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.

The Italianate glory of the decaying main lobbby of of the RKO Albee, just prior to demolition. The city was particularly savage and short-sighted in its ravaging of the downtown architecture that stood in the way of mega redevelopment profits. Join me in pissing on the graves of the rich men who made this happen.

I'd seen the Cincinnati premier of De Palma's Sisters at the Albee in 1974, two years before it was shuttered. The interior had been allowed to decay but the place was still fabulous, a dream theater. There were thirty-five hundred seats! Just before the demolition began a Mecklenberg's waitress—don't remember her name—alerted Binder and myself to a sale of theater miscellania in the lobby. It was quite dark inside, lit only by a few naked bulbs. Massive piles of debris and fixtures were everywhere. No one was paying any attention to us and few other stragglers. Eventually we found a door off to one side and slipped into a stairwell which led several flights down into a basement and then a sub-basement. We explored at will, the only illumination a lighter Binder was holding.

I was introduced to the work of this artist through the eponymous piece in Marguerite Yourcenar's The Dark Brain of Piranesi, English translations of seven of her most important essays. It was published in 1984; I found my copy at the legendary Strand, the last remaining used bookstore along Fourth Avenue in lower Manhattan, an area once famous for them. All these small dusty stores—looking as though no one had entered them in years—had begun to disappear when I moved to the area in '79. I was nosing around for anything by Yourcenar after re-reading Memoirs of Hadrian, one of my favorite books.

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 of Peekskill. It's an extraordinary part of the world.

During this period I favored thrift shop suits and bowling shoes: cardboard soles, impractical and slippery. I had many antique ties. This self-portrait was taken in the doorway that led to a second-floor terrace at the front of the house. During the first part of our stay at Eden it was steps outside of my bedroom. Later I moved into Sandy and Todd's former bedroom on the third floor.

A day outing at Cincinnati's fabulous Eden Park. We're Just Like You was his idea, really; he was a fount of ideas, a superb host, a friend.

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. I slept in the dining area in a sleeping bag.

During this time I came home with two first Ramones LPs. Fran listened to one of them with headphones that were turned up loud— I could hear them from the other side of the room. She listened to the A side, flipped it over, listened to the B-side, flipped it over and did it again. Did it again, and again. That afternoon might have been why we moved to New York.

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. There was Fran, Fred, me, Fogarty, Binder, and Bob, then bassist for The Ed Davis Band. Each of us carved out our space. We made a darkroom with walls of thick Army surplus blankets—lightproof. Ed Davis had a rehearsal and recording area; the drums were surrounded by two old mattresses hung from the ceiiling. We shot our 45 cover against the loft windows (though one would never know that in the shot we chose). There were occasional parties with lots of beer and food and one or two bands.

There were few amenities downtown: no grocery stores, no laundromats, no delis. We bought cigarettes and Coke from what we surburbanites thought was a betting parlor around the corner. No signs, no merchandise, an open storefront with nothing in the windows—your eye went to the 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. 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 buying stuff so often they got used to us.

I think I was addicted to Diet Coke at this time—Fran, too. We were doing a lot of damage to our gut biomes. We drank liqour, of course. Everbody drank. Every other person smoked cigarettes. At this time at parties people brought cocaine.

It was almost fifty years ago as of this writing. 335 W. Fifth now exists in a dramatically different downtown: city-living is now seen as desirable and there are twenty-seven condo lofts in our old building, prices as high as $380k. People who don't have any money are living somewhere else.

I sometimes have dreams about it, jumbled with scenes From the other places I lived.

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 I lost a lot of personal space. I never figured out to get one of those no-hot-water artist lofts along the Bowery. I found a roommate at 256 E. 10th, then inherited his apartment. As they say in apartment ads, it was centrally located in the East Village and the eighties was just getting started. Rent was about $225 a month, about $600 when we moved out in '97.

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 one favorite late Ramone song, 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 very occasional columnist at Time magazine's website, I wrote this obit when Joey died. Danny Fields (former Ramones manager) wrote a nice email to me afterwards; he thought the piece was accurate.

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.

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 candid shots are two of his thousands of Polaroids.

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 the twentieth century avant-garde; 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.