Richard Branson, on the Other Hand, is on My List

Trying to handle things maturely, at least in public. When you have a bad restaurant experience what is the proper protocol? Saying something then and there? Going to your blog, Facebook or Columbus Underground and nailing the place to a wall? Or contacting the owner after a cooling off period?

The first choice is valid, if you could find a person to speak to, which was not the case at a place we went to last week. We went in, waited many minutes and were ignored while others who had just walked in were taken care of. We left and I sent an email to the manager later that evening.

I was impressed by their quick reply and they were very apologetic and asked if we'd give them another chance, which we did.

We spoke to one of the owners, who was happy we contacted them directly instead of going off online. I'm trying not to do that these days. It's so easy to want people to die in fires after they don't take care of you or put on a poetry slam you did not go to but had the time to complain about after it happened. It's so easy to rip a business to shreds without speaking to the person in charge first. And just to say "so and so" FAIL is really immature. How old are some of these arbiters of the foodie culture when they use the terms 'nom nom' and 'epic fail' in their descriptions?

The food we had was quite good. I pleasantly spiced pulled chicken sandwich, great cocktails and a tiramisu parfait that had me smiling very much when I hit the coffee level of the dessert. Well done!

If you're looking for another place to go in the Short North area, you Knead to go there.

I'll have more to say about this in the days to come, but we bought a cell phone yesterday. Eighteen hours later the network will still not allow us to activate the phone and assign us a phone number. How convenient are these things again?

Never Found Out Who Called

It was not a teachable moment. Perhaps it was a lesson. At the very least it was a very stern lecture in the form of a rant.

Let it not detract from what was an awesome evening of poetry at Writers' Block's Poetry Slam last night.

Open mic was solid. Patrick did a new poem that had me gasping for air. To heck with zombies, that guy is your Poet Laureate of all things apocalypse.

The slam, which was the final IWPS qualifier, had nine poets competing. I drew second, got on stage and was doing well with a new poem when it happened.

Someone's cell phone went off.

I even asked Rachel, who was hosting, to mention to people to turn their cell phones off. This person was even in the room when she make the announcement.

It was not a short ring either. It was one of those ringtones that never end. It was quite loud, and went two maybe three times for fifteen to twenty seconds. I was told the person just sat there, not realizing that it was, in fact, their phone that had gone off.

Have to admit it messed with my flow. Would have been less distracted if people had thrown some of the tomatoes Joel brought at me.

Managed to finish the piece, and muttered more than a few obscenities as I left the stage. The points do not matter, but I managed to finish sixth in the round.

There was still another round to go and I abandoned what I was going to do in order to use a poem for just this type of occasion.

Earlier this year, I wrote a poem about cell phones going off during poetry readings thanks to being next to one that started blaring Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy" (really, Tyrone? Really?) in the middle of someone's poem.

It's a three minute poem I took most of the end of round one to edit down to two minutes.

I still was not entirely sure whose cell phone had gone off, but once I started reading I found the culprit, and made them cower. Read quite a bit of the piece, looking directly at the evil doer. It's a rather nasty poem, but not one that wishes the person to die in a fire or develop brain tumors.

Poetic revenge? You bet your sweet ass it was. As my wife said, I took slam lemons and made slamonade out of them. Ended up finishing in fifth. Made my point.

It was one of those McLuhan in the movie line moments.



But life is not like this, is it? Simply the right poem at the right time.

At the end of the night the offender reached out and apologized. I accepted, and said to not let it happen again. You know how poets are.

Congratulations to Scott Woods, who won. Rose Smith came in second and Dain Michael Down came in third. A new poet named Gus did very well in his first WB slam. I think he's from the Atlanta slam scene and he's going to college up at Ohio Wesleylan. Hope he comes down frequently.

I'm not entirely sure I'm in next week's Grand Slam but I'm leaning toward yes.