The Indianola Theater opened in 1938 with Stage Door, a Katherine Hepburn-Ginger Rogers starrer released the year before. Distribution patterns of that era typically opened A-list films in downtown movie palaces owned by the studios. The same three-hundred or so prints in the initial run would play the downtowns and then move out to suburban second-run houses (like the Indianola). After that the prints would hit the drive-ins and rural theaters (see The Last Picture Show.)

Initially studios regarded these prints as disposable, a staggering injustice to later audiences. We can understand: nitrocellulose film stocks were very difficult to store—they had a tendency to spontaneously burst into flames. This same nitrate stock was still in use in 1952; it was replaced that year by acetate "safety" film. A substantial part of the licensing test for new projectionists—and all projectionists needed a license, unlike many other theatrical niches—involved fire safety; the projectionist's booth was a study in safety procedures.

It was a solitary life in that projection booth. A quiet workplace could suddenly erupt into a high-pressure and very public crisis. Worry number one: the carbon rods. An electrical arc between two rods provided the projector's light. They had to be adjusted or replaced fairly often. Maintaining the arc depended on keeping the rods a precise distance from each other as the carbon burned down. The only way to check conditions was through a welder's glass embedded in the side of the light chamber. Theatrical exhibition then and now has low profit margins and suburban exhibitors like the Indianola made every penny count; the projectionist was expected to burn every rod down to the filter, as it were.

Worry number two was the changeover, the moment when everything had to be shifted to the second projector. Changeovers happened at the end of the reel, about every twenty minutes. The operator waited for cue marks to appear on the upper right corner of the screen (first cue); eight seconds later another dot would appear (the second cue) and a lever was thrown. The dots were not always in the same place or the same shape; each print had been marked individually as a last step before exhibition.

I learned all this stuff by working from 1969 to 1971 at Studio 35, the post-1964 incarnation of the Indianola. At one point I trained to be a projectionist. Tony, the scarfaced, pompadoured, and aviator-shaded guy who was teaching me thought I was a threat to his job. There was a lot of subtle resistance and the training never resulted in booth hours. I found operating the two projectors made me very tense; I think I was relieved when the training initiative collapsed and I returned to the candy counter downstairs.

The Indianola Theater, renamed Studio 35 in 1964 by brilliant exhibitor (and mentor) Frank Marzetti. The Studio was the first house in the US with a liquor license, though Frank sold beer under the counter long before it became legal. I attended once or twice a week (my dad and Frank were childhood friends) and spent the last two years of high school working there.

There is a small additional screening room upstairs with recliners, expansive seats and tables in the main auditorium, a full bar, craft beers, and a decent menu. I always try to stop by when I'm in town.

I realized one fatal morning—fatal for my success in high school—that I was marked tardy if I arrived two minutes after the bell, and that I was marked tardy if I arrived several hours after the bell. There didn’t seem to be varying degrees of tardiness. I used this concept extensively towards the end of the calendar year when I started going out with Kay. I would head over to Upper Arlington High School and eat with her, then head back to Watterson and my masters there. Revolution was in the air; it was time to find new paths!

Ironic that this photo exists, since I'm almost certain she got booted from West High before the graduation. They said she was insubordinate but school administrators were looking for almost any excuse to expel another hippie kid. I met her at the high school when I attended an art department picnic with Carla. Soon after Carla and I split Kathy came into to Studio 35 one night; we talked and I managed to get her phone number.

Kathy and I had a lot more in common than Carla and I ever did. We were both very tuned-in to the changes in youth culture without either of us thinking about it much. The new attitudes about sex and drugs and rock and roll were natural to both of us. Kathy was always more than a friend but we never really figured out what our relationship was. I was with Kathy at the party where I met Kay. I hurt her, I think, when I fell for the new girl. Kathy sort of knew what was going on and later became good friends with Kay. She stayed my friend, too.

I carried this picture in my wallet for years, long after Kathy had moved to Los Angeles.

Originally I just sang with The Hague but after we recruited another singer I picked up the bass for job security. Sometime in 1969 I bought an amp from a guy named Dan Auburn that is almost identical to the one in this picture. I don't remember the price. I bought a Vox bass from Ziggy Coyle Music at around the same time. Ziggy was a trumpet wiz who led a local swing band; my dad was a local drummer and they were friends. Theoretically I got a good price, though I have no idea what that would have been.

I no longer have the bottom parts of the groovy tubular stand that allows the cabinet to swing at an angle while the amp head remains stable on top. My Vox is a lot more beat up; it's in a storage unit right now and over half a century later still works fine.

The amp is typical of a certain British sound in the late 60s: it is extremely bright, even using a horn. There's a circuit called mid-range boost—engaged through a black rocker on the side of the head—that pushes it even more into the treble. There's a tremelo. There's a reverb. No tubes in this Vox: everything is done with transistors. The Vox engineers designed it to be loud, and it was probably loud enough when it came out, but I never thought it was loud enough for the clubs. A Fender Twin Reverb would easily overpower it. I bought it for the bass channel; I had a Vox hollow-body bass that needed a home. In the late 70s I began using the amp with a Stratocaster, especially after I got to NYC and began to play the clubs of the East Village. I could roll it down the sidewalk or the middle of 10th Street to get it to A7 or 8BC or 171A. It was really a drag at 4:30 or 5 AM carrying it up four flights after we'd been playing and drinking.

The love of my life, at least for a couple of years. I thought she was extraordinary, the kind of woman I'd never seen anywhere but the movies: she looked like Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. She knew all the new music: Zeppelin, Hendrix, Frank Zappa. She smoked. She wasn't a virgin, and when she told me that I fell hard. It was like meeting Marianne Faithfull.

We met on 21 September 1968, at a party for the Center of Science and Industry volunteers. It was also was a gig for my first band, The Hague. (The band practiced at Pete's house on Hague Avenue so we took that name.) The location was a Scioto riverfront estate just north of Columbus; the screened party house was on the lawn stretching down to the river. I know we played our Doors medley: "Hello I Love You," "The Unknown Soldier," "Light My Fire." I rmember Kay walking toward me over the cables between the amps. She gave me her number on a little card.

Kay and I went out for only three or four months but we were having sex so that made everything a lot more intense. I knew she had a previous boyfriend and gradually came to think that she had never gotten over him. I broke up with her and suffered over it for a long time. What I didn't know till later was that a girlfriend of hers had been busy; even before we broke up the girlfriend did some matchmaking and introduced her to a guy named Tink. I don't think they were ever married but they were together until they died, Kay of a stroke and Tink in a motorcycle accident.

We were hanging out at the Studio 35 that day because it was my job to change the marquee.