...the truth behind the Unhappy Hour…

I can’t recall when the first Unhappy Hour at the Poe Museum began. I’ve been going to the museum to lend support as a patron for as long as I can remember and I was even a volunteer in the mid-1990s when I was in undergrad. Back then I think of the museum as being a bit pretentious and that could be partly because of the director. My last volunteering activity was a special impersonation event held on the campus of VCU. My then boyfriend/later first husband helped me, as I was the actual volunteer, set up all of the chairs and tables for the event. When it started, I stood in the back with some other volunteers and he sat in a chair. The event was crowded and the director had the nerve to ask me to make him stand. He wasn’t a volunteer! He was planning to attend the event just like anyone else but then got roped into helping out. That was kind of how the volunteers were treated back then. I quit on the spot. I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I walked over to my boyfriend and said we were going. They got their chair and lost a volunteer.

I didn’t stay away from the museum for long since it apparently has had a history of turnover and I believe in the outlast-outplay motto (Thank you Survivor Season 1). But until the last decade, I wasn’t a frequent patron of the Poe Museum… which is a shame because people like me really are their target audience.

With friends in 2009- the effects of a night vision camera??? hmm

I’ve been attending Poe birthday events quite regularly now for nearly a decade including the 2009 bicentennial birthday bash which included a midnight champagne toast at the Poe shrine and a Victorian séance at 2 am! The séance was intended to be fake, meaning it included actors, which isn’t exactly how it was advertised but I’m sure most people assumed it to be that way… but not my friends and me! We thought it was going to be legit. It was ridiculous and I recall my friends and me laughing at it… but the joke was on us because we kept returning to the museum. Sometimes ridiculous things are terribly fun.

Heading out! 

The beginning of the Unhappy Hour events was pretty much the same. My friends and I would go to support the museum and watch bad poetry or lackluster events. At some point, I convinced my fella to go even though he had heard all my lame stories. When we arrived there was a canopy with catered food underneath; there was a band; there were scheduled readings and a performance. *That* was the turning point. He was puzzled why I would ever think anything so neat would be considered lame and he has never truly believed me when I tried to explain that they used to be.

Unhappy Hours have gotten better and better… and need I say that last night’s was the best one yet! The music was great; the food was amazing; the acting was silly but appreciated; the exhibit included a portrait of Poe painted in blood. What more could a gothy girl want?!?

2013 hearse car show

The evening started when I found a great parking spot—just a block away which was perfect because when it started to pour within an hour I was able to run to my car and grab an umbrella (since most of the Unhappy Hour takes place in the garden). I walked up hearing the band playing. The Embalmers are a Richmond band who plays surf rock. I found from their website that they were formed in 2013 to play at the Virginia Haunt Fest Party. This is where things in my life are all starting to connect. I actually saw The Embalmers play in July 2013 at a hearse car show (and blood drive). Oddly enough that event included the Journey Trails Haunt Attractions’ the “Last Ride” which was a casket simulator. Yeah, I did NOT try it out. When I looked at the flyer (because isn’t Facebook an excellent scrapbook/ virtual graveyard of yester years), the hearse car show was supported by the Central Virginia Haunters and The Red Vein Army which just happens to be a group that sponsors/set up the RVA Horror Book Club that I’m in. Even one of the members of The Embalmers is in the book club. I suppose I’m super slow although I’ve only attended one meeting with him so I’m not that fussy with myself for not making all of the connections.

The fact is I’m so used to the spooky stuff being packed away (like Pier 1 had packed up their Halloween merchandise two weeks before the holiday last year!) that I suppose I haven’t noticed that the Greater Richmond area is changing and embracing its spookiness! I mean… in small steps because there probably aren’t that many of us. In fact, at Unhappy Hour a few Haunters showed up including some members of the book club. One of the Haunters and I were chatting and it turns out that he was at the hearse car show… so I have known these folks for a while without even realizing it.

I have to point out before any of this chitchatting/ sit-back-and-enjoy-music happened, I immediately spotted deviled eggs and got in line to try out Southern Kitchen: Mouth of the South’s food.  Holy moly! Those deviled eggs were divine… the pimento cheese YUM! That with a glass of pinot grigio pretty much made the perfect evening. 

Well, you know what they say…

Eat, Drink and Be Scary for tomorrow we shall die ^o^