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Breaking my nightly Downton Abbey couch-potato addiction, I spent four evenings grooving at the Newport last week. I could've been immersed in a world of post-Victorian 1 percenters upstairs and their devoted and un-embittered inferiors downstairs. But no, you all needed to know what goes on behind those black Newport doors and I am just the musically ravenous young man to put his delicate sensibilities to the not-so-tender mercies of our murderous pop culture. I did not go through the Downton cold turkey shakes. I did not emerge unscathed either. One of the lineups qualified for Worst Ever Heap O' Stink and I've been reviewing shows since Moses wore short pants. Read on, lazy bones. Steve Vai is a guitar god, no getting around it. Tuesday night he was so hot, I kept thinking, that's right Eric Clapton, stay home hiding under your bed, Vai's in town and he's SMOKIN'. Hey, Joe Boner-Master, you're a Vegas-wannabe, go blow Wayne Newton. Eddie Van Halen, please take a number and wait your turn for a lesson in the art of the six-string symphonic solo. Satriani, you are fit only to roadie. Get a life. Vai's da man, yo. He's different. He's sort of weird but positive.

Dear editor Why does money matter in politics? Money appears to be overwhelming county, city, state and federal elections why does money matter so much? WHAT! Independents and undecided voters are those the big money appears to be targeting. Why does it matter that money is being spent for and against this and that. I believe money matters because there are many so-called independents and undecided that are in reality un-informed potential voters. Independents appear to not know the issues in any election and they are therefore waiting for money to be splashed around to help them decide which way they should go (vote). If you know the issues and have decided your position why would money influence your decision and/or position? It appears the big spenders have already surmised that there are no truly independents out there how did they come to that conclusion? They have observed over and over again that they can throw money your way and steer you (like cattle) where they want you to go making you believe it was your decision to go there because you are an independent….please!

I have driven by Rice Bowl a few times in my day. It is located at the intersection of South High Street and SR 104. The sign looks like it is from the 1960s but it turns out it is circa 1991. The Rice Bowl has a long history on the south side. It has existed with three owners and two locations since 1962. Rice Bowl 3.0 is a family affair that has operated the restaurant for a few decades. Judging from the outside and the location, I did not have great expectations for the Rice Bowl. However immediately upon entering I had a good feeling. Looking at the menu, I had a very good feeling and, starting with the egg rolls, I knew that I had stumbled into something very special indeed. You can not judge a book by its cover nor a restaurant by its mailing address. So let us begin with the egg rolls. The lowly egg roll rarely gets much respect mainly because they are typically reheated frozen fare. The eggs rolls are made from scratch at the Rice Bowl and are hand rolled each week. They are filled to capacity to the point of being stuffed. The exterior is soft and crunchy and does not disintegrate with a light bite. The sauces are also made from scratch.

As if they haven’t caused enough havoc by destroying social programs, pensions, women’s health and voting rights – our multi-tasking state legislators now want to line their pockets while they line our landfills with radioactive waste. Ohio’s neo-conservative Republican Governor John Kasich, a founding member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has come up with another way to frack the people of Ohio with this “beneficial use” scam. If you wanted to suck up to the fracking industry and transform Ohio into a haven of radioactive waste dumps, the best place to hide it is in the budget. The Ohio budget bill (SB 59) passed in June gives the Ohio Department of Natural Resources sole authority over the radioactive content of fracking wastes, along with the most of the toxic sludge that the industry brings up from deep underground. This squeezes-out other regulatory agencies like the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Health.

You always remember where you were the first time you saw Assassins. I was in the Riffe Center’s Studio One, which looked a lot different than it does today. For his 1993 Players Theatre production, director Steven Anderson forced viewers to stare at each other from either side of the central stage. The idea was to underline the fact that the Stephen Sondheim musical is about us—Americans—and our violent history. It was a brilliant concept, but a look at the viewers across the way suggested that many of them didn’t know what to make of this provocative and darkly comic history lesson. And some (myself included) had trouble with its surreal “explanation” of President Kennedy’s assassination, a crime that remained controversial 30 years after the fact. So now it’s 50 years after JFK’s death, and his murder has largely been replaced by 9/11 as the most shocking event of modern history. In fact, political assassinations have generally given way to terrorism and mass shootings as the major sources of national paranoia. It’s in this atmosphere that Red Herring Productions brings the Sondheim musical back to Studio One.

Didn't the Halloween season seem to last forever this year? How do people come up with so many costumes ideas for all the different events? I can never think of anything to wear so I went out as grown and sexy per usual. On Thursday, I went to the Atrocity Party at Sugar Bar 2, which is in a location that’s part of one of my fondest memories, centered around Dipset’s residency when Chubbie Baby owned it. Then it was called the Red Zone. When I arrived at the downtown nightclub, former Roc-a-Fella Producer Just Blaze was playing a block of Dipset songs. It felt like the good old days of the Red Zone. Just Blaze ended his Dipset segment with Cam’ron’s mention of him “I’ll take a couple bars off/ and let Just live” from the Blaze produced “I Really Mean It.” Before I could say “you crazy for that Just,” the New Jerusalem producer switched up and played a Jay Z song. After a few more Hov and Ye songs the evening became awful. Blaze looped up Biggie’s self-loathing “When I die/I want to Go to Hell/ I’m a piece of shit/It ain’t hard to tell” from “Suicidal Thoughts” over some sort of electronic dance music.

The 61st Columbus International Film & Video Festival opens tonight (November 7) with a French film shot in the Congo at the Gateway Film Center, at 1550 North High Street Columbus, Ohio, with a reception at 7 pm and film at 8:00 pm. Admission to both the reception and film is just $5. This screening is one night only and it is the Midwest premiere of the film. The film follows the story of an orphan bonobo, rescued by Claudine André, a conservationist who has dedicated her life to bonobos, our closest primate cousins. The event is co-sponsored by the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, who are bringing some animal friends to the opening reception. A percentage of ticket sales will be donated to Lola ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise), the bonobo sanctuary featured in the film. In addition, Congolese biologist Suzy Kwetuenda (who appears in the film) will be on hand to present the film and talk about Lola ya Bonobo and the bonobos featured in the film. The documentary was created to raise awareness for our endangered primate cousins. Bonobos (pronounced “buh-NO-bos”) are often confused with chimpanzees, and until 1933 they were not considered a different species.

On Monday, October 28, an explosion and heavy gunfire were reported outside the US embassy in Yemen. You may have heard about it. It got a brief mention on all the cable news channels with promises of more on this story as it develops including possible casualties. It pierced my leftist information silo through a small paragraph on Gawker mentioning this fact and nothing else. It was, a sobering reminder, indeed, of the dangerous world we live in. A moment of pause, for reflection that for all the criticism we do and outrage we share about the military-industrial complex, they really are working to keep us, Americans, safe. A few hours later, there was more on this story as it developed: the explosions were fireworks from a wedding party. Now this is far from the first time that the US has “mistaken” a wedding party for so-called terrorist activity, as quite a few former citizens of Afghanistan can attest to. Nor is this far from the first time that questionable news reports have been deployed in an effort to keep the populace good and scared. I will admit that were it not for this column, I would have never bothered to follow up on the story. No news outlet.

In the book All Labor Has Dignity Reverend Martin Luther King describes how the organized labor movement first came into being: "The worker became determined not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in his employer. He constructed the means by which a fairer share of the fruits of his toil had to be given to him."

Janitors in the Midwest have decided not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in their employers. A series of strikes began last month in Columbus, Ohio, and janitors in Cincinnati went on strike for the first time last Thursday.

On the same day 12 supporters from Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus were arrested in a supportive act of civil disobedience at PNC Bank in Columbus to raise awareness of unfair labor practices by New York-based ABM Industries, the largest janitorial contractor in the U.S.

"At the negotiating table, ABM was the ringleader—demanding a part-time janitorial workforce in Columbus," said Claude Smith, a Vietnam War veteran and full-time ABM janitor in Columbus.

During the Halloween season, there is a lot of flesh being exposed. Several events are planned that are fetish-oriented and have a Halloween theme. For instance, in Columbus we have Trauma, Detroit has Theatre Bizarre, San Francisco has Masquerotica – to name a few. Many Halloween costumes have “sexy” in the title, and some fun with memes has come into play with this, like the Sexy Tampon costume, or Sexy Cockroach. Some have brought up the topic of shaming those who choose to be sexy during the Halloween holiday season. For some, this may be the one time of the year that they can dress sexy or revealing, where they feel comfortable enough to be exposed. They look forward to it, and get turned on by the idea that they can be freer with their body and sexual expressions in public. However, the issue of availability from women who dress sexy or revealing can turn a holiday celebration into a painful memory. Let’s think about some things that may have come up, for the next time you choose to be sexy in public.

Consent and Shame

Something that happens during the big Halloween events where fetish and spooky are commingled, is a lack of consent.