Houston Twestival 2011, Today!

Damn, damn, damn. I just about completely dropped the ball on this one, I’m sad to say. Indefatigable SCR contributor Robin (whose own very cool blog is up over here & well worth a read, btw) pointed me to this thing last freaking week and, well, I fumbled it. (Sorry, Robin!)

But hey, better late than never, I figure… Today — Thursday, March 24th — is the official-shmofficial Houston Twestival 2011, which is a cool-sounding local offshoot of a global festival-type thing aimed at raising cash and people’s awareness of various good, good causes.

Why’s it the “Twestival”? Truthfully, I have no clue; I’m guessing it’s got something to do with Twitter, but being a non-tweeting Luddite myself, I’m in the dark on that one. (Yeah, SCR does have its own Twitter feed thingie, but that’s been driven by the ever-awesome Krystal Schroeder, who pretty much stepped in and did it when I was too much of an idiot/weirdo to actually do it.)

(And yes, the Houston Twestival itself has its own Twitter feed, too.)

Apparently this year each participating city’s doing its own thing (there are 160 of ’em, I’m told), so the local H-town version is to support Neighborhood Centers Inc., which is definitely a worthwhile cause; Neighborhood Centers are, like the name implies, focused on improving the lives of folks who live in “emerging neighborhoods” right here in our fair city, offering services for senior citizens, educational stuff for kids, and apparently even administrative assistance to government agencies. They’re a pretty wide-ranging organization, honestly, but the overall goal’s to make Houston a better place to live, and that’s something that means a lot to me, at least.

They’ve recruited some very cool musical assistance for the Twestival, by the by, namely {Tyagaraja} (playing at 8:45PM), {Benjamin Wesley} (at 8:05PM), {Gretchen Schmaltz} (at 7:25PM), and {Luke Lukas} (at 6:45PM) — never heard the latter, but I’m a fan of the previous three, particularly Mr. Wesley; the guy seriously blows my mind. They’re all supposedly going to be acoustic sets, which should be interesting — I really liked the initial stuff Tyagaraja did with just a guitar and his voice, back before he had a full band behind him, so…

On top of that, there’s free Saint Arnold’s beer, Vitamin Water, cupcakes, and other food-like things, cool raffle prizes, lots of games for the family (including a game station, courtesy of the Extra Life folks)

As {The Loop Scoop} points out in their very cool writeup on the festival, you don’t have to go in order to help out, but can instead donate online. But hey, it’s hard to beat the lineup above + free beer + games + charitableness, all in the name of helping out your city.

Details: the thing runs from 6-10PM, costs $10 (with another $10 if you want to enter the raffle for the door prizes), and it’s happening at Neighborhood Centers’ Baker Ripley Charter School, which is at 6500 Rookin St., a little bit NW of Bellaire & Hillcroft. Get on out, y’all.