[Newspoetry] more like, whoa

[Anne Bargar]

Waiting For Todd
(a roving report from Columbus, Ohio)

High Street smells worse than I remember.
Not surprising; It's a busy street, enclosed by large university
buildings, leaving nowhere for the exhaust to go. It
runs most of the length of Columbus.  The OSU area is particularly ugly,
smelly, and skanky, but it also has the few independently-owned record
stores in the Greater Columbus Metropolitan Area.  if you don't want to go
to Borders or it's ilk, you have to come here when looking for records.
(For example, where else can you purchase such fine recordings as 12
More Happy Organ Favorite polkas and Waltzes for the unbeatable price of
$.47?)
 
This is where you can also come to have your picture taken with topless
women.  There's one sitting out on the street not to far from the coffee
shop where I sit.  The boys love it, you can tell.  They're videotaping
her. 

I am waiting for Todd.  We are going to go looking for food and records.
It turns out that we will have gone to Used Kid's, Used Kid's Annex, and
Johnny Go-Go's House Of Music after taking in the lovely atmosphere and
food of the Blue Danube (AKA The Dube).

I cam no longer go to my favorite shop in all of Columbus; a shop called
Tradewinds, where you could buy incense, candles, and t-shirts made by
local artists.  I look in it's windows; it has been completely gutted.
Todd thinks the local bussiness organization bought the building and
forced the shop to close.  The bussiness association almost bought out and
closed down the Newport (want to see indie music, anyone?), but somehow it
survived.  Unlike Stache's, the last known central Ohio gig for Robyn
Hitchcock; Stache's is now a scenic strip mall parking lot.  Maybe he's
played at the Newport since.

A guy with a long neck waits 
for the bus.
The guy with the guitar
reads.
I sit
and wait.

-babz