Author: Jason McGathey

I've written a bunch of books and managed to publish 8 of them. In my spare time, I also tinker around with this little history blog. My latest book, "Stop Rewind Fast Forward: 1992," was published in August 2022.
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Cooper Stadium

The place had no personality, not even after they yanked out the artificial rug, and yet you tended to admire that it was placed in that neighborhood at all – in a somewhat rundown, commercial/residential district of Franklinton, just west of downtown proper. Built in 1931 to house a St. Louis Cardinals farm team, it housed a litany of teams, sports, and events, and yet it will most likely always be known as the home of the Columbus Clippers minor league squad for over 30 years.

They used to send me free tickets 3-4 times per season, although I never figured out why. Was this a normal occurrence for anyone else? Then again, these were usually accompanied by coupons for additional cut-rate seats, so perhaps it was all some zany marketing ploy. At any rate, I attended my first game in 1988, the last in 2006, one of their final summers in the stadium before moving uptown to the much more opulent digs found in Huntington Park. The ’88 affair was a treat our little league coach sprung on the whole team, at a time when the big stars on the roster – Columbus’s, that is, not our own basement dwelling club – were Turner Ward and Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens, a night where I was considered a tremendous dork by pretty much everyone for scoring the game in my program.

Not much had changed by opening day 2006. Though still the kind of dork who will score the game in his program, and prone to attending games alone if nothing else is going on, this time around I do manage to rope in a couple of friends, Kyle and Jim. Another contest for which they had mailed me free tickets, and found the club giving out small, inferior cowbells at the gate, along with fridge magnets with the team schedule, Sean Henn was considered their ace and would take the hill. The only players on the roster I’ve heard of before, aside from Henn, are Eric Duncan and Melky Cabrera, although in recently completed seasons we were all treated to the likes of future breakout stars Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano on a regular basis.

We down hot dogs and cheap beer before the game even starts, then settle into our seats. I had forgotten all about my previous visit, however, a night where I drank just two draft Michelob Amber Bocks here at the game, yet somehow ended up barfing my brains out – and an identical dosage of the same toxic potion nearly has the same effect on me this otherwise fine night. Maybe they are being sent leftover dregs from the Budweiser plant across town, or maybe they suffer storage issues at this site. Maybe I am the only person drinking Amber Bock (well, no, Jim also partakes, and voices no complaints) and as a result it is spoiling. But something funky is certainly going on with this draft – and only here, for I don’t have any problems downing it at, say, Studio 35. As a result, I’m bolted to my seat like a seasick landlubber for what turns into a 13-1 blowout in the Clippers’ favor, against the Scranton Red Barons.

As far as routs are concerned, it’s interesting enough, for the offense is scattered liberally throughout the frames. But really, the most compelling aspect of this particular outing might have been the hot dog race, or at least that and its attendant juvenile humor. A familiar sight at many a baseball field, this race featured three characters dressed up as wieners, although in a somewhat inspired twist, two nice looking females, attired as ketchup and mustard bottles, respectively, are holding the finish line tape.

“If I was one of those hot dogs, I’d be working on either ketchup or mustard, one of the two,” Kyle notes.

“Both!” I say, “I’d have ketchup on one side, mustard on the other!”

“You have to leave your costumes on, though,” Jim elaborates with a laugh, “that’s my fetish.”

“You can take your spouts off, that’s it,” I suggest.

For years I went around saying that Robinson Cano would be the first Hall-Of-Famer that I watched play in the minors. He was a stalwart on the Clippers before getting called up to the Yankees and becoming an offensive machine. However, a banned substance bust in 2018 followed by a swift decline after that has pretty much obliterated his chances. Otherwise, having somehow not attended a single game during that brief golden era where future legends Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera called this stadium home, and with its last game having been played in 2008, it looks like I’ll be stuck with a goose egg on that front regarding Cooper Stadium. There’s always a chance some current Indians stars will make the Hall, now that they are the Clippers’ big league affiliate team – but of course, any of those developments will have occurred at Huntington Park. The Clippers have been playing at that fancy new stadium since 2009, as the lights down at this one then went dark, fading into history.

I can still tell you all sorts of random factoids about this place, though. There used to be a mini Damon’s food stand located inside the stadium, for example, and some of my coworkers from the Olentangy franchise would occasionally help out here. During a game in 1953, future baseball legend Don Zimmer is drilled in the head by a pitch while batting here, and loses consciousness for nearly a week. Yet I’ll go out on a limb here and declare that one weird moment in 1995 rates above all others, which would be when the eventual first ever unanimous Hall Of Famer, Mariano Rivera, was sent back down to the minors.

People forget that Rivera began his Yankee career as a starter, but bombed out in this role. It was only after being demoted, I believe while warming up for his 2nd start back in Columbus, that he began experimenting with a new pitch before that game. This would be the famous cut fastball, the pitch he basically rode into immortality, and it came into being here. So I guess this will have to suffice as my vicarious Hall Of Fame moment – we did get to see him pitch, one day, years later. But never in Cooper Stadium, sadly.

2006-Schedule-Columbus-Clippers
Columbus Clippers 2006 Schedule

Up through at least 2006, parking was just $3 for baseball games, and they were still doing the “Terror Park” thing here every October – I’m not sure about beyond that point. As of December 2019, one seating section still remains (pictured up top and below), but that’s it. These bleachers were the ones nearest to Mound Street, which is memory serves was the 3rd base side of the field.The rest have all been knocked down and replaced by, at present, nothing but an empty field. The sight is a truly bizarre one, although you know this situation is not bound to last long, not for such a large swath of land in a relatively premium space. Indeed, having learned my lesson with these types of situations, I was consumed by a mild panic recently, realizing that I should probably shoot some photos of what’s left while I can. Sure enough, although capturing some decent evidence, which I’ll upload soon enough, it was interesting for me to observe a handful of construction workers doing who knows what, on the other side of this field, on this Sunday afternoon in December:

 

 

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January 8, 2003

Very odd. Walking home from work and I get about halfway up my road, almost make it to the house, and I look up to see this strange light in the night sky. It resembles a spotlight and appears to be originating from somewhere over in Grandview, from the land as opposed to the air. But for one, it’s much more powerful than any spotlight I’ve ever seen – the light, which remains steady as opposed to sweeping, nearly spans the entire horizon from west to east – but also, as bizarre as this seems, it bends at about a forty-five degree angle. In other words, from wherever it’s originating, this beam climbs at a perfect diagonal, then bends at this forty five degree angle and continues overhead straight across town to the east side. To put it more clearly, it’s shaped like a rainbow, except the rainbow isn’t curved, it kinks inward at a sharp angle. Also, this band is monochromatic, the vaguely bluish white of a flashlight.

Once home, I first run upstairs, but can’t get a good look and return to the front yard. By now the angular rainbow shaped beam is falling toward the south at a slow but constant clip. To put it another way, it’s like the St. Louis arch had been directly overhead, then slowly toppled over, toward the southern horizon. Whatever the case, this bizarre spectacle eventually disappears from my line of sight behind some buildings, and I retreat indoors.

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Watershed

Album cover for Watershed's "Three Chords and a Cloud of Dust."

When I once remarked that I liked local band Watershed, a friend of mine agreed that they were good but that all the songs tended to sound the same after a while, and that they weren’t very original to start with. But I don’t know. Though seeing them play live twice and admittedly walking out in the middle of their set the first of those occasions, I have to kind of disagree with his assessment. And I know that they never were considered cool enough among Columbus’s taste making elite, so my support for them is surely a real eye roller. But I still think they were better than many of their massively hyped contemporaries, and I wasn’t alone in believing this. After all, Sony signed them to their Epic label at a time this was considered a very big deal indeed, releasing both a live EP and full studio album by the band.

Three Chords And A Cloud Of Dust, the live one, is a fascinating document just for its liner notes alone. Though owning this CD for a while now, I always forget that it was actually recorded in Columbus, at the Newport Music Hall, on January 14, 1994. The marquee depicted inside the disc has Watershed’s name in lights playing the Newport this particular Friday, with another local staple, Ekoostik Hookah, booked for the following Wednesday. Thank yous take up an entire page of the packaging and amount to a virtual C-bus who’s who of people and places, from music venues such as Bernie’s to the Used Kids record store to popular DJ Andyman at independent radio station CD101, musicians such as Willie Phoenix, hometown heavyweight champion Buster Douglas, and everyone else they loved down to the “sandwich artists” at a treasured Subway franchise. Naturally, the roll call would not be complete without a “fuck you” to Michigan basketball players Jalen Rose and Juwan Howard; meanwhile, at the other end of the emotional spectrum, on an opposite page this EP is dedicated to Terry Paul, who died the morning that show was recorded, without whom “the Newport will not be the same.”

This being 1994, there is no mention of a website. Similarly documenting these times in telling detail would be the subdued, black and white packaging, the presence of Spin Doctors producer Frankie LaRocka as co-helmsman (he had also kickstarted that band’s major label career with a 6 song live EP), and of course the songs themselves. Written by frontman/guitarist Colin Gawel and bassist slash forklift driver (according to the liner notes) Joe Oestreich, brought to life on stage with the assistance of drummer Herb Schupp, true, these aren’t the most groundbreaking songs then in existence, maybe, but certainly are catchy and played with a ton of enthusiasm. They call to mind a mix somewhere between the Smithereens and that loping, distinctly Midwestern take on punk rock – slower, less obviously snotty, but just as angst riddled. Gawel’s voice is perfectly pleasant and serviceable, although I find myself enjoying the moments he passes the torch briefly to Oestreich on a couple of tracks. The best selection of the set is one such number, How Do You Feel, which somehow adds an almost No Depression-esque Americana twinge to the proceedings, has a great opening riff and catchy chorus. An audience singalong in the closing moments doesn’t hurt, either.

They probably could have stood a little more variation in tempo on this selection, but you know it translated even better live than it sounds on here, and anyway, after a handful of listens most of these numbers are going to be stuck in that hummable place in your head exactly as they are. So consider this a job well done. I don’t really get nostalgic much for bygone eras, although listening to this does fill me with equal parts sadness and fascination, that a major media corporation was willing to spend money on these guys, and had faith that they just might be the next worldwide phenomenon.

II.

I have thus far managed to see Watershed twice. The first of these was a free concert at Polaris in the summer of ’95, the other this show two years later at Chelsie’s. After which, having already met all three band members here, a bunch of us climb into separate cars and journey en masse to some house party.

The bash in question would be at Casey’s house on Blake, near campus. Clif is following me, as we’ve driven in separate cars, but when I find a curbside spot just up the street, he is forced to continue driving around. I get out and start looking for 79 West Blake. But my eyesight is horrible, so I mainly just traipse around hoping to bump into someone I know. There’s no hope whatsoever of spotting the address on a house, even from the sidewalk, so it’s a matter of recognizing voices or promising situations or something.

At some point, I pass these four dudes hanging out on a porch. They yell hi to me and I shout a hello back at them, but keep walking. Then one of them hollers, “yo dude! Up here!” and I realize it’s that redheaded Joe guy. Upon retreating and joining them on the porch, I see the address is 59 Blake, which means someone must have given me the wrong coordinates somewhere along the line, or else I screwed it up. But no, it actually turns out to be neither – Joe had just been walking along, and these three guys he’d never met before invited him up for a beer. They’re having a party themselves, and offer me a frosty beer as well. Someone breaks out an acoustic guitar, and Joe is soon strumming familiar cover songs to surprisingly good effect. Then we invite these random characters to the actual party we’d been trying to find, and traipse the few houses up to 79 West Blake.

As we arrive, Clif and one of the twins are sitting on this address’s own dark front stoop, waiting patiently for me to show.

“Man, where the hell you been!” Clif howls, “I was afraid you got jumped or something!”

Our ravenous stomachs respond to the smell of fried beef, and we follow this aroma around to the back of the house, where Laura’s presiding over a gas grill. A handful of her friends sit around a picnic table in the cramped backyard, chomping down on burgers, while the house itself fills up with seemingly every soul who’d been in attendance at Chelsie’s and then some. The person or persons living here is never fully explained but I gather Laura’s boyfriend to be involved in some capacity, as he stands behind the living room bar dispensing drinks, cracking jokes and pouring draft beer into cups from a keg-a-rator, located nearby.

“How do you like your burger?” the other twin asks me, as the four of us are hanging near the back stoop, she and I and Clif and his own targeted twin.

“Rare as hell,” I smile.

“All these burgers are already taken!” Laura snaps, flipping over the current roster with her spatula, “and there’s none left inside, either.”

My theoretical twin slips inside for a moment, shooting me a discreet smile when she returns, toting a few pounds of ground beef she has magically located in the kitchen. As she gets the next batch going for Clif and me and the two of them, the crowd of people filling up the house keeps growing exponentially, but we remain here, sucking in the cool autumn air. In the absence of the otherwise ubiquitous bright white security lights, this block of Blake is shrouded in black, atypically dark. A dimness further enhanced by the thick, dense trees surrounding this place, the murky sky above.

The house is old like nearly every other home on campus, imbued with corresponding charm. Too small to accommodate this many people but they’re doing their damnedest anyway, in this house with Buckeye paraphernalia plastered on every wall, tossed into every corner. Every light in the house is blazing bright, and when I file upstairs to use the restroom the stairwell itself is impossibly narrow and steep, a tricky maneuver even when stonefaced sober.

A whole bunch of people will continue filtering into this party. Though not really knowing anyone else when this night began, I will hang out for long after Clif leaves. At one point I remember standing and talking to the key Watershed duo, Colin and Joe – Gawel and Oestreich, as it turns out, respectively –  in the middle of this bright living room. Then some old dude with a really long beard walks up and gets on this kick about how I look extremely familiar to him. He indeed seems familiar to me as well, though neither of us can place it. Somewhere past 3 in the morning I realize most of the good looking girls seem to have left, and I never really talked to any of them, so I take this as my cue to split.

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Arlington Cafe

Rear entrance at Arlington Cafe, Columbus, Ohio

My jaw nearly hits the floor to see this place now. Can there possibly exist a more indelible message that nothing ever lasts? Most of my friends were never fans of this fabled club on West Henderson, whereas I was an early convert. Yet what seemed immediately after ascending to its all-time apex and winning over even those staunch holdouts, doors began shuttering and cobwebs descended from the rafters.

Arlington Café was always a bit of an anomaly, but made its idiosyncrasies work. Situated at the end of a shopping center counting Kroger as its anchor tenant for eons, in front of a sleepy upper middle class neighborhood, by day this bar was a dark dive which working class drunks were fond of slipping off to for their liquid lunches. Then come nightfall, shortly after the DJ slid into his glass lined booth and began cranking out modern dance mixes, it came alive with a completely different and still younger clientele, albeit one all the daytime regulars felt perfectly comfortable rubbing elbows against, having perhaps never left themselves even after the final happy hour bell finished ringing.

Much of this was attributable to at least four distinct moods to be found within its cavernous interior, and perhaps as many as six. Achieved effortlessly, I might add, a natural extension of its contour, flowing without contrivance. Contrast this against busted downtown experiments like Long Street, a much ballyhooed dance club which hit everyone over the head with all their themed rooms, tallied some staggering crowds in the early going, and soon bit the dust. Meanwhile, Arlington Café thrived, expanded, even, as it annexed the shops in front and added a second, massive dance floor.

Our initial visit to Arlington Cafe occurs, like so many other adventures from this era, at the behest of John H. A girl he used to date is a barmaid here now and he wants to check out this scene. On a night full of firsts, lasts, and loops back around from one to the other, the same evening that Damon and his ex-girlfriend Angie (meaning ex-girlfriend even at that moment; he had a current girlfriend, Shannon, who was not present for these festivities) and I happen to catch the final hockey game at OSU Ice Rink, we agree to meet John and some of my other coworkers out here, at this unfamiliar club on Henderson Road.

We follow his mysterious instructions for finding this place, which does add to the intrigue level, although not strictly necessary. Parking in front of the Henderson Road Kroger, there is indeed a long, dark tunnel carved between that building and the cluster of others fanning off to the right, in proper strip mall fashion, a passageway barely wide enough to fit two directions of foot traffic. Yet upon emerging on the other side, behind Kroger and the bar, you discover there’s a perfectly usable parking lot back here, not to mention another on the side, both of them accessible from nearby Nugent Drive. Still, as far as first impressions go, it’s hard to quibble with his recommendation of this ultra weird but cool Batcave entrance.

How they attract any patrons is actually somewhat of a mystery itself, explainable only by word of mouth. There’s no advertising whatsoever, not a single sign on the street nor in front of those stores, which would indicate any place of business exists back here. And yet much to our surprise, as we duck inside the back door, this place does boast a sizable crowd, despite bordering on a not quite insanely happening, middle aged to verging on senior part of town.

Which isn’t to say, despite the crowd, we are initially blown away by this club. We find ourselves in this slightly more subdued, rear lounge type room, and it’s a total yuppie haven – at least tonight. The lights seem way too bright for a drinking establishment, the wall to wall carpeting a bit more plush than is customary. As expected, the clientele is skewing a little older, older even than Banana Joe’s had last week. Everyone stands around in their Dockers and Tommy Hilfiger attire, and it’s all very tasteful and vomit inducing.

To say we feel a little out of place is an understatement. Angie looks good, of course, but Damon’s wearing a tie dyed Pink Floyd tee shirt, not to mention the mountain man look he’s still rocking, with the shaggy beard and the hair halfway down his back. In keeping with this “nice guy routine” I’ve adopted since the fall, which was also in large part inspired by John’s example, it’s true that I have thrown on some better clothes before heading out here – but wouldn’t say I am entirely comfortable with this scene, either.

But this is just one room, we remind ourselves. A room which features a vaulted glass ceiling – various people through the years will tell me this was retractable, even, though I never witness such and doubt that tidbit’s veracity – lording over a small dance floor, a horseshoe shaped bar, and seating on a couple of different levels, while the eastern, more spacious room beyond features all of the same, pretty much (minus the vaulted ceilings) but with a larger dance floor where the DJ plies his wares from a walled in nerve center, alongside scores of pool tables and a juke for non-disc jockey curated nights. And in later years, after the businesses in front were annexed, still larger dancing regions existed for would be booty shakers, in front of those pool tables. Giant TVs mounted everywhere, of course, and the lighting I recall as being colorful, neither too bright nor too dark regardless of the hour or day. But mostly what I remember are the forever changing vibes, dependent upon whatever moment you chose to show up.

The three of us venture over to the other half. Damon and Angie grab a beer at this side’s bar, while I, though playing the designated driver card, am in fact almost out of discretionary income for the night and have to seriously conserve my bullets. Once those two have drinks, we begin our meandering search for my past and current coworkers, a small cluster of whom should be here by now. 

Kristin is the first such person encountered, sitting in a booth with her fiance. Though she stopped working at our restaurant almost a year ago, and I’d never fraternized socially with her before she quit, this is the second occasion we’ve bumped into each other since – once, a passing, shouted conversation at the insanely packed Cornerstone bar on campus, and now this. While I hadn’t noticed much about her appearance during the previous encounter, tonight she represents Exhibit Z in how if girls manage to at least look average in your dreadful waiter’s attire, then you know for a fact they’re going to represent as borderline hot at minimum in street clothes. Which I nonetheless always forget anyway. 

As we settle into this spacious booth, sitting high enough off the ground that your feet more comfortably dangle mid-air rather than reaching for the ground, I hear someone calling my name, and it’s her. Upon joining them, I have a chance to appraise her up close and in better lighting. She rates highly on the score card despite both of those potential obstacles, in tight jeans, a black top and a little bit of makeup, not to mention the classic hair style which you don’t see much of now, though it’s been in fashion through the ages and surely will be again: the long, straight brown locks, parted down the middle without fanfare. As for her man, he seems affable enough, but is the sort of blandly, vaguely handsome and inoffensive sort whose features tend to melt into oblivion even as you’re sitting across from the guy. 

Somehow arriving after us, John H soon enters via the side entrance himself, wearing the black leather jacket which, as possibly expected, always makes him look more GQ than ruffian. Moments later we are joined by Amy K and yet another former coworker, Andrea. When you either actively or randomly hang out with the same people two or three nights a week, it’s easy to take for granted how low key and complication free said individuals always are. And falling between the cracks of this discussion in particular are the affable, party compliant females upon whom we’ve never imposed any designs. They represent a sub-category of those we take for granted, and Amy falls into this especially deep abyss, even though she’s technically classified as our superior on the job. Meanwhile there’s Andrea, she of curly, short dark hair and at present some almost secretarial glasses, sloshed already as she seemingly always is. Yet another casualty in the war of attrition any place of employment represents, the service industry in particular and, like Kristin, encountered more since she left than when actually working alongside us. The last occasion, at one of Swabby’s pandemonium drenched performances, John told me he’d heard she “fucks like a rabbit” but admitted he never made any efforts himself. 

It says a lot about the aircraft carrier sized booths here that eight of us could squeeze into one without too much difficulty, though Damon and Angie want a little privacy, and will commandeer the next one over as soon as it becomes available. As we are sitting within bottle cap tossing distance of the pool tables, Amy and Andrea challenge John and me to a game or two. Meanwhile H is filling me in on his history with this barmaid, also named Amy, someone he knew back home in Cleveland. Both moved down here to complete degrees at OSU. Both have subsequently dropped out well shy of these degrees. 

The roving waitress attending to these masses at the sea of pool tables is this highly flirtatious redhead whom, John and I both agree, sure seems like she’d be exceedingly easy to nail. On occasion you can kind of tell the difference between someone hustling guys for tips and someone who actually follows through on this slutty aura. This appears to be one such instance, a thought further confirmed when John’s ex tells us that this chick is crawling with diseases. 

Damon and Angie have disappeared for the time being, locked into this apparent quest to get hammered and reignite their intimate history, in whichever order that has to happen. They will eventually reemerge, much more crocked than I last saw them. Damon mentions wanting to acquire a twelve-pack at Kroger before it’s too late, for whatever afterhours shenanigans transpire, a cause that even I deem worthy enough of a few dollars’ donation. 

For a welcome change, I have my game on at the pool tables, and we destroy these ladies. Yet in keeping with her alleged character, Andrea meets not one but two dudes at a nearby table, inviting both of them back to Amy K’s house for some post-closing-time fun. By this point Kristin and her thoroughly respectable man have long since left, for only the fanatical remain, these societal dregs for whom remaining out at 2am on a weeknight in an older skewing neighborhood sounds fantastic. Andrea asks John and me if we care to join them over at Amy’s place, but we beg off of this assignment and politely decline.   

The comedy continues as the house lights come up, as bar tabs are presented. Smashed beyond repair, Damon and Angie sit cackling at the next booth over, when Amy K and Andrea realize they don’t have enough money on them to cover the bill they’ve been handed. Between the six of us we can’t even finance it, for John confesses to the same sorry state as me, that he hasn’t so much as a nickel on his person now. These strangers Andrea has corralled into our midst shrug with blank faces, too, believing correctly that this is not their problem. 

The girls head back to Amy’s place in Dublin with these two guys. Without managing anything concrete in connection with this ex tonight, aside from possibly building bridges to the future, John goes home alone. Meanwhile as I’m chauffeuring this pair of inebriates in my backseat, I note that it feels like a perfectly good omen that they purchased a twelve of Lowenbrau, this exceedingly obscure beverage they’ve picked up with no knowledge of this drunken epic with Alan two months ago, during which he and I made the exact same choice.

II.

As of Sep ’06 they’re advertising that they have 85 hi-def TVs, that all NCAA football games and NFL games will be shown. Drink specials for Monday Night Football. $2.50 bottled beer and $2 off pizzas every Saturday and Sunday from 11am-7pm. Happy hours are 3-7 Mon-Fri and Nightly Specials 7pm to close Sun-Thu. At this time Carlile Club is listing AC as being their “sister club,” in ads, though I’m not sure what this means.

In late 2019 I make a point of driving past, just to see what kind of condition this place is in now. It’s hard to fathom that such a prime piece of real estate has sat empty for so long, yet this is apparently the case. Of course, at this point, if a new owner wanted to bring such a venture back to its former glory, you would probably need to annex one of the businesses that actually face Henderson, so people could see this operation was back on the map.

As it stands now, I was worried at first that even the “bat cave” entrance had been wiped out, because you can’t quite tell if approaching from the parking lot’s west side. This is still intact, however, and I used it for this literal stroll back to memory lane. At the top of this post, you can see what the rear entrance looks like now, and here are also a couple photos I managed to grab of the interior:

Back room of former Arlington Cafe

Back dance floor at Arlington Cafe

Finally, here’s some video footage of your journey from the front parking lot to the back entrance of the club:

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Larry’s

Larry's bar Columbus Ohio

Does anyone else remember open mic poetry night at Larry’s Bar, an OSU campus institution? Sadly, though opening its doors clear back in 1934, this treasured haunt at 2040 N. High Street is no longer around. But we all have great memories of this funky, down-to-earth establishment with the living room vibe.

It took me months upon months of reading about it in The Other Paper and Columbus Alive, their local happenings listings, before I finally worked up enough nerve to head down there one such Monday night in November. A cold night with bitter wind whipping around me, I walk/half jog down E. Woodruff Avenue and around the corner to this joint, grabbed a seat, timidly, at the bar. I order a Rolling Rock and survey the scene. Part of my reservation, I must admit, was hearing rumors now and then that Larry’s was secretly a gay bar…which itself was often countered by others insisting, no, the regulars just like to spread rumors that it’s a gay bar to keep it from being mobbed by frathole clowns and underage drinkers like all the other watering holes on campus. At any rate, my first impression is that Larry’s looks like your run of the mill dive, which I’m sure is just how the regulars like it. A cozy, almost coffeehouse vibe pervades this place, actually, and I can imagine becoming a protective aficionado myself after a few visits.

The guest of honor this particular evening is an out of town poet named Pamela Steed Hall. Open mic night runs from 7-9, and it seems that I’ve arrived just as festivities are about to begin. Mrs. Steed Hill takes the stage first, although it’s really just a cleared out section of the normal floor in back, and begins reading a number of selections from her recently published poetry collection. Her reading style is only okay, in my estimation, but the writing itself can only be described as awesome.

Following her, the host of this event – a funny, old school hipster guy with graying hair and one seriously dry sense of humor – gets up to read off a winning raffle number, with the prize being some underground poet’s chapbook, also recently published. Though this poetry night is partially funded by the Ohio Arts endowment, they also sell tickets for $1 each, by appearances a weekly ritual. When the graybeard had made his rounds moments earlier, I too had shelled out for a single entry, figuring why not support the arts, eh? The result for this particular drawing makes someone else happy, but not yours truly, which is to be expected.

Once this is finished, a number of local amateurs take turns upon the microphone. I wanted to see how this thing went before working up the nerve to perform myself, with an eye on possibly doing so the next time I visit. It turns out there’s a totally quotidian process involving a lined sheet of notebook paper on a table, and the first x number of poets to sign it per night get to recite, with everyone else left off and missing their chances at immortality, at least for another seven nights.

First up among the locals this time around is a tall bearded lad named Colin Dearth. Reminiscent somewhat in appearance of Jim Morrison, Dearth approaches the podium accompanied by this short, pale and skinny sidekick named Victor. Much like those old silent movie actors, Victor says nothing but cracks me up anyway with his facial expressions, at one turn silent and brooding, the next smiles – not to mention the pressing question of what is he doing up there, anyhow, itself a riotous concern.

Even more hilarious is Dearth’s choice of material, though. He (with possibly an assist from Victor) had picked out a recent sports page article from The Columbus Dispatch to read, a piece celebrating the OSU basketball team’s most recent victory, and now Colin begins reading it. Reads it with a passion, too, particularly the catch phrase “ball in the basket,” which crops up at least three times in the piece. Grinning coyly, Dearth raises his voice every time it occurs during the course of his recitation. A sample:

“I’m real proud of our team,” coach Jim O’Brien said, “they played real well and put the BALL IN THE BASKET.”

Throughout, meanwhile, Victor either makes his mournful faces, or nods when this central slogan rears its head.

Dearth leaves the podium after threatening to get up again next week, and Victor trails dutifully behind him. Up next is a somewhat serious cat in glasses, balding despite his young age, name John Glover. “I’m going to read two poems. One is 19 lines long, the other is 4,” he explains, then does just that. His style I would characterize as decent though unremarkable. Following him is a serious scholar with greyish black hair and beard, even thicker glasses than the host. This would be Frank Richardson. He recites slowly, in a deep, resonant voice, and his poems are long, crammed with all manner of obscure and forgotten words. Good stuff.

The middle section is for the most part boring – a black girl, Rita Baker, who’s too singsong-y for my tastes, then a flat out dull 60’s leftover named Elizabeth James. After that you have some kid named Dale Williams, whose reading abilities are strong even while employing only so-so source material, and Barbara Goodall, a grandmotherly old lady who fares about average, though better than expected.

Two final poets close out the night in strong fashion. Ken McCauley, a college age white boy whose style and material were both excellent, has one especially good piece about an existential type character being “discharged from the bus” as it comes to a stop. I’m taking a wild stab here that this one is highly autobiographical. Then there’s Christopher Apple, who in my mind had the greatest poem I heard all night. He’s a serious looking black kid with melodic, poetry slam worthy flow, and tonight’s highlight was a selection titled Something. The repeating refrain to this long, cleverly worded poem is, “something…I don’t know,” a phrase he returns to often.

The following Monday, I work up enough nerve to head down there with the intent of reading my own stuff. Technically speaking I haven’t written any poetry, ever, but do have a spiral bound notebook of crappy song lyrics, which will suffice. The whole point of this exercise is to force myself to get up there on stage. Giving speeches back in school, or getting up in front of a crowd to sing or play an instrument never really bothered me, but this seemed more personal somehow and I could feel my heart speed up just to think about it. So I stop at the Wendy’s next door first, for a bite to eat but also to steel my nerves before entering that shrine of the spoken word.

Colin Dearth is actually the featured performer this week, which suits me just fine – I find his material excellent (no mere sports page recital this time!) and his delivery even better. Plus, as an added bonus, he typically launches into extended monologues between each selection, and these might be the cream of the crop. He talks about his first poetry reading ever, which seems to be a significant instance of synchronicity relating to my own struggle, squirming in the chair, that he would broach this topic. That night, the occasion of his maiden recital, he had staggered in wasted, possibly not even aware a poetry session was underway, and stumbled up to the podium to recite a few insane lines off the top of his head. Since then, his approach has become slightly more refined. Warmly reminisces about recitals past, here and elsewhere, of “blowin’ a doob in back” before making his way to the stage, and once reading from a room in the rear of the building via a walkie talkie placed on the podium. All in all, I felt I could have listened to him read and talk for hours.

But of course, I have bigger fish to fry – namely, getting up and reading my own singsongy stanzas. After Dearth is finished, they have anyone interested waltz up and sign in, with only the first twelve earning a slot tonight. Initially I’m thinking to myself, in copout escape hatch fashion, “hey, I’ll wait and see if there are any slots left after everyone else signs up, then maybe add my name to the list.” But after a tortured second or two decide, screw that, I’d come here to read and would not be denied. Good thing I make that call when I do, too, for I wind up being exactly the twelfth person to put my name in the proverbial hat. Yet when the slots themselves are assigned, I am saddled with an early one, either second or third, which is fortunate in the sense that I don’t have an opportunity to lose my nerve.

Everything and everyone else is pretty much a blur. I remember clutching my blue notebook with these two typewritten sheets inside, the ones I’d transcribed to my computer and printed earlier to avoid fumbling through handwritten pages. I remember cautioning everyone before I begin, too, with the disclaimer that this is my first ever performance. They applaud before syllable one, then, which does help ease the nerves a bit. And my delivery is without question a wooden monotone, although the words themselves are not bad, as I rattle off the lyrics to Vibraphone and Fall Away Like Dust. Then it’s over. People clap and I hustle back to my dark back corner – and as I pass his table in front, Victor gives me the a silent thumbs up and nod of the head, which is all the approval I need.

In 2018, local musician Jovan Karcic released a song about Larry’s on his most recent solo album. I think it’s a cool tune and serves as a fitting tribute: