NEWS: STORM DAMAGE WORSENS FIGHT OVER WARD 5 BUILDING 4 SPORTS: LOCAL SWIMMER REACHES PARALYMPICS 8 ARTS: HOW TO SPEND ARTS COMMISSION GRANTS 20 THE DISTRICT’S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 41, NO. 7 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM JULY 2021
‘VERY BAD CONDICIONES’
Tenants at three D.C. properties have spent the past year fighting for rent relief and better housing conditions. While they’ve had some success, their fight isn’t over. By Amanda Michelle Gomez Photographs by Darrow Montgomery P. 8
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TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 8 ‘Very Bad Condiciones’ Tenants fight for better living conditions as D.C. disburses federal dollars to landlords through the STAY DC program.
NEWS 4 Loose Lips: The partial destruction of a new building on H Street NE exacerbates ongoing tensions between neighbors and the developer.
SPORTS 6 Making Waves: Meet the local swimmer and medal contender at next month’s Paralympics.
FOOD 18 Feeding Frenzy: The unique stresses of workers at understaffed restaurants and bars
ARTS 22 What Six Local Artists Made With City Grants During the Pandemic: For some artists, money from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities helped pay bills. For others, it inspired entirely new work. 24 21 Years Later: What to screen as part of this year’s D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival 26 Galleries: Robinson on Shoulder the Deed at STABLE
CITY LIGHTS 28 City Lights: Celebrate Latinx arts and culture at the Kennedy Center or catch a live set from a homegrown duo.
DIVERSIONS 27 Crossword 30 Savage Love 31 Classifieds
On the cover: Photograph by Darrow Montgomery
Darrow Montgomery | 3300 Block of Brown Street NW, July 14 Editorial
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NEWS LOOSE LIPS
Chaos Rains A tornado blew the top off a condo development in Carver-Langston. Bad blood had been bubbling beneath the surface for years.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the building on Kennedy Street NW that collapsed in early July after a tornado passed through D.C. A construction worker was trapped in the wreckage for more than an hour, and his sister told NBC Washington that he may never walk again. Last week, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced stricter safety regulations for multifamily residential and commercial buildings, citing the Kennedy Street incident. An investigation into the collapse is underway. But there is another building, on the 1800 block of H Street NE, that’s gotten less attention. During the same storm, pieces of the top story of the unfinished condo development flew off the structure and crashed into Corey Hamilton and Juan McCullum’s porch across the street. More debris fell on their car. Hamilton was watching TV in his living room when he heard the clatter. The five-story development in the middle of a block of two-story row houses in the CarverLangston neighborhood has been a source of tension for residents who live nearby and the developer, Michael Lewis, for some time. The project has started and stalled multiple times since at least 2018, residents say. Various issues with the development, ranging from rats and construction debris to stop work orders, have irked neighbors. Those issues came to a head when the top literally blew off. Damage to the adjoining house, where a 91-year-old woman lives, is resulting in a lawsuit. “This isn’t a developer who is concerned about the property and is definitely not concerned about the community,” Hamilton tells Loose Lips on a muggy afternoon a few days after the storm. Sydelle Moore, the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Single Member District 5D05, which includes the property in question, echoes Hamilton when describing her frustrations trying to work with Lewis. “This guy, man, I’m tellin’ you, just a hardheaded person who doesn’t have anyone’s best interest in mind except for his own,” she says. The feeling is mutual for Lewis. He says in his 20 years of doing business in D.C., he’s never encountered this level of pushback from neighbors or an advisory neighborhood commissioner. He recalls a recent conversation with Moore where she told him to move the building two feet so it wouldn’t block the neighbor’s view from her porch or “she was going to ruin my 20-year career.” “‘You’ve got a choice,’” Lewis says Moore told him. “‘Are you gonna let a two-foot wall
Darrow Montgomery
By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals
Sydelle Moore ruin your 20-year career of doing construction and development?’ Her exact words: ‘If I were you, I would move the wall.’ Really? OK.” Moore disputes Lewis’ characterization and says she was trying to point out that with the extra scrutiny he’s under after the storm, it might not be wise to argue with an elderly woman about blocking the sightline from her porch. The public permits in the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs’ database for 1835 H St. NE start in March 2018, five months before Lewis bought the property. The original plans show a three-story structure, which would have converted the corner lot from a single-family row house to a four-unit apartment building. Lewis’ revisions call for a five-floor, six-unit building, DCRA records show. Moore believes the structure violates zoning rules for the neighborhood, which cap the height at 50 feet. Lewis insists that the building is in compliance. Niko Lojanica, who’s lived across the street since 2017, says it felt like the project was cursed from the beginning. He’s watched as various
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construction crews demolished the original row house, built part of a new structure, demolished that, then erected the current building. In the beginning, he remembers seeing an old mattress and an abandoned car on the property. They’ve since been removed. Lojanica believes a similar development behind his house was sold a year after the project across the street. “It was completely gutted, renovated, and brought up and sold in the time frame this one has stayed like this,” he says. “Now there’s people living in it.” Lojanica emphasizes that he’s not opposed to larger buildings going up in the neighborhood. He just wants to see it done correctly. “If they did everything through the proper channels, great,” he says. “Build it how it’s allowed. For us, it’s not an issue that it’s going to be tall. It’s an issue that it’s not being handled the right way.” A major point of tension for neighbors stems from the belief that Lewis has violated stop work orders throughout construction. Maureen LaSane, 85, who’s lived in a house next to Lojanica for 65 years, tells LL she’s watched
construction workers arrive early in the morning and begin working while she believes the order was in place. She typically calls DCRA to report the violation, but she says by the time an inspector shows up, the workers have left. Lewis acknowledges that DCRA has slapped the project with multiple stop work orders— three by his count—since he’s been involved. But he denies that his crew has violated any of them. DCRA confirms that it has never cited Lewis for violation of a stop work order. The confusion appears to stem from DCRA’s online database, which shows stop work orders issued on five separate dates since January 2019. There are two entries for each date in the database. One of the entries for each date is a duplicate and not a separate order. Until part of the building fell into Hamilton and McCullum’s porch, the resident most impacted was Verlia May, who has lived next door to the building for more than 50 years. The construction has damaged her porch and the flashing on her roof. Mortar from the new building’s red bricks dripped and hardened on her fence, and Lewis’ building now blocks
NEWS LOOSE LIPS
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The development at 1835 H St. NE what was once a clear view to the right from her porch. The new structure is also built higher than her chimney, a problem DCRA instructed Lewis to fix. The agency also ordered Lewis to remove unsecured materials from the site and provide an engineer’s report that details how construction will safely continue until the roof is completed. Matt Gatewood, a lawyer representing May on a pro bono basis for the past year and a half, says Lewis fixed some of the issues in the spring of 2019 and promised to complete the rest at the end of construction. “The end of construction seems to be a never ending time line,” Gatewood says. “Ms. May is 91 years old, and delays have caused her considerable angst.” Gatewood intends to file a lawsuit this week alleging that the construction has caused May a private nuisance because it deprives her of enjoyment of her property. Specifically, he notes the blocked view from her porch and damage to her home. Gatewood declined to speak more specifically as he’s waiting on a private inspection to reveal the full scope of the damages. According to Lewis, some of the issues May’s attorney raised in 2019 were not the result of his construction. He says he agreed to fix a loose plank on her porch as a measure of good faith. He tells LL he intends to fix the rest—such as replacing the fence—after construction is complete. As a possible solution, Moore has suggested moving the front of Lewis’ building back two feet, so May’s view is no longer obstructed. Such a change might have to go before the Board of Zoning Adjustment, and Moore says she would support it as the commissioner for the area. Lewis won’t agree to that and says just because a commissioner is supportive of a variance doesn’t mean the board will approve it. Instead, he says he’ll pay for an extension to May’s porch so her view is no longer obstructed. Moore says that’s a bad faith offer because zoning wouldn’t allow it. As for Hamilton and McCullum, their porch
is still in shambles while they wait for the insurance companies to estimate the damage. Their car is totaled, too. “Corey and Juan will be made whole,” Lewis says. Moore took office in January 2019, and one of her first actions as commissioner was to push for rezoning in parts of her single member district. The new RF-4 zoning for residential flats aims to maintain the look and feel of the existing row houses. Lewis’ development was approved under the previous zone, RA-2, for residential apartments, which is similar but would have prevented the obstructed view from May’s porch. “This gives you exactly why we needed to do the rezoning in a nutshell,” she says. “What has been approved by right, not with any special reviews from DCRA is a dangerous property, and it endangers the property next to it especially in the long term.” She counts 14 developments in her single member district, and her goal is to prevent residents from bearing the costs of the development surrounding them. In an extreme example, Moore shows LL a row house a few blocks from Lewis’ project, on 21st Street NE. Two three-story buildings tower over a single row house that’s sandwiched in the middle. “There’s no escape,” she says. The project on H Street NE has caused some heartburn for Lewis as well. He says he’s done everything DCRA has asked him to do and is legally permitted to build a five-story structure by right. He believes the accusations lobbed against him (which he denies)—violations of stop work orders, illegal construction, negligence, and noncooperation—are rooted in neighbors’ rejection of the project in general. Moore and her neighbors say that’s not the case. “I want to be a good neighbor,” Lewis says. “I’m gonna do it right, I’m gonna do it fair, and I’m gonna do it in the right process.”
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Darrow Montgomery
SPORTS
Making Waves Lawrence Sapp, who trains with the Nation’s Capital Swim Club, is one of the first two male athletes with an intellectual impairment who will swim for Team USA at the Paralympics. By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong Every weekday morning, Lawrence Sapp sets his alarm for 3 a.m. After a quick breakfast of a banana or yogurt, Sapp and his mother, Dee, head to the Lee District Rec Center in Alexandria from their home in Waldorf, Maryland, for swim practice with the Nation’s Capital Swim Club from 4:30 to 6 a.m. Sapp does not skip practices. This has been his typical routine for the past six years. “He’s always been a very disciplined student of swimming,” says Sapp’s father, Carlton. “He’s the first one at the pool, last one to leave type of athlete ... I mean, if we told him he was gonna miss practice, he would be furious.” Even among the highly accomplished swimmers that compete for NCAP, including Olympians, Sapp stands out. At practice, he only knows one speed. “It’s go fast and hold on,” Sapp’s close friend and teammate Patrick Andrews says. “And he doesn’t give up.” His coach, Jeff King, credits Sapp with making all of the swimmers around him better competitors
and people with his mantra of giving his best every day. Sapp’s family and friends see him as a trailblazer and inspiration. Next month, the 19-year-old will head to the Tokyo Paralympics, held from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5, as one of the 34 swimmers representing Team USA. He will compete in the S14 classification, for swimmers with an intellectual impairment, and is one of the first two male athletes with intellectual impairments to qualify to swim at the Paralympics for Team USA, according to Erin Popovich, the director of Paralympic swimming with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Sapp was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was 17. In the past few years, he has set nearly a dozen American records in the S14 classification and enters the Paralympics with the fourth-fastest qualifying time in the men’s 100-meter butterfly. At the U.S. Paralympic swimming trials in June in Minneapolis, Sapp broke the American record in the event—one of three American records he set at the trials. He will compete in the 100meter butterfly, 100-meter backstroke, and
6 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
200-meter individual medley in Tokyo. “I want to win gold at the Paralympics [and] show the whole world who I am,” Sapp says. When Sapp was younger, Dee remembers her son, the second of her three children, being nonverbal. Doctors diagnosed him with a developmental delay around the age of 2, and he started talking between the ages of 2 and 3, Dee says. Prior to that, his parents would communicate with him in American Sign Language so he could express his basic needs. It was also around this time that Sapp’s parents introduced him to sports. He swam, played soccer and basketball, and skied during the winter. Team sports proved to be more confusing for him, Dee says, due to the verbal commands. “We were looking for a sport that he could participate in that was nonverbal, and swimming is literally four strokes,” she explains. Plus, Sapp seemed to like swimming the most. “Swim meets were more fun,” he says. Sapp started swimming at age 4 with the Smallwood Village Swim Club in Waldorf and “was horrible” in the beginning, Dee says, laughing. “He would do all this work and
probably go two feet in the water,” Carlton adds. “But then he learned how to optimize that energy, and gradually over time, he started to develop.” Sapp always wanted to race, especially after watching and imitating older kids at the pool, and so he joined the pool’s junior swim team. As he got older and started to break pool records around age 9 or 10, other parents encouraged Dee and Carlton to enroll their son in year-round swimming. Sapp joined NCAP around the age of 13. “I always say hard work pays off,” Sapp says. Sports, particularly swimming, helped with his communication skills. Andrews, his close friend from NCAP, calls Sapp a “very social, positive guy that’s amazing to be around,” and remembers how Sapp walked up and introduced himself the first day they met. “What we learned early on is that he thrives off of being around other people, which is why inclusion is so important for people with impairments,” Dee says. “Because you put them in the environment that they … want to be around. And so just growing up with other kids, neurotypical peers, he learned the lingo. So for swimming, you hear freestyle a thousand times, and then you see people doing it. At some point, you catch on to what that thing is … It helped him a lot. It helped him to be more patient.” “He talks all the time now, so clearly that helped,” she adds. Sapp first joined Paul Makin’s group at NCAP before advancing to King’s senior team. In 40-plus years of coaching swimming, King had never coached a Paralympian before Sapp, and his goal since day one, King says, was to “have Lawrence be a part of the same team that everyone else was a part of.” That sometimes required the coach to adapt and adjust his own methods. King had never used a whiteboard for practices in his first 35 years of coaching, but now he uses one daily. “The biggest adaptation is that I couldn’t wing it anymore,” King says. “I can’t just come in and start down one path and then turn around and do something completely different, because intuitively I felt like I needed it. Instead, with Lawrence, I needed to write down the workout and have it written and be able to put it in front of him, so he could follow what we were doing.” Within the first year of being at NCAP, in 2016, Dee received a letter from the U.S. Paralympics Swimming team inquiring if Sapp would be interested in learning more about the Paralympics. Dee ignored it. Then she received another letter. The organization wanted Sapp to swim at a Para swim meet as a registered swimmer with an intellectual impairment ahead of the Rio Paralympics. “Lawrence was like, ‘This is easy. This is gonna be too easy,’” Dee says. “We went to that meet, and he had his behind spanked. We were like, ‘OK, this is not at all what we were thinking.’ I mean, he did great. It just wasn’t easy, because it was an international meet. People were there from, like, Canada, Australia.” Sapp has been a member of the Team USA Paralympic Swimming team since 2017 and spent last year as a freshman at the University
SPORTS
OPPORTUNITY
Darrow Montgomery
KNOCKS THIS SUMMER of Cincinnati. While one of his goals is to swim at the Division I college, Sapp is not affiliated with the Cincinnati swim team. During his time on campus, King relayed workouts to Sapp, and he would train on his own at the school’s recreation center. Recently, Degree Deodorant selected Sapp as one of the 14 NCAA athletes that will be a part of its #BreakingLimits campaign after the NCAA announced new rules allowing college athletes to receive endorsement deals for their name, image, and likeness. Dee says that Sapp gets paid hundreds of dollars for each pre-approved social media post for Degree Deodorant. “It’s certainly been incredible to watch his journey … now that he’s in his late teens and developed and really grown within the sport,” says Popovich, a Hall of Fame Paralympic swimmer. “Being an intellectually impaired athlete, he has risen to the occasion. And it’s been really exciting to watch how he’s managed all of the challenges around major competitions and continued to rise to the occasion and swim incredibly fast times.” The 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta marked the first time that athletes with intellectual impairments took part in the competition. They did so again four years later at the Sydney Paralympics, but the Games faced considerable controversy after it was discovered that the Spanish men’s basketball team consisted of players that did not have intellectual impairments. Athletes with intellectual impairments did not compete at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympics before the classification returned in 2012. So far, only three sports in the Paralympics have a classification for intellectual impairment: swimming, track and field, and table tennis. Sapp is considered to be a medal contender at
the Tokyo Paralympics, and Popovich sees him as one of the best ever Team USA swimmers in the S14 classification. “I’m comfortable in saying that he is one really making waves in the S14 classification, and breaking down those time barriers,” she says. “It’s exciting for the sport, because after not having the intellectual impairments included, and then to be newly back and to see that classification be developed—Paralympics is the elite sporting event. And I think it often gets confused with the Special Olympics. But at the Paralympics, it’s a very elite level of competition for intellectual impairments.” Back at home in Waldorf, Sapp has been busy practicing and getting ready for the Paralympics. In addition to swimming in the morning, Carlton says that his son watches hours of swimming on YouTube every day. “He’s analyzing Caeleb Dressel. He’s analyzing as many people as possible,” Carlton says. Sapp will leave for Tokyo on Aug. 14, and only his mother will be making the trip with him, though she will not be staying in the athlete village. Sapp has competed internationally before—he won a silver medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2019 World Championships in London and a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke at the 2017 World Para Swimming Championships in Mexico City, but this will be his first ever Paralympics. “I’m excited to see new people, see a new country, see new friends there,” he says about going to Tokyo. “It’s going to be fun.”
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‘VERY BAD CONDIC STAY DC is intended to help tenants impacted by the pandemic cover housing costs. But some of that money goes to landlords whose buildings are in poor condition. By Amanda Michelle Gomez Photographs by Darrow Montgomery
On a muggy day in June, the bathroom ceiling inside Eduardo Reyes’ unit is covered in cardboard he put there himself. Reyes, who has lived at Meridian Heights Apartments on 15th Street NW with his wife and 17-year-old son since 2008, blocked the hole after his family saw insects and gunk emerge from it. The cardboard was supposed to be a temporary fix. Reyes says he notified the property manager in late February, when the problem started. He called the emergency hotline. He visited the property manager’s office. Five months later, the cardboard is finally gone. The property manager made much needed repairs this week after receiving multiple questions about housing conditions. Reyes organized with tenants in his building and others connected to the same owner—a complicated web of limited liability companies—who have similar repair issues. They noticed a trend among the people living in these properties the city has cited dozens of times for housing violations: Nearly all of them are Latinx Spanish speakers. Reyes doesn’t want to vacate his apartment. It would be expensive to move elsewhere. Like many people in D.C. and across the world, Reyes struggled to make rent payments during the pandemic. Many people in his building lost their jobs in the service industry, and others contracted COVID-19. One tenant died of the disease. “If they give me an indemnification, then I will leave,” Reyes says in Spanish. “Otherwise, I won’t.” “You don’t want to leave but I want to leave,” his wife says. “Because it is scary.” Reyes applied for rental assistance through the Stronger Together by Assisting You program, better known as STAY DC, a District government initiative that disperses federal funds to help individuals cover up to 18 months of past or upcoming rent. Of the
20 tenants at Reyes’ 62-unit building that applied or started an application for STAY DC money, five have been approved as of July 9. The D.C. government is trying to get federal dollars into the pockets of landlords whose tenants owe rent quickly, but STAY DC has its own headaches: Many tenants needed help because the application was confusing and required a lot of paperwork, and those with strained relationships with property managers struggled to work together to submit applications. D.C. needs to spend $130 million in rental assistance by Sept. 30 or the Biden administration will revoke the funds. STAY DC leaves Reyes, other tenants, and advocates feeling conflicted. Tenants apply because they know D.C.’s temporary eviction ban will eventually end. But the troubling conditions at their building and others connected to the same owners have become
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an open secret in D.C. due to highly visible protests aimed at the landlord and property managers. Tenants and advocates question whether landlords are being held accountable for uninhabitable conditions and if, by funneling money into the hands of landlords overseeing troubled properties, STAY DC actually rewards them. “How can the Council ensure that the landlords who receive this money have some obligation to fix these problems, especially because this money is what they say they need,” asks Beth Mellen, director of Legal Aid’s Eviction Defense Project. “Landlords often say, ‘Well, when tenants don’t pay rent, I can’t make the repairs. I don’t have the money.’ They are about to get tens of thousands of dollars in rent money ... But the purpose of that program is not to keep tenants housed in unsafe conditions, in unhealthy conditions.”
CIONES’
washingtoncitypaper.com july 2021 9
Just outside Reyes’ apartment, a man pushing a stroller along the sidewalk stops and stares at a banner displayed on one of the windows of the six-story building. It reads, “Very bad condiciones.” Estela Rosales Vigil, who helped hang that banner and others, explains. “Terrible conditions,” she says. She looks up, in search of the words she feels so intimately but struggles to say in English. Rosales Vigil couldn’t remember the word for “bedbugs,” so instead she expressed herself through facial expressions: She made a yuck face. The man nodded, mildly confused but sympathetic, and went on his way. Rosales Vigil, who sports a lanyard that says “El Salvador,” moved into the rent-controlled building roughly five years ago. She, her husband, and three children live in a studio that rents for $1,300 a month. She has encountered multiple problems over the years, including a bedbug infestation. The tenants also struggle with rats and cockroaches. When a doctor at Children’s National Hospital saw bite marks on her 1-year-old son, Rosales Vigil says they connected her with a lawyer who could help her advocate for better conditions. She’s had a lawyer for about two years, but it hasn’t helped much. “They did not really listen to the lawyer,” Rosales Vigil says in Spanish. “Everything the lawyer told them, it did not matter.” It wasn’t until Rosales Vigil withheld
rent and protested conditions for more than a year that the property manager moved her into a vacant unit in June and started repairing her apartment. Not everyone leaves their apartment during repairs despite there being at least 18 vacant units. But Rosales Vigil, who has become the unofficial leader at Meridian Heights, has been the most vocal. Rosales Vigil and her family returned to the studio in early July. She worries the repairs are insufficient or poorly done. Her concerns stem from her experience over the years; for example, she says the property manager addressed her problems with mold by painting over it. Down the hall, the kitchen wall in Blanca’s apartment has softened. Blanca, who has lived in the unit for more than six years with her teenage son, uses her kitchen often because she works as a street vendor. Behind her refrigerator is a hole through which she can see into her neighbor’s bathroom. “I can see my neighbor bathing,” she says in Spanish. “That is a lack of respect. There is no privacy.” She also says her refrigerator hasn’t worked properly for months. Rosa Perez is also waiting on fixes. She has a hole in her ceiling. It started out as a bulge, then water started dripping from it two months ago. She asked the property manager for help. Weeks have gone by, and the hole is still there. Perez received a letter dated June 18 from UIP Property Management, the company recently
10 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
When a doctor at Children’s National Hospital saw bite marks on her 1-year-old son, Rosales Vigil says they connected her with a lawyer who could help her advocate for better conditions.
hired to handle upkeep, that said someone would come by three days later to make repairs. No one showed up, Perez says. A UIP spokesperson says via email that Perez “refused” to let staff inside the apartment to make repairs. The property manager tried to make repairs again on July 8 but again was “refused access.” (Perez says she got sick the last time repairs were made, and did not let them make repairs this time around because she wants to move into a new unit while they are done.) The spokesperson also says the company has made repairs to “ALL” but three occupied units, which the company alleges also “refused entry.” UIP has now involved D.C.’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs to gain access to these units, according
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“They’ll do a minor fumigation but it doesn’t work. They’re not addressing the larger issues, both with the insects and with the mold.” —Katharine Richardson
to the spokesperson. In addition to fixing individual units, UIP says it “repointed the entire masonry exterior facade” to prevent further leaking of rainwater and provided pest treatment through a contractor in early 2021. The statement from the property management company sounds familiar to Katharine Richardson, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Stomp Out Slumlords campaign who has been supporting tenants at Meridian Heights since March 2020. (Richardson used to work in affordable housing development, but now volunteers through SOS.) She says UIP often shifts the blame to tenants, as if they would prefer to live in terrible conditions. When she went door knocking recently to encourage tenants to attend a citywide protest, Richardson says tenants again described problems with bedbugs. Richardson believes them—she once got bedbugs after visiting various Meridian Heights apartments. “They do the minimum, to sort of say that they’ve done it,” says Richardson of the property manager, acknowledging that it’s more expensive to address underlying issues. “They’ll do a minor fumigation but it doesn’t work. They’re not addressing the larger issues, both with the insects and with the mold. That’s something we’ve seen a lot … They come in and they clean it. They paint over it. But the underlying moisture issue hasn’t been addressed, so it comes back.” UIP manages Meridian Heights Apartments, but does not own them. It became the property management company in mid-December 2020. NOVO Properties previously handled daily operations and finances. This year and last year, DCRA has identified dozens of housing code violations in 31 units and several common spaces at Meridian Heights. For example, in Perez’s unit, DCRA found that the landlord failed to “correct cracked or loose plaster, holes, decayed wood, water damage, and/or defective surface conditions;" “provide or maintain the required mechanical and electrical facilities;” and install or maintain single or multiple smoke alarms in the sleeping area, during a March 2021 inspection. As a result of this and other violations, the landlord—a limited liability company named after the address—has been fined tens of thousands of dollars. Scanning the list of violations, it’s clear that a lot of rooms in the building— from bathrooms to kitchens—are in disrepair, unsanitary, or not structurally sound. The
plumbing in some units was also flagged. As of July 13, the violations still appear on the DCRA website, meaning housing violations have not been fully addressed. The D.C. Auditor said in a 2018 report that DCRA needed to improve its enforcement of housing code violations. UIP says it has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to abate violations. NOVO Properties did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Tenants say the two property management companies are equally bad at making timely, quality repairs. They sometimes conflate the companies. Tenants also believe that NOVO discriminated against them because they mostly speak Spanish. Perez’s bathroom flooded one day around Thanksgiving last year. She repeatedly called the emergency line, requesting immediate assistance. No one came. She filled buckets with water in the meantime. But when Richardson called and emailed NOVO on Perez’s behalf, she says the property manager came. Unlike Perez, she asked for help in English. “We see that a lot,” says Victoria Gonçalves of Spanish-speaking Latinx tenants who claim their landlord discriminates against them. Gonçalves is a senior organizer with the Latino Economic Development Center, a tenant advocacy group. “It’s common for management companies to kind of use the fact that they can’t communicate with people as an excuse to not do stuff and an excuse to say that these are problem tenants,” Gonçalves says. Reyes used to work in maintenance for NOVO. “What would happen is that they would do more repairs for the Whites and not the Hispanics,” he alleges. He recalls a time when a White tenant had an issue with a wall. NOVO had an inspector
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take a look and they detected mold. Instead of painting over it, as Latinx tenants recount happening in their units, Reyes says NOVO knocked down the wall and put up new drywall. According to multiple tenants, the NOVO property manager did not speak any Spanish, despite the fact that most tenants speak the language. The UIP property manager speaks Spanish, but not all of the information UIP provides is translated. A form used for tenants to sign off on completed repairs is in English. UIP’s delays in making repairs have made tenants suspicious that they are being discriminated against again. They also believe that UIP slows repairs so people will leave. A UIP spokesperson says via email that property management does not discriminate against any tenants. Gonçalves believes UIP to be “hostile” toward Latinx tenants. LEDC has supported residents of multiple UIP-managed properties. While UIP does not own Meridian Heights, Gonçalves believes the company generally buys rent-controlled buildings to force longtime tenants out, then either jacks up the rent or converts the units into condominiums. This practice is known as eviction through neglect. Gonçalves says NOVO is “slightly better” than UIP but both companies treat rent-controlled properties worse than their luxury or market rate ones. On a scale of bad to good, they say both companies land somewhere in the middle in terms of management. “But somewhere in the middle is still bad,” Gonçalves says.
A photograph of Meridian Heights is sometimes featured in national stories about rent strikes, a decades-old protest tactic of tenants withholding rent to compel landlords to make repairs or, more recently, because they can’t afford to pay due to the pandemic. At Meridian Heights, tenants striked for both reasons. Tenants have achieved some victories since they started organizing and launched a rent strike in the spring of 2020. The tenants who refused to pay rent because they lost their jobs and wages during the pandemic just started receiving government assistance. Despite encouragement from public officials to enter into payment plans with their landlord, tenants declined to pay rent and instead directed any money they did have toward other necessities, such as food. They could have borrowed money from a bank or friends, as tenants in other buildings have, but the security of a collective rent strike empowered them not to. Perhaps the Meridian Heights tenants’ greatest success was finding strength in one another during hard times. Their collaboration inspired another building with the same management and owner to organize because its tenants face similar problems: Buena Vista Apartments, located at 3308–3312 Sherman Ave. NW. On a Saturday in June, a group of 11 tenants met to discuss creating an association so they can exercise their TOPA rights now that the landlord is selling the property. TOPA, D.C.’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, gives
14 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
tenants the right of first refusal. They can tell their landlord they are interested in the property because they intend to collectively purchase the property or to select a new nonprofit owner to keep it affordable. The tenants are leaning toward the former because they want a say in selecting the property manager given their experiences with UIP and NOVO. The tenants discussed the logistics of forming an association, including details such as who the board members would be and how many members would need to be present to make decisions. Multiple tenants expressed concerns about how involved the process is. “I work night and day,” one person said in Spanish. Tenants agreed to work around each other’s schedules because the cause was that important. “We can’t be living like this anymore,” Eleonor Rivas told her neighbors in the outdoor space where the bikes are locked and trash cans are kept. Her apartment faces this area, so she vividly remembers seeing the garbage pile up during the holidays. This was around the time when management was transitioning from NOVO to UIP, and no one seemed to be collecting the trash. Thirteen units in Buena Vista have been cited multiple times by DCRA for housing code violations this year. In one unit, the landlord failed to maintain the bathroom in sanitary, safe condition. In another unit, the landlord failed to provide a “proper exhaust system to remove injurious, toxic, irritating or noxious fumes, gases, dusts, or mists” in the kitchen.
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negotiate for improved conditions, and then have the landlord drop the suit once parties reach an agreement. Holmead Place tenants have been using the eviction process to get repairs done. They have legal representation, which helps. According to Juan Reyes, two of the nine tenants that risked eviction managed to get their rent forgiven for just over one year and UIP also promised repairs. The majority of tenants are still negotiating with UIP. “The repairs are by far the slowest thing that is occurring, and it’s what the company is not wanting to do, it seems like,” he says. Reyna Martinez is among the seven tenants who have yet to strike a deal. The collective rent strike prompted UIP to make some repairs in recent weeks but they are insufficient given the wear and tear of the apartment, says Martinez, who’s lived there with her two sons and 94-yearold mother for the past 14 years. “Based on my experience, rent strikes are the most effective way to get repairs done, especially when you look at the other alternatives,” Juan Reyes says. A tenant could sue their landlord over housing code violations but he argues that approach “individualizes this process where it makes you feel like it’s just your case against the company.” “Tenants realize they have a lot more power when they are working together,” he adds.
Estela Rosales Vigil
“Based on my experience, rent strikes are the most effective way to get repairs done, especially when you look at the other alternatives.” —Juan Reyes
Rivas has lived at Buena Vista for 11 years. She lives in a one-bedroom unit with her husband and two sons. “There have always been problems with the repairs,” she says in Spanish. “This building is old, everything is rotting.” The ceiling in her kitchen has collapsed twice, and she got a cat named Tsunami to combat the rodent infestation. Victoria Miranda can attest to the conditions. Her bathroom wall is hollow and the paint is cracking. The floor lifts and is uneven— she’s convinced her bathtub is sinking. Miranda also struggles to cook in her kitchen. There’s no ventilation, she says, so the walls often get covered in grease and smoke. UIP recently came by to paint but she didn’t let them in because she believed it wouldn’t solve all her problems. A UIP spokesperson says the company has completed repairs in 30 of the 34 Buena Vista units. “At Meridian and Sherman, UIPPM has spent in excess of $500,000 on repairs and upgrades since taking over management in December 2020,” says the spokesperson, adding that the company “is singularly focused on addressing all issues in these buildings” and “helping people apply for Stay DC relief.” “I like the area,” Miranda says in Spanish, explaining why she doesn’t want to vacate Buena Vista. Her apartment is a 10-minute walk to the Metro and a bustling plaza that features big-name retailers such as Target, Best Buy, and Giant. Public schools are easily accessible. These amenities are helpful because Miranda and her husband have three kids. Her apartment is also a short walk to Carlos Rosario
16 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
International Public Charter School, where she is getting her GED and learning English so she can become a nurse. “I think it’s unfair what they charge us for how they maintain things in the apartment,” she says. Another rent-controlled building, Holmead Place Apartments at 3435 Holmead Place NW, has the same management and similar problems. Tenants there also applied for STAY DC funding. A few Holmead Place tenants went on a rent strike in December 2019 over housing conditions. Nineteen months later, some tenants are still on strike. The pandemic complicated Holmead Place tenants’ organizing. The building is home to many Central American immigrants who work in restaurants, hotels, or for ride hailing services. When the pandemic forced businesses to close, residents lost wages and struggled to afford housing. The strike over repairs became a strike over rent cancellation as more tenants joined the movement. Two dozen tenants called on UIP to cancel rent, including the air-conditioning upcharge during the summer, says Juan Reyes, a Georgetown student who supports Holmead Place tenants through an initiative at his university and SOS. While rent cancellation became tenants’ immediate ask, they are still demanding quality repairs. D.C.’s Rental Housing Act seems to protect tenants who withhold rent when their landlord refuses to comply with the housing code from retaliation. But landlords could still file to evict tenants in D.C. Superior Court over unpaid rent. Tenants could try to use the eviction process to
As the property manager, UIP is the de facto landlord for the tenants at Meridian Heights, Buena Vista, and Holmead Place. It’s common for tenants to mistake their property managers for owners because that’s who they communicate with. UIP not only manages rental properties but owns and develops them. Headquartered in D.C., UIP holds significant inf luence: It manages roughly 3,000 units citywide and its principal, Peter Bonnell, is president of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington’s Board of Directors. The real owners of the three properties are enigmatic. Tenants and advocates have struggled to hold the landlord accountable because the actual owners of the properties are obscured amid complicated paperwork. According to DCRA and D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue records, the deed of Meridian Heights Apartments belongs to 2801 Fifteenth Street NW, LLC, whose business address is in South Carolina. Patrick Marr is listed as one of four owners. Marr appears to be a known entity in the commercial real estate industry, according to local business publications. (Richardson says she and Meridian Heights tenants have met with Marr once; he presented himself as the landlord representative.) Buena Vista Apartments is owned by a trust, which Marr also appears to manage. As of October 2013, he worked for the real estate advisory firm Newmark Grubb Knight (now known as Newmark Group), and could not be directly reached for comment. In 2015, the deed of the property was transferred from an LLC called “UIP 3308-12 Sherman Ave,” whose beneficial owner is also Marr, to a trust called “Peter Ryan.” Ryan, a partner at the accounting firm Ryan & Wetmore, is on the
deed and says he is not the trustee of the property. A “Peter Ryan” is also listed as a beneficial owner for Meridian Heights. A spokesperson for UIP confirms that the company does not own Meridian Heights or Buena Vista. Unlike those properties, Holmead Place Apartments is effectively owned by UIP through a limited partnership UIP manages. Bonnell and Steve Schwat are the beneficial owners of the LP. Holmead tenants say the owner is selling the property. Excelsa Properties, the real estate investment arm of Lebanon-based Excelsa Holding, lists all three properties as “projects” on its website. According to its website, the company is focused on “income-producing investments,” and multifamily residential makes up the bulk of its portfolio, providing a steady stream of income from rent. “The company has benefited from the downward trend in home ownership in the US and the increasing preference for multifamily urban housing,” the website says. Excelsa Properties acquired Meridian Heights Apartments in 2009 for $4.6 million. It’s unclear what the company’s current stake is in Meridian Heights or the other two properties. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the housing conditions at its investment properties. Multiple real estate experts say there is nothing inherently nefarious about a landlord being an LLC, LP, or trust. Owners commonly establish those business entities for tax and liability purposes. The D.C. Council has attempted to establish transparency considering that so many rental properties are corporate-owned. Still, it’s near impossible to know who has a stake in properties unless companies disclose their holdings. “Most likely it’s complicated by design,” says Eva Rosen, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who studies housing instability and eviction policies in D.C. “It benefits the landlord, whether it benefits them financially because of the tax benefits they’re getting or if it benefits them even more materially, in the sense that they are sort of interpersonally removed from all of these types of problems.” “It makes it really complicated to hold people accountable because you have to sort of follow this crazy paper trail to figure out who is at the bottom of it,” she adds. Richardson, who first met Meridian Heights tenants after Blanca called the SOS hotline, faults the property owner for the terrible conditions, whoever it is. “UIP and NOVO have just treated people with a lack of respect,” she says. “The underlying issue is the landlord, who’s just not invested in any of these buildings— Holmead, Sherman, Meridian. There’s just so much deferred maintenance. They are clearly just pulling money out of the building and not putting anything in.” Tenant advocates believe the issues at the three properties underscore policy failures. Reyes believes current rent-control law incentivizes large landlords to keep units in poor shape so longtime tenants are forced to leave, paving the way for companies to significantly increase rent and set prices closer to market rate. The law allows landlords to increase rent on vacant units by 10 to 20 percent, depending on how long the unit was occupied for. Increases
on occupied units are limited to 2 percent plus the prevailing rate of inflation. Reyes says you can tell this is a common practice at Holmead Place given the “insane range in rent prices.” One tenant has lived at the property for nearly 30 years and pays around $800 in rent, while another tenant who’s lived at the property for the last 10 years pays nearly $2,000 for a comparable one-bedroom apartment. Tenant advocates consider voluntary agreements to be another loophole of rent-control law that erodes affordable housing because landlords establish new rents in order to provide capital improvements so long as 70 percent of tenants agree. UIP has been known to use these agreements. But a spokesperson for the company says it hasn’t used voluntary agreements at Meridian, Buena Vista, or Holmead Place, which would allow for even greater rent increases. “It is far more advantageous to maintain residents in their homes than to incur turnover costs and try to re-lease apartments,” adds the spokesperson. Tenant leaders at Meridian Heights and Buena Vista met by happenstance at church last year. Meridian Heights tenants shared their strategies to get the landlord to cancel rent and make repairs. That inspired Buena Vista tenants. Protest has since become second nature. A year ago, Rosales Vigil shared her struggles to a crowd at the Columbia Heights Civic Plaza. She carried a sign with pictures of the conditions she and her neighbors deal with. Dozens of tenants from properties across the District attended that rally, where they all spoke about the need to cancel rent. This month, Rosales Vigil suggested tenants set up tents downtown, near the White House and the Wilson Building, where local and national legislators will determine the fate of eviction bans. She wanted lawmakers to see what the city would look like if they lift bans before people have a chance to receive rental assistance. Rosales Vigil applied for STAY DC and just got approved this week. (D.C. government officials say the approval process is taking an average of 45 days, which is longer than other rental assistance programs.) Tenants representing properties all over the city attended the action on July 3. They marched from Freedom Plaza to the White House, ate pupusas donated by street vendors-turned-organizers, pitched tents, and slept outside overnight. The overnight protest was a first for SOS. Eduardo Reyes of Meridian Heights and his wife attended, even though he had been on call for his maintenance job and she had just worked a night shift. Their neighbor, Rosa Perez, along with Eleonor Rivas and Victoria Miranda of Buena Vista, also showed up. Miranda—who is inspired by her mother, a fellow organizer who helped unhoused people in their home country of Honduras—arrived at midnight. Her kids and husband joined her. “Let’s see if we win or not,” Perez says in Spanish. “We hope, with God’s help.”
STAY DC pretende ayudar a los inquilinos afectados por la pandemia a cubrir los gastos de vivienda. Pero una parte de ese dinero va a parar a los propietarios que mantienen sus edificios en mal estado. El techo del baño de la unidad de Eduardo Reyes está cubierto con cartones que él mismo puso allí. Reyes, que vive en Meridian Heights Apartments en 15th Street NW con su esposa y su hijo de 17 años desde 2008, tapó el agujero después de que su familia viera salir de allí insectos y suciedad. El cartón se suponía que era una solución temporal. Reyes dice que dio aviso al administrador de la propiedad a finales de febrero, cuando comenzó el problema. Llamó a la línea de emergencia. Visitó la oficina del administrador de la propiedad. Cinco meses después, el cartón sigue allí. Reyes se organizó con los inquilinos de su edificio y otros relacionados con el mismo propietario, una complicada red de sociedades de responsabilidad limitada, que tienen problemas de mantenimiento similares. Notaron una tendencia entre las personas que viven en estos inmuebles que la ciudad ha citado decenas de veces por infracciones al Código de vivienda: Casi todos ellos son hispanohablantes latinos. Reyes no quiere desalojar su apartamento. Sería muy costoso trasladarse a otro lugar. Al igual que muchas personas en D.C. y en todo el mundo, Reyes tuvo dificultades para pagar el alquiler durante la pandemia. Muchas personas de su edificio perdieron sus puestos de trabajo en el sector de servicios, y otras contrajeron el COVID-19. Un inquilino murió por la enfermedad. “Si me dan una indemnización, entonces me iré”, dice Reyes en español. “De otra manera, no lo haré” “Tú no quieres irte, pero yo sí”, le dice su esposa. “Porque esto da miedo”. Reyes solicitó ayuda para el alquiler a través de STAY DC, una iniciativa del gobierno del Distrito que reparte fondos federales para ayudar a las personas a cubrir hasta 18 meses de alquileres adeudados o por pagar. De los 20 inquilinos del edificio de 62 unidades donde habita Reyes que solicitaron o iniciaron una solicitud de fondos de STAY DC, cinco han sido aprobados a partir del 9 de julio. El gobierno del Distrito de Columbia
está tratando de hacer llegar rápidamente los fondos federales a los bolsillos de los propietarios cuyos inquilinos deben el alquiler, pero STAY DC tiene sus propios dolores de cabeza: muchos inquilinos necesitaban ayuda porque la solicitud les confundía y requería mucho papeleo, y los que tenían relaciones tensas con los administradores de las propiedades enfrentaron dificultades para trabajar juntos y presentar las solicitudes. El Distrito de Columbia debe gastar $130 millones en ayudas para el alquiler antes del 30 de septiembre o la administración Biden revocará los fondos. STAY DC deja a Reyes, a otros inquilinos y a los defensores de la causa en una situación de conflicto. Los inquilinos lo solicitan porque saben que la prohibición temporal de desalojo de D.C. terminará en algún momento. Pero las preocupantes condiciones de su edificio y de otros relacionados con los mismos propietarios se han convertido en un secreto a voces en D.C. debido a las protestas altamente visibles dirigidas al propietario y a los administradores de las propiedades. Los inquilinos y los defensores de la causa se preguntan si los propietarios son responsables de las condiciones de inhabitabilidad y si, al canalizar el dinero a las manos de los propietarios que supervisan las propiedades con problemas, STAY DC en realidad los está recompensando. “¿Cómo puede el Concejo garantizar que los propietarios que reciben este dinero tengan alguna obligación de arreglar estos problemas, sobre todo porque este dinero es lo que dicen necesitar?”, se pregunta Beth Mellen, directora del Proyecto de defensa contra desalojos de Legal Aid. “Los propietarios suelen decir: “Bueno, cuando los inquilinos no pagan el alquiler, no puedo hacer las reparaciones”. No tengo el dinero”. Pero están a punto de obtener decenas de miles de dólares en dinero de alquileres... pero el objetivo de ese programa no es mantener a los inquilinos alojados en condiciones inseguras, en condiciones insalubres”.
Para leer el resto de esta historia, visite washingtoncitypaper.com/article/523555/condiciones-insalubres-stay-dc-espanol/
washingtoncitypaper.com july 2021 17
FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY
Feeding Frenzy Restaurant and bar employees describe what it’s like working in D.C. establishments that desperately need more staff.
and a distillery in D.C. “One place guarantees $20 an hour,” she says. “They’re very good about that and taking care of staff. It’s a fun, dynamic place to work.” She’s baffled by why they are unable to hire, but has a theory that many share. “We look around and see how many of our friends have moved out of the city or into other industries. That’s the single biggest contributing factor: Those who couldn’t pay rent moved,” she says. Edward sees two approaches that shortstaffed restaurants can take. “You can throw caution to the wind, open your bar, completely seat your restaurant at 100 percent capacity, and reap a ton of rewards in the form of money but you’ll burn out your staff and give your guests crappy experiences,” he says. Or, you can “monitor your book closely, control the flow of guests coming into your restaurant, and respect your staff, your most precious commodity right now.” He thinks half of D.C. restaurants are playing with fire by pursuing the first plan. “Some servers are raking in money left and right,” Edward says. “We’re talking about $600 to $700 a night, but they’ll burn out after a month and move on. We’ve created an atmosphere where our guys are making $300 to $400 per night, but they’re working manageable sections.” Restaurant managers and owners are trying to recoup lost revenue while simultaneously figuring out how to professionalize their workplaces to make them more attractive. “COVID has fundamentally broken the old norms,” Edward says. “As someone who has been in the industr y for two decades, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s giving hourly employees more agency. But at the same time, we still need to be able to run a business. We’re trying to figure out business models that respect the guest experience and workers’ rights.” I n t he mea nt i me, those who have returned to work are stretched thin. While customerfacing employees can potentially earn more in tips by serving more people, those working in kitchens are doing triple duty with their fixed wages largely unchanged. Both groups report that their extra responsibilities don’t always come with appreciation or acknowledgment. City Paper spoke with 15 employees about what it’s like to be staff in a staffing crisis.
Ba rt en di ng wa s su pp osed to be Emily’s side hustle. She studied journalism in college but saw how much she could earn behind the bar working alongside friends. Lately, she had been mulling over whether it’s time to move on after seven years in the business, but then she noticed bars she’s always wanted to work at were hiring. She was on the clock when one reopened at full capacity and says “shit show” is too gentle a phrase to describe the scene. “We went from being a bare-bones staff to being fully open in a very short amount of time and that left a lot of places woefully unprepared,” Emily says. She was hoping for a more staggered approach to reopening, but Mayor Muriel Bowser announced on May 10 that bars and restaurants could open at full capacity without social distancing restrictions a mere 11 days later. “The mayor just threw us to the wolves.” So did her employer. Emily found herself peering out at a pulsing crowd waving their credit cards to signal they wanted drinks. As of June, her bar needed to hire two barbacks and a couple more servers per shift. “The money is great,” Emily says. “I’m able to save, which I wasn’t able to do last year.” She’s paid off some debt and parking tickets but she’s tired. “It’s nice not to live paycheck to paycheck, but at what cost?” “The money is definitely there, but some days it’s pretty ugly to make,” echoes Kayla, another D.C. bartender. Her restaurant was looking for about 10 employees in June and were able to find a few. “On any given shift you could be doing the job of what two to three people would be doing. I’m actually cool with the average payouts versus the big payouts that are ugly to get.” The work load is impacting employees physically, especially because days off are rare. “I feel exhausted when I come home in a way I hadn’t before,” says Brooke Tunstall, a bartender at an Arlington restaurant that needs 25 percent more food runners, busboys, and hosts. “Maybe I’m just getting older, but I come home and I’m like, ‘Jesus.’” Instead of going out for beers after work, he sinks into his sofa. Being short-staffed impacts workers’ mental health too because they know hospitality takes a hit. When hiccups happen, Tunstall says it’s
Photo illustration by Darrow Montgomery
“COVID has fundamentally broken the old norms.”
By Laura Hayes and Michael Loria “We’re operating on a knife’s edge,” says Edward, a restaurant manager struggling to double the number of staff at his D.C. restaurant. (He asked to remain anonymous to protect his job; Edward is a pseudonym.) One night earlier this summer, he was pitching in at the host desk when he had to turn a customer away. “I don’t have anything right now, I’m fully committed,” he said. “Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot,” she responded. “I can look behind you right now and see four open tables. You can seat me there.” Edward took a breath. “I had to explain, politely, that I didn’t have a server to wait on her,” he says. “She can sit there but no one can take care of her or she’ll get garbage service.” Regardless of whether they have Michelin stars or humble hole-in-the-wall ambitions, restaurants and bars are having trouble hiring the professionals they need to provide the experiences District diners expect. City Paper explored the reasons behind the staffing crisis
in April and learned that it’s less of a labor shortage and more of a labor movement, with workers demanding better pay, benefits, and work-life balance. A longtime D.C. server who spoke on the condition of anonymity is studying for his associate degree in business management. “I’m going to see if that will get me out of the industry,” he says. “There are no holidays, no weekends, no nights, no dinners with family and friends. Up until two years ago, there was no paid vacation or sick days. I didn’t have health insurance until three or four years ago, but I worked in the industry for 20 years. No employee is valued. Every employee is disposable.” Even places that can afford benefits uncommon in the industry, such as health insurance, find themselves in similar situations. Edward says his restaurant offers coverage after 30 days of employment to any full-time hourly employee. “We’re offering everybody as much as we possibly can and people just aren’t showing up.” Gemma works as a bartender at both a hotel
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“I didn’t have health insurance until three or four years ago, but I worked in the industry for 20 years. No employee is valued. Every employee is disposable.”
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FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY “not because of apathy or incompetence.” “We know the problems before they do and it weighs on us far more than it weighs on them,” he says. “We internalize that and take it personally. It creates a feeling within you of anxiety and physiological discomfort.” A host who asked to remain anonymous takes the negative reviews she reads about her bar personally. “People are going to complain about bad service because there’s not enough people and they expect it to be the way it was pre-COVID and that’s just not going to happen,” she says. Since her bar needs servers and food runners, everyone does multiple jobs. “I was like, ‘You have to hire people,’” she told her employer. “I hired my own cousin.” When restaurants are desperate and don’t have sufficient time to formally train new hires, it exacerbates service issues. “Places are so desperate to get feet on the floor, the training that’s out there is up in the air,” Kayla says. “I’ve been in this industry for 20 years. That’s not an easy thing to pass on to someone who has been in the industry for 20 days.” Besides being acutely aware of diners’ disappointment, tension between green and veteran employees adds stress. “Everybody deserves a first job and you want to integrate some experienced people with some new people, but there’s a huge gap of experience,” Tunstall says. Newbies have asked him what goes into a gin and tonic. “Gaps are expected to be filled by experienced people,” he says. “We’re taxed.” “We’re hiring people that are not qualified for positions, which is frustrating for people who are veterans in the industry who rely on others to make things move quickly,” Emily adds. “I taught someone to change a keg in the middle of my shift when I was four-deep at the bar. It makes things more difficult.” The signing bonuses some restaurants use to poach employees from other places or lure new people into the industry can frustrate those who have stuck around. Some managers argue for rewarding loyalty instead. “If you offer someone $1,000 who is brand-new to just come in and you have a team that’s worked with you throughout the pandemic, that goes against a positive company culture,” says Judy Elahi, the beverage manager at Gravitas. Her restaurant currently needs bartenders. “That breeds some sort of financial negativity for people who held you up the whole year.” While most employees want permanent work culture improvements, the promise of a couple hundred bucks threatens retention. “We have a company on the corner that has four restaurants offering bonuses and we’re not,” Kayla says. “If there’s a bonus somewhere else, why wouldn’t I just leave and get the bonus? The money is relatively the same between one establishment to the next.” Work environments are not. Some restaurants have shortened their hours, reduced the number of reservations they accept, or automated some aspects of service by using QR codes to make work more manageable for employees or better for diners. Albi in Navy
Yard is actively looking to hire for most positions. The popular restaurant that could easily fill up every night is open Wednesdays through Sundays. “We’ve gone from six days to five days in an effort to focus on hospitality and service,” b a r m a n a g e r B r ad Langdon says. “If we are open for six days, burnout is a big possibility.” He’s grateful chef a nd ow ner Michael Rafidi “has the foresight to evaluate what’s i mp or t a nt f rom t he financial, guest, and staff standpoint.” Langdon and most of the workers City Paper spoke with are pleading with diners for patience, especially when providing feedback. “When it comes to expectations being met and unmet, there needs to be a better way of communicating instead of immediately turning to social media,” Langdon says. “I don’t think posting something in the midst of a pandemic is a good idea. We’d much rather have a conversation face to face.” Edward, who is demoralized by fielding complaints every hour, puts it bluntly. “When you have a complaint, hold a mirror up and complain into the mirror and look how ugly and entitled you look,” he says. “Then rephrase what you’re going to say and go that route.”
blames the holiday shutdown in part. “All these people who came back were forced off again,” he says. “That didn’t help.” His kitchen is fully staffed and he’s happy, but he hears that’s an exception. Workers are aware that COVID19 variants could cause further instability. Staffing issues may mean menus with fewer and less complex dishes, even if that doesn’t sit well with diners. “We’re talking about shortening the menu right now to make it more streamlined,” Stephanie says, “but it’s hard when you have customers who write in reviews saying, ‘I wish you had more options.’” C h a rl ie , a s o u s chef at a Shaw restaurant, says his kitchen has six fewer workers than it needs. Slashing the menu in half made work more manageable. It also helps that his restaurant adds a 20 percent service charge to checks. Because that money can be shared with kitchen workers, he and his kitchen colleagues can get raises. He says the restaurant plans to dismantle that system soon. If there’s one upside to restaurants being strapped for talent, it’s rapid career advancement. One employee Charlie works with started during the pandemic as a dishwasher and is now one of their best line cooks. “I can tell that he’s really happy, that he’s really learning,” Charlie says. “We’re able to train, explain, and give more confidence to our line cooks.” But for many, there’s too much sweat going into t he dishes. “In k itchens you work hard and you come in ever y day a nd work t hese c ra z y hou rs ,” says Jake, a sous-chef at an Alexandria restaurant. Competitive benefits, he believes, wou ld lu re worker s back. “Restaurant people work so hard, you’d think they’d give them what they deserve.” As is, it’s overwhelming that the same amount of food needs to be made with fewer people. “You come and don’t look at anything but your station until you leave,” says Gabi, a line cook, in Spanish. (She spoke using a pseudonym.) Before the pandemic, there were four cooks, a prep
While some dining room workers say they currently have extra earning potential, cooks report working 80-hour weeks with more responsibilities at the same hourly rate.
The staffing shortage is straining kitchen workers, too. Potential hires also left seeking better pay, benefits, or hours. But while some dining room workers say they currently have extra earning potential, cooks report working 80-hour weeks with more responsibilities at the same hourly rate. This is a new dynamic. “Six months ago, people came by all the time,” says Stephanie, a n executive sous-chef at a D.C. restaurant looking to hire three kitchen employees. But restaurants weren’t hiring then and workers went looking for other jobs, especially those who couldn’t receive unemployment insurance because of their immigration status. The turbulent year drove cooks to take steadier jobs in construction or landscaping. Jeremy Riley, a line cook at Bar Charley,
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“They do deserve a day off, but at the same time, we can’t afford to give them a day off because we don’t have the staff.”
cook, and a dishwasher at her Mount Vernon Triangle restaurant. They’re down to two or three cooks, depending on the day. They do their own prep and take turns washing dishes. The workload scares away new hires, she says. Cooks are also being called in on their days off more frequently. For those with kids, like Gabi, it’s especially burdensome. “It messes with their lives,” Jake says. “They do deserve a day off, but at the same time, we can’t afford to give them a day off because we don’t have the staff.” When overworked cooks and undertrained servers clash over wrong or late orders, tensions can run high. “[Servers] come to the kitchen stressed,” Jake says. “It makes the cooks stressed.” He compares the fragility of his workplace to a game of Jenga—one wobbly move and the whole stack can topple. While some managers work 80-hour weeks alongside their staff, other workers say bosses take advantage of them. Gabi’s managers tell her that it’s not the right time to hire because not enough people are going out. “But I can see that when the restaurant’s busy, it’s full all the way out to the patio,” she says. Some places avoid paying kitchen employees overtime using various strategies such as misclassifying them or asking them to clock in for two distinct jobs. Gabi, for example, starts her day as a prep cook, then shifts to a line cook. “When we came back, they told us, ‘Here we don’t just have one hourly. We have a mixed hourly. If you like that, take it, if not, well ...’” As an excluded worker, or someone whose immigration status prevents them from obtaining formal aid, Gabi didn’t see staying as a choice. “I can already do the work,” she says. “There are places that are harder, more complicated, and pay worse.” Her restaurant gave her a $1/hour raise and promised another increase by August. If they don’t follow through, she might leave. Besides better wages, Gabi wants to spend time with loved ones. Whether or not the industry affords its workers work-life balance could determine if more cooks head back to kitchens. Some excluded workers harbor resentment for their colleagues who delayed returning to work because they had the safety net of unemployment benefits. “We were here in the tough moments when you guys were getting all the money,” says an excluded worker who spoke under the condition of anonymity. She’s a host, but as an hourly worker and immigrant from Colombia, she identifies more with kitchen workers. A June study from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found excluded workers were denied more than $500 million in unemployment insurance, roughly $40,000 per worker. “We all want to be able to pay our employees more because that would keep them,” Stephanie says. “They wouldn’t be searching for jobs in other industries. But to be able to do that, we need to raise our food prices and be able to make more money and those things need to work together.”
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ARTS Victoria Ford
What Six Local Artists Made With City Grants During the Pandemic Amid lockdowns and layoffs, local artists used funding from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to pay their bills —and find new ways to work. By Annika Neklason Contributing Writer When the coronavirus shutdowns began, Emerald Holman was fresh off a national tour with Step Afrika! and preparing for the dance company’s local “Step Xplosion” show. Roc Mikey and his go-go band, UCB, were playing weekly gigs at the Felicity Lounge on H Street NE and, he says, “starting to get our notoriety back.” Roc Lee was designing sound for upcoming university theater productions. Victoria Ford was working at the Anthem photographing concerts. Kayona Ebony Brown was putting together a series of multimedia novellas. Dylan Arredondo was midway through one acting contract and had four more lined up, work that he expected to last him “really through the end of 2020.” Then all of it came to an abrupt halt. Artists were left to pick up the pieces of their disrupted careers. Without the revenue that traditionally flowed from in-person events, many found themselves laid off or furloughed and shut out of the galleries, theaters, and clubs where they’d previously shown work. But one major source of support for the arts remained more or less reliable: The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Each year, the commission doles out millions of dollars in government grants for education efforts, building projects, and exhibitions, and 2020 was no different: While other funding dried up, the commission continued offering most of its regular grants, as well as a $2,500 coronavirus relief grant that was made available with federal support. That funding helped local artists pay their bills—and adapt to a socially distanced and digital-centric arts landscape. Arredondo was one of 315 artists to receive an individual arts and humanities fellowship grant from the DCCAH last year. Applicants to the fellowship, which is designed to support people in a variety of disciplines, are judged on work samples, resumes, and a range of other supplements—awards, publicity, programs they’ve attended. Recipients are granted up to $10,000 to spend as they will within the same fiscal year. Last summer, Arredondo received $4,000. That money “was vital for me to continue to live in D.C. rather than going back to live in my parents’ basement, and to continue to
make work and not totally have to begin working in a different industry,” he says. Within 10 days of the first stay-at-home orders going into effect, he says, he had started Performance Interface Lab, a workshop that produced a series of “virtual, interactive theater-for-one performances.” Audience members could tune in, one at a time, to participate in a half-hour video conferencing session. Arredondo worked with nine pairs of artists, many of them D.C.-based freelancers out of work because of the pandemic, to produce about 350 “virtual interactions” last spring and summer. Arredondo says that the DCCAH grant allowed him to compensate himself for his time working on the project. “That way, any revenue that came in from audiences immediately went to the pocket of other artists involved,” he says. “So it allowed for the bounty to be shared more robustly.” DCCAH grant money proved similarly critical in allowing Holman, the dancer, to pivot— and pay the other artists who helped her do so. When she was laid off by Step Afrika! for a month in April 2020, she “took the chance to continue with some of my own work,” she says. So even when Step Afrika! resumed practicing— masked and at a distance—she kept pursuing independent projects in her free time, leading virtual classes, and working on her own choreography. “I wanted to bring art to people but to keep everyone safe and socially distant,” she says. She decided to return to a solo she had originally choreographed in 2018, set to a song by The Internet, and turn it into an on-camera performance. She put much of her $4,000 fellowship grant toward the expenses, large and small, that made the video project possible: Rent for a studio where she could film, equipment for the shoot, hiring costs for videographers, and costuming. “Money had been tight,” she says. “So it’s just really been a blessing that these grants remained available to us, because to dance for me is to live and breathe.” But Holman also has issues with the way public arts funding is allocated in the city, informed by her experience living in Wards 7 and 8 for most of her life. “I do feel like the commission has done a good job to make money accessible,” she says. “But there is a bit of a gap in that,
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“Rose Gold” (2021) by Victoria Ford, shown in her Petworth exhibition sometimes people don’t know that it’s available. I’ve been doing my best to bridge the gap by telling more and more artists.” She’s also been pushing the city to make programming more accessible to young people east of the river. “Growing up, when I was living in Ward 7, for me to be able to access just basic dance education, I normally had to travel all the way across town,” she says, and she still sees “a lot of youth in Ward 7 and especially Ward 8, which has more children in it than any other ward across the city, that aren’t being stimulated artistically.” Her critiques join an array of concerns about equity in D.C.’s government arts funding. Just two months ago, the Washington Post reported on internal accusations of racism and cronyism within the commission. Included were allegations that White commissioners disrespected their Black colleagues in the office and public
meetings, and that well-established White arts organizations were given preference in funding over smaller groups or organizations run by people of color. Even more recently, one member, Natalie Hopkinson, publicly shared similar criticisms in a Medium post. The same legislation that made DCCAH an agency independent of the mayor in 2019 also “gave a cooperative of the city’s wealthiest, most powerful arts organizations, most of them White, an overwhelming majority of them supporting European art forms, a permanent setaside worth millions of dollars,” she wrote of the National Capital Arts Cohort before alleging that the same organizations were continually looped into any efforts she and other commissioners made to push back on that entitlement and improve equity. A lack of funding for go-go music and musicians has also been a particular target of
But Angela Byrd, founder of the arts think tank MadeInTheDMV, is skeptical that significant progress has been made. “I think the funding is moreso about show,” she says of last year’s investment. “I’ve seen some incredible money spent on some go-go events. I’m not sure how it’s really helping the people of go-go.” To really support the musicians and bands that populate the scene, she says, the city should create a fellowship specifically for go-go artists, fund the production of new albums, or otherwise provide direct support for individuals. “There shouldn’t be go-go artists starving right now,” she says. Beyond go-go, she believes the city needs to change its approach to arts funding in both small and structural ways: improving education about grants, for instance, and allocating more money to for-profit organizations and gig workers. “I do think they’re trying,” she says. “It takes people stepping up. If we don’t talk about it, then they’re not going to change.” Byrd herself has had trouble securing funding for MadeInTheDMV through DCCAH; during the pandemic, she had to adapt her approach to programming and advocacy for local artists with little help from the city. “I showed what we’d lost and they gave me a thousand dollars out of that $2,500 [relief grant],” she says. Taurus Evans made his pandemic pivot without DCCAH funding—and while battling an unemployment backlog, too. Since the city shut down early last year, he’s focused on creating vector illustrations to post to social media and, for the first time in his career, started documenting his artistic process on video and making his own music. “I’ve applied for grants recently, but the applications are really extensive,” he says. He recounts the many steps he’s had to take to navigate government websites and to acquire a Certificate of Clean Hands, which confirms he doesn’t owe more than $100 to the city in fees, fines, taxes, and penalties. “There are too many strings and too many hoops,” Byrd says. In the past, artists also had to undergo criminal background checks to be considered for grants. Last year, that requirement was removed for most applicants, though it remained in place for the coronavirus relief grants that became available in May 2020 and for any project that involves children. And, Loose Lips reported in June, commission
Courtesy of Dylan Arredondo.
criticism: Though it’s been a significant part of the local culture for decades and formally designated as D.C.’s official music since 2019, go-go has received disproportionately little public investment and been left out of the earmarked NCAC funding, former DCCAH chair Charles C. Stephenson Jr. wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last summer. “Before the District announced that go-go was the official music of D.C., it was hard for our culture to get funding and stuff like that from the city or anything. They really just didn’t support us at all,” says Mikey of UCB. “I’ve been here all my life, since the 1980s or so. I haven’t heard people talking about getting grants for go-go music over the years.” And now? “I have to say it’s changing, because I was awarded a grant,” he says. Actually, two, he clarifies. He’d never even tried to get DCCAH funding before last year, when he applied for and received both the arts and humanities fellowship and a Projects, Events, or Festivals grant. “It helped our band out a lot,” he says. Unable to play in person after the pandemic set in, UCB shifted toward livestreamed performances. The grant money went toward the filming equipment, engineers and technicians, and advertising that made that shift possible. Last year, the D.C. government allocated $3 million in onetime funding for go-go, directed to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of Television, Film, Music, and Entertainment; the D.C. Public Library; and Events DC. “This was an incredible start,” Hopkinson says, adding that she’s still waiting for the city to make a more permanent funding commitment. Mikey, too, hopes the city will continue and expand its investments. “Every other state you go to where their music is still big, they’ve got programs funded and all types of stuff for artists and all that,” he says. “We never had that for go-go. So now that we’re the official music in D.C., it’s good to have that around to support us, because … I believe our whole sound and culture will go a lot further with some funding behind it.” More change could be on the way: Mayor Bowser’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, if approved, would open up the commission funds previously earmarked for the NCAC—meaning that money might be accessible for a more diverse group of local arts organizations moving forward.
Susan Stroupe in Out of Time, Performance Interface Lab
Virginia Zander Visuals
ARTS
UCB in a livestreamed concert members have expressed a desire to bring it back across the board. Hopkinson, for one, says, “It is my hope that that never comes back again.” She criticized the inclusion of background checks and Clean Hands certifications in her Medium post, noting that artists “could have their applications thrown out for falling victim to a racist criminal justice system or having too many unpaid parking tickets.” Fifteen years after he was incarcerated, Evans says of required background checks like these, “I find it interesting that no matter what I’ve done to serve the time—and it’s done, there’s no probation, I’m good, I’ve served my debt to society—it always comes back up … We always change, so comparing someone to who they were, especially after they’ve gone through the effort to be better, it doesn’t help. It constantly keeps you under this thumb.” Even for artists who aren’t grappling with public debt or criminal records, the application process can be daunting and difficult to understand, as it long was for Ford, the concert photographer. For years she didn’t even consider applying for the DCCAH grants because, “Honestly, I didn’t think I qualified,” she says. “My photo resume wasn’t long enough. I didn’t have enough exhibitions under my belt. I wasn’t working on a large scale … It was a little intimidating for a while.” A fellow artist ultimately changed her mind, pushing her to apply and insisting she was qualified. The artist also pointed out the apparent lack of diversity among grant-seekers. “She was like, ‘The workshop, it was predominantly White people,’” Ford says. “There was only one other Black person in the whole thing besides herself. And she was like, ‘No, you need to apply.’” Ford secured $6,750 as an arts and humanities fellow two years ago, and another $9,000 last year. The pandemic dealt her a series of blows: She was laid off by the Anthem; live music performances, the main focus of her work, shut down; and, to top it off, she contracted COVID on March 13. The absence of regular concerts drove her to “seek out something a little different,” she says. She photographed a local nonprofit’s farm and took headshots for their staff members and volunteers. She went out to shoot Small Wooden Box, a livestream concert series featuring local
artists. And she showed a selection of her work at an exhibit in Petworth. The grant money allowed her to purchase prints and frames she needed for the exhibit and a little equipment. She also used it to pay off a few of her bills. “I wanted to make it stretch,” she says. “When work is sparse, it helps tremendously in just being able to survive,” says Lee, the sound designer, who received a $5,750 arts and humanities fellowship grant. Lee works primarily in theater; when the pandemic struck, he shifted from in-person performance spaces to digital ones along with the rest of the industry and continued to design sound for the university productions he was attached to. He also collaborated with Rorschach Theatre on less traditional performances, curating an interactive theatrical series, Distance Frequencies, that called on subscribers to carry boxes of physical artefacts to specific destinations around the city to experience the stories. The grant “helps relieve the pressure of ‘do I have enough work?’” Lee says. “Just having an extra cushion psychologically helps a lot.” “To have that couple thousand dollars stashed away that you might get with the grant, that helps to just have that there as a security blanket,” says recipient Kayona Ebony Brown, the multimedia artist. For nearly eight years, Brown has been working to create a multimedia franchise, Of Music and Men, based on her own experience running a record company and attempting to date as a young woman in D.C. She applied for funding twice unsuccessfully before securing her first fellowship in 2019; since then, she’s put the money toward producing self-published books and podcast episodes. The grants were “actually super instrumental,” she says, contributing to small essentials like software and transportation. Someday, she hopes she can realize her initial vision for the story: a network television series that would introduce viewers to a side of D.C. they don’t usually see; the side where “real people actually live.” “I would say, all of these things are not perfect,” Brown says about her experiences with the DCCAH and another government arts program, 202Creates. “But I just have nothing but appreciation for what the city has done. I feel like it has at least tried, continually, to do something to help artists.”
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ARTS
21 Years Later
By Pat Padua @PatPadua
Lumpia With a Vengeance “Nobody will get that! It’s too Filipino!” That’s what one unfortunate villain tells high school student Rachel (April Absynth) when she explains her crime-fighting name Ate Hero is a pun on generational honorifics. Director Patricio Ginelsa’s rambunctious second feature is indeed very Filipino, but as with lumpia, everyone will want seconds. In fact, Lumpia With a Vengeance is a belated sequel to Ginelsa’s low-budget action comedy Lumpia (2003), which depicted students dealing with bullies at a predominantly Filipino high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a bigger budget and an exuberant pop art sheen, Ginelsa follows up with his high school charges 18 years later—in comic book movie form. Vengeance tracks a vigilante known as Lumpia Man (Mark Muñoz), who tries to protect his reputation from a crime gang that sells drug-laced versions of the Filipino egg roll that gives him his name. Ginelsa makes a running joke out of mistaken culinary identity: News reports initially claim that murder victims have been found with taquitos sticking out of their mouths, but Fogtown’s Filipino mayor clarifies
A scene from Americanish the distinction for a press conference filled with reporters who still don’t get it. Comic book graphics introduce each character and punctuate fight scenes, and the sight of greasy, delicious lumpia being wielded as deadly weapons may seem silly. But despite that surface glitz, food is a powerful metaphor. When used for good, it unites people of different cultures; laced with drugs, it’s a corruption of the culture. Even without that subtext, Vengeance is a wild ride, with Muñoz, a former mixed martial arts fighter, as a strong and mostly silent presence. Watch for genre veteran Danny Trejo as a rival drug lord. The cast and crew of Lumpia With a Vengeance will participate in a live virtual Q&A on Sunday, July 18, at 6 p.m. All audience members who buy a pass or purchase a ticket will get a link to a free digital copy of a comic book tie-in.
Americanish Hijabi American Muslim Iman K. Zawahry makes her feature directorial debut with this endearing rom-com about three women who try to reconcile varying degrees of Pakistani tradition with the dating pool in Jackson Heights, Queens. Maryam (Aizzah Fatima) is a PR
A scene from Lumpia With a Vengeance
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specialist who reluctantly tries to make racist political candidate Douglas Smarts (George Wendt) more palatable for social media; her younger sister, Sam (Salena Qureshi), is getting ready to take the MCAT and dreams of attending Harvard; meanwhile, their cousin Ameera (Shenaz Treasury) is visiting America determined to meet and marry a Pakistani doctor. Naturally, each of the three women matches up with someone they least expect. But even if the plot is thoroughly predictable—as soon Ameera meets Black Muslim bodega owner Gabriel (Godfrey), you know they’ll end up together—the cast is likable enough to make it all work. The cast and crew of Americanish will appear for a live virtual Q&A on Thursday, July 15, at 9 p.m.
Dinner Party First-time director Chris Naoki Lee grew up in an ethnically diverse community in Los Angeles, and based this timely and provocative drama on his own circle of friends. The slowburning tension starts when Cal (Lee) brings his new girlfriend, Izzy (Imani Hakim), to meet his high school friends, most of whom
Patricio Ginelsa
The 21st annual D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival explores a rich array of distinct cultures. Featuring 56 films from seven countries, it streams online from July 15 to 25 and closes with an in-person screening of The Girl Who Left Home at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. These independent productions revel in Hollywood tropes, but each puts a regional flavor on a vanilla template—for example, in more than one case, food plays a crucial role in cross-cultural conflicts. The Girl Who Left Home wasn’t available for preview, but it’s the debut feature from Rockville native Mallorie Ortega. The musical dramedy tells the story of a young Filipino American woman who puts aside her career dreams to help keep her family’s business afloat. Based on the high quality of the titles we did screen, the festival will be a thoroughly entertaining look at the Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant experience in America.
Diverse Films LLC
The D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival’s 21st edition is “Loud. Proud. Unbowed.”
he hasn’t seen in a decade. Hosting the party are Shannon (Kara Wang), the only woman in this gang of bros, and her husband, Vinny (Daniel Weaver, who also cowrote the script with Lee). In the backdrop of this amiable but uneasy reunion is the outcome of a fictional assault trial, which everyone is following on social media. This already tense group dynamic is fueled by the fact that Cal and his friends grew up in a different political climate—one in which a certain level of racial and sexual hostility was played for laughs, but their jokes just aren’t funny anymore, especially to outsiders. And coloring the proceedings is a dark secret that these friends share. If the setup is contrived, Lee, who made the film in four days during the pandemic, deftly directs his ensemble cast, who are completely convincing in their roles as a bunch of old friends who haven’t seen each other in years. And the fictional trial case is a clever device, raising relevant questions without preconceived ideas of guilt. Dinner Party is a sober look at where society is today, suggesting that maybe we can’t all get along after all.
Take Out Girl This flawed but ultimately moving crime drama from Guyanese American director Hissoni Mustafa revolves around Tera (Hedy Wong, who also cowrote and produced), who delivers orders for her family’s Chinese restaurant in a crime-ridden Los Angeles neighborhood. Tired of watching her mother, Wavy (Lynna Yee), working so hard just to break even, Tera decides to work with neighborhood drug kingpin Lalo (former Soul Train dancer Ski Carr), who seems to take a shine to the tough young woman, referring to her as “take out girl.” While Tera doesn’t like being part of the drug economy, it’s the only way to lift her family out of despair, but then her family’s past activities come back to haunt them all. Take Out Girl is sometimes too raw and the acting is inconsistent from scene to scene; but Wong is a formidable presence, Yee a steady elder, and Carr a vivid gold-toothed villain.
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Dear Readers of Washington City Paper : Now, more than ever, we care how you feel. Really, we do. We are once again asking for your favorite haunts, your favorite handyman, your favorite vegetarian joint, your favorite bike shop, and, of course, the things that got you through the pandemic. Let’s celebrate D.C. Let’s define what we love most about living here, in good times and bad. Let’s vote.
NOMINATIONS / July 1 - August 1 ~ VOTING August 19 - Sept. 19 Best Thai Restaurant Best Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant Best Vietnamese Restaurant Best Wings
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Pandemic Superstars Best COVID-19 Business Pivot/Innovation Best COVID-19 Silver Lining Best COVID-19 Support Service Best Drive-In Theater Best Drive-Through Experience Best Local Lockdown Product Best Local Lockdown Service Best Local Virtual Workout Best Lockdown Cook-at-Home Meal Best Lockdown Takeout/ Delivery Discovery Best Lockdown Takeout/ Delivery Experience Best Pandemic Restaurant Pick-up Kit Best Prepared Cocktail To-Go Best Socially Distanced Event Series Best Virtual Fundraiser during COVID-19 Most Missed Closed Restaurant
washingtoncitypaper.com july 2021 25
w.dchfa.org/homeownership ARTS GALLERY REVIEW
Looking Backward to Move Forward Shoulder the Deed
technology to reach back in time to secure the blessings of the ancestors on a journey forward. In keeping with the theme of looking at Originating from the Akan people of the past, Stan Squirewell’s “Monk Hancock Ghana, the term Sankofa is often associated (Innocent Criminal Series)” combines ancient with the proverb “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a times with the present in a portrait that is a yenkyi,” meaning “it is not taboo to go back and mashup of a modern-day Black man dressed in a fetch what you forgot.” The Adinkra symbol for black winter coat manipulated with an overlay of the concept is a mythical bird flying forward the facade of an Egyptian statue and the bodice with its head turned backward. In the exhibition of a Roman one. Looking back to notable periods Shoulder the Deed at Eckington gallery STABLE, in history, Squirewell tells a contemporary story the curators have gone back and fetched a history about the fight for survival. The portrait allows that strengthens the establishment not only of for a connection between how a contemporary STABLE, but also of the Black artists living and Black man must fight for his life, much like those working in D.C. STABLE, in collaboration with who have gone before in other treacherous times. Nekisha Durrett’s “Magnolias” says the names the Black Artists of D.C., presents an impressive collection of artworks steeped in rich African of women whose lives were lost too soon. In a light and African American traditions. As you enter box, the names of three women are highlighted The District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency is your homeownership on magnolia leaves. These the space, the wall to the right resource in the District from buying a home to retaining your home; we unarmed women were killed features photographs of some have a homeownership program to assist you. by police, referencing the threat key personages such as Harlee unarmed Black women face in Little and Juliette Madison, their everyday existences. The who, beginning in 1985, envistories of these women’s deaths sioned what is today STABLE DC Open Doors DC Open Doors is your key to DC Open Doors are all too common today, but as a space where Black phoDCOpen Open Doors DC Doors is your key to homeownership in the homeownership in tothe city. This inprogram offers competitive DC Openprogram Doors isoffers your competitive key homeownership the by saying their names, Durrett tographers could commiserate city. This interest rates and city. This program offers competitive interest DCHFA, lower Your Homeownership Resource District. interest rates and lower mortgage insurance costsin on the first trust mortgage insurance costs on first trust rates and remembers them and encapand work. Shoulder the Deed is a lower mortgage insurance costs on first trust DC Open Doors You are not required to be a first-time homebuyer mortgages. DC Doors homebuyer or a D.C. DC Open Open Doors is yourresident key to homeownership in the sulates their circumstance for spiritual reckoning. The artists homebuyer or a D.C. resident DC Open Doors is your key to homeownership in the city. a This program offers competitive interest and , be purchasing a homerates in the or D.C. resident to qualify for DCOD. You must, however, be others to know and remember city. This programinsurance offers competitive interest ratesinand in the exhibition, spanning sev, be purchasing a home the lower mortgage costs on first trust District of Columbia. lower mortgage insurance costs onin firstthe trust District of Columbia. District of Columbia. purchasing a home DC MAP (Mortgage Assistance Program) COVID-19 is here to help their fates. eral generations, come together homebuyer or a D.C. resident homebuyer or a D.C., be resident purchasing a home in the The artworks in the exhibito travel through time to bring DistrictDC homeowners inAssistance their during this(HPAP) pandemic. Home Purchase Program , bestay purchasing a home homes in the Open of Doors District Columbia. District of Columbia. HPAP interest free deferredinloans DC Openprovides Doors is your key to homeownership the for down tion work together; Michael forth conceptual and even HPAP provides interest free deferred loans for down payment HPAP provides interest freeinterest deferred city. This program offers competitive ratesloans and for down lower mortgage insurance serves costs on as firstatrust Platt’s “Evening Ritual,” a modern works that speak to co-administrator of$84,000 combined. DCHFA and closing cost assistance up to serves as a co-administrator HPAP provides interest free deferred loans for down of this DCprovides Department offree Housing Community painting of a nude Black woman homebuyer or a D.C.interest resident HPAP deferredand loans for down Black experience through porthis DC Department of Housing and Community serves as ,(DHCD) a co-administrator of this DC Department of Housing Development’s first-time buyer be purchasing aahome in home the serves as co-administrator of Development’s first-time home buyer depicted eight times and comtraiture, video art, assemblage, District of Columbia.(DHCD) program. serves as a co-administrator of and Development’s this DCCommunity Department of Housing and Community (DHCD) first-time home buyer program. this DC Department of Housing andhome Community Development’s (DHCD) first-time buyer posed in a circle, alludes to the DC MAP COVID-19 provides zero- interest monthly assistance loans up and more. “Ascension” (2021) Development’s (DHCD) first-time home buyer program. program. program. to $5,000 for up six loans months “magic” that Black women Before seeing the artwork, by Charles Jean-Pierre HPAP provides interest free to deferred for downfor qualified homeowners. Reverse Mortgage Insurance & Tax Payment Program have been known to perform Black presence is felt and sets serves as a co-administrator of this DC DepartmentReMIT of Housing provides and Communityfinancial assistance to seniors 62 (ReMIT) the tone for the exhibition. Upon entering the for centuries. The subject of the painting looks Development’s (DHCD) first-time home buyer on insurance years or older who have fallen behind years older who have fallen behind on insurance program. and taxor a result ofhave their mortgage. years or older who fallen behind on insurance and tax Borrower Qualifications: years orpayments older who as have fallen onreverse insurance gallery, the sounds from Shaunté Gates’ video directly at the viewer from many angles as we and tax payments as afallen resultbehind of can their reverse years or older who as have onreceive insurance Qualified District homeowners upmortgage. to and tax payments a result ofbehind their reverse mortgage. and tax payments as a and result of their reverse mortgage. Qualified District homeowners can receive up to payments as a result of their reverse mortgage. Qualified • Must be borrower’s primary residence must located work “Free Breakfast Program” hauntingly qui- witness her in ritual. The idea reminds viewQualified District homeowners canbe receive up toin Qualified District homeowners can receive up to the District of Columbia District homeowners can receive up to $25,000 in assistance. ets the mind. The repetitive loop of phrases such ers of the spectatorship Black people have gone • Must have been current asolder of the 1st payment (prior to years or who March have fallen behind on insurance as “By their very presence…” and “I was always through as the “other.” The defiance in the suband tax payments as a result of their reverse mortgage. DC4ME DC4ME provides mortgage assistance with optional being affected by COVID-19) DC4ME provides mortgage assistance optional Qualified District homeowners canassistance receive upwith to with DC4ME provides mortgage optional here …” over a go-go rhythm signals that we are ject’s response shows she is not threatened by the DC4ME provides mortgage assistance with optional DC4ME provides mortgage assistance with optional down assistance to D.C. government down payment assistance to D.C. government employees. downpayment payment assistance D.C. government • Must be able to document income affected to COVID-19 down payment assistance totoD.C. government down payment assistance totodue D.C. government employees. DC4ME offered to current full-time in Black space, if the artworks had not already gaze of the viewer. employees.DC4ME DC4MEisisis offered current full-time employees. offered to current full-time employees. DC4ME is offered to current full-time DC4ME is offered to current full-time District government District government employees, including employees • Borrower must be the borrower on theemployees, home loan, not just aemployees District government employees, including District government including employees government employees, including employees In several ways, the artworks speak of the pressignaled this. The sound draws you to the work ofDistrict District government-based instrumentalities, ofDistrict government-based instrumentalities, of District government-based instrumentalities, member of the household DC4ME provides mortgage assistance with optional employees, including employees of District government-based of District government-based instrumentalities, independent agencies,to D.C. Public Charter Schools, independent agencies, D.C. Public Charter Schools, independent agencies, D.C. Public Charter Schools, down payment assistance D.C. government ent while at the same time referring to the past. full of edited and manipulated images, displayand organizations, provided the applicant/borrower's independent agencies, D.C. Public Charter Schools, • Must show proof that theorganizations, borrower not eligible for employees. DC4ME isisprovided offered to current full-time and organizations, the applicant/borrower's and provided the applicant/borrower's instrumentalities, independent employer fallsunder under theoversight oversight theCouncil Councilofofagencies, D.C. Public Charter and organizations, provided the government employees, including employees employer falls the ofofapplicant/borrower's the From modernist tendencies to conceptual leaning a history of the Black experience. The archival employer falls under the oversight of the Council of forbearance or otherDistrict types of relief offered through the the District of Columbia. ofemployer District government-based instrumentalities, falls underorganizations, the oversight of the Council of the applicant/borrower’s the District of Schools, and provided the District ofColumbia. Columbia. independent agencies, D.C. Public Charter Schools, historical footage is juxtaposed with more recent ings, the show represents an array of works that servicer and/or Hardest Hit Funds theorganizations, District of provided Columbia. and the applicant/borrower's employer falls under the oversight of the Council of the District employerafter falls under oversight of the Council of • If borrower is still affected the the CARES Act ends, then archival footage as Black people perform tradi- belong in the same exhibition space but are each theof District of Columbia. COVID-19 Columbia. relief may be offered COVID-19 at that time (See additional terms) unique in their perspective. As a continuation tional African dance and B-boys break. DC MAP COVID-19 provides financial assistance to COVID-19 DC MAP COVID-19 provides financial assistance to COVID-19 thoseaffected affected by(Mortgage theimpacts impactsofofthe theCOVID-19 COVID-19 those by the of STABLE’s relationship with Black artists for While Gates’ work references relatively recent DC MAP Assistance Program) COVID-19 DC MAP COVID-19 provides financial assistance to pandemic. Qualifiedborrowers borrowers canfinancial receiveaaloan loanofof COVID-19 DC MAP COVID-19 provides assistance to pandemic. Qualified can receive those bymonth the impacts of assistance the COVID-19 upMAP toaffected $5,000 per toput puttoward toward their mortgage almost four decades, this exhibition represents history using media technology, Gina Marie DC COVID-19 provides financial to financial assistance to those DC MAP COVID-19 provides up to $5,000 per month to their mortgage those affected by the impacts of the COVID-19 For a full borrower qualifications and pandemic. Qualified borrowers can receive a loan of loan terms, visit forlist upto toof six months. those affected by the impacts of the COVID-19 for up six months. pandemic. Qualified borrowers can receive a loan of Lewis confronts history with an ancestral altar. the importance of looking back to the foundaup to $5,000 per month to put toward their mortgage pandemic. Qualified borrowers can receive a loan ofthe affected by the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. Qualified uptoup to $5,000 per month to puttheir toward their mortgage up $5,000 permonths. month to put toward mortgage for to six “Libations for the Journey” is a mixed media tion for clues on the direction to take next. Each for to months. six months. for upup to six borrowers can receive a loan of up to $5,000 per month to put work that uses images, cowrie shells, bottle corks, of the artworks in Shoulder the Deed has a distinct toward their mortgage for up to six months. seashells, champagne, and door handles to offer quality that makes visitors want to see more from Visit www.DCHFA.org www.DCHFA.org Visit the ancestors access and vision on a journey. A the artists. The artwork in this exhibition looks how to to apply apply to to any any of ofDCHFA’s DCHFA’shomeownership homeownershipprograms. programs. how Visit www.DCHFA.org Visit www.DCHFA.org for full qualification guidelines and information Visit www.DCHFA.org wooden box depicting a slightly open door sits in at the past while representing the contemporary Visit www.DCHFA.org how to apply to any of DCHFA’s homeownership programs. WWW.DCHFA.ORG FLORIDA AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC20001 20001••202.777.1600 202.777.1600 815 FLORIDA AVENUE, NW, DC the middle of the altar as a doorway to the past, moment, moving us into a more conscious future. on how to apply to any ofWASHINGTON, DCHFA’s homeownership programs.••WWW.DCHFA.ORG how to apply to any of DCHFA’s homeownership programs. how toNW, apply to any ofDCDCHFA’s homeownership programs. 815 FLORIDA AVENUE, WASHINGTON, 20001 • 202.777.1600 • WWW.DCHFA.ORG —Shantay Robinson with candles inside to light the way in the dark815 FLORIDA AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20001 • 202.777.1600 • WWW.DCHFA.ORG ness. This generous offering to the ancestors 815 FLORIDA AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20001 • 202.777.1600 • WWW.DCHFA.ORG DC MAP MAP COVID-19 financial willassistance be granted on a first first served the program allocation hasuntil been exhausted. Homeowners seeking assistance through DC COVID-19 andassistance financial will become, granted on a basis firstuntil come, first served basis the program allocation has been exhaustallows the artist to look to the past to create a path 336 Randolph Place NE. (202) 953-9559. DCHomeowners MAP COVID-19seeking should call 1-833-429-0537 to begin process of applying.should Questions regarding DC MAP COVID-19 may also be emailed totoDCMAP@dchfa.org. ed. assistance through DCthe MAP COVID-19 call 1-833-429-0537 or DCMAP@dchfa.org begin the process of to the future spiritually. Lewis uses traditional stablearts.org. applying. HomeSaver has been reopened temporarily and will be accepting requests through May 14, 2021. Visit HomeSaverdc.org to apply.
granted on a first come, first served basis until the program allocation has been exhausted. Homeowners seeking assistance through At STABLE to Sept. 30 7 to begin the process of applying. Questions regarding DC MAP COVID-19 may also be emailed to DCMAP@dchfa.org.
DCHFA, Your Homeownership Resource in the District.
DCHFA, DCHFA, Your Your Homeownership Homeownership Resource Resource in in the the District. District. DCHFA, Your Your Homeownership Homeownership Resource Resource in inthe theDistrict. District. DCHFA,
Do you need mortgage assistance due to the effects of COVID-19?
www.dchfa.org/homeownership
26 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD
Creature Feature By Brendan Emmett Quigley
Across 1. Juggler’s props 6. Federal Green Challenge org. 9. Character in Face/ Off? 14. Stirring 15. S-Corp alternative 16. Jeff Tweedy’s group 17. Sign of aging 19. Graphics hosting site 20. “‘___ ’ is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all” (Emily Dickinson) 21. Old television attachments 23. “She ___ ANNOYING!” 25. Card in a smartphone 26. President of Mexico? 27. Reinking of Broadway 29. Results of some ints. 31. Mr. Know-it-all? 33. Ornamental architectural molding consisting
12. Dandruff 13. Knight in chess, e.g. 18. The Lord of the Rings hero 22. “You can turn that alarm off now” 24. Hot 27. First man 28. Sushi seaweed 30. Players might pick one up 32. 1992 tennis gold medalist Marc 34. Southern border town with a portmanteau name 35. Drunk’s noise 37. “Unh unh unh!” 38. Long, hard journey 39. Partner of Porgy 42. Run (about) 45. “Pull up a chair” 47. Piece of hair 49. [snort] “Sure thing, pal!” 52. Military demonstration 53. One of the Twelve Tribes of Israel 54. Engage in cross words 56. Us director 58. Athenian at the Globe 60. Historian’s bailiwicks 61. Ready for anything 63. Strip barker 64. Pole position 67. ___ PreCheck
of four radiating petals 36. Theoretical destination 40. Flounder’s bud 41. Grok completely 43. Background at the movies 44. Flirty girls 46. Shooting marbles 48. Vehemently opposed 50. Dr. whose career started in the World Class Wreckin’ Cru 51. Signs off on 52. Close to shut 55. Lyskamm or Finsteraarhorn, e.g. 57. Accusation at the Globe 59. Some Thanksgiving leftovers 62. Superstar 65. Director Wright 66. What you might enter should you literally get 17-, 21-, 33-, 46-, and 59Across 68. Spa feature 69. Deciduous tree 70. Benchmate of Brett and Amy 71. Coliseum athletes
72. 5K giveaway 73. Staked Down 1. “St Matthew Passion” composer 2. Do with a pick 3. Keeping others informed, as on a project 4. Home Depot rival 5. Urban rds. 6. Philosopher Zeno’s town 7. Commoners 8. Show off 9. M*A*S*H star 10. Guacamole ingredient 11. Gunk in the pool
LAST CROSSWORD: REPEATEDLY $ 5 0 , 6 ( 1
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HARRY CONNICK, JR. AND HIS BAND
THE ARTEMIS TOUR
LINDSEY STIRLING KIESZA AUG 5
TIME TO PLAY! AUG 20
DARIUS RUCKER
TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD
SEP 4
REBIRTH BRASS BRAND
AUG 24
STRAIGHT NO CHASER AUG 4
RENÉE FLEMING
NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
AUG 6
PINK MARTINI FEATURING CHINA FORBES AUG 11
ZAKIR HUSSAIN RED BARAAT
FALU’S BOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRA
AUG 21
YACHT ROCK REVUE
THE HOT DADS IN TIGHT JEANS TOUR
AUG 22
CLASSIC ALBUMS LIVE PERFORMS:
LED ZEPPELIN IV SEP 1
SEE THE FULL SUMMER 2021 LINEUP AT WOLFTRAP.ORG washingtoncitypaper.com july 2021 27
CITY LIGHTS City Lights
¡Viva Cultura! A Celebration of Latinx Arts and Culture
We shouldn’t have to wait for National Hispanic Heritage Month to experience a Latin American arts and culture festival—and, luckily, we don’t. For three days in July, the Virginia League of United Latin American Citizens (VALULAC) hosts a kaleidoscope of classes, performances, and artesanía markets that spans the Americas. A film screening of Los Hermanos, a tale of AfroCuban musician brothers living parallel lives in Havana and New York, kicks off the event. And forget what you think you know about Latinx music—while mainstream faves like salsa classes are part of the festivities, the expansive program also features the bomba and plena percussion of Kadencia Orchestra and globeinspired, folkloric fusions of Colombian dancer Carolina Hernandez, who will showcase her vision of dance, as well as two of her homeland’s African-inspired styles, salsa choke and champeta. “If someone wants to go and learn about our two coasts of Colombia, sweat a little, and understand why it is we move the way we do,” Hernandez says, they should come through! You can also count on Kadencia to drum into the Afro-Puerto Rican roots of their genres in between counts of originals such as “Llego Kadencia” and “Que Chevre” and Lucecita’s “Desilusión,” a love song to Borinquen. Rumbaflamenco-Latin pop group Trio Caliente (pictured) will add nostalgia and joy when they perform crowd-pleasers such as Gypsy Kings’ “Bailare” and “Bombaleo,” Celia Cruz classics, and originals from their final album, Fly. Don’t let these and other Latin American performances, workshops, and arts showcase fly by. The festival runs July 15 through 17 at the Kennedy Center’s REACH, 2700 F St. NW. kennedy-center.org. Free. —Ambar Castillo
City Lights
Thievery Corporation When the pandemic struck, most artists experienced performance withdrawal after COVID-19 forced them off the road. Eric Hilton, one half of the D.C. duo Thievery Corporation, didn’t have that issue. He limited his live appearances years ago and eventually stopped touring altogether. “I didn’t really suffer that way,” admits Hilton, laughing. “In fact, I made three albums in the last year. I have number four ready.” For Hilton, the decision to remove himself from the road was a very easy one. “It’s not creative for me personally because I make music in the studio,” he says. “When we play live, I’m not a live player so I’m there, but I’m not really doing very much. You almost feel like you’re a mascot at that point.” Lucky for us, Hilton has made an exception to this personal rule and will join musical partner Rob Garza when Thievery Corporation play the Entertainment and Sports Arena on July 24. And, for a guy who has avoided performing for the past few years, Hilton sounds borderline giddy when discussing the upcoming show. “We do have a full roster of performers and that is exciting,” says Hilton. “Frankly, I’m just more excited for live music to be returning to D.C. It’s a great milestone.” The duo plays at 8 p.m. on July 24 at Entertainment and Sports Arena, 1100 Oak Dr. SE. thieverycorporation.com. $10–$40. —Christina Smart
City Lights
Independent Venue Week
Pearl Street Warehouse’s venue manager Joelle Callahan calls independent music venues the heartbeat of D.C. Bill Spieler says these stages are the “driving force of getting bands started.” Spieler, who has run DC9 since it opened in 2004, has witnessed how a fan base can grow as bands—such as Sylvan Esso and Toro y Moi— return to these often smaller venues, perfecting their talent and performance. “Then all of a sudden, they’re playing 9:30 Club or the Anthem,” he says. Though D.C. has no shortage of indie venues, Pearl Street Warehouse and DC9 are the two spots hosting shows for the 2021 Independent Venue Week, which runs
28 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
through July 18. The international celebration began in the U.K. in 2014. Marauder, a music marketing firm, brought the event stateside in 2018. This year’s celebration feels especially poignant after 16 months of little live music. Pearl Street Warehouse, which opened in 2017, pivoted throughout the pandemic; in October, it hosted a handful of intimate shows through the city’s COVID-19 pilot program, but shut down for the holidays. “It was definitely a lot of ups and downs,” says Callahan. DC9 officially reopened on June 11, though it has been moonlighting as a restaurant since April. Prior to that, the venue was closed for four months, though it hosted various livestream shows throughout 2020. Virtual events offer little financial incentive, but DC9’s talent buyer, Alli Vega, says they were put on for the community and artists: “We tried to keep the venue as alive as we could.” Both venues are finally returning to their regularly scheduled programming and expect to ramp up this fall. Callahan, Vega, and Spieler urge folks to celebrate the return of live music. “There’s just like an unspoken magic of live music and being all together watching a band,” says Vega. “I’m really excited that we’re all able to do that again.” Independent Venue Week runs through July 18; DC9’s shows are Azure Wolf (pictured) on July 16, and The North Country with Frass Green on July 17. Pearl Street Warehouse’s show is Modest Proposal, Mod Fun, and DJ Skate on July 16. independentvenueweek.com. $12–$25. —Sarah Marloff
City Lights
We Can’t Predict Tomorrow If we’ve learned anything during this past year and a half, it’s that nothing is certain. Plans for the future can be quickly turned upside down and everything can be thrown for a loop, as so many of us experienced firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the pandemic also highlighted social justice issues, which were heightened following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The protests that ripped across the country during a devastating pandemic caused many Americans to ask what it means to be a part of this world. For Arlington Arts Center’s latest exhibit, We Can’t Predict Tomorrow, nine artists explore this time, “when humanity lived at the knife’s edge of uncertainty and found ways to not only survive, but to keep on living,” according to the center’s website. Curated by Amanda Jirón-Murphy, We Can’t Predict Tomorrow unites the work of artists James Balo, Nakeya Brown, Tommy Bobo, Leigh Davis, Guarina Lopez, Lex Marie, Jackie Milad, Jared Nielsen, and Bahar Yürükoğlu. The show also offers multiple mediums of art, including
photography, drawings, sculpture, and paintings. Lopez’s “This Native Land” is a compilation of photographs of the traditional homelands of Native American tribes that honors the land and its people, while Davis’ “Reunion’’ explores the grief process. Her pyramid structure installation invites visitors to enter and quietly remember lost loved ones. Marie’s paintings in “At His Daddy’s House” reflect upon being both an artist and a single Black mother during a global pandemic. The exhibit runs through August 28 at Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd. Arlington. arlingtonartscenter.org. Free. —Julie Gallagher
City Lights
Seltzerland
From Cannonball Productions—the company behind the hit Bacon and Beer Classic—comes Seltzerland, a nationally touring hard seltzer festival that’s making its East Coast debut this month. The D.C. leg of the tour, which takes place at Rock Creek Park Golf Course, will feature representatives from more than 30 different brands including the District’s own D.C. Brau. As Cannonball CEO/founder Kate Levenstien explains, Seltzerland was inspired by the recent rise in hard seltzer’s popularity. “It feels like there are so many hard seltzers now on the market. New flavors, new brands, new concoctions, new ingredients,” she says. “We wanted to create a way for everyone to try that because there isn’t a really great way for people to do that currently. We saw it as an opportunity to provide that experience to people, to explore different flavors and brands and see what they like.” General admission tickets begin at $39, and VIP tickets are $59. Those who splurge on the VIP experience will have access to the best time slots and will receive a full-size can of Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer, a specialty cocktail, and complimentary food. Regardless of which ticket you choose, the day will be full of games, merch, alcohol, Insta-worthy pics, and lots of carbonated fun. After all, there ain’t no laws when you’re drinking Claws. The event begins at 12:30 p.m. on July 17. seltzerland.com. $39-59. —Hannah Docter-Loeb
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I’m a 19-year-old girl who was dumped a few months ago. My partner found out he didn’t like my body when we were having sex for the first time and he told me right after. We were actually still in bed, naked, when he told me. He kept cuddling me to make me feel a bit better but it still hurt to hear. Other than slight doubts about genitals and my face (I have Asian features and having my face and living in a Western country isn’t always easy), I didn’t go into that experience expecting to be rejected. We had talked about all the sexual stuff we wanted to do and he had previously told me I was attractive and thicc and paid me other compliments. Undressing for someone and then being rejected was devastating, and I don’t have other experiences to weigh this one against and take reassurance from. My selfesteem dropped. I know his tastes and preferences shouldn’t be a problem for me now, since we are no longer together, but I can’t stop thinking about them. I’ve known him for five years. He means a lot to me and we want to continue to be friends. I wish someone had told me that having sex with someone isn’t a guarantee that everything will always work out. (Having sex with them, being sexually open and generous, and having nice tits too!) I started therapy but I also wanted some advice from you. —Babe Only Desires Intuitive Emotional Support “People who are brutally honest generally enjoy the brutality more than the honesty.” The late Canadian humorist and newspaper columnist Richard Needham wasn’t talking about your ex-whatever-he-was when he made that observation, BODIES, but he could’ve been. Yeah, yeah: Sometimes we only realize we aren’t as attracted to someone as we thought until after we’ve slept with that person. That’s sadly the case sometimes. But your ex-whatever’s comments were so gratuitously cruel, BODIES, that it’s hard to avoid concluding (if I may borrow a phrase) that cruelty was the point. He could’ve and should’ve given you a million other reasons why he didn’t want to sleep with you again—this may be one of those rare instances where ghosting would’ve been kinder. At the very least he should’ve given you a chance to get dressed before he let you know he wasn’t interested in having sex with you again. That your very first sex partner chose to brutalize you like this—that he didn’t make the slightest effort to spare your feelings—is an almost unforgivable betrayal. Unless this boy is somewhere on the spectrum and has difficulty anticipating how a direct statement might hurt another person’s feelings, BODIES, there’s no excuse for what he did. Sticking around to cuddle after saying that shit isn’t proof he’s a good person. The arsonist who sticks around to piss on your house after setting it on fire isn’t being kind, BODIES, he’s warming his dick by the fire and enjoying the blaze. Please know that being rejected by someone doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your body, BODIES, or with your genitals or
30 july 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
your face or your race or your features. Swiping right on someone who didn’t swipe right on you or sleeping with someone who doesn’t want to sleep with you again isn’t proof you’re flawed or unattractive. It just means you’re not right for that particular person, BODIES, and for reasons particular to that person. Rejection sucks and it always hurts, and for that reason we should strive to be as considerate as possible when we have to reject someone. Considerate but clear, considerate but unambiguous, but always considerate. And what this guy did to you—not even letting you get dressed first— was as inconsiderate as possible and you have every right to be angry with him. If you had to get a therapist after sleeping with someone, it’s a pretty good indication that person should have no place in your life—as a lover or a friend—going forward. Keep seeing your shrink, BODIES, and stop talking to this asshole. —Dan Savage
“People who are brutally honest generally enjoy the brutality more than the honesty.” I’ve gone through many variations of relationships, from monogamous to open. My new partner is incredibly smart, open-minded, loving, GGG—all the things, right? So, I find myself a bit perplexed and troubled by a statement she made. The person she was in a relationship with previously wanted to be free to do as he wished sexually. She told him that was “fine” so long as he used protection and she didn’t know about it. Apparently that worked so well for her that she made me the same offer after we decided to become sexually exclusive: She told me to use protection if I should ever cheat and not to tell her about it. At first I was like, “Cool, but I’m not going to cheat,” but now I find myself thinking about it. And if I do cheat, I will use protection
and keep it to myself, per her request. So why am I writing to you? I have a high sex drive and a history of parental neglect and abuse. I find that I seek validation from women and I have a fairly good idea that it’s due to what I endured from my mother. We’ve only been seeing each other for a few months and I do love her. I know people often get caught—even with a hall pass—and I don’t want to lose her because of this. I want to make peace with never being with another person or with using the “hall pass” I’ve been given. How do I do that? —Hesitant About Lying Lest Partner’s Anger Sabotages Situation You can make all the peace you want with being monogamous, HALLPASS, but that won’t make being monogamous any easier for you. Zooming out for a second: Your desire to have sex with more than one person might have something to do with the trauma you suffered in childhood … or it might not. A lot of people have high sex drives and risk-taking personalities and a desire for variety, and not all of them were neglected or abused as children. But the culture encourages people who don’t want to be monogamous (that’s a lot of people) or who find monogamy difficult (that’s everybody else) to see themselves as damaged. And yet we’re told that monogamy is always easy for people who are emotionally healthy—which is a lie— and then we waste time digging through our childhood histories for something that might explain why this thing that’s supposed to be easy—monogamy—is so hard for us. (Spoiler: It’s hard for almost everyone.) It’s a waste of time, HALLPASS. You can and should see a therapist to help you work through the trauma you suffered as a child, of course, but don’t waste your time with a therapist who pathologizes your relatively normal desires or seeks to assign blame for them. So what do you do about your girlfriend? How about you maybe talk to her? Your new girlfriend has been perfectly clear— she doesn’t care if you cheat so long as you use protection and she doesn’t find out about it—but you need additional clarity. If you were to sleep with someone else and she found out about it despite your best efforts to prevent her from finding out about it … what then? If finding out you used the hall pass she gave you is something she couldn’t forgive, HALLPASS, then you obviously can’t use it without risking the relationship. (You’re right: People get caught.) Additionally, if that’s really how she feels, then your girlfriend shouldn’t be handing out hall passes in the first place. But if cheating is something she could tolerate—so long as protection was used and some consideration was shown for her feelings, i.e., you at least attempted to be discreet/keep it from her—then you don’t have to hand in that hall pass. —DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net
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We are excited to announce that we launched our 2021 Best of D.C. We are announce wewas launched our but voting on excited Thursday,toJuly 1. The yearthat 2020 many things, 2021was Best D.C. voting on Thursday, July 1. The is “best” notof one of them. Thankfully, the city’s Great Reopening inyear full force andwas we can’t waitthings, to support celebrate 2020 many butand “best” wasyour notfavorite one neighborhood businesses, places, and people together. of them. Thankfully, the city’s Great Reopening is in
full force and we can’t wait to support and celebrate
This year, we started the voting process with an Open Nominations your favorite neighborhood and1. phase, where readers can write in businesses, their top choiceplaces, until August people Next, we’lltogether. conduct the Finalist Vote where readers select their top choice from the finalists. Voting starts August 19.
This year, we started the voting process with an Open Nominations phase, where readerstocan Go to washingtoncitypaper.com/best-of-dc-2021/ votewrite for your favorites! in their top choice until August 1. Next, we’ll conduct the Finalist Vote where readers select their top We hope that you will join us in celebrating these favorite choice from the finalists. Voting starts August 19. neighborhood businesses, places, and people that make our city feel
What’s your #City Paper Story? Visit washington citypaper.com/ wcp40 or use the #CityPaperStory hashtag on social media to submit your story!
like And we hope that you continue reading us as we celebrate Gohome. to washingtoncitypaper.com/best-of-dc-2021/ 40 years of local stories in our 40th anniversary year!
to vote for your favorites!
We hope that you will join us in celebrating these favorite neighborhood businesses, places, and people that make our city feel like home. And we hope that you continue reading us as we celebrate 40 years of local stories in our 40th anniversary year!
washingtoncitypaper.com july 16, 2021 31
a celebration of asian popular culture Walter E. Washington Convention Center • Washington, DC
August 6 - 8 , 2021 th
th
registration and event information available at otakon.com
