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Bartending 4 change Serves it up for HandsOn Greater DC Cares:

Ulah Bistro’s Upstairs Bar
1214 U Street NW
Thursday, August 16th, 2012
6:00pm – 10:00pm

On Thursday, August 16, 2012, Bartending 4 Change will serve it up for HandsOn Greater DC Cares. This event will take place at Ulah Bistros Upstairs Bar (1214 U Street NW, just outside the U Street Cardozo Metro Station on the Green Line) from 6:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m.

There will be an optional $5 donation at the door and all tips earned by the Bartending 4 Change charity bartenders will go directly to HandsOn Greater DC Cares. Ulah Bistro will also be offering great drink specials to help support the cause, including food specials until 7 p.m., $4 draft beers, $3.50 bottled beers, $5 house red and white wine by the glass, $5 rail drinks, $4 margaritas, and $3 PBR cans. Did we mention raffles? As usual, this event will be a prize-filled event including t-shirts, gift certificates and Washington Nationals Tickets!

HandsOn Greater DC Cares comprehensively mobilizes volunteers and strengthens nonprofits to better impact communities and the key issues in the Greater DC region. The organization works with a network of more than 860 nonprofits, 43,000 volunteers and a host of corporate and foundation partners to positively impact the region. Through its partnerships during the past year, HandsOn Greater DC Cares has engaged its volunteers in opportunities through its flexible volunteering program. In addition, HandsOn Greater DC Cares developed and executed 90 large-scale projects engaging more than 6,500 volunteers in facilities beautification projects across the Greater DC area, including projects at 45 DC public schools.
To learn more about HandsOn Greater DC Cares, please visit http://www.greaterdccares.org/.

See all of the week’s events here.  To add your event, click the events tab up top and then click “add an event”.  You can add concerts, museum/gallery exhibits, fundraisers, sporting events, bike rides etc. You can add anything you think will be of interest to PoPville.

Troegs Tap Tussle!:

Penn Social
801 E St NW
Thursday, August 16th, 2012
5:00pm – 8:00pm

DC workers, governement, hospitality, retail…come enjoy a special DC Beer Week Happy Hour with Troegs Brewing Company! At 5pm on Thursday August 16th, come by Penn Social and taste Hershey, PA’s finest brews, and then keep the glass! (one per customer, limited supply) Try the Hopback Amber Ale, The Dreamweaver Wheat, The Sunshine Pilsner and more! There will even be a specialty in-house Hellas beer available.

See all of the week’s events here.  To add your event, click the events tab up top and then click “add an event”.  You can add concerts, museum/gallery exhibits, fundraisers, sporting events, bike rides etc. You can add anything you think will be of interest to PoPville.

Eric Nuzum is a PoPville contributor and Petworth resident. You can catch Eric on Wednesday, August 15th for the launch party, reading, and Q&A at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St NW. You can read the first excerpt here, the second excerpt here, third excerpt here and fourth excerpt here.

Eric writes:

Tonight is my big reading/book party at Wonderland Ballroom for my new book, Giving Up The Ghost . I hope you’ve enjoyed all these excerpts we’ve posted.

For today’s final installment, I wanted to share my favorite story from the book. It was my first ghost-hunting adventure–a trip to Clinton Road in rural New Jersey. It’s ground zero for ghosts and a lot of other bizarre and kooky nonsense.

Clinton Road

“Where are the ghosts, Eric?”

“We aren’t looking for ghosts right now, Curry. We’re looking for mutant wild animals.”

Pause.

“Where are the mutant wild animals, Eric?”

Neither my friends Curry and Joe nor I honestly expect to find any mutant wild animals. But you never know. It only takes one tale to be true for us to end up shredded, eaten, or running for our lives.

In 1972 Warner Brothers decided to break in to the theme-park business by opening Jungle Habitat, a combo zoo, drive-through safari, and entertainment complex located in rural Passaic County, just outside of West Milford, New Jersey. It was once home to more than fifteen hundred animals, including lions, giraffes, rhinoceroses, tigers, camels, monkeys, and even a few dolphins. Almost from the beginning, things started going terribly wrong. Within its first month of operation, an Israeli tourist was mauled to death by two lions. A woman was grabbed and bitten by a baby elephant. Rhinoceroses slammed into automobiles. Animals began preying on other animals in front of carloads of children. Tons of animal waste started to leak into the town’s water supply. Several creatures escaped into the surrounding communities.

After operating Jungle Habitat for four years, Warner Brothers had had enough. Ticket sales were down and the problems inherent with combining humans and wild animals in a contained area weren’t getting any better. So they came up with what they thought was a perfect solution: Make it even bigger. They wanted to add roller-coasters, a log flume, a merry-go-round, and other rides to make it more like a traditional amusement park. The township residents were tired of dealing with Jungle Habitat and voted down the expansion. Warner Brothers took that as its cue and finally shut things down for good.

That’s when the rumors started.

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OUTLAWS:

Marx Cafe
3203 Mount Pleasant Street Northwest
Tuesday, August 14th, 2012
10:00pm – 2:00am | FREE!

COUNTRY WESTERN HONKYTONK MUSIC, Y’all.

We’re back and gonna be playing all of your favorite hillbilly songs from Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Alan Jackson, Hank Snow, Dwight Yoakam, Garth Brooks, George Jones, Dolly Parton and Hank Williams.

Come get your $5 Jim Beam & Beer

See all of the week’s events here.  To add your event, click the events tab up top and then click “add an event”.  You can add concerts, museum/gallery exhibits, fundraisers, sporting events, bike rides etc. You can add anything you think will be of interest to PoPville.

Eric Nuzum is a PoPville contributor and Petworth resident. You can catch Eric on Wednesday, August 15th for the launch party, reading, and Q&A at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St NW. You can read the first excerpt here, the second excerpt here and the third excerpt here.

Eric writes:

Giving Up The Ghost contains both memoir elements and some reporting as well. Specifically, my attempts to find and document ghosts.

As a result, it’s kind of a funky, weird, and awesome place. Everyone, and I mean everyone, believes they can see and hear ghosts…all day, every day. They have several services a day for residents and those visiting. Here are some examples of what happens at them.

“Okay, our first person to serve spirit tonight is Brenda Hawkins, a registered medium here in Lily Dale. Brenda?”

Brenda thanks George for letting her serve spirit that evening, says a brief silent prayer, and surveys the assembled crowd.

Then she points right at me. It feels like winning the lottery the first time I buy a ticket.

“Sir, may I approach you, please?”

“Sure,” I say.

“A little louder, please?”

“Sure, yes,” I call out. “Absolutely.”

“I’m sensing a spirit . . . a maternal spirit, please . . . perhaps a mother or grandmother. Is your grandmother on your mother’s side in spirit, please?”

Assuming that “in spirit” is a euphemism for “dead,” I guess she is referring to Bobalu. I reply, “Yes.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Brenda says. “Tell me, please, was she a little round in the bottom?”

Now, how am I supposed to answer that? Bobalu wasn’t really overweight, but she wasn’t rail thin, either. Imagine how pissed off Bobalu would be if she traveled back from Grandma Heaven to deliver a message to her oldest grandchild, just to arrive as he says, “Oh yeah, she had a huge ass!”

I just shrug and say nothing.

“That’s okay,” Brenda says. “I feel the spirit that is reaching out to you is definitely Grandma.”

Brenda pauses.

“She wants to surround you with light and love right now and let you know that she watches over you and is proud of you,” she resumes. “She knows that you have a job that is difficult and demanding, and she is proud that you do this work. That . . . that is mostly it . . . she just wants you to know that she misses you and knows how much you loved her. She wants to leave you with blessings . . . oh. There is one more thing, please.”

I nod, then catch George’s glance and remember to say “Yes” out loud.

“Grandma wasn’t much of a car person, was she, please?” Brenda asks.

“No,” I reply. Outside of smoking in them and driving them to the grocery store, my grandmother had no particular connection with cars.

“Well,” Brenda says with a slight chuckle. “Your grandmother wants you to check your tire pressure over the coming weeks, please.”

“My tire pressure?”

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City Dogs Rescue and EatWell Dining Out Event:

Monday, August 13th, 2012
5:00pm – 10:00pm |
All Eatwell Restaurants – Logan Tavern, Commissary, The Pig, Grillfish, The Heights

On Monday August 13th, 2012 for a single night, GiveWell DC will generously donate 15% of the total dining dollars from 5:30pm to 10:00pm collected at the five restaurants owned and operated by its parent company, EatWell DC (http://www.eatwelldc.com/) to City Dogs Rescue. The five restaurants are Logan Tavern, Commissary, Grillfish, The Heights, and The Pig and they are located in the Dupont Circle and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. To make the night even more fun, City Dogs Rescue will be bringing several of its adoptable dogs to greet guests outside two of the restaurants. Please make your reservations on Open Table and note that it is for City Dogs Rescue and RSVP on our Facebook event pages: www.facebook.com/citydogsrescue.

See all of the week’s events here.  To add your event, click the events tab up top and then click “add an event”.  You can add concerts, museum/gallery exhibits, fundraisers, sporting events, bike rides etc. You can add anything you think will be of interest to PoPville.

Eric Nuzum is a PoPville contributor and Petworth resident. You can catch Eric on Wednesday, August 15th for the launch party, reading, and Q&A at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St NW. You can read the first excerpt here and the second excerpt here.

Eric writes:

So my new book, Giving Up The Ghost, is about being an outcast dorkified teen who just happened to be haunted by a ghost. Then the ghost went away, then my best friend became a ghost herself. When viewing the excerpt below, it wouldn’t surprise me if you asked: “What the hell does KISS have to do with ghosts?”

Pul-ease.

KISS Junior

Kiss was the soundtrack to my life. Even though they sold millions of records, I kinda felt like they belonged to me exclusively. It may have been that not many other kids at my school had discovered Kiss, or perhaps it was because they seemed so excitingly foreign to the rest of the world I’d experienced so far, but it almost felt as if they had existed in obscurity until I became a fan—an obsessed fan. By that time, I already listened to a lot of pop music, but Kiss was different. Kiss was weird. I was weird. In my mind, we were a perfect match.

While I longed to play electric guitar or bass, my parents had decided that piano lessons were a better option. After practicing “Für Elise” for the nine thousandth time, I would peck out the melody lines of Kiss songs. Eventually, I came to see my keyboard skills as a potential asset. If, someday, Kiss decided to add a piano player, I would be ready to step in. I even had a character/persona picked out. I could be “the Viper” and stand behind my piano with a costume and makeup to morph me into something vaguely snakelike, in a Kiss kind of way. I had notebook pages filled with potential costume and makeup designs, complete with plans for how we could outfit our family’s baby grand piano with rhinestones, reptile-like leather demon heads, and claws (even though vipers don’t have claws). I also had a character/instrument-related gimmick ready to go. At the appropriate point in the song, I could press a button with my seven-inch leather heels and the top would explode off my piano in a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire, revealing a large mechanical snake. The viper would continue to rise up and up out of the piano, revealing itself, to the crowd’s amazement and cheers. Then, when it came time for my Big Piano Solo, I would drop a little “Für Elise” into the middle of “Hotter Than Hell” and blow people’s minds.

Kiss was something that adults hated, which was fantastic. But the real attraction to me was freedom. People expected Kiss to be outlandish, so they could pretty much get away with anything they wanted to do, say, and wear—as long as it was over-the-top. It would never be odd if Kiss wore black tights and codpieces—it would be odd if they didn’t. To a young boy just about to enter his teens, who was already beginning to feel like an outcast because of what he did, wore, and said, the idea that people would accept this kind of behavior, let alone encourage it, was an absolute magnet.

Along with a few other kids who drew Kiss-related art in notebooks and on our blue jeans, I decided to create the ultimate tribute to my heroes: a band.

After a significant amount of debate, we eventually decided on a name: Kiss Junior.

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Italian Wine Tasting at Lion Fine Wine and Spirits:

Lion Fine Wine And Spirits
3614 Georgia Ave NW–right by the Petworth Metro.
Friday, August 10th, 2012
5:00pm – 8:00pm | FREE!

Italian wines – they’re more than just Pino Grigio! Lion Fine Wines offers a free tasting tonight, presented by the former sommeiler of Obelisk restaurant. Find the perfect bottle to sip on the porch with friends or enjoy with your summer pasta.

See all of the week’s events here.  To add your event, click the events tab up top and then click “add an event”.  You can add concerts, museum/gallery exhibits, fundraisers, sporting events, bike rides etc. You can add anything you think will be of interest to PoPville.

Ellen Richardson, a graphic designer and Pleasant Plains resident, recently took her Craigslist hunting skills to the next level with the launch of her blog, Listed District. Listed District offers daily DC Craigslist findings of everything from Mid-Century and Industrial furniture, to bikes and the utterly strange.  Every week Ellen is going to share a roundup of some Phenomenal Finds with PoPville.

Today’s Listed District Phenomenal Finds revisits the quest for the perfect chair! CL offered up some great seating options this week, most at pretty good prices…Happy Hunting!

Eric Nuzum is a PoPville contributor and Petworth resident. You can catch Eric on Wednesday, August 15th for the launch party, reading, and Q&A at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St NW. You can read the first excerpt here.

Eric writes:

Giving Up The Ghost likes to pretend it is a book about ghosts (and there are tons of ghosts in it), but it’s actually about friendships. One in particular. A young woman who went from acquaintance to best friend to crush to source of endless frustration to…eventually, becoming a ghost herself.

“Why Don’t We Go Someplace You Want To Go?”

“Hey,” announced a girl’s voice.
I had no idea who it was.
“It’s me.”
Still clueless.
“I just got back last week, and we were wondering what you were doing.”
“Oh . . . I’m just . . . umm,” I answered.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“Sure I do,” I lied.
“It’s Laura,” she said.
“Laura,” I replied, as if saying the word out loud would pluck the connection out of the haze for me.
“Laura Patterson,” she said, getting a little testy. “Did you even know I was gone?”
“Sure I did,” I said, telling the truth this time. I knew she had been on some exchange program to some foreign country and had been gone the whole school year.

I had met Laura in junior high, where she was a year behind me. At the time, she was “going with” my friend Timmy. Outside of note passing and the occasional tight-lipped kiss after school events, “going together” in seventh grade was pretty meaningless. You couldn’t drive, had nowhere to go, and either weren’t allowed or couldn’t afford to do anything. It was kinda like being an old married couple, except you could control your bowels and stay awake past 8 p.m.

Even with these limited expectations, Timmy wasn’t really up to the task. He even had me break up with Laura on his behalf.

We ended up at the same high school and exchanged occasional hallway greetings, which sometimes had a tendency to linger for a bit. We’d catch each other’s glance at pep rallies or assemblies. Laura and I had study hall at the same time. By this time Laura had grown into the perfect little fresh-faced A student. She wore cute sweaters, Docksiders, and peg-legged jeans.

After we started talking at study hall, I was surprised at how witty she was. Previously, she’d come across as quiet, almost painfully shy. But the more time I spent around her, the more brightness emerged. She was funnier than me (not a high mark, but I was still impressed), she was way smarter (again, not a tough standard), she knew more about music and books than I did (which really got to me), and she had a comeback for every smart remark I volleyed in her direction. Eventually we were sitting together every day and talking about everything: politics, religion, the twisted imbecile logic of people, whatever.

I never seriously thought of her as anyone I would date or see outside of school; she was just someone fun to pass time with. The summer after her sophomore year she left to spend her junior year abroad, and since I knew I’d graduate before she got back, I figured that was the end of it. There are times when injecting even the smallest amount of separation into a friendship makes reconnecting uncomfortable.

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