Gaming is free

Long gone are the video arcades in shopping malls and on High Street. Even as a kid, my addiction was not to video games, but a lot of quarters were spent on pinball.

Last night, a new establishment finally opened in Columbus, The 16 Bit Bar and Arcade is a classic video gamers cave of treasures. Many of the classic games, from Asteroids to Donkey Kong to Space Invaders are there, with free play, provided you drink.



There are also pinball machines, for fifty cents a play as the owners do not own those machines. It's an interesting place of nostalgia that will interest people of a certain age and others. We went early, and during the Ohio State football game to avoid the crowds and the space we had did not disappoint. While there were people there, and the game was on, there was no real wait for any of the games we wanted to play.



I hope they make it, the upkeep on these games, some of which are over thirty years old, is going to be difficult and their main source of income is only from beverages as there is no kitchen on premises. So do make purchases when you are there.



They're located at 254 South 4th Street, right by Dirty Franks.

She want to have true relations!

Hello. How you mood?

I think that now you are surprised to receive the letter from me. Likely
you now sit and think "where I have found yours email".

I have addressed in dating agency. This serious agency which co-operates
with many dating sites and has the big client base.

They have offered me some questionnaires of men which approach my criteria
of search. Thus I have received yours email.

I want to get acquainted with you. My name is Svetlana. To me of 28 years.
I am officially dissolved. I have a child to which 5 years. I very much love
children. And I am happy that my work is connected with children. I work as the
manager in children's studio of dance.

I hope that we can get acquainted more close. I search for the sincere man
which is ready to establish with me a family.

I want to have true relations. I send you the photo that you saw who to
you writes.

If you want to communicate with me you can write on my e-mail: svvsl@gmx.com.

I with impatience will wait your answer.

Have a good day, Svetlana


She's officially dissolved? How will I find her, in a bowl of sea monkeys?

Much left to do

Now that the feeding program is over and I no longer have to go to the hospital three days a week or work ten hour shifts there may be a sense of normalcy returning, at least until Arts Fest begins ramping up again. There will be weekly follow-ups at the hospital for the time being.

My son made progress. There are some new things he would not eat before. He is now eating blended, canned vegetables and fruit. He's also drinking a lot more milk.

What really surprised me is that he is eating Hormel Chicken and Dumplings.



He still has hiccups. Gagged on some apricots that where not blended to his liking and had a fit at school when the chicken and dumplings had a piece of chicken that was not liquified. This coming from a kid who will eat peas that are as thick as guacamole.

School started for him yesterday. Aside from him getting out of his bed and me finding him sleeping at the top of the stairs at 3AM, he seemed to adjust well. Maybe I will.

Spam folder part deux

Bonjour
Je vous contact aujourd'hui car bien vrai que l'on ne se connait pas cela n’empкche ce geste de ma part. Je me nomme Mme Patricia Lagache nйe en France, mais pour raison particulier j'ai du кtre un aventurier а la recherche de je ne sais quoi.

La raison qui me pousse а vous est la suivante :Je voudrais passer par votre canal pour faire une oeuvre de charite anonyme dans votre dйpartement. Je suis nйe le 02 Juillet 1925 а la Saint-Philibert de Lille .C'est une donation en quelque sorte et elle s'eleve a la somme de 2.7 millions d'euros. Ma situation matrimoniale est telle que je n'ai ni mari et encore moins d'enfant а qui je pourrais lйguer cet hйritage, et je souffre prйsentement d'une maladie potentiellement mortelle, une esthesioneuroblastome, maladie orpheline et incurable, qui se dйveloppe dans la cavitй nasale et qui dйforme cruellement le visage je suis donc condamne а une mort certaine. C'est pour cela que je voudrais de maniйrй gracieuse et dans le souci d'aider les enfants dйmunis vous donner ce dit hйritage pour rйaliser cette њuvre de charitй .

Si vous кtes d'accord je voudrais avoir les informations suivantes :
Votre nom complet,
Vos contact ;
Un numйro de fax si possible;

Je compte sur votre bonne volontй et aussi le bon usage de ces fonds pour cette oeuvre.

Mme Patricia Lagache



And in Google Translate:

Hello
I touch you today as true that we do not know is it empкche gesture on my part. My name is Patricia Lagache nйe in France, but especially because I had to be a adventurer seeking а whatever.

The reason why I а you is this: I want to go through your channel to an anonymous charity work in your department. I was born on July 2, 1925 а Saint-Philibert de Lille. This is a gift somehow and it rises to the sum of € 2.7 million. My matrimoniale situation is such that I have neither husband and even less child а whom I could lйguer this inheritance, and I suffers prйsentement of an orphan and incurable potentially deadly disease, a esthesioneuroblastoma, disease, which dйveloppe in the nasal cavitй and which dйforme cruelly the face I therefore am condemns а certain death. That is why I want to maniйrй graceful and in order to help children dйmunis give you that says this inheritance for rйaliser њuvre of charity.

If you're agree I would have the following information:
Your full name,
Your contact;
A SERIAL NUMBER fax if possible;

I count on your good's will and also the proper use of these funds for this work.

Patricia Lagache

From a Mrs. Theresa Au

"Hello,

Please can you help me reprofile fund? I am Ms Teresa Au, HSBC Hong Kong, head of corporate sustainability Asia pacific region. A sum of (USD$23,200,000.00) (Twenty three million, two Hundred Thousand dollars) Million was deposited by our Late customer who died without declaring any next of kin before his death in 2006.

My suggestion to you is to stand as the next of kin to Fadel Ahmed. We shall share in the ratio of 50% for me, 50% for you. Please contact me via this e-mail: mrs_teresa_au@yahoo.com.hk. Thanks"



If I'm related to Fadel, it would be life changing.

You've got a war in your head and it's tearing you up inside

A pile of brisket and a few glasses of sangria with friends can help.



Then it's back to the last week of treatment. If it's messing with your mind and spirit, imagine what it's doing to the patient.

A Friday without fun

It's hard being traumatized while watching your child being traumatized. An odd circle of behavioral psychology and wanting your son to eat something.

Three very bad sessions today. He went under the table, would not sit down or eat. He threw food, put his hand in it to try and make it go away, screamed, pushed, tried to break spoons, attacked a tray, attempted iPad harm - all because he would not eat this.



Those are blended canned pears. Dip a spoon in and pull it out, that is what he would not put into his mouth.

Part of the treatment relies on him eating food in rotation, and he could not would not get past the rotation of pears mixed with bananas. He has eaten plenty of pears solo with no problem. The bananas he constantly eats pureed form the jar, these were fresh bananas. Session one he would not eat 25% bananas to 75% of pears. That was lowered to 10% bananas in session two. No go. This was the session where my son became extremely agitated and threw things.

There were no bananas in the pears during the third session, but the damage had been done and he would not eat them at all. He was calmer in his resistance during the third session.

He's at him mother's this weekend and she was instructed to let him eat whatever he wants, but no pears! She emailed me, said he asked for oatmeal, which she gave him plenty of along with blended canned peas, pudding and milk. He ate everything.

For last of a better word I'm shellshocked after witnessing these three sessions and drinking all of the gin.

Monday is another day.

Should have stayed in the hangar

My son's doctors had an in-service day yesterday so there were no feeding sessions. It gave me a rare and needed day off this month. The weather was dreary so we went to the movies.



Last year we went to see Wreck it Ralph and my son seemed to have a decent enough time. Yesterday it was Planes. Hard to say if he liked it or not, he did cuddle up next to me for most of the film. Only in the last ten to fifteen minutes was when he got restless. Maybe this was because the movie was not very good, for kids or adults. Too many stereotypes. Too much technical flying jargon, I mean, I learned things but I think all the toys are going to be on the shelves on Family Dollar or Big Lots in a couple of months.

Week four of the feeding clinic went well. Got off to a rough start on Monday and Tuesday. He thought going under the table was better than eating, and he had one major meltdown for reasons unknown. He did better on Wednesday but went under the table with some unfinished milk in the afternoon. He peeked up at me a couple of times, but while I am in the room I cannot do anything or react. After about two minutes he sat back down, looked his doctor right in the eye and broke into a huge smile then finished his milk. He was trying to play us, and it did not work this time.

He's eating mushed up canned pears and peas and has started with apricots. Next week they're going to try him on a Hormel chicken and dumplings entree, blended. We'll see how that goes. Two weeks remain.

Mary Pickford Will Nurse Us All

Tonight was the CAPA Summer Movie Series screening of their annual silent film. A couple of years ago they showed Mary Pickford in Sparrows. It was the first film of hers I had seen and I rather enjoyed it despite her playing a teenager on film while in her late thirties.

This evening they brought back another Pickford film, The Little American, from 1917. It's a World War One film about an American woman who goes to France during the war to visit an ill relative. As you'd expect, things happen. It's a war, the United States is neutral at the time but there's plenty of anti-German sentiment. There are spies, one black servant and a very strange rescue at sea. There's also a love triangle, and some raping and pillaging that made me dislike the ending of the film. Overall it's a very entertaining ninety six year old movie.



Pickford is a force in this film, her talent and charisma is very obvious. She was one of the first major film stars, and the proof is on screen.

There was a technical glitch tonight, the film stopped about twenty minutes in for some unknown reason. Have to give live organist Clark Wilson props for doing a great improvisation during the two minutes or so that the screen was black. He's a very talented performer.

There was a short presented also. A World War One piece starring Pickford to get people to buy war bonds. I was tickled to see long time Chaplin foil Henry Bergman in a small role.

Also in attendance was author Christel Schmidt, author of a new book on Pickford. She gave a very informative and entertaining talk about Pickford's life and career before the feature. Nice touch by CAPA to add some good knowledge to the evening.

Halfway through this part

My son is three weeks into his feeding program with three weeks to go. How's it going? Well, no one expected him to be munching on raw carrots or eating hot chicken wings at the end of it so he's doing alright.

Textures have been gradually introduced with more frequency. He's eating mashed up and blended diced pears, which have some serious grit to them (I've tried them) and mushed up canned peas (Had those too) with no resistance.

The last week has been ok. There have only been a couple of instances of him leaving the chair to sit under the table, and that was only for a couple of minutes. He's only complained once or twice and has not thrown or pushed any food away. He trusts the team more and has had no real outbursts. He's also been eating just about everything. He still needs to be prompted as his attention wavers frequently.

What has surprised and impressed me the most so far has been the amount of milk he's eagerly drinking. He rarely drank anything for me, a little more so at his mother's. He's been putting away over twelve ounces a day, which is a big change from zero.

Improvement has and will continue to be on the slow side, and he's going to need weekly therapy to keep up on this program when it is completed. I'm not really seeing a light at the end of this tunnel, but the ground feels a bit more solid under our feet.

Some of what I've been thinking about and doing today

Lists are very arbitrary things. To me they are designed to promote discussion, thought, or amusement. Usually I just dismiss them. There are more than a few websites that are devoted to the organization of lists. Best power trios, best left handed first basemen, best James Bond movies that had a shitty soundtrack - that sort of thing.

Yesterday a site called Flavorwire posted a list of 23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry in 2013. Really? The original link to the site I saw on a fellow poets Facebook page came with the caveat that 22 of the poets were white.

So I clicked on the link to see for myself, and yes, they were mostly white, and young, too.

There are days when you have to know when to fire your ammunition, when to express your displeasure about things. I moved on with my life after shaking my head at the site and made a silent vow to myself to not take the page very seriously if I came across it in the future.

Later in the day, I saw another link on a friends' Facebook page that Flavorwire issued an apology. The post thanked people for calling the oversight to their attention and that they would do better next time.

The apology seemed to piss people off more than the original post. I guess it was not enough for some.

When does the knee jerk outrage end? Why does a post from an obscure website cause so much anger, especially when a local entertainment weekly newspaper had this article on their front page on the same day?



This is the current issue of Columbus Alive. The People to Watch series is done annually. As you can see, there are a dozen people to watch, eleven of them are white.

How come people locally got in the face or posted a link with outrage as their status update about the Flavorwire site and did not register a peep about this article?

I made a couple of vague references to it then decided to send an email to the guy who wrote the article.

"I could not help but notice that out of 12 people in your People to Watch 2013 story in the current issue of Alive, 11 of them are Caucasian.

While I have no complaint about the credentials of any of the people chosen for the story, I am disappointed that, in a city of this size and diversity, you could not find any members of the Latino, Asian, Indian or other inspiring entrepreneurs of pleasure from an ethnic community to select.

You really could have done better. Next year, I hope you or the story writer looks a little deeper out of their comfort zone to choose some truly diverse citizens of the rad and awesome city of Columbus as people to watch."

Less than an hour later I got a respectful, honest and reasonable reply.

"Thanks for the note. I agree with your criticism. We could have done better. I would, however, point out that this is one of the strongest classes of PTW we’ve ever had (based on merit), and we weren’t without diversity, as nearly half of our selections were either women, of color, GLBT or a little older than our demographic (we’ve been accused of being ageist, too). I think that’s much better than we’ve done in the past, but still not as good as we could have done. I would also respectfully suggest our selections had nothing to do with our comfort zones. After looking at the dozens upon dozens of nominees we received, going over our own internal list and seeking suggestions from previous PTW winners, we simply felt this was the best possible class we could present. Frankly, that’s our chief aim.

Either way, I appreciate you reaching out to keep us honest. We need more of that."

There was no cursing, no wishing of the other to die in a fire, but a short, respectful civil dialogue carried out. Not a long series of insults on Twitter or mentions of Godwin's Law.

It's easy to just lash out on something, especially when it's at a large national level. It's easy to say the president sucks or I hate racists but when it hits close to home, why is nothing ever done when it's so much easier to try and make a difference?

The media in this city has a lot of issues involving complacency. There's no real competition in a one paper town. And the arts magazines seem to rehash the same things over and over, playing it safe instead of doing any investigating of all the culture this city has going for it. I do feel better about calling people out on their stuff directly when I had an issue with an article.

Has this been solved? Who the heck knows, but my blood pressure stayed lower while being direct with my concerns instead of putting up a snarky Tweet or posting an angry status update, or simply clicking on like.

My new twitter account will be named Sal F. Steam

Last night Writers Block had a Grand Slam with the winner going to the Individual World Poetry Slam in Spokane in October. I did not compete to defend my title, there was too much other stuff going on to get involved in slam this year.

Was very pleased to see my friend Gina Blaurock win the title. It was close, she beat Aaron Alsop by only .4. Five people slammed and all of them, including Bryant, Brad and Hayden brought their A-Games to the stage.

Gina also received The Uni.



That was one of the last pictures of The Uni before it met with another unfortunate accident. The less said about it the better.

Rachel McKibbons also did an excellent feature, which included a heartbreaking series of poems to honor her very young niece, who died of cancer last year.

Tonight I did a feature for Paging Columbus with two fine poets, Jonterri Gadson, and F. Daniel Rzicznek. A nicely attended event. Thanks to Hannah Stephenson for inviting me to perform at the Urban Arts Space.

For record keeping, here's my set.

Pantoum for a Child With Insomnia
David's Rock
Epson Projection: A Meeting in Three Acts
1) Mumble Jumbo
2) Settling in, Badly
3) No Hope for Parole
With Kryptonite as Prop
After Birth
The Real In-Flight Announcement

It was another fine night downtown. On the way to the venue, I walked through Columbus Commons and saw fellow poet Ethan Rivera fiddling around.



And on the way to The Jury Room for a libation, I noticed this building artwork.



It's one of those times you feel like you're settling into something, even though you're not one to watch.