The room I share with all the immigrants is in the Clintonville neighborhood of metro Columbus. Clintonville was named for George Clinton, Vice President under John Adams, and godfather of funk under both Parliament and Funkadelic. It was originally a tract of land from which the indigenous people were “expunged” (read: buried) so the land could be given to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of payment or pension, proving that from its inception the United States was "generous" with its war heroes.

Clintonville is just south of the famous community of Worthington, home of American-born al Qaeda member Christopher Paul.

For those of you who don’t remember, Paul, who is really high in this pic, trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, and was indicted for conspiring to support terrorists, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, and providing support to terrorists. That’s a real world-stage player right there. You don’t have any terrorists in Philly, now do you?

For the most part things are pretty quiet here in Columbus, but not so quiet as the stereotype suggests. As my undergraduate professors told me, “Just because it’s in Ohio doesn’t mean it’s full of yokels,” -- and they were right. Downtown Columbus is as cultured and varied a place as one could expect a small city to be, and so far has been virtually yokel free. Just for kicks, here’s a random photo of a yokel.

For example, Ohioans recently restored the grave site of Michael Tabler who, with his wife Hannah, made up the first interracial couple in this part of Ohio. Pictured below is a recreation of Tabler’s last moments of life.

The same things go on here as in other mid-sized cities of equal size and population. We have lots of bars, book stores, theaters (both movie and live action), and at least two art galleries. Most of the live music venues are smaller than they are in Philly, but big acts still come through occasionally. For example, Ozzfest is coming to the area soon, which wouldn’t do much for me but for the fact that an outstanding Taiwanese band called Cthonic are on the second stage along side Behemoth (who are easily the awesomest Polaks ever).

Behemoth singer Nergal, not to be confused with Nermal, apparently wants his eyeliner back.

There are, however, some differences that require acclimation. For example, the wife and I shit ourselves when we came home to this quaint little country warning.

Got any spare underpants?

It seems that "trained weather experts" had spotted a tornado on the ground in Wyandot county, moving eastward. And out here, they don't just run the weather warnings ticker-style across the screen -- they break into programming and all but shout Get down! I knew that we were in Franklin county, but wasn't sure where Wyandot was. After checking a map, it turned out that we were well south of the storm, but it isn't pleasant to know this is something we're going to have to worry about.

Meteorologist Dana Turtle was relieved after realizing he, too, was far away from the fucking tornado.

So, that's about the way things are here in Columbus.