Thank God, It's . . . Monday?

"Oooh, oooh, oooh, honey. . ."

Awww, come on, you know the words. And if you don't, a couple of consecutive Monday nights at JR's Bar & Grill near Dupont Circle should do the trick.

It's show-tune singalong night!

Emphasis on the singalong. Show tunes aren't even the half of it.

Sure, sure, sure -- video clips from Broadway hits such as "Wicked" and "Rent" pop up on the dozen or so big-screen TVs hanging throughout the 17th Street bar.

But so do "Saturday Night Live" skits -- remember Jake Gyllenhaal singing that "Dreamgirls" showstopper in drag? -- and montages from sitcom theme songs:

"You take the good,

"You take the bad,

"You take them both and there you have the facts of life,

"The facts of life . . ."

It's kind of a lyrical walk down memory lane -- or an education in pop culture if you're not old enough to remember such things as the "Bosom Buddies" number Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur shared in the movie version of "Mame" (ehhhhhm, 1974).

And when is the last time you got to sing -- loudly, badly, in public -- without waking up with a stomach full of regret the next morning?

No such worries at JR's, since you're all singing -- loudly, badly, in public -- together. And it is together. Usually you stick with your own during nights out, mingling only if you're feeling especially brave.

But there's something more communal, more shared, about this experience. Like most nights, on Mondays JR's attracts a mostly gay crowd, and a very welcoming one.

Especially if you know the words to that tender "Little Shop of Horrors" ditty:

"Suddenly, Seymour

Is standing beside you . . ."

Tuesday

Washington Psychotronic Film Society

A curl of cigarette smoke drifts past the movie screen just as the naked, communal shower scene gets underway.

The eerie electronic music spells danger for our wide-eyed heroine, and sure enough, within minutes the evil brainwashing foot soldiers are setting a small child on fire while some dubbed-in voice shouts, "Touchdown."

Upstairs the kids are listening to Dave Matthews and sipping fruity microbrews.

Not so much here in the basement of Dr. Dremo's Taphouse in Arlington. At least, not on Tuesday nights when the Washington Psychotronic Film Society takes over.

"Psychotronic means everything but the norm -- from B-movies to Z-movies to underground to forbidden, student, experimental," explains Carl Cephas, the group's president. "It's the same way we describe alternative music."

Tonight that means "Escape 2000," a sci-fi flick originally titled "Turkey Shoot" when it was released in Australia in 1981.

There are plastic patio tables and pitchers of beer and a running stream of snarky commentary from the couple of dozen film buffs assembled in the makeshift theater.

They've been coming together for almost 20 years now, to meet and talk and smoke and drink and see what they can't see at the cineplex. The movies lure all types, Cephas says, "the curious, the hard-core, the purists, the historians. Anyone, really."

And occasionally the scene -- or maybe the search for a restroom -- will lure a few girls in miniskirts and tube tops down to Dr. Dremo's basement. They'll stay a minute, mesmerized or bewildered, before heading back toward the stairs.

"Touchdown," a film society member echoes after the ghastly fireball scene, and all his buddies shake their heads and laugh.

Open-Mike Poetry At Busboys and Poets

"It starts at 9, and tickets go on sale at 8," says the woman on the phone. "But the line usually starts forming around 7:15."

The line.

The line to listen to poetry.

And they aren't kidding. By 7:20 p.m., there are 60 people in that line, snaking around the shelves that fill Busboys and Poets' small bookstore on 14th Street NW. Ten minutes later, it stretches out to the street, and a Saturday afternoon wait for a roller coaster is brought to mind.

"No cutting," someone grumbles.

By 8:10, the show is sold out. And still 100 other people stand there, as if needing to be told individually, "No, really, it would be a fire hazard for us to let any more people in."

"This is a slow Tuesday," says a bombastic bartender where the dejected have gathered to lick their wounds. "Believe it or not, this is a slow Tuesday."

"I'll give you $50 for your stamp," offers one would-be poetry patron who didn't make the cut. Admission to Busboys' open-mike event is $3.

Of course, this is not just poetry. It's two hours of bared souls on parade. It's passion and rage and despair and humor. It's a communion of kindred spirits. It's rousing dinner theater in a sepia-toned room wrapped in the faces of poets and activists past.

It starts with a teenage tap dancer, but from then on it's all words. Verses on war and family, relationships, politics, betrayal, identity and so on and so on. Some are old pros, the types who look as if they were born to speak from a stage. Others are nervous, barely able to glance up from their notebooks.

All of them are encouraged with ample applause. Sometimes more than that. Lamar Hill, the featured poet of the night, elicits hoots from half the room with a rhyme about jealousy and false accusations. He begins:

"To the right, to the right,

Everything you own in a box to the right . . . "

When he ends, they are laughing, shouting, clutching their stomachs.

It was worth the wait.

Wednesday

Washington's 'Most Haunted Houses' Walking Tour

"Tonight we'll be winding our way through these seemingly unhaunted streets," Jordan Hill begins, his head turning slowly from side to side. "But then -- you'll learn the truth."

The truth, as Hill tells it, includes duels and mistresses, suicides and betrayals, cold spots, spooked servants and restless souls -- all within a five-block radius of the White House.

The Farragut West Metro station might look innocuous now, but once upon a time, Hill says, it was the site of a house owned by a high-society tailor whose wife was mysteriously never around. Folks gossiped, of course, and eventually the tailor moved away. After that no one seemed to stay in the house for too long; something always spooked them out. And wouldn't you know it, a few decades later, the most skeptical of homeowners bought the place and started renovations -- only to make a sinister discovery between the walls of the haunted mansion.

It's the type of thing you do in other people's towns -- in Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; or Gettysburg, Pa. -- follow someone around listening to stories of old buildings and odd gravestones. But in a way, it's more interesting when the tales are of streets you walk down every day and boarded-up windows you never even noticed.

"People always say, 'Is it really true, what you're telling us?' " says Hill, an animated, captivating storyteller. "And you always find, even if the story turns out not to be accurate, there's always a kernel of truth."

Open-Mike Night At Iota Club & Cafe

America does have talent.

"Ummmmm, I wrote this song over the winter," one of the talented says during his 20-minute stint onstage. "Everybody's a little bit sadder in the winter."

He nods to the drummer, and soon the bar is filled with the strains of love and loss and originality.

Iota Club & Cafe's address says Arlington, but the eclectic wood-beamed music haven could as easily be in Austin or a Colorado ski town. Someplace where government-contracting I.D. badges aren't quite so ubiquitous.

Every night Iota plays host to live musical groups -- and on Wednesdays, courtesy of Mike Maloney -- it plays host to a slew of them.

Maloney is the mop-topped ringmaster of this weekly open-mike session. There are good acts and bad, rock music and folk songs, full five-piece bands and solo artists. And no Simon Cowell sitting in the front row ready to hurl a string of insults as they finish their sets.

There are no prizes at stake. Or fame within spitting distance. But there is the chance to perform and be heard, and a 20- and 30-something Miller Lite-sipping audience packed beneath the twinkling white Christmas lights ready and willing to listen.

Well, listen between french fries and conversation, anyway.

Next up, two white boys singing the blues. After that, a big guy with a penchant for Johnny Cash tunes. Then a tiny woman with a big guitar and an even bigger, breathtaking voice.

Not included in the evening: cable bills, commercial breaks or a focus on family-friendly entertainment.

Thursday

Weirdo Show at Palace of Wonders

At first glance, they just look like a few folks chatting at a neighborhood tavern.

Folks like any other folks except that one has a sports coat that's just a little too plaid. And the blond is in sneakers that are a little too pink. Is that a Marilyn Monroe wig the girl on the end is wearing? And why is no one surprised by the cat strutting nonchalantly across the bar?

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your very own Weirdo Show.

No, really, a weirdo show.

"I like to think of myself as the talent agent of the underrepresented," the plaid-coated man says as he takes the stage at H Street NE's Palace of Wonders. His name, he says, is Greggy Glitteratti (it's really Ted Alsedek), and, boy, oh, boy, does he have a show for us tonight!

First up is Talia Melcer (a.k.a. Miss Joule), who's gonna "spin it to win it."

Cue Chubby Checker, and watch closely: That hula hoop and those hips might move in ways you never thought possible.

It's standing room only in the narrow bar as Glitteratti introduces our next act: a dialogue-free play featuring a giant cardboard pigeon, a Baltimore city park bench and an old man with an oversize head.

Hey, do those pink shoes look familiar?

No time to investigate, for we must turn our attention now to Mr. Cupcake (Dave Adams). "He's dedicated, he's demented and he's delicious," Glitteratti declares.

And he's a tall man in thick eyeglasses and a white bodysuit with a guitar and a ridiculous song for us:

"Whooooooooo can build a spider -- a tarantula?

"Whooooooooo can build clouds that look like clouds floatin' over ya?"

"I assure you no drugs were involved in the composition of that piece," Glitteratti says with a sigh -- and then adds, "Who needs a drink?"

Fine then, a drink, and a quick intermission to wander upstairs for a glimpse at the unicorn and the shrunken-head collection.

But, of course, there's more -- more from Glitteratti and Miss Joule and Mr. Cupcake.

And L'il Dutch (Amy Eggers), a redheaded go-go dancer whose finale is very, uh, revealing.

'Face to Face' Portrait Talks At the National Portrait Gallery

Let's be clear: It's not that much. It's not a tour or a long lecture or a scholarly conference.

It's just a little art history aperitif is all. Just to whet the palate, you know, get you out of the heat for a quick reflection on Cornelius Vanderbilt.

So, Vanderbilt -- enlightened entrepreneur or robber baron? The theme of the National Portrait Gallery's series of "Face to Face" portrait talks is "American Scoundrels," but our dapper historian, Sid Hart, seems partial to a more reverential view of the shipping magnate.

A touch heavy for a summer evening, you say? Sure, sure, but it's only 30 minutes, in and out. Walk the halls of the Penn Quarter museum 20 times and you'll never have the chance to stop and think about the story behind each famous face chosen to hang there. This is like a cultural history retreat doled out in easy installments.

On the docket now is a series on America's "Freedom Fighters." On Thursday, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) will talk about his own portrait from the 1960s, done by Danny Lyon.

Consider it the conversation starter for a different set of aperitifs.

Ellen McCarthy is a Weekend section staff writer. Her e-mail address is mccarthye@washpost.com.