break it down even further, 527 days. For many reasons, some related to baseball and some totally disconnected from sports, it’s felt much longer than that.

A World Series victory parade, a major cheating scandal, a drastically shortened season, and an unexpectedly postponed opening day have all unfolded in the past year and a half—on top of an ongoing global pandemic. It’d be easy to forget exactly how the Nationals got here, so let’s take a moment to reflect on the surreal, winding, and very bumpy road they took.

‘Fight Finished’ Hugs. So many hugs. Remember those? Nationals fans everywhere turned to one another in unrestrained delight on the night of Oct. 30, 2019. The Nationals, the scrappy team that started the 2019 MLB season with a 19-31 record, beat the Houston Astros 6-2 in Game 7 to win the World Series for the first time in franchise history. Three days later, the Nationals rode through the streets of downtown D.C. as champions. It was the second victory parade in two years for D.C. sports fans, after the Capitals won the Stanley Cup the year prior. A third parade, for the 2019 WNBA champion Washington Mystics, would be postponed and eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sign Stealers At one point during the Nationals’ teamwide virtual reunion on April 14, 2020, Brian Dozier took off his shirt and started hitting the sides of a trash can he plopped on his head. It was a direct reference to the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal that dominated the sports world prior to the 2020 MLB season. The Athletic published a story on Nov. 12, 2019 alleging the Astros, the 2017 World Series champions and 2019 runners-up, had been illegally stealing signs from their opponents in 2017 through an elaborate system that involved electronic equipment and communication in the form of loud noises, specifically banging on a trash can. Opposing players had long been suspicious of the Astros, but the controversy didn’t become public until The Athletic’s report. In January 2020, after concluding its investigations, MLB fined the Astros $5 million and stripped the team of four draft picks. A subsequent article in the Washington Post detailed the lengths that teams like the Nationals went to thwart the Astros’ efforts to steal signs.

Sports Shutdown No one knew it at the time, but a much larger story than signstealing loomed on the horizon. On March 11, 2020, the NBA suspended its season after a player tested positive for COVID-19.

The rest of the sports world soon followed, and the following day, MLB canceled the remainder of its spring training and delayed 10 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Kelyn Soong

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong

the regular season. Nationals players returned home from their spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, which they shared with the Houston Astros, and waited for the green light.

Weeks, then months passed. Negotiations between MLB and the players’ union stalled and at points, it appeared the season might be in danger of being completely scrapped. Eventually, on June 23, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced a 60-game season that teams played in empty stadiums.

COVID-19 Outbreaks July 23, 2020. Opening day for the defending World Series champions. It should’ve been a triumphant moment for the franchise. Instead, an eerie silence of an empty ballpark along with the occasional artificial crowd noise greeted the Nationals. The team would go on to lose to the New York Yankees, 4-1, in a rainshortened game that was called with one out in the sixth inning.

Just hours before first pitch that Thursday, Nationals superstar Juan Soto tested positive for COVID-19. He would miss opening day and ended up sitting out the first eight games of the abbreviated season. Soto has since said that he had a false positive after receiving back-to-back lab-confirmed negative tests. Two days later, World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg was scratched for his first start of the season because of a nerve issue in his right hand. Soon after, COVID-19 outbreaks within the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals organizations delayed more than a dozen games just two weeks into the season as MLB elected not to play in a “bubble” like the NBA or NHL. Offseason of Change The Nationals finished its season on Sept. 27, 2020 with a 15-5 win over the New York Mets at Nationals Park. The team made it through the pandemic-shortened season without any COVID-19 outbreaks, but the unpredictable nature of pandemic clearly impacted the players’ energy. Washington finished at the bottom of the National League East division and missed the playoffs. A month earlier, Strasburg underwent surgery for carpal tunnel neuritis in his right hand, which ended his season. The magic of the 2019 World Series title had faded, and popular players like Howie Kendrick and Sean Doolittle knew their time with the team was coming to an end. Kendrick would announce his retirement by

the end of the year, and Doolittle has since signed with the Cincinnati Reds. Soto was one of the few bright spots in a dreary year: At 21, he became the youngest player to win the National League batting title since 1900.

Hope Springs Eternal Nationals general manager and president Mike Rizzo welcomed plenty of new faces to the team during the offseason.

The Nats overhauled their coaching staff and player roster. In January, the team signed outfielder Kyle Schwarber, a 2016 World Series champion with the Chicago Cubs, to a one-year deal. That was followed by the signings of All-Star first baseman Josh Bell and All-Star pitchers Brad Hand and Jon Lester, among others. The strength of the Nationals remains its starting rotation and the addition of Lester to a team that already stars Strasburg, Max Scherzer, and Patrick Corbin gives the Nats a chance to contend in the NL East. And just a few weeks before the scheduled opening day, the D.C. government approved the team to host 5,000 fans at Nationals Park. The Nationals went through spring training in West Palm Beach, Florida, without any positive COVID-19 tests. A joyous opening day game—and a sense of normalcy—appeared imminent.

Try, Try Again Not so fast. On the eve of opening day, Rizzo told reporters that a player on the team had tested positive for COVID-19, and five people (four players and one staff member) were deemed to be in close contact and forced to quarantine. Rizzo maintained that he believed the long-awaited opening day game would go on as planned, but the team officially postponed the game just hours before first pitch. The numbers of impacted individuals on the team eventually ballooned to four players who tested positive for COVID-19 and seven players and two staff members deemed to be in close contact. In all, the team had to postpone four games before the April 6 opening day game against the Atlanta Braves. Scherzer threw the first pitch at 4:06 p.m. in front of an announced “sold-out” crowd of 4,801 fans on a sunny spring afternoon in D.C. With the game tied, 5-5, at the bottom of the ninth inning, Soto did what megastars like him do. He hit an RBI single for a 6-5 walk-off Nationals’ victory. The fans roared.

No artificial crowd noise needed.

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washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 11

Out of Pandemic-related closures have separated

kids from adults who must report abuse signs.

Calls to the D.C. Child and Family Services

Agency have dropped, but that doesn’t mean

abuse has stopped. By Ashley Hackett

12 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

f Sight T

he District had seen warning signs prior to 2-year-old Gabriel Eason’s death. But after suffering months of abuse at home, in April 2020 Gabriel died from what medical examiners determined was significant head and abdominal trauma while under the care of his mother, Ta’Jeanna Eason, and her boyfriend Antonio Turner.

On October 9, 2019, a child care center called the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) abuse hotline to report that 2-year-old Gabriel had an unexplained injury, according to an affidavit provided to the D.C. Superior Court by the Metropolitan Police Department. MPD investigators visited the Northeast home Eason and Turner shared, but by March 2020 investigators had not found enough evidence to prove or disprove the allegation of abuse, according to the affidavit. They closed the case.

Soon after that case closed, Eason called 911 after finding Gabriel unconscious. When police arrived at the home, they found EMTs attempting to revive Gabriel. Their attempts failed, and the boy was declared dead at the scene.

An autopsy showed both new and old injuries to his body, including lacerations of the kidney and liver, injuries to the heart, swelling of the head and brain, blunt trauma to the genitals, and 36 rib fractures, some of which were healing and believed to originate from an earlier incident. Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Sasha Breland determined the main cause of death was significant abdominal and head trauma.

Gabriel’s two older brothers experienced physical trauma as well.

The 3-year-old was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Children’s National Hospital with life-threatening injuries, new and old. The 11-year-old had a healing black eye in addition to older injuries.

Both surviving boys were placed in D.C. foster care. In November 2020, police arrested Eason and Turner, who were charged with first degree murder and cruelty to children.

The injuries and abuse occurred in the early weeks of the COVID19 pandemic, when none of the boys were attending in-person school or child care. There was not much chance for someone outside their family to see the bruises or report the abuse.

While it’s difficult to connect pandemic-prompted isolation to Gabriel’s death with certainty, the circumstances highlight the consequences of keeping children away from public settings like child care and school, especially for children at risk of abuse or neglect.

There is a system in place meant to protect children like Gabriel and his brothers. It starts with professionals who work with children, like day care workers, teachers, and pediatricians. In D.C., those professionals are required to report all suspected abuse to CFSA’s hotline. It is then CFSA’s responsibility to follow up on the calls it receives and determine whether or not to pursue an investigation. CFSA works to intervene in cases like Gabriel’s before it’s too late. MPD also plays a role in protecting children; however, its role is

limited and involves investigating crimes and arresting offenders after documented abuse has occurred.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the processes and procedures that once supported D.C.'s child welfare systems ground to a halt. Family court hearings were suspended and proceedings became more backlogged. Social workers struggled to safely enter homes for welfare checks. And abuse referrals to the CFSA hotline plummeted, even as parents and children spent more time than ever at home together.

As soon as the pandemic started, Dr. Allison Jackson, division chief of the Child and Adolescent Protection Center at Children’s National Hospital, says she worried about the children who would now be out of sight.

“As soon as it shut down, I was nervous,” Jackson says. “Teachers or other school personnel are often those trusted known entities for a child that they could disclose something to. And kids all of a sudden didn’t have access to that.” Jackson’s concern was warranted: Referral calls to CFSA decreased significantly at the beginning of the pandemic, but her team’s caseload of children with abuse injuries nearly doubled.

School personnel are often the main drivers of referrals for child abuse and neglect reports. According to DC Public Schools, all DCPS employees and contractors—including school officials, teachers, coaches, nurses, and mental health professionals—are mandated reporters and must report suspected child abuse and neglect.

In a typical year, reports of child abuse drop during the summer because children are not as visible to their teachers and other outside caretakers. The pandemic has created a similar drop in referrals: Looking at the data CFSA collected, it’s as if summer began in April 2020 and continued even when virtual school started up again in the fall.

“There were times when I made CFSA referrals. Students had disclosed to me at school [before the pandemic],” says Zach Carroll, a middle school social studies teacher at School Without Walls in West End. “With students taking remote classes, there is potentially less privacy to self disclose and have those conversations confidentially with adults in school. My school doesn’t require cameras to be on, so it can be more difficult to see bruises.”

Since remote learning began in March 2020, some D.C.-area teachers have noticed changing economic and housing situations just from the backgrounds of students’ video calls. A teacher at a school in Northeast, who requested anonymity due to the nature of her work, says she noticed one of her students was learning with their whole family in one room, and she later saw the student had moved spaces to what appeared to be a shelter or group home.

“COVID has put everyone in economic despair. I teach special ed, so I have at-risk students who also have learning disabilities,” the teacher says. “I have had a glimpse into students that have a really

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 13

Chart courtesy of Marie Cohen, childwelfaremonitordc.com

difficult home life, and probably have had some sort of interaction with foster care or homelessness.”

Even though teachers now have a unique new view into students’ home lives, it’s generally more difficult to catch on to any potentially abusive or neglectful situations.

“It’s definitely more difficult, in my personal opinion,” the Northeast special ed teacher says. “In the classroom, if I need to pull a student into a lesson, I could go and walk to them and be like, ‘We’re going to my classroom.’ With online learning, I’m calling kids in for a lesson and they won’t answer.”

In a world without in-person school, advocates say, no one is there to speak up for at-risk children—sometimes until it’s too late.

C

ollecting data about child abuse and neglect is difficult because so many cases remain unknown and undocumented. D.C. officials who work with child abuse and neglect see the drop in CFSA hotline calls and are haunted by untold stories that the pandemic has hidden from public view. Are there more children out there like Gabriel Eason and his siblings, they wonder, who, in the midst of the pandemic, aren’t seen until serious or fatal abuse has already occurred?

Becky Fowkes, deputy director of CASA for Children of DC, says she has felt nervous about the children that may be left behind during the pandemic.

“In the community and in human services, it’s understood that it’s not that fewer children are being neglected and abused, it’s that [the neglect and abuse] is going underreported,” says Fowkes, whose organization provides trained volunteers, known as courtappointed special advocates, to support vulnerable and at-risk youth in the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

In cases of child abuse, it’s not always likely that family members will intervene. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families reported that in 2019, 91.4 percent of child abuse victims are maltreated by one or both parents. D.C. has a relatively high rate of child maltreatment, with ACF reporting 14.5 per 1,000 D.C. children having experienced maltreatment in 2019, as compared to the national average of 8.9 per 1,000 children.

“Judges have indicated cases that are coming into family court are some of the most severe and egregious cases of violence, where kids are getting in the hospital,” says Allison Kahn-Pauli, chief of staff at CASA DC. “There are no eyes seeing those [violent cases] right now. Family court is seeing less referrals because the typical

14 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

stream of individuals who have eyes is gone.”

Jackson at Children’s National says her division has seen a roughly 79-percent increase in the number of kids who are hospitalized with abusive injuries compared to the year prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, pediatric wards have not been hit with the surge of COVID-19 patients like adult hospitals have. But the uptick in child patients with traumatic injuries has been a heavy burden to bear for Jackson and pediatricians on her staff and around the country.

“When you see so much trauma, it really is a heavy load and so upsetting,” Jackson says. “Surely there are kids who are being missed or where reports are not taking place. When kids are physically injured and they're sick and they're hurting, it's no surprise that we will see them at the hospital. … But if they’re not sick or injured to the extent that medical attention is needed, those are the kids who we worry even more about, who are still suffering in silence.”

For children at risk of abuse and neglect, pandemic-induced social distancing created social isolation and loss of hope for rescue from any unfortunate circumstances. And for children living in neglectful or abusive homes, the pandemic is the perfect storm.

“The mental health toll is high,” Fowkes says. “We see that.

Schools are seeing that. With physical abuse or outright neglect, which is happening … kids have already been through major trauma.

And now we’re compounding that trauma with isolation, fear, stress in the home because of unemployment or access to food or security.

Everything affects everything else.”

A growing body of evidence and research suggests that emergencies and natural disasters escalate a child’s risk for abuse or neglect due to weakened child protection systems and stress upon parents. According to the World Health Organization, disasters “disrupt the physical and social environments that shape health and health problems, including violence … The effects of disasters are likely to increase individuals', families’, and communities’ vulnerability to violence.”

A 2019 study by the Texas Council on Family Violence on how Hurricane Harvey affected families that had already experienced domestic violence found that the stress associated with disaster led to higher rates of both domestic violence and child abuse after the hurricane. During the pandemic, parents are seeing a similar reduced access to resources, increased stress from job loss or strained finances, and a disconnect from social support systems.

Many families affected by national emergencies—in this case, COVID-19—and especially those of lower socioeconomic status face greater social and economic pressures than more well-off families in the same conditions. So when a yearlong pandemic decimated the

If you have concerns about a child’s wellbeing or need to report abuse or neglect, resources are available to you.

In D.C.: Call CFSA’s 24-hour hotline, (202) 671-7233.

Written resources are available at cfsa.dc.gov/service/ report-child-abuse-and-neglect.

In Montgomery County: Call the 24-hour Child Welfare Services Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline, (240) 777-4417.

In Prince George’s County: Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Mondays through Fridays, call (301) 909-2450. Outside of those hours, call (301) 699-8605. Find additional information about the county’s child abuse prevention initiative at pgcsafekids.org.

In Arlington County: Call Child Protective Services’ 24-hour emergency hotline, (703) 228-1500, or 911. Mandated reporters can file a report through the Department of Social Services’ secure website, vacps.dss.virginia.gov.

In Fairfax County: Report abuse or seek advice by calling the Child Protective Services 24-hour hotline, (703) 324-7400.

Tips for recognizing abuse and answers to frequently asked questions are available at fairfaxcounty.gov/familyservices/ children-youth/report-child-abuse.

Find information about becoming a volunteer courtappointed special advocate for a child in your community by visiting the organizations’ websites: casadc.org, voicesforchildrenmontgomery.org, pgcasa.org, scanva.org/ casa, fairfaxcasa.org

U.S. economy, causing millions of people to lose their jobs, authorities made the logical assumption that child abuse and neglect is not dropping. Rather, it’s likely increasing without as much intervention from mandatory reporters like school and day care personnel.

“Just measuring your success by foster care rolls and referrals going down, that is not appropriate because CFSA exists to make sure kids are safe,” says Marie Cohen, a former social worker in the D.C. foster care system and author of the website Child Welfare Monitor. “The purpose of CSFA is not to put itself out of business.

The purpose is to protect kids.”

I

n CFSA’s annual performance oversight hearing for fiscal year 2020, held on Feb. 25, 2021, CFSA Director Brenda Donald reported CFSA experienced a decline in many aspects of reporting abuse and neglect. From the beginning of the public health emergency in D.C. through the end of the 2019-20 school year, CFSA saw a 62 percent decline in hotline reports of abuse and neglect from the same time frame in 2019.

The six-hour hearing included testimonies from D.C. foster children, foster parents, advocates, and councilmembers who expressed their viewpoints on CFSA’s strengths and weaknesses.

Some pointed out the city had essentially lost more than a year of oversight of vulnerable children.

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau served as moderator

for the virtual hearing and seemed skeptical of Donald’s testimony.

CFSA Deputy Director Robert Matthews joined Donald in responding to Nadeau’s questions, which addressed the shortcomings CFSA had seen during the pandemic.

“Hotline calls are still incredibly low,” Nadeau said. “Do we feel that where we are now is accurate?”

“What we do believe is that our outreach to schools and to others, the uptick in calls is starting to normalize,” Matthews said.

“Teachers are calling the hotline.”

Nadeau, unsatisfied with his answer, said CFSA would need to continue sending training to teachers, especially those who have continued to teach virtually. Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George pointed out that Shannon Hodge, executive founding member of the D.C. Charter School Alliance, had said in an earlier testimony that her organization was not aware of CFSA’s development training.

“Please reach out to her,” George advised.

As tensions rose in the hearing, Nadeau zeroed in on CFSA’s list of backlogged case investigations.

“In FY21, CFSA reports more than twice as many backlogged investigations than FY20, increasing from 32 to 74,” Nadeau said.

“How does CFSA intend to remedy this?”

Matthews spoke generally about investigation time frames and requesting information from hospitals or case workers.

“I see,” Nadeau said. “So what is the answer then?”

Matthews explained that CFSA has waited for data from hospitals that already have a COVID-related backlog. “We need that information to make determinations,” he said. “We don’t necessarily want to prematurely close an investigation without having the information.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like it actually does matter, it’s not just an administrative hurdle, it actually matters in how the case is handled,” Nadeau responded. “Yikes. OK, well that’s frustrating and if you in your brainstorming can think of any ways that we can be helpful, let us know.”

Tami Weerasingha-Cote, senior policy attorney at Children’s Law Center and a resident of the District, also testified during CFSA’s performance oversight hearing. Weerasingha-Cote’s testimony described CFSA’s “continued struggle to provide stable placement for foster care children” during the pandemic. The testimony described CFSA doing the best it could with the precarious situation in which the pandemic placed foster youth.

“Many of D.C.’s resource parents work jobs that lack the flexibility to work from home. For these families, it has been particularly difficult to oversee and support virtual instruction,” Weerasingha-Cote wrote in her testimony.

Resource families, who include foster parents and kinship caregivers, play a large part in supporting children who are under CFSA’s care. Taylor Woodman, a Ward 4 resident and licensed resource parent for D.C. foster youth, testified about his experience as a resource parent, urging CFSA to provide more COVID-related assistance, including vaccine appointments for their resource parents.

But CFSA can only protect the children it knows about. The children who are out of school and off teachers’ and caregivers’ radar, like Gabriel Eason and his brothers, are likely among those most affected by the pandemic.

“We need an army to end child abuse, and to respond to those who experienced it, whether they're pediatric patients or adults or survivors of child abuse,” Jackson says. “And I think because it's been amplified so much during the pandemic, my hope is that it will get the attention that it's due, and the resources that are needed in order to really affect change.”

This story was published with the support of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 15

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With deep ties to local politics (Greene was Chief of Staff to Mayor Marion Barry), Greene has helped sha into who’d been awarded cultivator and dispensary licenses by the city.

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In 2011, D.C. legalized the use and sale of medical cannabis. Since 2015, residents 21 and up are allowed mature at once). Partaking is allowed on private property, and it’s legal to “transfer,” but not sell, up to one

Of the 10 cultivator licenses issued, only two went to minorities. Of the eight dispensary licenses, Greene cannabis card holders lived in Wards 7 and 8. “With us being the most economically deprived Wards, [card dispensaries, which is an additional cost,” explains Greene. Only two women—one White, one Black—rec

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Greene, a Black woman, now employs nearly a dozen full time staff—90% of which are Ward 8 residents, folks in Ward 7 and 8. Greene, who lives in the community, explains: “Black people have been left out of th

Norbert Pickett, the owner of Cannabliss in Ward 7’s Deanwood neighborhood, is also doing his part to cre tech industry,” says Pickett, which is predominantly made up of White men. “We need more women, more August 2019. A year later, the dispensary unionized to help achieve its goal of creating a “path to middle c

Locally and nationally, advocates are working to create equity in the cannabis industry. Greene chairs the wide policy that federation members will be required to agree to, as well as benchmarks and goals to mea working with legislators around the country on improving social equity in cannabis. He says, “The mood of

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Cannabis Trade Federation’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force, which is developing industryasure the industry’s progress. Pickett, the first Black man to solely own a dispensary in D.C., is also f the country right now is social equity and diversity.”

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FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Table for None Several D.C. restaurants survived the pandemic without letting customers cross the threshold. Was only offering takeout the right decision?

Having the dining room closed at AllPurpose Shaw eased the restaurant’s transition into an unpredictable but mostly thriving takeout operation. From March 2020 to March 2021, Friedman says his Shaw shop sold 65,000 pizzas. All of those pizza boxes and bottled to-go cocktails require a lot of square footage.

Friedman counts his blessings knowing that he’s always been “in the business of satisfaction and nostalgia”—two intangibles diners have craved throughout the pandemic.

Spicy honey-drizzled pepperoni pizzas from All-Purpose and Red Hen’s sausage-studded mezze rigatoni are comforting eats and translate well to takeout. “That paid off,” he says.

“But I didn’t build the concepts just in case there was a yearlong pandemic thinking that we’d be OK!” Fellow pizzeria 2 Amys could also capitalize on selling one of the world’s most popular delivery items and a loyal following that

Over the past year, restaurant owners have lamented being at the mercy of the weather. Surprise squalls and cold snaps thwarted customers’ outdoor dining plans and dollars, metaphorically speaking, slipped down storm drains. Other tortured proprietors had to expand or shrink their staff like an accordion as the city loosened and tightened indoor dining capacity. Still more said they had to cut the cord on the notion that the “customer is always right” when diners wouldn’t adhere to regulations set by the city.

But a small contingent of local restaurateurs positioned themselves to avoid these challenges by never letting customers cross the threshold of their restaurants. From day one of the pandemic, they’ve only offered takeout. Those who spoke with City Paper are unified in the primary driving force behind their choice—keeping employees as safe as possible. They also say that while they believe they charted the right course, they don’t fault others in the industry for taking different approaches. In a pandemic, there are only hard decisions.

“It was the right decision for us because none of our employees have had any problems,” says Sak Pollert. He’s owned RICE, a Thai restaurant on 14th Street NW, since 2003 and says he “sacrificed a lot economically” by losing out on dine-in income.

Fortunately for him, his landlord was willing to work with him on reducing rent through a payment plan. “We are all still together as a family and safe and sound,” he says. “We hope that once this issue has passed we can recover financially, but if we lost anyone that’s impossible to recover from.”

“Out of the gate we listened to our staff,” echoes restaurateur Mike Friedman. He still hasn’t let anyone besides staff enter AllPurpose Pizzeria in Shaw or The Red Hen in Bloomingdale. The Capitol Riverfront location of All-Purpose has offered outdoor dining. “That’s the No. 1 thing that’s driven our approach to this—listening to the people that work with us,” he says. “The sentiment was, ‘We don’t feel comfortable bringing people in.’

One-hundred percent I made the right choice.”

Despite this approach, Friedman had to contend with a number of COVID-19 scares. “[Transmission] could have happened at home,” he says. “There’s a bit of an honor code.

It’s hard to tell someone what to do when they’re not at the restaurants.” They were transparent about incidents on social media, sharing with the public that they would close until all employees received negative test results.

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC

18 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

predated the pandemic. Owner Peter Pastan was so committed to takeout that he set up a second pizza oven in the dining room to give his line cooks room to spread out.

“Things are stressful the way they are, but if I had to think about fighting with stupid customers who don’t follow the rules, that puts so much stress on me and my staff,” Pastan explains. “Looking at good weather and bad weather and constantly running around like a crazy person trying to adapt sounds like a nightmare scenario to me. Having made the decision I did, I felt a lot better. You can see a clearer path forward.”

Other restaurants never imagined they’d be selling food to-go, like Trinidadian restaurant Cane on H Street NE or Dupont Circle fine dining mainstay Komi. “The safety of our team has always been nonnegotiable,” says Anne Marler, Komi and Little Serow co-owner. “We’d make the same decision again, every time, without

hesitation. It was a no-brainer for us. With carryout, we’re all on equal footing. We and our guests both wear masks in a show of mutual respect and shared experience. It represents that we’re all on the same page, doing our best to keep each other safe.”

But there’s no way to box up a two-hour Greek tasting menu experience from Chef Johnny Monis and his team, so Komi reopened as Happy Gyro, a more laid-back restaurant they ran as a successful pop up in the past. The menu stars a vegetarian yuba skin gyro as well as pizzas, walnut tacos, fun sides such as smoky mozzarella sticks, and ice creams like sourdough with persimmon and cocoa nib praline from sous chef Ben Brunner.

“It would be easy to think that this scrappy, casual operation we’ve devoted ourselves to for the last year is just a ‘plan b,’ or something less fulfilling than what we were doing before, but that isn’t really the case,” Marler continues. “We’re unbelievably proud of the product we’re putting out and have found a lot of joy tapping into long-simmering creative pursuits.” She says her husband’s pizzas and Brunner’s ice creams would be the best things to come out of 2020, “plague or not.”

Cane is about the same size as Komi, which takes up the single floor of a converted row house. “When considering the risks and rewards, we thought it didn’t make sense to

FOOD expose the staff,” says Cane’s chef and owner Peter Prime. “We only had 33 seats inside and limited opportunities for outdoor seating.

This year has been about surviving. Everyone came through healthy so far.”

He was just starting to consider offering a few items for takeout and delivery when the pandemic hit. “I originally thought of Cane as the complete experience,” Prime says. “I was pleasantly surprised when there was demand for Cane food apart from the experience at home.” Still, he misses the instant gratification of seeing people enjoy his food. When food is divorced from the dining experience, chefs can feel like they’re just going through the motions.

“We used to have fun with the presentation,” says Pollert from RICE. “We’d garnish dishes with microgreens and make food for the eyes as much as for the stomach.” Now they nestle drunken noodles and stir-fried spicy duck into cardboard containers. “We became more like a factory to produce food.

There’s no pride or joy because it’s ending up in a box. We don’t see the appreciation or satisfaction that we used to see at the table.

We’re grateful that we still have a job, but there’s no joy.”

Friedman, meanwhile, says he rethought his role as a restaurateur. “My job changed in the sense that I was now in charge of the three Cs: Culture, Content, and Creativity,” he says.

“I do not have restaurants anymore. They don’t exist in the normal sense. I have websites now. How do I drive exposure to those websites?” At Red Hen, Friedman has run special menus celebrating different regions of Italy to keep the menu fresh and assuage boredom for both customers and staff.

notes, or bottled hand soap that would normally be dispensed on site in the restroom.

“It’s counterintuitive, but translating our skill set for people to take into their homes is surprisingly intimate,” Marler says. “Instead of pairing wines with specific dishes, our wine director Kyle Wilson is pairing wines with

“We don’t see a return to in-person dining while masks are still a necessary part of our life. Our faces, and the faces of our guests, are a huge part of the hyper-personal style of service that we’ve taken so much care to cultivate. The interpersonal alchemy is what elevates a meal above the sum of its parts.”

While you don’t get to banter with your regular server or see “Happy Anniversary” scrawled in chocolate sauce on dessert plates, some restaurants have found ways to box up hospitality. Memorable takeout meals have come with suggested playlists, handwritten

entire life events. He’s always been so good at weaving a narrative around wine, but now it’s happening in an almost literal way.” A couple wanted the Happy Gyro team to set them up with a series of meals and wines for their anniversary weekend, for example. The

restaurant obliged. “It’s been pretty special that people can let us into their lives to that extent,” Marler says.

Now that D.C. restaurant workers are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, and more Washingtonians seem to be venturing out to eat after being vaccinated, restaurants are weighing when they’ll feel comfortable inviting diners to sit down for meals again.

“We cannot wait to bring people back into the restaurant,” Friedman says. “Just the sounds of restaurants we miss—the clinking of glasses, the laughter, the shaking of a cocktail. We even miss the dropping of plates during a busy service.” But he’s not looking to make any changes until the majority of his employees at all locations are vaccinated and the city increases the indoor dining seating capacity beyond 25 percent. For Prime, that percentage needs to be over 50 percent.

Marler goes even further. “We don’t see a return to in-person dining while masks are still a necessary part of our life,” she says.

“Our faces, and the faces of our guests, are a huge part of the hyper-personal style of service that we’ve taken so much care to cultivate. The interpersonal alchemy is what elevates a meal above the sum of its parts. … We don’t know what the future will hold, but it’s hard to envision a future that looks exactly like how things used to look—and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

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12:47:43 PM washingtoncitypaper.com1/6/2021 april 2021 19

ARTS

Clinical Poetics

Tiffany Carmouche

A D.C. nonprofit makes poetry out of the stories of nurses, doctors, and patients.

Frankie Abralind

By John Anderson Contributing Writer “The word tender comes to mind,” says Tamara Wellons, who manages the artist in residence program at the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax. In a space on the second floor, near the elevators and escalator, a person sits at a table with a typewriter and an open chair across from her. Two signs read “Listener Poet” and “Tell Us Your Story.” Anyone is welcome to sit and tell their story, Wellons continues. “A caregiver, staff member, or patient: on site, it can be a security guard. It can be anyone in the space who wants to sit down and be with the listener poets.”

Schar’s AIR program is a partnership with Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, a D.C. nonprofit that creates most of its programming to support patients and caregivers dealing with cancer. A variety of artists participate: painters, knitters, musicians. It also includes The Good Listening Project, a D.C.-based nonprofit that sends listener poets to hospitals and medical

conferences—in person or, now, remotely. They listen to doctors and nurses, and write poems for them based on their conversations.

The Good Listening Project is the brainchild of Frankie Abralind, an experiential designer and experienced listener, who wants to be part of the solution to reduce staff burnout in medicine. What was once a weekend art project got reinvented through his job as a designer in the Sibley Memorial Hospital’s Innovation Hub— plus business trips and chance encounters at Burning Man. While anyone who sits with The Good Listening Project receives a poem, in the end, what they get from the experience is something far greater: the opportunity to be heard.

The project has roots in a business trip to New Orleans in 2013. Abralind saw numerous poets busking in the French Quarter the way musicians might—typewriters their only instruments. “I was immediately captured by that idea,” Abralind says, “because I love talking to strangers, and I had this confidence that I could write a poem.”

20 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

He’d never seen a poet busker in D.C., so when he returned home he became that guy, minus the tip jar. He called it Free Custom Poetry. Accompanied by a friend, a folding table, two typewriters, and a bag of paper, they’d set up near the National Air and Space Museum and write poems for interested tourists. Abralind would then photograph the people—his poemees, as he called them—and write brief notes about each poem. But the fun wasn’t just giving writing away: It was in the connection, the empathy.

For a long time, Free Custom Poetry was just a hobby, though. In 2016, Abralind began working in the Innovation Hub at Sibley Memorial Hospital. The Hub worked to solve staff-led problems via design thinking: a way to solve problems through ideation, prototyping, and user testing. They might create devices, like 3D-printed hooks to carry walkers on the back of wheelchairs when transporting patients, or they might work on more abstract issues, like creating an illustrated guide to better communicate the importance of case coordinators.

That summer, Abralind asked his co-worker, Andrew Yin, if he would be interested in joining him on the Mall to write poems for tourists, as he’d been doing for years. “He said, ‘I know you really like listening and hearing people’s stories,’” Yin recalled. Abralind described it as a creative way to listen to people’s stories and translate them.

Poem-writing frustrated Yin at times, but he remembers most encounters fondly, like the poems he composed for a pair of women who just graduated college. “I got to write this poem about getting older, growing up, and becoming adults,” Yin ref lected. “As they walked away, I saw them turn to each other and give each other a hug, and just be so happy to be with each other. It was totally amazing to see that reaction.”

Back at work, their boss, Nick Dawson, saw photos of Yin and Abralind’s outing. He asked why Abralind hadn’t done it at Sibley.

Abralind hadn’t considered it. On a day off, Abralind went to work and set up his typewriter, expecting to write poems for patients.

Instead, staff sat down. They discussed giving diagnoses, or concerns about burnout, among other things. It dawned on Abralind how well Free Custom Poetry fit in a hospital setting: He wanted to make it a program.

Burnout, which came up often in the sessions, is a major concern in medicine. “Nurses want to leave after the first year of being a floor nurse,” says Suzanne Dutton, a geriatric nurse practitioner at Sibley who earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice studying burnout.

Dutton first met Abralind in the Innovation Hub, creating a whiteboard questionnaire to assist nurses dealing with patients who had delirium and short-term memory issues.

According to one recent longitudinal study, pre-COVID, 31 percent of registered nurses will leave after the second year and up to 55 percent will leave within six years. Dutton mentions other factors, such as patient to nurse ratio, staffing shortages, patient suffering, and challenges with institutional and ethical issues. But for her, burnout was also a lived experience. After 15 years as a nurse practitioner, it got to be too much. She had been on-call 24/7 for 1,000 geriatric patients.

“I considered leaving and becoming a pastry chef,” she says. Instead, Dutton took a different job at Sibley.

Chance encounters at Burning Man made it possible for Abralind’s project to get off the ground. In 2017, the festival provided him with a summer intern; in 2018, it gave him a pro bono grant writer, a benefactor, and a co-founder. By the end of 2018, he’d officially left Sibley and started an independent nonprofit called The Good Listening Project with Kay McKean, a leadership coach who balanced her organizational strategy and long-term planning against Abralind’s mission development and sales.

“Poetry is the how of what we do,” says McKean. “Listening is the why of what we do.

From the beginning, we always had the presence of listening: That is where the healing comes from.”

ARTS After The Good Listening Project completes a contract with a hospital or conference, they create collections of poems, each roughly 140 pages. Only half of the pages contain a poem: The other half are notes about the poems. For example, one of Abralind’s poems uses a river as a metaphor.

There’s never been a way to stop The river Gabrielle The rocks, and dams, and ice blockades That have made her feel unwell Have only served to redirect She finds another way To trickle, flow, to carve out, roar, And thrive another day The opposite page clarifies the obstacles were three cancer diagnoses, and the patient’s definition of resilience is not just to survive, but to thrive and use the opportunity to grow.

Other poems are more direct. “Mauricio” by Ravenna Raven, the only trained poet among the listener poets, begins: He’s the best dad ever, even when we’re not together. I was gone for five days but he was never worried, though the baby started teething and the two-year-old stopped sleeping…

“As listener poets we are not writing for anyone but that one person,” Abralind ref lects, noting that the motivations of his Listening Poets are not to get work into journals or the New Yorker. “Is it the best poem ever written? Yes—for that one person. That is our hope.”

As part of their follow-up work, The Good Listening Project solicits feedback from participants. One patient’s testimonial debated whether the best thing about the day was the poem or learning the shadow on her liver was benign.

Dutton, the nurse practitioner who’d studied burnout, brought The Good Listening Project to her unit at Sibley for Nurses Week in early 2020.

As she made her rounds and told nurses where to get a poem, she overheard one say, “That was the best part of my whole month.”

Rosemary Trejo was one of the nurses who took part. “I thought if Frankie was leading it, then I want to do it,” she says. She previously sought Abralind’s help in the Innovation Hub to create a bag to carry awkward patient-controlled analgesia pumps when moving patients.

“I always thought he was a great listener.”

Trejo spoke with Abralind about her evolving relationship with her mother as she becomes her mother’s caretaker, coming to the U.S. from El Salvador, and the sacrifices she and her husband made for their kids. “He tapped me into a space that I have not tapped in—being a mother and career woman, all these different roles I have carried.” Throughout, she listed accomplishments that she never stopped to give herself credit for. “He captured it, and put it in a poem. And when I reflected, I thought, ‘oh my God, that’s incredible!’”

“I do know some other people have their poems hanging up,” she says, but Trejo’s poem is no longer available to her. It lives in a locked drawer; the office space she once inhabited is now part of the hospital’s COVID unit, storing masks and other PPE. “I have moved so many times already. I hope it’s still there.”

At the beginning of 2019, Abralind’s hope was to be able to reach 100 hospitals by the third year of the nonprofit. 2020 seemed equally hopeful. Then the pandemic hit.

“That one week at the beginning of March, [Schar] said we aren’t allowed into the hospital anymore,” Abralind recalled. “The next week, we had our Zoom set up.”

“The Good Listening Project pivoted quickly,” according to Wellons. “Frankie worked really hard to get things going online so people could do it virtually.” She recalls the

John Anderson

Listening has a multitude of benefits. Good listeners make for better doctors and nurses: They can get better information, make better diagnoses, and retain the trust of patients and their families. When Abralind recruits listener poets, he looks for people with high emotional intelligence—people who know how to listen; he doesn’t care if they’ve been published.

“One of my earliest team members had a master’s degree in counseling and had not written more than five poems before she started working with us,” he says.

In 2019 and 2020, The Good Listening Project’s setups at SXSW, an American Nurses Association conference, and the International Integrative Nursing Symposium were similar to Free Custom Poetry: a table, a typewriter, a sign. “We never call over people,” noted Abralind. “People always selfselect.” Still, they might pass the table three or four times in a day before choosing to sit down.

Participants who approached the listener poets sat with them for 10 or 15 minutes to tell their stories. After a session, poemees might linger as the listener poet jotted notes or began to compose the poem. But unlike Free Custom Poetry, these poems aren’t intended to be written in 15-20 minutes; they’ll be emailed within 24 hours of a listening session.

“You have to go into the conversation with the right energy,” remarks Elle Klassen, who met Abralind at Burning Man and interned with The Good Listening Project during its nascent days at Sibley. “I have to have a neutral energy so that people can share something really positive or really negative.”

Throughout a session, she remains calm and leaves space for silence, to let the participant have the time to collect their thoughts. “If I was too positive, participants might not talk about heavy topics.”

After listening to someone, McKean takes notes of the words used, elements of the story, and the overall experience. “If I have to step away [from the poem], when I return to write the piece, what I pay attention to first is the feeling we shared in that space.”

“The process of listening and writing the poem is really about staying in that place of presence and not breaking it,” says listener poet Jenny Hegland, a trained therapist who began contracting with The Good Listening Project in 2019. “Sometimes the poems just come,” she notes, mindful not to let too much of her interpretation overshadow the words of the poemee.

She also admits there are poems that take hours to craft. “It is a delicate art to take someone’s words and reflect it back,” she says. “If there was no deadline, it might take forever.”

After receipt, some participants might request a rewrite of the poem. All participants are informed that their poem may be used in a publication, anonymized, but that they have the option to opt out. Few do.

Not all poems are about health care. “I think people expect all our conversations to be about illness, disease, cancer,” Abralind says as he reflects on poems about trips, world politics, moving to D.C., and commuting. “The reality is patients are people first. Staff are people first. The first thing that comes to their mind might be completely orthogonal.”

John Anderson and listener poet Jenny Hegland

signs and vouchers for staff at the Schar Cancer Institute to connect. The Good Listening Project continued to iterate on its remote capabilities through the spring of 2020.

Because of The Good Listening Project’s on l i ne pro g ra m m i n g , t he A mer ic a n Association of Medical Colleges recently collaborated with it—as well as StoryCorps and 55-Word Stories—on a story-sharing activity.

Virginia Bush, a medical education project manager for the AAMC, calls it “a perfect fit.”

“The listener poet work highlights the therapeutic effects of telling a story during a time when many were isolated and scared,” Bush says. Partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the activity supports AAMC’s Fundamental Role of Arts and Humanities in Medical Education initiative.

Bush cites a growing understanding of how incorporating arts and humanities into hospitals helps with empathy, communication, and observation skills when doing patient intake.

“The hard sciences only go so far.”

The pivot to online also enabled other advantages that will likely outlive COVID restrictions. Affordability is one: Clients don’t have to pay for the costs of travel. Access is another. “[With Zoom] it doesn’t matter if you are working from home or at the other end of the building, or the night shift,” Abralind says. “You can sign up for a slot and talk with one of our listener poets.”

Predictability has been another advantage of Zoom. In person, the number of participants would fluctuate. People, unaware the service was on the hospital campus, might only be lured by what Raven called the anachronistic sound of the typewriter. Remotely, “because people sign up ahead of time, you know your schedule,” Raven says. “People get reminders about their sessions, so it’s a lot more formal. Very few people don’t show up at all.” Additionally, the contracts are now shared among who is available, instead of sending one contractor to one location. “On one given day a listener poet might be talking with participants from three or four different clients in three or four different states,” observed Abralind.

While Abralind can make an argument for continuing to use Zoom beyond 2021, Dutton knows that there are still benefits to in-person sessions. “So often nurses will say they don’t have time. ‘I can’t get off the unit. I can’t get a break. I don’t have time to eat lunch.’ They’ll do that and not make time for themselves,” Dutton says. That’s why she brought the project into her unit at Sibley: All her nurses had to do was round the corner. Nurses could simply ask one another to cover patients for 10 or 15 minutes.

Trejo’s in-person listening session with The Good Listening Project was, overall, a learning opportunity. “[As a nurse] you’re running around and have to do 10 other things.” She incorporated what she experienced during her listening session into how she works with patients: “I have tried to be a better listener.”

On rounds with physicians she’s mindful, sits to talk with patients, and maintains eye contact. “I think it has been effective. Your mind is still racing, but I try to be present. I take a deep breath because it is about them.”

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 21

Darrow Montgomery

ARTS

Chord Progress Fifty years later, the Nagoya guitars sold by one D.C.-area music shop are still prized, sought after, and played.

By John F. Maclean Contributing Writer Three months into quarantine, I got my father’s old guitar down from the attic. After I cleaned and polished it and put on new strings, I was impressed: The dusty wood transformed into a sleek brown and tan instrument that looked very similar to Martin’s classic acoustic dreadnought guitars. When I strummed, it had a full, rich, melodic tone. But the guitar manufacturer’s name stamped on the inside of the body—the Nagoya Guitar Company—was unfamiliar.

My father’s guitar wasn’t the only Nagoya around, though.

First popular 50 years ago, people in the D.C. area still had them, still talked about them, and were as impressed by them as I was. I was holding a local gem, sold in the thousands during its production run in the 1970s, and still prized, soughtafter, and played by musicians in the region.

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Fifty years ago, the construction and marketing of guitars went through a period of bedlam. Clone guitars of established electric and acoustic brands were being produced cheaply in Japan. Some were similar enough to result in copyright litigation: In 1977, the Gibson Guitar Corporation sued the Elger Guitar Company, which imported Ibanez guitars, for copyright infringement of its headstocks. In addition, C. F. Martin & Company acoustic guitars—which were established, expensive, and dated back to the 1920s—were going through a perceived drop in quality. That was rooted in two factors: a high increase in production from the popular folk music phase and a sea change in the expertise of guitar technicians, according to Reverb and guitar technician Dru Lore, who works for Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton. “The older generation all retired at the same time [at Martin], and there was a learning curve,” Lore says. The guitar world was like an open road for someone with a little imagination.

Into the void stepped Koob Veneman of Veneman Music, a local chain of stores based in Rockville, Silver Spring, Greenbelt, and Falls Church, though it would later branch into Bethesda and Springfield. Veneman had a reputation for creatively marketing and selling musical instruments.

“If you could think of it, he did it,” says Tony Litz, of Gaithersburg’s Victor Litz Music, whose music store competed with Veneman’s.

Veneman’s previous successful ventures included opening musical instrument superstores and publishing a national mail-order catalog. Albert “Ted” Veneman, the son of Koob Veneman, who died in 2010, says his father saw a market for inexpensive, quality guitars, and forged ahead in a new space.

“He went to Japan in the 1960s with a Martin guitar to see who could make anything similar, but a lot cheaper,” Ted Veneman says. “My father got to know a number of guitar makers in Japan who could work when and at what price.”

Starting around 1971, Koob Veneman had the guitars manufactured by a group of Japanese independent contractors, who worked for less money than U.S. guitar technicians. Because the contractors were based in Nagoya, Japan, Koob named them the “Nagoya Guitar Company.” There was no factory floor; the guitarmakers worked in whatever space they had available. “Dad [once] described guys working on a guitar in the alley outside, wherever they could find the space,” Ted Veneman says. The Nagoya N-18—my father’s model—was one of seven Nagoya models, which included 12-string guitars as well as the six-string acoustic N-18.

Though they were listed in Veneman’s national catalog, Nagoya guitars were intended for D.C.-area customers. “He never intended to sell them outside of the area,” Veneman says.

And sell they did. Although no official numbers were kept of the number of Nagoyas sold, William Johnson, who worked for Veneman Music from 1971 to 1985, said thousands of the guitars sold during the years they were made, from about 1971 to 1979. “At its height, we sold 20 to 30 guitars a day, many of them Nagoyas,” Johnson says.

“They were a household name in the region,” Litz says.

Ted Veneman, who co-managed the stores starting in 1971, agrees the guitars sold well. “The guitar business was very good to us, we made money, they were profitable guitars,” he says.

Ted also says that the success of the guitars was based on his father’s good market instincts. The Nagoya’s appearance, which was similar to Martin guitars with a dreadnought shape, a spruce

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Darrow Montgomery

body, a mahogany side and back, and a rosewood fingerboard, helped the guitars draw customers’ attention. Essentially, “it has the same basic specs” as a Martin guitar, says Ryan Clarke, a Rockville-based guitar repair technician.

But the differences between the Nagoya and Martin guitars were what really allowed the Nagoyas to become popular.

Instead of costing $600 to $800 per instrument, the prices for handbuilt Martin guitars at the time, the Nagoya models ranged from about $70 to $200, according to Reverb and Levitz.

The key to their affordable price was the guitars’ construction. The tops of Nagoya guitars were made from multiple pieces of wood, instead of one solid piece like Martins, Clarke and Johnson say. In addition, the back and sides of the Nagoya N-18, my mid-price model, were made from lower quality wood than the mahogany used for Martins. The neck of the Nagoya was also made from different pieces of wood glued together, and Clarke says the peghead, which bore the implant “Nagoya,” was a thin layer of rosewood veneer over a stained piece of plywood.

That led to major savings. “You can make three to four [Nagoya] guitars from a piece of wood that Martins used to make one out of solid wood,” Clarke says.

And despite the cheaper construction, Nagoya guitars maintained a good sound. “[My father] always did try to get the best quality for the money,” Ted Veneman says.

Not only did people buy a lot of them, they remembered buying them—even half a century later. Harvey Reid, a professional musician for 45 years who grew up in Adelphi, bought a Nagoya guitar in 1971 from Veneman Music’s Greenbelt store.

“I was a 17-year-old kid, it was a decent-looking guitar, and it was a lot cheaper than a Martin,” Reid says. “The salesman steered us toward it.” “Us” refers to Reid and Glen Morgan, who grew up with Reid in Adelphi and bought a Nagoya guitar on the same day so they could play as a duo.

“I played that guitar until the late 1990s before I bought a replacement for it. It was really good at a fantastic value,” Morgan says.

And my father, John N. Maclean, who is not a professional musician but loves playing the guitar, originally bought my Nagoya N-18 from a D.C. guitar store so he could take it on Boy Scout camping trips for campfire songs: “You could take it anywhere and it played well.”

The quality sound also drew the attention of professional musicians who had to travel extensively. “If you had to take it on an airplane, it would still sound well, and from two rows back from the stage, no one could tell that it wasn’t a Martin,” Lore says. And if the guitar got lost, they could afford to buy a new one.

Johnson says production for the Nagoya guitars stopped in 1979 due to the rise in popularity of electric guitars, while Ted Veneman believes production continued until the early 1980s.

Veneman Music was sold to Guitar Center in 2002.

But despite the fact that Koob Veneman’s Nagoyas were clearly imitating the Martin line at a lower price, Ted says he and the Martin company got along well; Veneman Music also carried Martin guitars. Johnson and Ted Veneman say that despite the Nagoyas’ similarity to Martin guitars, C.F. Martin & Company never sent Koob a cease and desist regarding the Nagoyas. Clarke says that while the Nagoyas were similar in spirit and design, the difference in construction was marked.

Ted Veneman speaks with pride and some nostalgia when talking about the guitars; so does Morgan. That kind of nostalgia is one of the reasons Nagoya guitars are valued in the area today. Morgan, for example, says he still owns his Nagoya guitar and played it recently. “I held onto it for sentimental reasons,” Morgan says. “It sounds as good as I remember it sounding.”

Joe Kane, a former manager for Veneman Music, wrote in an email that he still “own[s] and love[s] his Nagoya N-28.”

Mark Leary, of Atomic Music in Beltsville, said some people in the D.C. area now buy used Nagoya guitars because of the nostalgia. “They have a niche mark, they have big fans, and they try to get them all,” Leary says.

Darrow Montgomery

ARTS

“If you had to take it on an airplane, it would still sound well, and from two rows back from the stage, no one could tell that it wasn’t a Martin.”

But used Nagoyas also sell because 40 years after their construction ceased, they remain good instruments. Leary, who recently sold a Nagoya guitar for $389, says he’ll recommend them to customers if they are in the customer’s price range when they are looking for quality guitars.

Reid agrees the instruments have aged well for their quality.

“They got a little better with age,” says Reid, whose career accolades include releasing over 10 solo recordings and winning the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar Competition. “It is a perfectly decent sounding guitar.”

And 50 years after they were first made, parts of their construction are viewed as innovative. Using multiple pieces of wood for the body of the guitar helped prevent warping, which allows the guitars to stay in good condition today, Johnson says. The Martin guitar company even later adopted an aspect of the Nagoya N-18. Clarke

says the Nagoya N-18 has a “moveable truss rod” inset in the neck, which allows the owner to lessen the stress on the strings, making it possible to play slide guitar. Additionally, the ability to adjust the neck helps protect the part during winter, when the angle of the neck can move from lack of moisture. According to Clarke, the Martin guitar company added a moveable truss to its guitars in the 1980s.

“It’s a little ahead of its time,” Clarke says. At the time, not using a solid piece of wood for one guitar “was a cost-saving measure, but now it is how many woods are often cut.”

But perhaps the strongest legacy of the Nagoya guitars was and continues to be bringing quality, affordable guitars to people in the Washington, D.C. area.

Morgan, the Nagoya owner who bought one on the same day as Reid, agrees that it’s a solid instrument. He’s played it recently.

“It has a warm tone, it is resilient, it is held together well,” he says.

ARTS MUSEUM REVIEW

APRIL SHOWERS

Braided Together Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend Digital exhibition at nmwa.org to June 27

OVER

$3.4 MILLION

Lee Stalsworth

On one level, some of Sonya Clark’s art is unassuming—a ball of hair might not be seen as extremely political. But once placed in an exhibition with an unraveling Confederate battle flag, reconsidering the narrative of a ball of hair is necessary. Hair is natural to most people; most of us have it. It comes in various colors and textures, but what should be a basic aspect of identity is actually very charged. Though stories about natural hair are featured in television and print news today, the politicization of hair predates even these media inventions. When Africans were captured into slavery, their identities were stripped from them, including the sense of pride and notions of beauty they had for their hair.

Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend, a 25-year retrospective of the artist’s career at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, is currently available in an online exhibition that highlights 33 of the 100 works on view at the physical location. While seeing all these artworks in the physical space would allow for a greater appreciation of the artistry in the works, the online exhibition highlights their contextual dynamics. The text alongside the artwork explains their significance not only to the larger body of work but to the greater cultural context, allowing viewers to understand the gravity of Clark’s work and its relation to consciousnessraising and art activism.

Since the 1960s Black Power Movement, the consciousness-raising of the Black Panthers awakened many to the idea that Black is beautiful, and that the Afro and Black people’s natural hair texture is too. In recent times, there has been a shift in our thinking about hair, divesting us from generations of favorable bias toward untextured hair. And as Black women, especially, embrace the texture of their hair, they show their social consciousness is changing as well. Though popular hairstyles for Black people have gone through many changes over time from straightening with hot combs, to Afros, to jheri curls, to perms, mostly due to the dominant culture dictating job qualifications based on one’s ability to fit into White culture through hair choices, today, Black people are demanding they be accepted as who they are—with their natural hair.

Clark’s art argues that Black hair is beautiful. She uses hair as a textile to create art in the way other artists might use cotton or silk, taking a lead from Black hair stylists, whom she calls textile artists for the intricate styles they create.

She alerts us to the politicization of Black hair by featuring it in a way that connects it to experiences, particularly the transatlantic slave trade, that have inhibited African diasporic peoples’ progression. Clark uses hair to tell the story of Black life from slavery to modern times, as she

“Cotton to Hair” by Sonya Clark (2009); National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection

forges a relationship between Africa and African diasporic people by manipulating hair and hairlike fibers to represent their shared experiences despite inhabiting varied countries. Throughout the diaspora, there is the common misbelief that African features are abnormal. Clark strives to normalize and argues for the acceptance of textured hair as beautiful into our belief systems.

“Mom’s Hair or Cotton Candy” is a photograph of a handful of Clark’s mother’s white hair. Based on Yoruba cultural tradition, white is associated with wisdom, which implies that those whose hair naturally changes to white over time are wise. Clark’s family are descendents of Africa, but they were brought to the Caribbean through the transatlantic slave trade to harvest sugarcane. Her mother’s hair is both a product of wisdom and work; it is the product of Africa and the sugar plantation. The title of another work, “Skein,” is deceptive, as it appears to be a ball made of locs. But what Clark has done here is pieced together 80,000 individual hairs to represent the number of Africans transported from Africa in a single year during the height of the transatlantic slave trade. The meticulousness of this artwork is inspiring, and its apparent simplicity is intriguing. In “Triangle Trade,” Clark uses cotton fiber to cornrow, the name of the braiding style for Americans because it is reminiscent of cornfields, to describe the network between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that made up the transatlantic slave trade. By braiding the triangle, she makes linkages to African people and their relationships to three corners of the world.

Clark’s work enforces the connections between African diasporic people through their hair and shared circumstance. Hair, as a symbol of Blackness in these artworks, bonds the people to her work and speaks of their potency and permanence. She manipulates fibers to contextualize the heinous experiences of Black people based on something as natural but disquieting as hair. Tatter, Bristle, and Mend reestablishes Black hair as beautiful after centuries of Black people being told their natural hair is inappropriate.

—Shantay Robinson

IN TOTAL CASH PRIZES

dclottery.com

DC scratcher games may continue to be sold even when all the top prizes have been claimed.

Washington City Paper | 1/2 pg | 4.8542” x 11.25” | 4c | New | April Bundler

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 25

CITY LIGHTS City Lights

Love the One You’re With After wrapping principal photography on his latest movie, Love the One You’re With, at the end of 2020, D.C. comedian Sampson McCormick sat down with his editor. Then he realized disaster had struck. “All of the files we had recorded had completely disappeared,” explains McCormick. “We had to film the entire movie all over again.”

What some might obviously view as a fiasco, McCormick—who also starred in, wrote, and executive produced the film—saw it as an opportunity. “It actually worked, I think, because we were only rehearsing on Zoom. So the first time that we did it, I think it served as a dress rehearsal,” he says. The result of the second shoot is a 60-minute comedy-slashdrama about a Black gay monogamous couple who are experiencing the six-year itch.

For McCormick, who has previously written, acted in, and executive produced other projects, having creative control is essential.

“You absolutely have to maintain that control of what you got going on,” McCormick advises. “If you are an artist or a business owner, and you value a certain degree of integrity, running your own business means you get to make sure things are done the right way. You’re able to do work that you feel good about.” Next up for the Los Angelesbased comedian are homecoming shows at the D.C. Comedy Loft on June 11 and 12. “As long as everything continues to improve, I will be there,” says McCormick. “I need to get to work on that show so I can come back and wow everybody.” The film is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Free with subscription.

—Christina Smart

City Lights

compass: I When D.C. R&B singer-songwriter Debórah Bond got to work on her latest album, compass: I (that’s “one”), she was already at a crossroads in life. “I have had some major changes,” admits Bond. “I ended a 14-year relationship. I had my longtime band personnel shift a bit and just going through, to be really frank, a midlife crisis.” The personal turmoil and free time the pandemic provided allowed Bond to reset her compass, so to speak, recording from her home studio while having other musicians provide their parts from their individual homes. The results

are impressive. “Every instrument that’s live on this album was done in someone’s home,” says Bond. “When I listen to ‘stride,’ in particular, I can’t even believe how polished everything sounds—like we’re rocking in the studio. Where legendary drummer Nate Smith recorded his part in Nashville. There’s keys that were recorded in L.A. I made it come together.” Bond also managed to film a music video for the album’s first single “radio,” working with director T.L. Benton on an outdoor, socially distanced shoot. “We went to downtown Silver Spring,” explains Bond. “There’s this really cool building on Georgia Avenue that has this great rooftop.”

The one downside to the outdoor setting? “It was really cold!” laughs Bond. Having done a series of livestream performances in recent months, Bond is now inching towards normalcy, looking to get live in-person dates on her calendar. “Fingers crossed, I’ll be in Richmond, Virginia at the top of the summer and the Keystone Korner jazz club in Baltimore sometime in April or May.” The album is available on Spotify and streaming platforms. Free with subscription.

—Christina Smart

26 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

City Lights

City Lights

City Lights

City Lights

After being largely kept out of the American canon, Native poetry finally gained its own Norton anthology just last year; current U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee/Creek) edited it. The volume and her work as poet laureate dismantle the stereotypes that she writes “keep indigenous peoples bound to a story in which none of us ever made it out alive,” presenting the rich variety of Native poetic production and its geographic and historical range. For National Poetry Month, Harjo joins poets Kealoha (Native Hawaiian), Natalie Diaz (Mojave/Akimel O’otham), and Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio (Native Hawaiian) for a Smithsonian-hosted virtual reading and discussion. Kealoha and Osorio are storied slam poets in addition to their written work—Diaz was named a National Book Award finalist for her 2020 collection, Postcolonial Love Poem. Harjo’s own poems weave the mundane and the otherworldly into something dazzling. “Deer Dancer” brings the reader into a dive, “the bar of broken survivors.” “It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but / not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She / was the end of beauty.”

The poem shimmers, turning a woman dancing on a bar table into a dreamlike vision—the alchemy we come to poetry to find. The reading and discussion premieres at 11 a.m. on April 9 and runs through April 30 on YouTube. Free.

—Emily Walz

The North Country, like most bands, experienced plannus interruptus, having to cancel their promotional efforts for their latest release, America and Afterwards. “We were supposed to go to South By Southwest,” says lead singer Andrew Grossman. “We had a whole two-week tour that we booked that we canceled two days before we were going to leave because it was right when the lockdown happened.” As a distraction, Grossman turned to YouTube cooking videos. “I found it comforting,” he says. “I just found myself with a lot of time, so I started watching a lot of cooking YouTube videos and then started making some stuff. It’s a good way to keep busy, but there’s something calming about them.” This new preoccupation of Grossman’s became the concept for the music video for the group’s latest single, “Freaks,” which shows the vocalist interspersed with stock footage from a PBS cooking show featuring a cook preparing a vegetarian curry with rice. The music video wasn’t the only thing the band managed to create during the pandemic. They utilized this unexpected free time to create an EP—socially distanced—set for release later this year. “We did this recording project where we were kind of passing back files to each other,” Grossman says. “So we recorded a new EP, and it was a completely collaborative songwriting process.

It definitely changed the dynamic. I can’t see how it would have happened if the pandemic weren’t a thing.” The video is available to stream on YouTube. Free.

—Christina Smart

ing hobby by charting a course to see three of the Art in Bloom sakura sculptures bringing an infusion of kawaii culture to our city streets this spring. There are 26 blossoms painted by 25 artists positioned throughout the region for the National Cherry Blossom Festival—perfect for celebrating spring without crowding the Tidal Basin. Start your 2.6-mile walkabout in Shaw at 1805 7th St. NW. That’s where you’ll find “Petal to the Metal!” by David Greenfieldboyce. The punk-rock looking petals are made out of heavy steel plates, giving the sculpture an overall Game of Thrones feel. Then follow S Street NW until you hit New Hampshire Avenue NW and hang a left until you reach Dupont Circle. That’s where you’ll find sculpture two—“Cherry Blossom Picnic” by Rachael Bohlander—at 20th and Q streets NW. It charms with a brightly colored picnic spread on a checkered blanket. For the final leg, follow Q Street NW into Georgetown until you hit Wisconsin Avenue NW. Turn right and walk toward Reservoir Road NW where Book Hill Park is located. There, pose with the final blossom—“Ice Flavors” by Cory Oberndorfer.

The artist says they drew inspiration from strawberry, orange, lime, blue raspberry, and grape ice pop flavors, and each petal is dipped in a different color. Other than exercise and fresh air, you could score an Amazon gift card by following @CherryBlossFest on Instagram or Twitter and tagging your photos with #ArtInBloom through the end of May. The map of Art in Bloom sculptures is available at nationalcherryblossomfestival.org.

Free.

—Laura Hayes

No one wants to talk about death—about wills, power of attorney, advanced directives.

Peabody-winning journalist Diane Rehm hopes her upcoming documentary When My Time Comes can help change that. She also hopes it can spark conversations about medical aid in dying (MAID), a practice that allows terminally ill patients to receive life-ending medications from their physicians if they meet certain criteria. Rehm’s When My Time Comes follows the 2014 death of her husband John, who spoke with his own physicians about MAID. However, because he lived in Maryland (where the practice is illegal), he opted for VSED—voluntarily stopping eating and drinking. Reflecting on his death, Rehm has expressed frustrations with the process, and she has advocated for MAID since. The documentary takes her across the country, building on her 2020 book of the same name. As director Joe Fab tells it, When My Time Comes follows Rehm on her journey to learn as much as possible about MAID through conversations with patients, family members, physicians, clergy, and lawmakers. It also brings her in conversation with advocacy groups like Oregon-based Compassion & Choices. Ahead of the national launch of When My Time Comes, Rehm makes clear its relevance: MAID is now legal in nine states and Washington, D.C. Ten other states are currently debating authorizing the practice. The film airs on WETA at 9 p.m. on April 13. More information is available at whenmytimecomesmovie.com. Free. —Sarah Smith

Art in Bloom When My Time Indigenous Poetry: “Freaks” Comes Resilience When the pandemic hit in March 2020, D.C.’s Give purpose to your newfound pandemic walk-

washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 27

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Creative Struggle

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

“The venues,” says Shannon Gunn, “they hold the spirit of the music.” Since 2015, Gunn has been helping local jazz advocacy group CapitalBop organize its annual Jazz and Freedom Festival.

She first pitched the festival as a way to promote locally focused nonprofits. “It’s cathartic for musicians to be able to use their art for social justice,” she says. Past recipients include ICE Out of DC, Black Lives Matter, and this year, jazz educators at the Washington Jazz Arts Institute.

The festival couldn’t take place in person this year; instead, CapitalBop made a mini-docuseries about iconic venues that closed in 2020, including Alice’s Jazz and Cultural Society, Twins Jazz, and Columbia Station. “We were thinking about all the nonprofits we could help out,” Gunn says, “but there’s a huge problem right now in that all the venues are closing.” Others include Eighteenth Street Lounge, Marvin, and Sotto, and it’s unclear what will happen to Blues Alley, D.C.’s last full-time jazz venue. The docuseries mixes interviews and performance to make you feel like you’re in these storied spaces. Jamie Sandel, CapitalBop’s managing director, says that’s the idea: “to get one sliver of the magic that comes from listening to this music live.” Hear pianist Peter Edelman on the close-knit hangs at Columbia Station, or DeAndrey Howard on how growing up around D.C. jazz informed how he ran AJACS. Gunn appreciates how the Twins episode highlights bartender Wendy Whittington. “Jazz bartenders,” Gunn says, “keep things going. People don’t realize how much they’re the reason we can play at the venues because they just solve a lot of problems.” There’s a silver lining, though. Columbia Station moved all its music programming next door to Green Island Cafe, Twins Jazz has its foundation, and there are murmurs that AJACS could return. The documentaries are available on the CapitalBop YouTube channel. For more on Washington Jazz Arts Institute, visit wjai.org. Free.

—Michael Loria 28 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Across 1. Investment options 6. Thing shown off in a muscle shirt 9. Flimsily made 14. Nigeria’s capital 15. Cost of doing business 16. First thing everybody’s going to do once we’ve achieved herd immunity 17. Online combatant of all things evil on the internet 20. Sylvan ___ (electronic pop act) 21. Cashmere and angora 22. Bonus track on an expanded album reissue, perhaps 23. Cuzco 57-Down 25. Additional playing periods: Abbr.

27. Skirmishes between two 17-Acrosses?

34. Clean up in the tub 35. Storting’s nat.

36. Cancel out 38. “The first mistake of ___ is to assume that it’s serious” (Lester Bangs) 39. At the next available moment

As Above So Below

Jazz and Freedom Festival documentaries

City Lights

Southeast D.C.’s Ankhlejohn released his exceptional album As Above So Below in December 2020—his fifth release that year. The animated lyricist’s consistent output of great music has given him a cult following within the city and beyond. The 12-track As Above is produced entirely

by Brooklyn’s Navy Blue, who has also garnered a dedicated fan base for his intuitive and honest music. The project’s production is loaded with captivating samples that span from ethereal moans and smooth guitar riffs to low-pitched piano runs and chopped-up trumpet solos. Ankhlejohn enthusiastically raps over Navy Blue’s soundscapes with a unique delivery influenced by his past involvement in D.C.’s spoken word community (in high school, he hosted open mics at Busboys and Poets). He also demonstrates his lyrical versatility throughout the project; his braggadocious bars on “Man on a Mission” complement his self-aware and knowledgeable lyrics on “Final Destination.” The album was largely made by the artists sending verses and beats back and forth via email, but a few songs, such as “Look Beyond,” which features Da$h and al.divino, were recorded during one of Ankhlejohn’s recent trips to New York. In fact, the majority of the artists featured on the album are very present in New York’s bubbling underground scene. As Above So Below is one of the most cohesive projects released in the past year. Navy Blue creates an alternate sonic reality where Ankhlejohn’s lyrical mastery thrives, giving this release infinite playback potential. The album is available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify, and can be ordered on vinyl through the artist. Prices vary.

—Amari Newman

City Lights

42. The Cavaliers of the NCAA 43. Element with a silvery-blue appearance 45. Wrist action 46. Object 47. Combative spots written by one 17-Across to go after another 17-Across?

50. MMA decision 51. Cabinetmaker’s medium 53. With 68-Across, gauntlet drop by a 17-Across 60. Mash note verse 61. Strictly verboten 62. Inarticulate grunt made after a foolish comment 64. M portrayer between Robert and Ralph 65. Big name in brushes 66. “Sounds fun!”

67. Record label with a snapping fingers logo 68. See 53-Across 69. Lines at the casino Down 1. Hit the bong 2. Titles bestowed by the Queen: Abbr.

3. Van ___, CA 4. Room with decks

5. ___ Tomé and Príncipe 6. Haircut fluffed out with a comb 7. Mulligan 8. Pet kitten whimper 9. Lifeguard’s qualification, for short 10. Two threes, in craps 11. The lake in “Mistake By the Lake” 12. It gets smashed in a lab 13. One with a lighter touch?

18. No longer with the company, for short?

19. Starting from 24. Driving lanes: Abbr.

26. Schmuck

27. Columnist ___ Weiss 28. Directive on an env.

29. First name on a bomber 30. “America’s DriveIn” 31. Entrepreneur David who started a vacuum company 32. Metal fastener 33. Hold onto 34. Director Luhrmann 37. Sweet potato 40. Frequently, in verse 41. Jimmy Cliff ’s genre 44. Betty Crocker product 46. “What? Are you deaf? Forget it!”

48. Top Chef judge Colicchio 49. Half of an umlaut 50. Defender’s courtroom opponent 52. Hit below the belt, say 53. Hype up 54. Pack in the overhead bin 55. Old West card game 56. Letter-shaped construction piece 57. Doubloon makeup 58. Quoits pegs 59. Sheepskin holder 60. They’re worn while going undercover 63. Scoreboard nos.

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washingtoncitypaper.com april 2021 29

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

What’s your #City Paper Story?

Visit washington citypaper.com/ wcp40 or use the #CityPaperStory hashtag on social media to submit your story!

I’m a 29-year-old straight male. I’ve been with my 25-year-old partner for six years. I love her and think that we are perfect for each other. We have all the things that make existing with someone wonderful. But about two years into our relationship, I had a two-week-long affair while I was out of the country. I fucked up. I came clean to my partner and we’ve done our best to work through this over the last four years, but it has obviously caused some trust issues between us. I’ve never cheated again and I try every day to work through these issues I caused in our relationship.

There’s also been two recent instances of me breaking her trust. On a particularly stressful day, I was caught sneaking a cigarette—the sneaking part is the issue—and on another occasion, I did drugs in our communal back garden with a friend after she had gone to bed. I owned up to both straight away. I view both of these as being a symptom of the lockdown/pandemic prompting me to break with my “normal” behavior. But my partner is no longer comfortable allowing me to have the freedom to go out with my friends and partake in drugs without her permission, which she already said she’s unlikely to grant me. The other element to this is we want kids in three years. We’ve agreed that I will fully abstain from all drugs after we become parents.

My problem is that I’m trapped between a desire to meet the wants of my partner while also maintaining a degree of autonomy. When we discuss these matters, which we’ve been doing frequently lately, her argument boils down to this: “You did a bad thing. You need to make concessions so that I feel safe. You having to seek my permission makes me feel safe.” It’s coming to loggerheads and I don’t know if I’m the unreasonable one here, especially since I’m arguing for the freedom to do an illegal drug. I would appreciate your external, outside, drug-positive perspective in this.

—Don’t Really Understand Girlfriend’s Sentiment I had some emergency dental work done this morning and I’m a little strung out on … what are those things called again? Oh, right: drugs.

Last night, I selected the letters I wanted to respond to in this week’s column and I really didn’t expect to be on powerful painkillers when I sat down to write my responses today.

In all honesty, I probably shouldn’t be operating advice machinery at the moment but deadlines are deadlines. You should take my advice with a grain silo or two of salt, DRUGS, and everyone else should just skip this week’s column entirely.

OK! DRUGS! Here we go! My outside, external, drug-positive-but-with-caveats (see below) perspective on your dilemma boils down to this: Do not make babies with this woman. Don’t scramble your DNA together with hers, not unless it makes your dick hard to think about begging this woman for permission every time you wanna smoke a little pot with a friend or take a fucking shit for the next 40 years. (And, trust me, you’re still going to want to smoke pot after the babies come.) If that kind of begging excites you, great. Have all the fucking babies.

But if that doesn’t excite you … dude … run the fuck away.

Yeah, yeah: You did a bad thing. You had an affair four years ago and you made the mistake

30 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

of telling your girlfriend about it even though 1. she most likely was never going to find out about it and 2. you quickly came to regret it. Your regret wasn’t instantaneous—like you, DRUGS, your regret took a couple of weeks to come—but the fact that you haven’t cheated on her since is a pretty good indication that your regret was sincere. And now here you are four years later, DRUGS, waking up every day and getting back to work on those trust issues. Because you’re still in trouble. Because you made the mistake of telling your girlfriend about an affair she would never have found known about if you had kept your mouth shut.

“But a person can’t spend the rest of their life in the doghouse.

A cheater has to take responsibility and be considerate about insecurities the affair may have created or worsened. But if a cheater has done all that and years later the person the cheated won’t let them out of the doghouse— or is constantly finding new reasons to keep the cheater in the doghouse—then the doghouse is where the cheated wants the cheater. Forever.”

But you know, come to think of it, maybe it was a good thing that you told your girlfriend about the affair, DRUGS. Not because honesty is always the best policy. The famed couples counselor and author and podcaster and TED Talker Esther Perel urges people who’ve had affairs to consider the “burden of knowing” before they disclose. If you sincerely regret the affair and it’s not going to happen again and your partner is not in any physical risk and is unlikely to hear about the affair from a third party, sparing them the burden of knowing is the second-most loving thing a person can do.

(Not cheating at all would, of course, be the most loving thing a person can do.)

So to be clear, DRUGS, I don’t think telling your girlfriend was the right thing to do because all affairs must be disclosed. I think

telling your particular girlfriend was the right thing to do because she’s telling on herself now. If she doesn’t feel like she can trust you ever again—and if she’s constantly on the lookout for new reasons why she can’t trust you— then she needs to end this relationship. But she hasn’t ended the relationship, DRUGS, and you need to ask yourself why she hasn’t. I have a hunch: She hasn’t ended it because she likes it this way.

Someone who cheats and gets caught and discloses and wants to make it right can expect to spend some time, well, making it right. They should expect to spend some time in the doghouse and, to extend the metaphor, they should expect to spend some time on a short leash. But a person can’t spend the rest of their life in the doghouse. A cheater has to take responsibility and be considerate about insecurities the affair may have created or worsened. But if a cheater has done all that and years later the person the cheated won’t let them out of the doghouse—or is constantly finding new reasons to keep the cheater in the doghouse—then the doghouse is where the cheated wants the cheater. Forever. Which means instead of being angry you cheated on her, DRUGS, on some level your girlfriend is delighted you cheated on her. Because the wrong thing you did allows her to control you for the rest of your life.

But it shouldn’t. And if she insists it does or that it should, DRUGS, you should leave her.

About those caveats: You don’t specify the drug you used in the backyard with your friend but I’m gonna assume it was weed—which is legal where I live but not where you live. There is, of course, a big difference between stepping out to smoke a little pot after the girlfriend has gone to bed and sneaking out to smoke a lot of meth. And if you’re an addict and a little pot has led to a lot of harder drugs in the past, your girlfriend’s zero-tolerance policy might be justified. But if we’re not talking about hard drugs and you don’t have addiction issues, DRUGS, you shouldn’t have to beg your girlfriend’s permission in advance—which she’s denied in advance—to smoke a little pot with a buddy.

—Dan Savage I’ve been listening to old episodes of the Savage Lovecast while working from home. Yesterday I heard you explain to straight male listeners that their straight female partners would say “yes” to sex more often if “sex” didn’t always mean the woman getting fucked. That really resonated with me, a straight woman with a male partner. When my husband came onto me the next night and I didn’t feel like opening up to get basted, instead of saying “no,” I offered to jerk him off while he sucked my tits. It was great—for both of us! Total win! Thank you, Dan Savage!

—Joyfully Enjoying Relevant Knowledge You’re welcome, JERK! It’s always nice to hear from folks who’ve taken my advice and didn’t regret it!

—DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net.

CLASSIFIEDS Legal TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS General Contractor Two Rivers PCS is soliciting proposals from licensed general contractors to renovate existing spaces in school facilities. To request a copy of the RFP, email Gail Williams at procurement@tworiverspcs.org. Proposals are due by April 26, 2021 DIGITAL PIONEERS ACADEMY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE: FOR PROPOSALS FOR CONSTRUCTION SERVICES Digital Pioneers Academy Public Charter School in accordance with section 2204(c) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 solicits proposals for SY20-21 * Construction Services(Bathroom Remodel/New Bathroom Install) * General Contractor Services Proposals should be submitted in PDF format and for any further information regarding this notice at bids@digitalpioneersacademy.org no later than 4:00 pm Monday, April 19, 2021.

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSING AUTHORITY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) SOLICITATION NO.: 0006-2021 DCHA EXECUTIVE RECRUITER The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) requires professional Executive Recruitment services for Executive and difficult to fill positons.

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PERRY STREET PREP PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Chromebooks Issued: March 22, 2021 Perry Street Prep PCS, a tax-exempt DC Public Charter School operating in Washington, DC serving students in grades PK – 8 th grade. Perry Street Prep PCS is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors to provide 300 Chromebooks and associated 3-year warranties for student instruction. (Specifications: DELL Chromebook 11 3100) Questions and proposals may be e-mailed directly to Perry Street Prep PCS (ksmith@pspdc.org) with the subject line: Response to PSP Chromebook RFP. Deadline for submission is 12 noon on April 19, 2021 E-mail is the preferred method for responding.

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