Robert Green: American Hero

It was a festive atmosphere at the place where I watched half of the USA/England soccer match. About five minutes into my visit, I was accosted by a Liverpool fan/idiot for wearing my Everton jersey. He calmed down after I mentioned that Tim Howard plays for Everton.



Not sure what a group of local bagpipers have to do with a soccer match, but it was a lot of fun just the same.

Know what I like about watching soccer on television? The lack of commercials every three minutes. Networks that do not force promoting of their crappy programming down your throat at every break in the action. Those are some of the things I love about viewing the game. It is constantly in motion. The clock is always counting down. If you turn around, you may miss a great pass, a fine tackle.

I'm slowly giving up my involvement in NFL Football. It's a dying sport that does not give me as much pleasure as it once did. I will not disagree that the fortunes of the Buffalo Bills have something to do with this. I've been saying for years that when their owner, Ralph Wilson, dies, the history of the team in Buffalo will end soon after his funeral, or after the team is sold.

Here's what happened shortly after Dempsey's shot on net yesterday...



It was quite the wild scene at Claddagh yesterday afternoon. Over 2,500 came out to watch the match. I'm still a bit reeling about what happened after ward. It seems the manager of the bar was let go by corporate for reasons that are still unclear to me. I'm not sure why someone would be sacked after the biggest day in that bar's history but a good part of the staff immediately quit in protest.

Just when you find a place to head for a drink once or twice a week, a local with staff that remember your name, weenies have to ruin in, and for what?

I never went to Claddagh for the food, and certainly not the low prices (there were not any), but it was the staff and friendly, welcoming atmosphere that brought me back, something that will probably never happen again.

Not Fitting in the Strategic and Tactical Plans

I was out shopping at the corporate bookstore I used to work at last night. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that the octagon was gone.

The octagon was the large, eight sided display unit that held all of the new releases. The first impression the customer received of the store was that it sold books, and boom, here are the current ones.

It has been replaced by a kiosk that is promoting the store's electronic book reader.

I have nothing against the electronic reader. It is not something I am interested in using. Give me an iPod Touch and I'd be happy, I'm not that much of a technology hater, but the kindle/nook/reader has little appeal for me. Call me old and in need of paper, still.

I did have an item in mind to purchase when I went in there. Went into the music department and continue to notice that most of the music is being replaced with blu-ray DVDs. Looked around for the cd I wanted by Janelle Monae, looked at the endcaps, in the pop rock and soul sections - did not find it. Finally asked the clerk, who asked my how to spell her name (never a good sign) then told me the store did not have the item. It had one copy, but sold it and they were waiting for another copy to arrive.

This is why people have migrated to shopping online. When you go to a store, have to root around the displays climbing over the new Renee Fleming crossover record or special Celtic music displays and still do not find what you are looking for, why waste your time?

Age has caught up to me, time has passed me by. I have to lower my expectations of going to a store and actually finding what I'm looking to purchase to, well, not getting what I want and taking my money elsewhere.

Remember the days of shopping when you actually found what you were looking for, the first time? Man, those were good times, how long ago were they?

My Scottish Wife insisted on seeing the A-Team movie. I guess the original series was big in Scotland the way Anne of Green Gables is popular in Japan. So she was stoked to see it on opening night.

Seeing Liam Neeson kick ass on screen is worth the price of admission, and in that case, the A-Team delivers. If you like explosions over plot, this is the movie for you. It's a cartoon on film. There are no expectations of thespians showing up on screen. I never watched the A-Team series, but lowered my bar of film snobbery and had a good time, which made my wife happy - and isn't that what it's all about sometimes?

From Fact to Fiction

Six years after the publication of her true crime memoir A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins returns with her first novel, The Outside Boy.



It's the story of Christy, a young Irish Traveller living in Ireland in the late 1950's. His Grandfather dies, a photograph comes into his possession - secrets are kept and revealed.

Cummins prose is quite rich, emotions run high while a deft sense of humor runs throughout the book. The plot gets a bit predictible and nearly crosses into Lifetime Movie territory, but it stays on the side of being rational. It's a novel that will please readers of many genres, be they historical, dramatic or books about a family that loves each other.

The Cows Know...

A performance at the Columbus Arts Festival on 6/6/10. It is me, even though my head is out of frame. Shot by a coworker who I did not know was there. I got an email from him on Monday morning. I'm a bit shouty because it was windy and I was in a tent.

Bow Down to Number Twenty Four

All I can say about his therapy is that he seems to be eager to go. Once we're there he climbs up on the table, lays down and is ready for the session. No fussing at all.

We went to the grocery after this morning's session. I only had a few things to get so I did not put him in the cart. He held my hand and we walked around the whole store with no problems at all.

He's been so good I got out his wagon, which he turned over and walked on immediately.

I had donuts, it's been a good morning.



Really enjoyed reading Hirsch's biography. It's authorized but we are still allowed to see some of the cracks in the legend. I thought it stopped a bit short when we read about Mays' hospitalizations during a couple of seasons. I thought his being 'tired' was a brush off. Mays' relationship with his first manager Leo Durocher is described fully and I had no idea how warm and respectful it was.

Mays is probably the best living baseball player at this time. He played in the Negro League as it faded after the game was slowly segregated. Mays was not the fiery player Jackie Robinson was, nor did he speak out for equal rights the way Robinson did. Mays brought his joy to one person, one stadium full of people at a time, and if you did not get that it was your loss.

I only got to see Mays play at the end of his career with the Mets. A very sad year he never should have started. His appearances though made me appreciate and love him for what he was, and why I own a New York Giants 1954 replica baseball hat. The only major league cap I wear.

The Cows Know...

It's hard to assess how the Sensory Learning Program is going. It's not harming him, in any way, at all. How bad can being on a bed that rotates while your listening to quirky music in headphones be? I listened to some of the music, it sounds like he's being Rick Rolled.

He's lying still during the half hour sessions, which is a minor miracle in itself. It's still taking him awhile to get to sleep, but he has been sleeping though the night as far as I can tell.

One thing he is doing is alternating his feet when he goes up the stairs. This is something I've been working on with him, and he's finally got it. Going up, not down yet though.

We're more than a third of the way through these sessions.



This weekend was the Columbus Arts Festival. Saturday was quite damp and humid. A storm around 4PM caused the organizers to close the event for a short time. I read first, in a tent that was very sauna like.



There was a layer of sweat on me after my set. For the record I read:

Pantoum For a Child with Insomnia
Swings Inside the White Fence
The Revolution was Not in the Program Guide (Apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)
Divorced, with Special Needs
Started While Flying Over Cincinnati After IWPS
This Was How We Spoke
Lincoln Tower, the Grassy Knoll
Nobody's Poet

We left the festival and came back just in time to see my friend Joanna read two poems from her third place feature then saw first place winner Gina Blaurock's set. Excellent work.

I ended up being drafted off the bench to perform in the sixth annual poetry slam. Had a lot of fun, as did Scott Woods, who did everything but crowd surf during The Gospel According to the Matrix.



Later, Scott drew the largest time penalty I have witnessed. He lost six points. Joanna won the slam. I came in fourth.

Today I took part in the Decathlon Slam. I put together a team of poets who were out to create poetry mayhem. Vernell's team beat the crap out of us, and the secretly formed Dyno-Twins. I suspected a loss, but we were going to go out with our dignity intact.



How are you going to beat a poet reading Shel Silverstein's "Boa Constrictor" as Whitney Houston during her 2010 tour of Europe? You cannot.

It was a great weekend of poetry, and it was my Scottish Wife's birthday!

I have taken the next couple of days off to get my son to therapy and look after him before he starts day camp next Monday. His therapy concludes on Sunday afternoon. A busy week is ahead, and the World Cup starts on Friday!

Someday I'll Walk Out of Here Again

In just over an hour my son will be in his first Sensory Learning Therapy session. Twelve days of two sessions a day. To say I'm feeling trapped is an understatement. It almost feels like a kill shot, but it's not a last ditch effort. I'm not sure what my expectations for this are, only that I get to foot the bill for it, too.

Sometimes I feel like too much is happening at once, and when my ability to process gets piled upon, my health fails me. It's been a bad few days and I can't leave where I'm at. You have to go to work, pay for the car registration, the mortgage, the stupid credit card, day camp, gas. For the next ten weeks I'm booked solid with getting my son to day camp every morning and work. My PTO is dwindling and I really do not have the freedom to go anywhere. No workshops, no retreats, no travel out of town to concerts.

My bags are packed and I'm stuck in Columbus.