“Shaw Dog Park is hugely important, especially with the Shaw/U Street/Logan area’s development,” says Steve Oatmeyer, president of the Shaw Dog Park Association. “We get close to 2,000 visitors every month, and we’re heavily promoted by realtors when they’re showing properties or new condos. We provide a safe space for well-tempered dogs, and a social space for their owners.”
But running D.C.’s oldest and largest dog park requires a great deal of upkeep. It costs about $4500 each year to maintain the surface of the park, which includes spraying disinfectant, pulling weeds, grading the gravel in the park, and watering and maintaining 10 great myrtle trees. And that can be a heavy lift for a space managed by volunteers and sustained by private donations.
To cover those costs, the Shaw Dog Park Association has been holding several fundraisers, including partnering with Nellie’s Sports Bar at its weekly Drag Bingo night, Tuesday, Nov. 21. Previous Drag Bingo nights have raised between $300 to $400 for the dog park.
“We’ve done multiple fundraisers in the past for various organizations,” says Justin Thomas, general manager of Nellie’s, who adds that animal-centric organizations are particularly close to management’s hearts. “We reach out to humane societies and other organizations to help out whenever we can.”
Nellie’s will donate $1 for every Nellie Beer sold during Drag Bingo, hosted by drag queens Sasha Adams and Brooklyn Heights. A jar will also be passed around the room for extra donations.
“The fundraisers we host at Drag Bingo are a lot of fun,” says Thomas. “The drag queens enjoy helping out a worthwhile cause, and it’s a really good way for organizations to get their message out to other attendees.” —John Riley
The Nellie’s Drag Bingo fundraiser for the Shaw Dog Park Association is Tuesday, Nov. 21 from 7-9 p.m. at Nellie’s Sports Bar, 900 U St. NW. The Shaw Dog Park is at 1673 11th St. NW. For more information, or to make a direct donation to the dog park, visit shawdogs.org.
A Florida man has been charged with second-degree murder more than a month after fatally shooting a gay man whom he had allegedly previously harassed
Gerald Declan Radford, 65, shot 52-year-old John Walter "Walt" Lay on February 2 at the West Dog Park in Tampa, Florida, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Radford called 9-1-1 and told dispatchers that he had been in a "scuffle" with Lay when he pulled out his gun and shot him.
Initially, Radford had claimed self-defense, invoking Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, under which a person is allowed to use deadly force if they reasonably believe doing so will prevent their imminent death or bodily harm. He claimed to have shot Lay following a "scuffle" at the dog park.
When the dogs are out in Luc Besson's sullen crime thriller Dogman, the film darts and dodges artfully like the jazz on the soundtrack. Those tend to be scenes when the titular criminal vigilante -- who's trained his sprawling pack of pooches as thieves, spies, guards, and enforcers -- dispatches his mutts out into the mean streets of Newark, New Jersey on some vital mission, like a crack four-legged special ops unit.
Known to the streets as Dogman, Doug Munrow, vividly portrayed by Nitram star Caleb Landry Jones, lives alone in symbiotic harmony with the dozens of hounds and terriers and shaggy workdogs he calls his children.
Variety is the name of the game of this very section, a treasure trove of nontraditional, often multi-genre, events that don't neatly categorize in the other listings. This is where you'll find a few different alt-queer dance parties at DC9 to check out. Or if you'd like to consider reading a new book or getting to know a new-to-you queer author, flip the page to browse the lineup at the queer-owned Loyalty Bookstore.
Feel like taking in an art show that's not in a building surrounding the Mall? Consider Glen Echo Park. Looking for drag queens? See the Boulet Brothers at the Fillmore, or Shi-Queeta-Lee and company at The Hamilton Live. And if you like to laugh, well... we have queer comics galore.
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