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Gary Tischler • May 21, 2015

Bluesman B.B. King, a legend in his and many people’s times, a man who personified the music he played, influenced hundreds of black and white singers and guitar players who played the blues, died in his sleep in Las Vegas May 14 at the age of 89.

He died forever famous and died rich, but he did and could and would still play the blues, especially “The Thrill is Gone,” which was the biggest hit of a storied career that probably began when he heard all those sounds swirling around him and his life, beginning in Mississippi. There was gospel, Robert Johnson at the cross roads and all those Delta blues guys, sharecroppers at some point or another, visitations to the road side boogie joints and jukebox joints and front porch guys, soon to be on the road, playing for quarters and dollars in edgy, hazy, sweaty place where the local brew could make you sick or crazy.

Listening to the blues could evoke that whole world and B.B. King evoked better than anybody ever—the blues were about remembered pain, but sometimes they could just make you get up and jump around, like kicking the demons out.

Born Riley B. King, B.B. was Blues Boy, which was pretty apt, although it is hard to think of him, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Woolf, the Reverend Blind Gary Davis or Johnson as boys of any sort.  Nothing much playful in that song, or many of his songs or any of the blues songs—they’re about loving, losing, about back-breaking and heart-breaking stuff and not ever, ever getting over it: “The thrill is gone away/you know you done me wrong baby/and you’ll be sorry someday.”

He was a sharecropper who made less than five dollars a day for a time, and he heard gospel, and blues, and country music and Count Basie, and for a time he played in places on Beale Street in Memphis.   He was married a couple of times, but everybody says the love of his life was Lucille, his guitar.  According to reports, he once ran into a burning hotel to rescue his guitar.

Once King got successful—with a hit called “Three O’Clock Blues”—he toured extensively with stops at the Howard Theatre in Washington, along with the Apollo and the Royal Theater.  He had a star on Hollywood Boulevard and was inducted double duty in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. He also received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1995 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.

He influenced people—especially some of the blues rockers from England in the 1960s, especially Eric Clapton who paid him a online special tribute.  “Thank you for everything, your friendship and your inspiration” says Clapton, looking older, too.

King can be found all over YouTube—including a rendition of “The Thrill is Gone” from 1993—glitzy blue jacket, black bow tie, sweating a little, squeezing the music out of Lucille, you guess, alive as you and me and then some.
           
“You know I’m free, free now baby, free from your spell,” he sings, “and now that’s all over/all I can do is wish you well.”

You, too, Blues Boy.  Wish you well. The thrill is NOT gone. 

Robert Devaney •

The May 14 murder of Savvas Savopoulus, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, as well as their 10-year-old son, Philip, who attended St. Alban’s School, and a housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, has shocked relatives and friends of the family, which lived blocks away from Washington National Cathedral and the Vice President’s Residence. After the attacks, the Savopoulus house — valued at $4.5 million — on Woodland Drive NW was set on fire. The couple’s two teenage daughters were at boarding school at the time of the murder and are safe. Savvas Savopoulos was the president and CEO of American Iron Works. He and his wife Amy were known around town and were involved with school and other social benefits.

D.C. police issued the following video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8egOuX4rc&feature — as well as request over the weekend.

“Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a quadruple homicide. Investigators seek the public’s assistance in identifying and locating a person of interest in a quadruple Homicide which occurred on Thursday, May 14, 2015, in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive, NW. The subject was subsequently captured by a surveillance camera.

??”The subject was possibly operating a blue 2008 Porsche 911 sports car which was located abandoned in the 8000 block of Annapolis Road in New Carrollton, Md. Anyone with information about the vehicle or who saw it being operated between Wednesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 14, 2015, is asked to contact police.??

“Do your part to help prevent and solve crime. The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons wanted for any homicide committed in the District of Columbia. Your assistance is appreciated by your community. Ref. CCN #15-069-981.

??”Anyone who can identify these individuals or who has knowledge of this incident should take no action but call police at 202-727-9099 or text your tip to the Department’s TEXT TIP LINE to 50411.

??”To learn more about the MPD Rewards program, please visit www.mpdc.dc.gov/rewards.”

Gary Tischler •

The Council of the District of Columbia now stands fulfilled.

That is to say, with the swearing May 14 of its two newest member—newly elected members Brandon Todd, who won easily in Ward 4, the seat formerly held by Mayor Muriel Bowser, and LaRuby May, who squeaked to victory in a tight election in Ward 8—the city council is now at full strength.

It is a council that is full of relatively fresh faces, a council that is made up of seven men and six women — and seven African American members and six white members.

Chaired by Phil Mendelson, this council has a number of new and newer members who were elected in the last several years, including May, Todd, Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie of Ward 5, at-large members David Grosso and Elissa Silverman and Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen of Ward 6.   The more veteran members of the council include Ward 2’s Jack Evans, the longest serving member of the council, Mendelson, at-large members Vincent Orange and Anita Bonds, Mary Cheh of Ward 3 and Yvette Alexander of Ward 7.

The newest members, Todd and May, have clear ties to Mayor Muriel Bowser.  Todd was a former aide to Bowser, and May worked on Bowser’s mayoral campaign. The mayor endorsed both candidates in their council races.

Robert Devaney •

That was the case when D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice Ross ordered Douglas G. Jefferies, the owner of a Dupont Circle property at 2220 Q St. NW, to cease unlawfully operating an unlicensed residential housing business, public hall, boarding house, bed and breakfast and general business by renting the home for parties, weddings and concerts.

The order came after the Office of the Attorney General had filed a lawsuit against Jefferies for creating a hazard to public safety and a nuisance to neighbors. The order stated that Jefferies had been using vacation-rental websites to rent the property, despite the owner and the venue not being properly licensed or outfitted for such events.

“Assuming Mr. Jefferies abides by the terms of the consent order, this agreement will bring an end to the dangerous, illegal and troublesome use of this property to host large and noisy events,” Attorney General Karl A. Racine said. “Today’s action sends a strong message to individuals who seek to unlawfully conduct lodging and entertainment businesses without proper licenses.”

Jefferies was also ordered to pay an $8,000 fine.

The lawsuit was filed after an investigation by DCRA officials, who had received numerous complaints from neighbors about excessive noise.

Caitlin Franz •

A local man, Jahmar Thaxter, was arrested April 22 in connection with 19 car break-ins that took place across the District in areas from Tenleytown to Georgetown. According to court documents, Thatxer is also under investigation for the killing of a 76-year-old Korean grocery store owner last summer.

Thaxter, 23, was arrested after his GPS ankle monitor placed him at scene of thefts that occurred from late February through March, according to his arrest warrant.

He is believed to have been near the location of 10 other car break-ins (included in the total 19) at the times they occurred. As many as seven cars a day were entered in order to steal items such as laptop computers, purses and jewelry.

According to court documents, MPD detectives have sought DNA samples from Thaxter that may tie him to the homicide of James Oh, who owned Gold Corner Market in 16th Street Heights. Oh and his wife were assaulted during a robbery of their store in July 2014. He suffered multiple skull fractures, which led to his death four days later.

The arrest warrant does not explain why Thaxter was wearing a GPS monitor or what prompted police to track his movements. However, he was released from jail, following his arraignment on the conditions that he wear a GPS monitor and check in with a probation officer.

Robert Devaney •

The tragic tale of Georgetowners Viola Drath and wife killer Albrecht Muth will be made into a movie by Christoph Waltz, who will direct and also play the part of Muth.

The film, based on a New York Times Magazine article, “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown,” will begin production in October, Variety reported.

“Voltage Pictures has come aboard to fully finance and produce the picture, which will be sold at Cannes,” according to Variety. “The film will be produced by Waltz, Erica Steinberg (‘Inglorious Basterds’) and Nicolas Chartier. Zev Foreman and Jonathan Deckter will be exec producing for Voltage, alongside M. Janet Hill, who originally optioned the material. The script was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright David Auburn (‘Proof’).”

Waltz — who appears to be perfectly cast for the film — won Academy Awards for “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained.” He will make his directorial debut in “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown.” He plays the villain in the James Bond movie, “Spectre,” set for a November release.

Drath and Muth were known around Georgetown for their dinner parties and moved about in Washington society. In fact, Muth once visited the offices of the Georgetowner Newspaper to purchase tickets for a benefit. A staffer recalled that he was “totally creepy.”

The following is the sad, you-cannot-make-this-stuff-up story, as previously reported in the Georgetowner.

Albrecht Gero Muth was convicted of killing his 91-year-old wife Viola Herms Drath in 2011 in their Q Street home in Georgetown and given a 50-year prison sentence.

At the April 30, 2014, sentencing, Judge Russell F. Canan of D.C. Superior Court said he found the evidence against Muth “overwhelming” and scoffed at his hunger strikes in the hospital, where Muth remained during the trial and the sentencing and participated via videoconference. Muth’s lawyer Dana Page spoke on his behalf, reading a statement that claimed Muth was innocent and that his wife was killed by Iranian agents.

Drath was found dead in the third-floor bathroom of her home on Q Street on Aug. 12, 2011, after being strangled and beaten.

At the time, medical examiners determined Drath’s death to be a homicide – and not a result of falling, as Muth first contended. There had been not forced entry into the house. He was arrested a few days later on P Street, after being locked out of the house and wandering around the neighborhood and sleeping in nearby Montrose Park.

A veteran journalist and married previously to an Army colonel, Drath married Muth in 1990. The couple was known around town for their dinner parties with a mix of political, diplomatic, military and media VIPs. Drath was 44 years older than Muth.

Prosecutors argued that Muth showed a pattern of abuse against his wife and was motivated by money, saying he had no steady job and was not included in Drath’s will. “He was a good little con man,” prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told the jury.

During trial testimony, Drath’s daughters, Connie and Francesca (from her first marriage), talked about Muth’s money arrangements with his wife and of his emails to them about items he wanted upon her death.

Seen around Georgetown in faux military garb, the cigar-smoking Muth was perceived by neighbors and shopkeepers as an oddball. He said that he was a member of the Iraqi Army — which the Iraqi government denied. Muth went so far as to have arranged a 2010 ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery for Iraqi Liberation Day. He was also known around government and foundation lobbying circles as Count Albi of the EPG (Eminent Persons Group).

Gary Tischler •

If reading about the news in a newspaper allows for a certain amount of detachment, perspective and evaluation, watching news being made on television is an altogether different kind of experience.

Depending on where you are—at home, gathered with friends, in front of your iPad—news as it happens covered by local or cable television news broadcasters is almost as chaotic as the images you see live in the here-and-now, mixed with repeated imagery from the hour or minutes before, accompanied by reporters reporting from the scene and anchors anchored to the breaking news desk.

This is pretty much what happened as we watched events unfold in Baltimore in the afternoon and early evening hour.  This was Monday, the sorrowful day when Freddie Gray—the young African American man who died after being arrested and held in custody by police of an apparent spinal injury—was mourned, eulogized and buried.   The funeral was, according to its organizers, a solemn occasion for mourning, grieving and perhaps the beginning of healing.

Gray’s death—punctuated by marches, and demonstrations for a week, including one that ended in violence Saturday night—was another in what to many has become an unconscionable long list of African African men dying violent deaths at the hands of police. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August—in which no indictment was handed down—sparked a sea change nationwide, linking incidents in Cleveland, New York,  Arizona and South Carolina, among many.

All of the incidents were different in nature but were linked by reactions to them, reactions that included demonstrations, mostly peaceful, all over the country.

The circumstances in Baltimore, where so far no investigation has been completed into the circumstances of how Gray died, were reflective of the poor neighborhoods were Gray grew up, where police and residents lived in a state of long-standing tension.

What happened after the funeral was often confusing, often violent and chaotic.   It appeared from reports that police had received social media warnings that something was going to happen, and so they had gathered with their shields and helmets. After the funeral had broken up, youths from a nearby high school stormed out of the school and began running at police, pelting them with rocks, bricks and bottles.  More than a dozen policemen were injured, some suffering broken bones, two of them seriously.

After that, events developed almost as if in a kind of haze.  We watched as camera shots at Mondawmin Mall near Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue revealed first a trickle, almost casual group of young men broke windows and marched then ran into a CVS Pharmacy and begin looting, some pulling up in a motorcycle or car with tall trash bags. A police car was burned nearby.  Youths continued to jump on a destroyed police car.

All of this seemed to be happening in slow motion—people would rush at a store—including a check-cashing business, a liquor store, as well as the CVS, then action would slow down for moments. Neighborhood adult men in suits tried to dissuade the looters and angry demonstrators.  Then, they would head down the street to a another establishment.

For the hours after the funeral—which included an impassioned march by religious leaders going past some of the running, young men—there was no official word from the mayor’s office or the police commissioners.  Governor Larry Hogan promised to send the National Guard, but only if asked. 

Reporters from Washington, D.C., came to the scene in what was surely one of the more difficult assignments they had encountered.  On WRC, the station was fortunate enough to have on hand Tisha Thompson, a member of its investigative team who had lived and worked in Baltimore and knew the geography and streets of the developing story.

Television, especially on a live and rolling story, is at best a jumble, a kind of mash of the immediate here-and-now and flashbacks to 20 minutes ago, where images of looters , burning cars and running, yelling tended to blend together with much confusion.  Reporters appeared to have a hard time with assigning terminology and description to what they were witnessing,  calling looters “demonstrators” and vice versa,  but none resorted to the words used by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who called the looters “thugs” when she finally did speak, hours after the first events occurred.  Her initial silence was much puzzled over by the press, which parsed every official word spoken, including those of the governor, who called out the Maryland National Guard, after “the mayor finally called and made the request.”   Media took that word “finally” apart like a piñata, trashing it for meaning.

Reporters tried to show some sympathy—not for the looters so much—but the young people living under the circumstances that they did.  “This was for justice for Freddie,” yelled one of the youths.   Other observers decried the violence and looting, some remembering not only Ferguson but cities exploding in the 1960s.

One young man, interviewed by a D.C. reporter, yelled that the city had not helped the neighborhood when it needed it, that they couldn’t take it any more and that the death of Gray and the absence of information was the final straw. 

Reporters and anchor folks vacillated with the frustration that they were reporting, sometimes sharing it, and the queasy potential of danger that they were a part of.   But images also have a way of making the dramatic—fires, destroyed cars, looters running—seem a city-wide event, that we were witnessing a city-wide event when in actuality we were seeing repeated images interjected with live coverage.  Some Baltimore residents will tell you that the event itself was “overblown” in  terms of its coverage.

Nevertheless, a citywide curfew—10 p.m. to 5 a.m.—is now in effect for a week. Vandalized stores begin the tough job of clean-up and staying in business (or not). Wednesday’s Orioles games against the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards will be closed to the public.

Watching from Washington was a nervous experience.  This was not Ferguson, to be sure, but it was Baltimore—Fells Point, the Orioles,  Joan Jett, H.L. Mencken, the Peabody, a true city of multi-ethnic urban neighborhoods, as one resident pointed out, the city of “The Wire” and Johnny Unitas which was so close to Washingtonians.  It shook,  I suspect, a certain sense of complacency here: the belief that it couldn’t happen here, when in truth, we might be one confrontation away from the same events, down the street from where many of us live.
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Gary Tischler •

When Steven Knapp became the 16th president of the George Washington University in 2007, one among many of the top priorities he set for himself was to enhance the school’s partnerships with neighboring institutions.

As he spoke at the Georgetown Media Group’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast at the George Town Club May 7, Knapp displayed voluminous knowledge about a host of subjects and laid out the criteria and the actions that have made the university a big cultural player in Washington, D.C.  He also probably laid the groundwork for future partnerships when all was done and said, which was a lot.

When you talk about enhancing partnerships with neighboring institutions you can’t get much more enhancement than that which George Washington University got during the last two years.

In 2014,  GWU joined together with the National Gallery  and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Corcoran College of Art and Design, thus saving and preserving the Corcoran legacy and the institution.  In the arrangement, the university took over the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and which was merged into GW’s Columbian College of Arts and  Sciences.

“This part of it was a great boost for our students, and the students at the Corcoran, who will now have access to a host of programs that will help them pursue their goals and expand the opportunities for learning and producing art,” Knapp said.

During that time, GW also  merged with the Textile Museum,  a relatively small and hidden museum, which moved from its former location on S Street (it had been closed since with 2013) to its current 21st Street, a 55,000-square-feet complex shared with the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection.

“I think universities are a key part of the urban cultural landscape,” Knapp said. “This is especially true today when the state of arts education at public school is not in very good shape.  It’s our responsibility to work with the city’s institutions, create partnerships with the schools, work with other universities in our consortium, to provide cultural experience, expand opportunities to create and make art. … I think in the case of both the Corcoran and the Textile Museum, we have made ourselves and the institutions better.  We have served our students as well as the cultural communities. “

Knapp, who seems plugged into Wikipedia as he speaks, displayed his diverse interests, flavoring the history of GW as a Washington (the city and George) instituton, by seasoning  GW’s march of progress to its current status as a top university with historical, biographical and just-so-you-know-if-you-didn’t bits of information.

He came to GW by way of the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught English literature and was a specialist in Romanticism,  literary theory and the relation of literature to philosophy and religion. After that he was Provost at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Knapp’s portrait of Washington as a city with a dense, diverse and major cultural profile provided a fitting end to the inaugural season of GMG Cultural Leadership Breakfasts, which have ranged from Deborah Rutter, president  of the Kennedy Center, Jenny Bilfied of  Washington Performing Arts, Kim Sajet, Director of  the National Portrait Gallery, Martin Wollison, director of the Clarice Performing Arts Center at  the University of Maryland,  Arvind Minocha , CEO of the Wolf Trap Foundation, and Ari Roth, the embattled former director of Theater J.
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Caitlin Franz •

A suspect believed to be one of the two well-dressed, “beautiful” robbers who mugged two Georgetown students (at two locations) at gunpoint has been arrested.

The suspect, Ja’khori Ellerbe, was apprehended by the Georgetown University Police Department around 5 p.m. on May 8, according to GUPD Chief Jay Gruber.

He was reportedly in possession of a silver revolver, which was the weapon used in the robberies that took place on the Georgetown campus.

The robberies occurred on May 6, according to authorities. One robbery took place on the 3700 block of O Street, Northwest around 10 p.m., and the other on the 1000 block of 31st Street, Northwest around 11 p.m.

Ellerbe was charged with two counts of armed robbery and carrying a pistol without a license.

Authorities are still looking for a second suspect involved. The individual has been described as a black female in her 20s, tall, with a thin build and a light complexion. She was wearing a black ball cap.

Another “Sharp Dressed Bandit” was arrested in April in Arlington for committing a series of bank robberies in Dupont Circle, Old Town Alexandria and Ballston. His given name is Sunny Parekh.

Caitlin Franz •

Lieutenant Kevin McRae of the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department died on Wednesday morning, May 6, after combating a blaze at an apartment complex in Shaw. He collapsed after the fire was contained, and the cause of his death is not yet known.

The 44-year-old McRae, who lived in Waldorf, Maryland, began his career as a D.C. firefighter 25 years ago, working his way up through the ranks from cadet to lieutenant. He joined the fire department right after high school.

He was the 100th D.C. firefighter to die in the line of duty since 1856. This heroism ran in his family. McRae’s cousin, James J. McRae III, was the 99th firefighter to die in the line of duty. He died in 2007.

McRae is survived by his wife, Trell Parker-McRae, and his three children, Desmond McRae, Davon McRae and Kevon McRae. His children are ages 18, 19 and six, respectively.

McRae shared the love of his work with aspiring firefighters by teaching at the fire academy.

Flags in the District of Columbia are flying at half-mast in McRae’s honor. Engine 6 on New Jersey Avenue, where he worked, has black drapery over each of the station’s bay doors.
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