She was looking for work and needed portfolio pics. Though we used a mirror to get more light into my third-floor bedroom, most of the session was horribly underexposed. Photographers of the 21st century might not realize how difficult it was to properly expose film, how much of it required a judicious use of a light meter and lots of experience. Being able to instantly see results (which happened for me with a digital SLR in 2007) changed everything.

Yet another trip to Fogarty's cabin near Baker's Mills, NY. I still love upstate New York and in 1997 bought a house in the Hudson Valley just north pf Peekskill. It's an extraordinary part of the world, even more remarkable for its proximity to the cities of the northeast.

During this period I favored thrift shop suits and bowling shoes, impractical and slippery with their cardboard soles. I had a massive collection of antique ties. This self-portrait was taken in the doorway that led to a second-floor porch on the front of the house. During the first part of our stay at Eden it was steps outside of my bedroom

A day outing at Cincinnati's fabulous Eden Park. Fred was a founding member of We're Just Like You and a fount of ideas, a superb host, a good friend.

The Ramones in their first gig at Bogart's on June 28. They were the first of the New York punk acts to get to Ohio, and the gig was an important one for the burgeoning punk scene in Cincinnati. When the Ramones played their famous London gig at The Roundhouse on July 4th in '76, it lit a fuse in the UK that started a thousand bands; the impact was similar in the Midwest. Incessantly touring, they played every city that had a venue; they returned to Bogart's many times. I saw them there twice and a couple times more in NYC. They hit you like a tsunami in the face, a sheer wave of sound that could knock you off your feet. There was nothing else like it.

At their next gig at Bogart's Curt got me backstage and DeeDee autographed a print of this picture for Fran. She was desperately in love. They were all loveable but DeeDee was unquestionably the cutest Ramone. He also wrote some of their best tunes including my favorite, The Highest Trails Above.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of The Ramones, at least for me and others in my circle. Within a year of this gig many of us were in bands where we tried to be as loud, fast, and ironically stupid as our heroes. The leather jackets, the tennis shoes, and the ripped jeans rapidly became the official uniform. I was old enough to have put a band together because of the Beatles; punk was like a second chance for me. Years later when I worked as a producer and occasional columnist at Time magazine's website, I wrote this obit when Joey died.

One night in the early 80s Desi Desi Desi was walking into the midtown buiding where we rehearsed. The elevator opened and the Ramones walked out; the Desis walked in.

Eased out of our three-story home on Eden Avenue by the young landlord who bought the place, we relocated for a few months to an empty house on Pape Avenue in Hyde Park. Shortly afterward Fred found a ten-thousand square-foot loft downtown, a former cotton warehouse on the fifth floor of 335 West Fifth Street. There were forty-eight windows, two elevators, enough room to play tennis or ride a bike, and spectacular views of the downtown skyline and glimpses of the riverfront. The red-shaded area belonged to Fran, Fred, me, Fogarty, Binder, and Bob, then bassist for The Ed Davis Band.

There were few amenities: no grocery stores, no laundromats, and no delis. We bought cigarettes and Coke from a numbers joint around the corner. It was an open storefront with nothing in the windows—all the real action happened behind a closed door in the back. The Cokes were in an old-fashioned cooler by the door and there was a folding card table and a few chairs a little further inside. Here the black guy who ran the place and a few of his pals played poker all day and all night. Initially there were strange looks but we were there so often they got used to us.

335 W. Fifth now exists in a dramatically different downtown, as one would expect. It is stuffed with twenty-seven condo lofts with prices as high as $380k. I'm sure the artistic types are all somewhere else. I still have dreams about it.

From the loft it was a short walk through a downtown hotel to the IHOP. My hair was long and the entire restaurant would watch me as I made my way to a table. It was creepy; Cincinnati was a very conservative place. Later I found welcome anonymity in New York though the places I rented there had a small fraction of the space.

These photos (another Mecklenberg's waitress!) are from one of many portrait sessions at the loft. Binder set up the shoot but I was around so I took pictures as well.

The Cabin 2 guys were the first people we encountered who had made the same move to downtown industrial space. As a band they were unique in Cincinnati, an improvisational free-jazz ensemble put together by pianist/arranger Pat Kelly. I loved the sound; the punk, pop, disco, et al. on my playlist had already begun to give way to more experimental music. The soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey and the classical musicians surrounding me at college had introduced me to Ligeti, Xenakis, Stockhausen, late Beethoven and more; from there it was a short jump to minimalism, no wave, free jazz, ambient—you name it.

Later I invited Cabin 2 to play with The Ed Davis Band at one of our loft parties. They had a floating crew of musicians, and Byron from Ed Davis sometimes sat in with them. Steve "Doc" Lugannani (in the photo) was a good friend of his from Sayler Park just outside of town. In the picture Doc is playing a hollow-body Fender Cougar bass later used by The Ed Davis Band and Desi Desi Desi. He sold it to me for $40. Jess Hirbe (who made the Ed Davis single happen) also sat in with these guys. Cabin 2 released a single in 1979 called "Vfüh, Vfüh"; Pat Kelly has a SoundCloud channel called Cabin 2 Music.

The football schedules were a perennial part of my father's Franklin County campaigns. He was Clerk for thiry-two years, and a Republican strictly by accident of birth; his own father had switched parties to get a job. There were no ideological differences between the parties on a local level; my father's interest in others running for office was as a professional evaluting other professionals. He always ran the same year as the president, and his take on the presidential contenders was always fascinating. One of the biggest issues of the early 70s was the Vietnam war and though we initially disagreed about that foreign adventure, he later came around to my point of view. He had served in Korea and was very aware that Koreans wanted the Yankees out. (He also developed a lifetime aversion to even the smell of kimchi).

There were football schedules for every year of his thirty-two years as Clerk. There were also combs, matches, emery boards, bumper stickers, signs (Vote Right With Enright), and during one campaign, billboards. I drove around town that year with my father watching from above. Later I put up one leftover billboard on the wall of our basement.