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Gary Tischler • May 3, 2012

One of the more characteristic items found in the many obituaries offered up for Dick Clark, who died April 18 at age 82 was that his fellow high school seniors voted him “most likely to sell the Brooklyn Bridge,” according to the Washington Post.

That was a fair assessment, because during his life Dick Clark sold many things and played many roles and had many careers and owned many businesses and shows. The most important thing he sold—the thing with the most lasting value—was rock ‘n’ roll.

That was in his role as host of “American Bandstand,” a daily popular teenaged dance shoe emanating from Philadelphia with Clark hosting, and packs of more or less local kids dancing to the emerging pop music force that was rock and roll, a force that frightened parents and was embraced by their boomer baby kids in the 1950s.

Clark, by his demeanor, his looks—forever young—and style, actually spread the impact of rock ‘n’ roll music all over the country, including the hinterlands of small town America, at least that part which had television reception. Unlike Elvis—or Marlon Brando as a biker, for that matter—Clark was nonthreatening, and the kids on the show didn’t cut it as sullen rebels, but were clean cut, often wore ties, and the girls were pretty without being flamboyantly so.

Clark, in his 30-year tenure, proved to be as influential in spreading rock ‘n’ roll as the dreaded Elvis—the show featured kids grading the latest singles, as in “I gave it a nine cause you can dance to it,” then doing the latest dances like the Twist, the Watusi, the Chicken or the Hand Jive.”

I can vouch for this: in the 1950s, I lived in small town America where in the summers we would drag home after football practice and watch American Bandstand and hear everyone from Pat Boone and Fats Domino to the Everly Brothers or Buddy Holly (“That’ll Be the Day”) and I swear every guy on the team had a crush on Justine Correlli, the pretty blonde girl who became something of a star on the show.

Clark could sell the music even though he looked nothing like a rock-n-roller, although he was, as many dubbed him, “America’s oldest teenager.” He gained recognition, exposure and acceptance for the genre at a time when it was just beginning to surge into the mainstream of pop music. Clark pushed it along and expanded its popularity, the greatest promoter rock ‘n’ roll ever had.

He wasn’t a rock star, but he knew rock stars. He knew business, and he knew American pop culture better than anyone. He headed “American Bandstand” for 35 years from 1952 to 1987. Performers on the show included Simon and Garfunkel, Ike and Tina Turner, the great Motown acts, (before Soul Train), and even the eclectic David Byrne and the Talking Heads. Clark did not, as far as we know, dance on the show, but he didn’t need to.

At heart, he was a promoter, a salesman, pursuing the great American business model. “American Bandstand” was the thing he turned into an institution, a legend and something of lasting import. But there’s more — America is full of second and third acts — Clark, after all the Grammy Award Shows, the Emmy Shows, the theater and businesses and television appearances, became a legend all over again. Since 1972, Dick Clark Productions produced “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” on ABC, with Clark himself presiding over the lowering of the ball in Times Square every year until a stroke in 2004 sidelined him.

Clark did not idealize or even exaggerate his impact, especially “American Bandstand.” “I played the music, the kids danced and America watched,” he said.

All of that happened. And America has never quite been the same since.

Gary Tischler •

Pay attention, kids. The Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes, the Voice is back and in the house.

The house being the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center, where Frank Sinatra’s music and voice provide a kind of electric muse, a poetic kick in the pants, to the dancers — couples coming together, falling apart and twisting and flying through the air — in “Come Fly Away,” Twyla Tharp’s dance homage and expression of the Sinatra musical essence and persona.

“Come Fly Away” — where a set of four couples never going far from the stage set of the kind of bar where you drown your sorrows and dance to the tune of your troubles, or fly like ecstatic birds to the tune of romance — has Sinatra in full voice, ever present, his great voice and songs bathing the performers with a knowing air.

Tharp, America’s greatest living choreographer, has always had a gift for blending the pop with dance, a fascination not held alone by her but also Mikhail Barishnikov, who worked with her on her first Sinatra effort. “Come Fly Away,”, rooted in “Sinatra Suite” and the earlier “Nine Sinatra,” is leaner, and physically meaner and tougher than the Broadway original. It runs at 80 minutes with no intermission and is a gift if you still can’t get Sinatra’s combination of brass and sass, hitched to rueful romance, out of your head. Some of Sinatra’s finest songs are here—and it’s saying a lot given that he recorded literally thousands of songs.

The hitch, the hook, here is love, all kinds of love, including tough love with a background provided by the genuine article of Sinatra’s recorded love, and a full orchestra, much of it brass, the piano, the mournful sax, the sweet muted horn you haven’t heard very often. The couples in question are all kinds of American lovers—the stormy weather , battling, bruising love of Hank (Anthony Burrell) and flaming-haired Kate (Ashley Blair Fitzgerald), the uneven infuation-style course of Babe (Meredith Miles) and Sid (Stephen Hannah), the All-American sweets of Betsy and Marty (Amy Ruggiero and Ron Todorowski), not to mention the high-flying efforts of Chano (Mattahew Stockwell Dibble) to find love.

Dancing to songs as varied as “Luck Be a Lady,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” the stained-napkin boozy, “Here’s to the Losers,” “One for My Baby,” the defiant “My Way,” “That’s Life” and the exuberant “New York, New York.” In the mode of Sinatra-in-past-midnight-trenchcoat-alone with “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week, the couples and the ensemble do something awesome. They embody the music, a lot of Sinatra himself, and a little and a lot of all of us. They do it with tremendous gifts of physicality, grace, buoyancy and dazzling acrobatics. They toss each other around like muscular confetti, they meet, they pounce and they battle.

This is also, it should be said, sexy stuff, as love less idealized, the I-love-you-I-hate-you brand expressed in turns that escape one partner and land with another. This is hot stuff. All the couples on stage make this dancing a full-contact body bouncing effort: so much so that it’s a wonder nobody gets engaged during the course of the show. Or divorced.

Dibble can startle you with his high-flying leaps. Tudorowski carries with him a confidence that is equal parts funny and romantic. Miles turns every male dancer on stages to mush with her languid, red-dress moves.

But it’s the romance of Kate and Hank that carry the show and set the pace: theirs is almost a Frank-and-Ava affair. Every time they hook up, mash against each other, you feel the heat emanating from the sleek, slick, muscled moves of Burrell and Fitzgerald’s sassy, defiant attempts to escape and inability to leave, her red mane flying.

In fact, flight in all its definitions is at work here. All the boys and girls, at some point, manage to fly, to appear headed somewhere. They, if not away, still fly, fancy free and all.

Robert Devaney •

Before its April 22 Sunday night cable debut, the cast of HBO’s comedy series, “Veep,” checked into Washington April 11 at the United States Institute of Peace for red-carpet poses and interviews along with a reception and preview of the first episode.

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best know for “Seinfeld,” stars as Vice President Selina Meyer with her office more or less in its own bubble, with the president never shown on screen, and with Washington seen as much as a popularity contest as high school. At the preview, Louis-Dreyfus and a few of her co-stars said that they were happy being actors and did not envy the lives of politicians. Nevertheless, the D.C.-Hollywood connection continues in film, in lobbying efforts and with the increasingly exclusive White House Correspondents Association Dinner April 28. And, while Louis-Dreyfus talked to several politicians in her research for the role, but not Sarah Palin, the subject of an earlier HBO political show. [gallery ids="100750,122249,122225,122239,122235" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

The Washington Nationals won their home opener, 3-2, in the 10th inning with Ryan Zimmerman, face of the franchise, running to home and getting out of a jam with visiting team, the Cincinnati Reds, thanks to a wild pitch. Before the game, the Nationals put on a patriotic show with Army veteran, actor and “Dancing with the Stars” champion J.R. Martinez, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Several VIPs, such as Wolf Blitzer, Charlie Brotman and Jim Kimsey as well as members of the Lerner family, watched the ceremonies from the field. With a sell-out crowd of 40,907 and their inaugural home win this season, the Nationals are in first place in the National League East. [gallery ids="100732,121374,121321,121368,121331,121363,121340,121357,121349" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

It’s official. Vincent Orange will keep his at-large seat on the city council after a count of absentee and provisional ballots from the April 3 elections.

Orange initially had a very narrow lead of 543 votes over his main challenger, Sekou Biddle, who was making his second bid for the seat he had held on an interim basis after being appointed to the seat held by council chairman Kwame Brown.

The count of the absentee ballots and provisional votes gave Orange—who had gotten peripherally caught up in the scandal surrounding donations given by contractor Jeffrey Thompson to various council members as well as Mayor Vincent Gray—a final 1,746 margin, beyond the one-percent advantage required.

That means Orange should be secure in the seat, barring a formidable Republican candidate in November.

It also means there were no upsets or changes on the council in the elections. All Democratic incumbents running—Orange, Muriel Bowser in Ward 4, Jack Evans in Ward 2, Marion Barry in Ward 8 and Yvonne Alexander in Ward 7 won their primary races.

There will be at least one new member on the council after a special election in May to fill the seat left empty by the departure Harry Thomas, Jr.

The election results mirrored an earlier special election result in which Orange won big in Ward 8 and 7 but polled badly in the primarily more affluent and white Wards 3 and 2.

In the Nov. 6 general election, which puts up two at large seats of which one must be a non-Democratic seat, Orange will be on the ballot with independent Michael Brown, Republican Mary Brooks Beatty, independent David Grosso and D.C. Statehood-Green Party nominee Ann Wilcox.

Michelle Kingston •

It is a feel-good story the local media could not ignore.

J.J., or Jack Jr., the bulldog puppy in training to Georgetown University’s Jack the Bulldog, arrived at the university’s Healy Circle April 13 after his cross-country journey. Amid fanfare, TV news cameras and phone cameras, students applauded the puppy from San Diego, a gift from Janice and Marcus Hochstetler, bulldog breeders in California, who have two children at Georgetown.

Jack the Bulldog recently injured his left rear leg and is expected to have surgery soon. He will be returning this fall to continue rooting on the athletes and begin teaching J.J. what it means to be a Hoya. “Jack’s presence will provide important support to J.J. since the older dog is already comfortable with his life as a mascot at Georgetown,” said his handler, Rev. Christopher Steck, S.J., associate professor in theology. “J.J. will be looking for signals from Jack, and Jack’s enthusiasm in different environments will encourage J.J.’s own.”

The crowd sang a song, “Hey, J.J.,” in tune to Bruce Channel’s 1950s song, “Hey, Baby,” which went like this:

Hey, hey, J.J.
We wanna know if you’ll be our dog
Hey, hey, J.J.
We wanna know if you’ll be our dog
When I saw you walking down the street
I said oh, he’s the kind of dog I want to meet
He’s so fierce, oh, he’s fine
I’m gonna make him mine, oh, mine …

Robert Devaney •

Jack Davies of Prospect Street is at it again. This time, his rooftop is occupied by an inflatable of a generic Washington Capitals hockey player with the numbers, “00,” and the name, “Let’s Go, Caps,” according to Davies, founder of AOL International, philanthropist-businessman and part owner of the Washington Capitals.

His 20-feet-tall, inflated Caps player dominates the skyline, seen from Key Bridge, Canal Road and M Street. Davies is cheering on his team, now tied 1-1, with the Boston Bruins. They play Game 3 of a best-of-seven tonight at the Verizon Center.

In December, Davies’s inflatable Santa Claus waved “Merry Christmas” to everyone coming into Georgetown. [gallery ids="100734,121373" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

The District of Columbia Primary Elections — at least for the city’s overwhelming number of registered Democrats — did not shake up the status quo. If voters were concerned about perceived ethical mistakes or miscues by the District Council, no one got called on it — perhaps not even at-large councilmember Vincent Orange, whose electoral results with repeat opponent Sekou Biddle seemed a replay of the 2011 special election. Several council members were asked about donations from contractor Jeffrey Thompson to their campaigns. Democrats may want to rock the vote, but they did not evidently want to rock the boat.

In the end, it was good to be an incumbent for everybody: at last count, Orange led challenger Sekou Biddle by 543 votes for an at-large District Council seat. Unofficial Board of Elections numbers as of April 3 were: Orange, 21,237; Biddle, 20,694. With almost all votes counted, Orange appears to have won by 1.02 percent (39.77 to 38.75), which may be enough. (A candidate’s lead must be at least one percent to avoid an automatic recount.) Peter Shapiro grabbed 10.51 percent of the vote; E. Gail Anderson Holness, 7.254 percent. There were 1,614 undervotes, i.e., no votes, as well as 335 write-ins.

All of the voting precincts have reported in, including earlier votes, while more than 3,830 absentee and provisional ballots have not yet been counted — at least that amount had been requested; the number of returns is uncertain. All votes will be counted by Friday, April 13, and then certified on April 18.

Most of Orange’s votes came from Wards 8, 7, 6 and 5, while Biddle (who finished third in the 2011 election behind Republican Patrick Mara), got most of his votes in Wards 3 and 2 — that includes Georgetown.

Indeed, a black-and-white tale is told by the mirror-image votes of Ward 2, which went for Biddle, and Ward 8, which went for Orange — roughly 63 to 12 percent in both cases.

Meanwhile, some folks who were imagining ominous signs for Ward 8’s forever political leader Marion Barry were imagining in a major and mistaken manner. Barry swept aside several challengers with ease, winning 72.5 percent of the vote, and simultaneously blazed new Twitter frontiers for himself and his peeps with his election night comments. Other incumbents also did well: Muriel Bowser swept to victory with 65.39 percent in Ward 4, and Yvonne Alexander held up strongly in Ward 7 with 41.9 percent as her two top challengers—Tom Brown and Kevin B. Chavous split the vote, getting 22.45 percent and 21.42 percent, respectively.

Georgetown’s Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans ran unopposed.

The general election is on Nov. 6.

The District of Columbia Board of Elections & Ethics website displays all the latest election results: DCBOEE.org.

Georgetowner • April 16, 2012

DC Design House

April 13th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | $20 | Event Website

DC Design House opens to the public for tours April 14- May 13

Times vary, so check website!

Address

4951 Rockwood Parkway, NW

Washington, DC

Many Moves One Movement: A Multilingual Dance, Music and Art Celebration

April 13th, 2012 at 07:30 PM

April is Language Access Month in Dc and to celebrate, Many Languages One Voice is hosting Many Moves One Movement, an evening of dance and music performances that reflect DC’s diverse immigrant communities. Performances: Ethiopian coffee ceremony, son jarocho, samba, salsa, a film about Chinatown’s senior community, traditional Hawaiian, Japanese and West African dances. Event will include Caribbean, Ethiopian, and Vietnamese food, local art, and a silent auction.

Address

BloomBars

3222 11th St, NW

Washington, D.C.

National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade

April 14th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | $20 for grandstand seating, free along parade route | parade@downtowndc.org | Tel: 877.442.5666 | Event Website

Lavish floats, giant helium balloons, marching bands, and performers burst down the historic avenue in an energy-filled spectacle of music and showmanship seen only once a year during the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Address

Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th streets, NW

U.S. NAVY MEMORIAL HOSTS 21ST ANNUAL “BLESSING OF THE FLEETS

April 14th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | Free | mweber@navymemorial.org | Tel: (202) 380-0723 | Event Website

The centuries-old “Blessing of the Fleets” ceremony is intended to safeguard crews and ships from the danger of the seas through a traditional blessing given by a clergyman at the water’s edge.
The Blessing of the Fleets’ highlight occurs when Sailors from the U.S. Navy’s Ceremonial Guard proceed across the Memorial Plaza’s “Granite Sea” to pour water from the Seven Seas and the Great Lakes into the surrounding fountains, “charging” them to life and ushering in the spring season.

Address

701 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington D.C., DC 20004

FotoDC National Cherry Blossom Photo Contest 2012

April 15th, 2012 at 12:00 AM | 6.95-12.95 | Tel: 202.337.FOTO | Event Website

Grab your camera and catch Washington “in the pink!” FotoDC and the National Cherry Blossom Festival present the second annual Photography
Contest honoring the 100-year anniversary of DC’s beloved gift.

Show a side of The Blossoms this city’s never seen before. Find endless inspiration at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Capture a moment thousands of residents and visitors will remember. Enter the contest and your work just might blossom!

Address

1838 Colombia Road NW,

Washington DC, 20009

Preview Night Benefit Smithsonian Craft Show and Sale

April 18th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | $200, tickets by advance reservation | austrpr@si.edu | Tel: 888-832-9554 | Event Website

Cocktail Buffet, First Choice Shopping, Meet the Artists, Jazz by the John Paul Ensemble.

The Craft Show and Sale is widely regarded as the country’s most prestigious juried show and sale of fine American craft.

Address

The National Building Museum

401 F Street, NW.

Washington, DC 20001

Christ Church Art Show and Sale

April 27th, 2012 at 05:00 PM | Event Website

The annual Christ Church, Georgetown, Art Show and Sale is coming up on April 27, 28, and 29 in Keith Hall. The opening reception is on Friday, April 27, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The show and sale continues on Saturday, April 28, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and on Sunday April 29, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Artists contribute at least 50% of all sales to Christ Church, and the proceeds are used to expand parish outreach.

Address

Christ Church Georgetown

31st and O Streets