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University City Center

University City Center in Columbus Ohio

University City Center was a memorable strip mall, located on Olentangy River Road where The City apartment complex is now. They began knocking that building down in 2018 and its replacement took maybe a couple years to complete. I actually had no idea this project was underway, until cruising past one night in December of 2018 and noticing it was a fenced off construction site back there. Off the top of my head, I know that the Kroger was there for an eternity, and pretty much every building fanning off to the right (north) was in place from at least the late 90s onward.

Yet most of the detached buildings in front, nearer the road, are in place, which reminds me for some reason of how you’ll drive through the country every once in a while and spot a crumbled, abandoned house where just one wall remains standing somehow. Considering they are depicted on the sign itself, we must include them as part of this strip mall as well. A number of these buildings are quite weathered by now themselves. Below is a rundown of various entities who called the UCC home during its spirited run. Since it seems you were most likely to arrive here from campus, we will start at the bottom, southern edge and work our way north through the addresses. These are all Olentangy River Road, aside from a couple notable exceptions I’ll get to at the bottom:

2781: it all depends on whether you want to include this sad little brick building, which I am inclined to do. Though now closed, it still stands here and was formerly a shop selling Buckeye paraphernalia for many a year. It was called Across The Field and they were in business from 2010 to 2022. Somewhat resembles a church, and may have been one in its earliest days. Immediately prior to Across The Field, though, it housed Tedrick & Associates (1999-07), Studio 501 Architects, Space Craft Architecture, Art Access, Williams Music Co, and Allen Church Organs. That was all from the 1990s onward. In more recent times, a food truck called Chicken & Tea has been known to haunt these grounds.

Across The Field Columbus Ohio

2785: From at least 1997 to 2000, something called My Shop Inc. was here, as owned by one Georgeann Mock. But I can’t claim to actually remember this business.

2823: Raising Cane’s. As far as I’m aware, the last new building erected before the main strip mall behind it was knocked down. You know the drill here: great food, pleasant atmosphere, friendly help and tons of OSU/Columbus artifacts adorning the walls, alongside other randomness.

2825: Was once a Citgo, is now a Sunoco. But has boasted the same manager (Khalid Liraqui) for as long as I’m able to track these things (going on 30 years) which presumably means the same owner as well. The most remarkable feature about this location was that, in the late 90s, they ran this promo on a certain day of the week, every week, where all three gasolines “flavors” were priced the same. This place would be positively afire with traffic on that day, people lined up in their vehicles as deeply as the parking lot would allow.

One such afternoon, I happened to be driving through here, and for some reason paid more attention than usual to my surroundings. It was then that I realized, at least on this day, that every single car was occupied by Asians. And I thought this was really cool, kind of somewhat touching – this was before the internet had blown up, so obviously it had become a word of mouth phenomenon, they had passed along this tip in some fashion throughout their community.

On another occasion (who knows how or why this stuff sticks in your head), I was riding around with Alan one day and he popped in here for gas. As we’re leaving, he remarks that he has a headache, then happens for some reason to connect this with the fact that he hasn’t consumed any alcohol yet that day. Then catches himself and jokes, “oh god…I hope I’m not already so bad off that I get headaches if I’m not drinking anything…” We were, like, 22 at the time or something.

2831: I honestly don’t remember a Dairy Queen being here, even though it was apparently in existence clear up until 2008. But, alas, beer was obviously more of a priority for us during those years, not so much ice cream. But anyway, it would have sat at the very southern edge of the strip mall. After DQ left the scene, a restaurant called Cafe Kabul then gave it a go, up until the wrecking ball arrived.

2835: Hair Happening until 2007. A little later became Ace Cash Express, then something named Smokin’ Buckeyes, finally El Jalapeno Mexican Grill.

2839: CNC 30 Minute Photo, incredibly enough, lasted clear up until 2006 before giving up the ghost. Then it became a Liberty Tax operation.

2843: Chalkie’s Billliards had the most significant heyday in this spot. In more recent times I know a trendy modern bowling alley/bar combo sprouted up where Chalkie’s was – although it must not have been that trendy or modern, i.e. not worth saving. And I can’t figure out what that was called, despite having been here on at least one occasion.

I see that something called Red Planet X was also here, though this appears to have possibly been a clothing store. Then finally Sun Spot Tanning Salon.

2855: Big Lots was here for an eternity, right up until the end.

2865: Now we bounce down to one of those separate buildings in front, to a McDonald’s which has cranked out the quarter pounders even longer, and continues to this day.

2867: back up to the main building, where a Swan Cleaners seems to have been the final occupant. They were around for at least a decade or so.

2869: Fortune Chinese Restaurant stuck around from the late 1990s, if not even earlier, until very nearly the end.

2871: Was once a moldering pit called Time Out Sports Bar. Then turned into the much more lively NYOH’s (pronounced nye-ohs) (the owners, if I recall correctly, moved from New York to Ohio.) and then finally E Buckeye Bar & Grill, which I don’t believe I ever frequented. Prior to all this, it was a Mammoth Video, though this was before my time.

2875: Something called Just For You from 2002-04, then later Sushi Ting Japanese Restaurant.

2885: Jo-Ann Fabrics gave this spot a go for quite some time, which means it must not have been just drunken college kids stomping around these grounds, but little old ladies as well. Come to think of it, this probably explains all the fedora sporting grandpas over at Time Out Sports Bar, who were huddled over their Scotches while the wives presumably shopped for yarn in here.

Well, then it became Momo 2, followed by Cadillac Booz (possibly where the crotchety old timers relocated? Just a guess, based upon the name), and finally Red Club.

2893: was a Great Clips for many years, once again up to or very close to the end of this strip mall.

2895: X O X Karaoke Bar from 2013-17

2901: First a Rite Aid, then a Family Dollar.

2913: Kroger held this down as basically the anchor tenant of University City Center for decades. A full-blown operation with bakery and deli, of course, and also a Huntington Bank mini-location inside. Notable as the site where many of us glimpsed a Coinstar machine for the first time. Which in turn surely became the most ever used Coinstar machine for roughly the same group of people.

Cary worked here, at the same time she was a hostess at Damon’s, and through her I got to know a few other employees as well. Prior to her arrival on the scene, though, I actually applied to work at this store, part-time, though they shipped my application up to the not quite open Bethel Road one instead. And I joined the original cast there. As a result, though, this has all become an especially interesting what if? type parallel universe thought experiment for me over the years. Certain aspects of my life – like the Cary experience – might have turned out remarkably similar anyway, while others would have been completely different.

It was also handy on the occasions we ran out of supplies at the restaurant. Which seemed to happen more often than a professional, theoretically profitable operation should ever allow. I know I personally was sent over here a handful of times with some cash, in order to buy them some emergency steaks, at full grocery store retail prices. And then there was exactly one memorable afternoon, where I showed up and our kindly manager Dave Weinle handed me a five dollar bill.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

He chuckled and told me to take a “leisurely stroll” down to the Kroger, use this to purchase some razor blades and shaving cream. Then put those instruments to use in the bathroom mirror before returning to action.

2931: Was a Life Uniform & Shoe Shop, followed by Famous Nails.

2933: Woody’s Sports Club called this home – as we patrons did, in turn – for a relative eternity. Although I have to admit, our final visit was highly depressing and I somewhat regret even coming here then. This was 2008 and the place was long past its prime, though hanging around until the bitter end. It would have been much better to hold exclusively onto memories of its golden era.

For quite some time, there was a framed photo montage in the foyer area, in between the zigzag of its two front doors. I knew a few people captured in that collection, and often debated just grabbing the thing somehow, when nobody was looking. And, once again, regret not doing so, but I just never had the nerve. If there is ever such a thing as a theft for a just cause, however, I think this might qualify. Maybe I’m wrong, but suspect this probably wound up in a dumpster, eventually, and where is the justice in that?

2937: This was a Subway franchise for eons. Our pal Jeremy Wendling worked here a bit in the late 90s. This dude named Garry Appleton owned the joint and he also ran some other business out of here in his spare time – Sigco Inc., whatever that may have been.

One night some guy left his car running in front of the store while he ran inside to place an order. Meanwhile, somebody else allegedly strolled out of Woody’s, half-ripped, and climbed behind the wheel, drove away. The cops apparently showed up at Woody’s and everyone said they soon determined that the culprit was this Michael guy, who had just started waiting tables at our Damon’s a few days earlier. We never saw him again, it goes without saying. Although I’ve been unable to verify this episode online in more recent times, so who knows.

2941: And now for the business bookending this lineup, the PNC Bank at the front, northeast corner. I applied for an account here when first moving to Columbus, yet they refused me on the grounds that I only had a state ID, but not a driver’s license. I.e. the exact same piece of identification, except for the driving part. This made absolutely no sense to me and they eventually called a manager over to intervene.

“Let me get this straight – you only open accounts for people who can drive?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” she said with a straight face.

I think basically they didn’t want to trifle with deadbeat youths, if at all possible. Nonetheless, though never venturing inside again, their external digital clock would prove quite useful to me for roughly the next year and a half – comparing it, against my watch, which comes in handy on the occasions where management at Damon’s would maybe try and get clever by adjusting their own time clocks. Claiming we were late, and trick us into showing up a minute or two earlier.

2943: Finally, back to the strip mall for the last couple businesses. Comprehensive Chiropractic was here up to 2004. Then, a Georgetti’s Pizza.

2945: Rick’s Beverage peddled its wares here, possibly with some slight name changes, for well over two decades. It appears at some point they added a check cashing and possibly even a U-Haul renting racket to their portfolio of offerings, too.

OSU Red Roof Inn Columbus Ohio
OSU Red Roof Inn

Honorable Mentions:

This is one final pair of businesses, lining the southern perimeter, that I feel must be included under this University City banner. Both Ackerman addresses, one still here and one long gone, though both represented crucial pieces of the comprehensive UCC experience:

Applebee’s – I probably visited this one more than any other Applebee’s, ever. This primarily due to a popular strategy when working doubles at Damon’s, in that many of us would drift over here in between, pound some drinks and possibly lunch before strolling back to work for our dinner shifts. Hey, the veterans were doing this long before I arrived on the scene, so it isn’t as though this was my big idea. I don’t recall Applebee’s employees reciprocating this stunt, ever, though, which probably just means they were a much more professional operation and strictly forbade such. Or else didn’t schedule their employees doubles like that, or else Applebee’s employees had no interest in visiting our dingy hole – take your pick.

As far as double agents go, my former colleague and “disciple” Kathleen is the only person I know who worked in both places. Although it seems highly likely that others attempted this move over the years – and if so, I’m highly curious to see the breakdown on which direction more traffic flowed. Up until this bit the dust in 2017, by which point the Damon’s had already been long, long long long gone.

Red Roof Inn – this remains an ideal, centrally located base of operations if visiting Columbus, or for that matter a local resident wishing to crash after barhopping. In my experience, it’s always been a reasonably priced and totally decent hotel option. Aside from all that, or should I say included with this, there are a couple memorable nights I can recall, which transpired at least in part on these grounds:

1) Melissa informs us that she and a bunch of her fellow ADPi sorority sisters are renting a room at the campus Red Roof Inn, for reasons unknown. Needless to say, once we hear of this, Damon, Alan, and I are all about joining forces with them. Exactly three of those chicks we vibe with, I would say, and they are with us as well: Melissa, the other Melissa, and Tonia. Aside from them, there’s some lame redhead, a lame heavy set girl (you may detect a trend here), and a few others that don’t make much of an impression. Plus two other guys – one of which, Stan, is dating Melissa P. these days. The other being the lame redhead’s younger brother.

“Oh McGathey, what happened to you?” Melissa P. says, with considerable sadness. I assume by this she means the year or so detour into a serious relationship with Jill, but don’t ask. Granted that was a previously unthinkable development, although then again she doesn’t have much room to talk considering the presence of this cheesy Stan guy.

And anyway it doesn’t much matter, because Tonia is fused to my hip now. I don’t quite know how this happened, but sometimes the very first occasion you meet someone, it isn’t so much that you “hit it off” extremely well, more like you have this idea about exactly what kind of shtick or approach will work with this chick. And every once in a while that turns out to be correct. She’s a slightly chubby blonde, wears braces even, thinks herself really hot shit indeed, is considered annoying by some…but has a pretty face and I’m not complaining. To anyone else, anyway. With her I’m just kind of breezy and distant and for some reason she eats this up.

When we show up, it’s immediately apparent that there’s not nearly enough beer for eleven people. We brought a 24 pack of Busch, but there’s very little alcohol on hand apart from that. Not to mention, everybody is kind of hungry already. Therefore, we take up a cash collection for more brew, and theoretically some pizza as well. Damon is trying to shmooze the other Melissa, who has curly, dark hair, wears glasses, decent body and face, seems really cool. Alan is attempting to work the magic with one or more of the others. In consideration of this, it’s determined that I will make the big supply run. Tonia wants to come with me, of course. Unfortunately however the redhead’s brother is following her around everywhere, drooling in her footsteps, and insists upon riding along in the back seat.

Our first pit stop is at Hounddog’s, although they are closed for some inexplicable reason. Then again it is a weeknight and after 11pm, so maybe that’s what they’re doing these days. We roll onward to the Big Bear, up the road on High, figure we’ll just get the beer as well as whatever grub we can rustle up here. Throughout Tonia keeps peppering me with questions, but I maintain the same dry, don’t-give-a-fuck routine as always, and she seems to find this the coolest, funniest, most interesting material ever. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suffering from the delusion that any of this is hilarious or remarkable. Yet you have to remain in character anyway, and as long as I can maintain that, then she continues digging it.

If Paul were around, he would surely be miserable, though. And to some extent would have a point. Were it not for a couple of these fluke outliers, there would be no reason to have ever associated with these sisters. Really, I guess the most amazing aspect is that the other ones don’t torch our causes completely, which is often the case with these huge groups of girls where only a small percentage like you. It’s obviously not a problem if we’re with the smaller configurations of known allies – Melissa, Melissa, Tonia, maybe Melanie, in whatever varying combinations. Anything else has been a waste of time, though, if not an outright semi-disaster.

We tell ourselves in advance, hey, these girls are a little older now, maybe the other ones might take a little more kindly to us and our antics. Nope. And this includes nights like this where we are totally just playing it cool. In fact, our takes on these situations are that they are frequently the more ridiculous acting among us. See the girls drink a couple of cheap domestic beers and babble incoherently henceforth! See the girls (at least one per night, often more; tonight is admittedly on the low end) run off into the night crying over something (nothing)! See the girls insist we finally relent on playing Truth Or Dare, but only ever select Truth themselves, which is absurd considering none of them have done anything interesting to tell anyone about anyway!

Additionally, Melissa and Stan spend half the night locked in the bathroom, not to be seen again. Stan tells everyone with a broad grin, at one point, “Melissa gives great head,” which is presumably related to what they’re doing in there. But at least this counts as an interesting development, you could argue. Otherwise, in a room full of people, Tonia as usual lapses into total know it all mode, which is just something I’m going to have to learn to wait out or tolerate, assuming I have patience for this; the redhead’s brother continues striving to impress her, without success; these other whiny, wet blanket females, don’t change their trajectory one iota; and then there’s perhaps the only remaining salvation, the other Melissa, who remains really chill and cool. Damon seems to have that one locked up on his end, however.

In one of the exceptionally rare Dare turns, she does have to pull down my zipper with nothing but her teeth. Beyond this these young ladies seem mostly interested in comparing numbers, who has done what and how many times. Alan was crushing us at one point, but has been stuck at 18 for an eternity, thanks to his own recently ended monogamous relationship; in the wake of breaking up with his own girlfriend, meanwhile, this past year has seen Damon sail well beyond this figure, he says, and now tops 30; I’m able to dodge this question longer than most, but stick with the patented answer of 3, which nobody ever questions. I continue to believe this works better than the real figure and for certain much better than a bogus inflated one would. Not only that, but you have to know your audience, and in this crowd I’m definitely not convinced those large numbers are doing these guys any favors. They did after all notoriously kick that one chick out of the house for being too slutty – she was over at our apartment crying about it afterwards. And these girls all answer between zero and six themselves, as far as sexual partners. With one key exception, of course: the other Melissa.

It’s probably not a coincidence she digs Damon most of all. When we’re playing this game, she says she’s been with 12. That becomes a baker’s dozen by the end of the night, however. Those two eventually take off together, and we will learn of their exploits later. For now, Alan and I remain at the hotel, grinning and giving them a thumbs up as they leave. We have our own fish to try around here, with varying results.


2) I had rented a room here as my own HQ, having left town, but returning a year later to visit various people. This was the night of that final Woody’s visit, actually, which I planned out well in advance as seemingly the best place to conclude our full slate of adventures, considering it’s stumbling distance from this hotel. Not only that, but I also knew I would be calling my ex-girlfriend Heather when we got back to the room, though exceedingly nervous about this prospect. And am therefore drinking a wee bit more than usual. She keeps late hours, and this early AM one will be the best time for us to chat; this is an attempt to coordinate a reunion, but it’s been about five or six years, so who knows how any of this will go.

At this point, Damon is the last one left hanging out with me, though we met up with others earlier. The room has a spare bed, so he figures he may as well crash there too, then drive to work in the morning. Which surely helps amplify his alcohol consumption also. Not only that, but I’d already purchased some quality beer and stashed it in the fridge over there, to cover and any and all bases.

Well, Woody’s is a depressing ghost town, fallen considerably from its glory days, which isn’t helping matters any. Combine all this and I am in much more of a confessional streak than usual, and wind up telling him a couple things about which he had no clue. It’s been rainy out, and at closing time we are dodging puddles in traipsing across the lot, while continuing to chat. He asks me what Jamie was like in bed, which is funny to me because I was always under the impression that he had secretly banged her. But apparently not. In this funky mood I don’t mind divulging details, though, not at all.

Back at the room, I crack open a beer and dial a number I actually still somehow have committed to memory. A couple of my opening jokes bomb out somewhat miserably, but beyond that Heather and I have a fantastic conversation, one that stretches out beyond three hours. Damon is awake, kicking back in one of the beds and watching TV while listening for most of it. Even as this phone chat extends until 5:30 in the morning. She and I somehow skate around and technically don’t discuss one iota of our past together – instead it’s all about what’s happening now.

I tell her about Mom’s health problems and abrupt coarse correction into heavy drinking, which she has trouble believing. Then again, her mom is dead. And yet grandma Mary is still alive and well! She hasn’t talked to her sister in years, however, after they had a major falling out. I admit I felt like I had no choice but to leave town and move south, though am in this no man’s land right now where that doesn’t feel like home and neither does this, so I’ll probably just keep bouncing back and forth between the two for who knows how long. Obviously with Emma living here I will be up to visit quite a bit anyway, multiple times a year. Heather’s been working for Victoria’s Secret, which I know Damon finds the most interesting aspect of this entire conversation – out at the Limited compound, but still. That could prove a fruitful association, ahem. So she’s filling me in on how things are going over there. And we make plans to meet later this week.

When I finally crash out, I must have my neck angled at some crazy angle on the pillow, because it is killing me for the entirety of the following day. Comparing notes later with Damon, he says he couldn’t sleep very well, ended up watching some Lenny Dykstra documentary before getting up and heading into work. But that he glanced across the room at me, before splitting, and thought to himself that it looked like my head was at an extremely uncomfortable angle on the pillow. So he’s not the least bit surprised to learn that it is killing me now.

former Woody's Sports Club site Columbus Ohio
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Out-R-Inn

Exterior of Columbus, Ohio's Out-R-Inn

It takes us a lot longer to discover Out-R-Inn than it ever rightly should. Located somewhat slightly out of the familiar campus loop, on Frambes, which may explain why none of us have ever been here. A house which has been converted to a bar at some point, with a jagged stone wall in front guarding this elevated patio, a patio that in turn lords over the sidewalk. They’ve got a doorman checking I.D., always a positive sign that things are happening enough to bother, and we cross that threshold in turn. Upon first entering, our initial impression is that this place appears tiny, with a scuffed wooden bar and stools, not a ton of breathing space in this first room. They are blasting tunes from a CD player behind the bar, for which the drink slingers also choose the discs, although the most curious aspect about this arrangement is that the music is louder out on the sidewalk than it is in here.

We order a beer at the bar and walk toward the back, though, and it’s only in so doing that the full breadth of this operation reveals itself to us. Now, the space looms like an optical illusion in the other direction, where you’re struggling to picture how it’s this much bigger on the inside than would appear possible on the outside. There’s a side room, an upstairs, plus this gigantic back patio with another bar at one end. Brick arches which look like they’ve been around since the 1800s, in fact brick and wood everywhere, mostly the latter. Hardwood floors which are polished in some spots, mostly not, and this wooden corridor for darts, some low riding wooden picnic tables on the back patio, many a shiny wooden wall inside. The smallest stage known to man in one interior corner, but then also, curiously enough, basketball hoops in another behind the place. Television screens everywhere, as it considers itself somewhat of a sports bar, and some of these weird walls that double as windows, these wooden flaps that open whenever the weather is nice.

If there’s one downfall to this bar, it’s that there are way too many guys and not enough girls. Then again, you might say that about pretty much anywhere, given the wrong night. And there is enough visual candy to hold our attention, anyway. We entertain ourselves for the duration of the first beer, pretty much, watching this chubby blonde in a short skirt shoot pool, hoping for a panty shot. Then get bored, order a second round – Damon talks me into trying Moosehead, which isn’t bad – for a voyage onto the patio. They’ve got a shelf behind the bar, just below the monstrous CD rack, with every variety imaginable, and price tags hanging off of each, in a novel twist, which leads to such experimentation. The four of us have made a pact to drink nothing but imports while here, no American swill allowed.

It’s out on the patio that we make our first unexpected encounter, bumping into Frank Wiseman and his trusty sidekick Lauren. These two are hunched before drinks, alone, at one of the picnic tables, a quaint if somewhat bizarre tete-a-tete. He’s telling me he bartends at the Claremont steak house downtown now, and says I should stop in sometime for a drink. In addition to getting canned at our restaurant, he says he also quit Bowties, and is working solely down there at the moment. As for her, though in theory her friends, the other clubhouse bitches continue to make smirking wisecracks about her “drug problem” as they complain about her table thievery – and you would have to say these rumors are beginning to bear visible fruit. She’s looking a little thinned out and pasty these days, actually quite a bit so.

“Ugh. She’s not looking too hot these days,” I remark, after we leave them.

“It’s funny you say that,” Damon chuckles, as we excuse ourselves from that awkward private conference, “I was just thinking that. The first time I met them, I thought, what the hell’s she doing with him? Now I would say it’s the other way around.”

He has no sooner completed this thought before a second acquaintance comes bounding over, right when we step back inside. Carmen, the really cute, curly haired brunette he knows from school, seems delightfully surprised to see him here, and we stand talking to her, Damon most of all, naturally, for quite some time. He says she’s got a cool personality, and this observation seems to hold water in my limited interactions with her. She does have a tendency to lean in extremely close when speaking to you, which could be either intimidating or a turn on – mostly the latter, once you get to know her. It helps that she has a pretty face and a curvaceous body.

She’s here with friends, and returns to them as we head up to inspect the second floor. They have an actual jukebox located at the top of the stairs, and three pool tables. Also, some windows affording a terrific view of the surrounding terrain, both restrooms for some curious reason, and a curved exterior stairwell which leads out to that side basketball court.

We are among the few inquisitive souls actively hanging out up here, thus are able to immediately claim both a pool table and the jukebox. Alan puts some quarters into the juke and plays five or six tunes, with me right behind him. Then Paul, who almost never does this, saunters over to shell out for some songs.

“Watch, he’s gonna play Back In Black next,” Alan jokes to me in a whisper, and then we bust out laughing as this is exactly what happens. Followed by You Shook Me All Night Long.

Still, as predictable as he can be on many fronts, obsessed to no end when the rare subject appeals to him, Paul is still nonetheless capable of blowing your mind with the unexpected revelation now and then, more so than these other two friends. We’ve all got secrets, of course – you wouldn’t be human otherwise. But beyond those, speaking just about our basic personalities, I feel like you’re pretty much going to hear everything interesting that happened to Damon in the course of a day, unless he has a strongly compelling reason not to reveal it, and he will make these tales mighty hilarious in so doing. That Alan probably hews closer to me at the other extreme, as we’re more selective in relating our stories – either because these are the only ones which occurred to us, or we don’t want to bore people, or it’s just too much work – while Paul’s off to the side somewhere from all of these viewpoints. It’s as though he often considers admitting to anything other than the canonical obsessions as diminishing those obsessions. So while we’re chortling over the AC/DC, he seems undisturbed, and possibly not even registering this, raving about this album for the thousandth time…but then abruptly switches gears, when a Soundgarden song airs, says he used to be in a band that played Jesus Christ Pose and he always thought his was a killer cut. I’m floored, and in a way can’t imagine Damon or Alan would ever tell me anything more shocking than this.

It feels like one of these strange nights, though, where everyone’s in a somewhat giddy mood for no concrete reason. I’m not the only one gripped by this sensation that something interesting is bound to happen tonight – which of course often winds up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, as such good cheer and optimism makes things happen on its own. Even as I’m just about out of money and cut myself off following this third round, and Kathleen either passed out early or blew me off, nothing can diminish the potential of this still young night. Alan talks me into drinking a Beck’s Dark, same as him, even though they screw up and give him a regular Beck’s. Damon and Paul beat the two of us in both pool games, somehow, even though Radick’s easily the worst of us, and rarely plays. Then we decide to head down the sidewalk, in favor of Que Tal.

II.

Bob Gil, an OSU graduate, purchased the Out-R-Inn in the early 1980s. At the time the place was struggling to turn a profit, but he soon turned it into a money-making success. For unknown reasons, despite owning a couple thriving businesses around town, in the early 1990s, he decides to bring in some buddy from his softball league, Marty McNamee, as co-owner on all his enterprises. This is a decision he will presumably come to regret, however, as in September of 1994, Gil will wind up dead, courtesy of a single gunshot wound to the head – and McNamee himself has to be considered the prime person of interest in this still unsolved case.

For much more on this incredibly strange odyssey, I would recommend checking out the always excellent coverage on that episode of True Crime Garage. In the wake of Bob’s death, though, his dad will actually inherit a chunk of these businesses. Then Marty buys him out (their holdings also include the sports bar Pockets on Kenny Road), in 1995, shortly before running into a whole heap of legal trouble himself, one which will conclude with a 36 month prison sentence.

As for us, we will return to Out-R-Inn often, both for the remainder of our campus years and well beyond. It’s the rare kind of establishment where you’re likely to find a bunch of college students but also a sizable middle aged or older crowd, who feel right at home here. Easily the campus establishment I’ve visited most since moving out of the university area, where for example, when one of my aunts and a cousin came to town for a visit, this immediately leapt to mind as our best option. Our go-to choice before and after concerts at the Newport…but also a place I went to alone, one night, after fighting with Jill, while the rest of my friends went to a show at the Newport. After which, but of course, the friends were kind enough to join me.

In the name of full disclosure, I have to admit the night this really cute and curvaceous brunette barmaid decided she was too hot, and to serve drinks in just her bra, this was reason enough alone to return for many, many months. Even if, as Closing Time is playing from their boombox near the end of the night, and Alan mouths the words, the whole I know who I want to take me home line, jabbing an insistent finger in her direction as she slings drinks, he is not exactly successful in these romantic efforts. I know we will never forget that night, and hope to never forget about checking into this so-called inn, either, every now and then.

To see it a couple of decades later, in 2019, not a whole lot has visibly changed. Almost all of the updates seem to be music related, which is a fitting commentary on our modern era. The tunes aren’t nearly as loud when approaching the building, and once inside, you will immediately observe that the racks of compact discs behind the bar are gone. Upstairs, the juke box has been yanked, but otherwise it’s like stepping into a time warp.

This is my first visit since I think 2006, so there are plenty other details I had forgotten about, but am pretty sure were always in place here. Like nearly every square inch of the wood and brick walls being covered with signatures up on this second floor, and the men’s room with the giant piss trough and just one toilet stall otherwise. Downstairs again, I am confronted with the unfortunate sight of just six draft taps, most of them offering cheap domestics. Although it’s easy to forget this is a college campus, and they’re just giving the masses what they want.

McNamee sold the place somewhere around 2005-ish, as he was filing for bankruptcy…although this would soon turn into a tax fraud/money laundering case against him. According to a September 11, 2007 article by Columbus Business First, McNamee was sentenced to three years of prison, in addition to some hefty restitution to the tune of about half a million dollars. This had something to do with, in part, staging a flood for insurance money (not here, but at this residence). A federal grand jury convenes in D.C. and convicts him with a slew of charges, including money laundering, tax fraud, conspiracy, mail fraud, cash skimming, a false insurance claim, and fraudulent tax returns.

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Waterbeds ‘N’ Stuff

Waterbeds-N-Stuff-Columbus-Ohio

Never before or since has such a wacky retail establishment boasted a more commonplace name. People from out of town laugh when you approach one, suggesting a quick pit stop, although of course they will soon get it, they will understand everything.

To begin, for campus porno purchases, only Waterbeds N’ Stuff suffices. But of course, this only scratches the surface on their offerings. Yes there are indeed waterbeds, although the ‘n’ stuff part of the equation arguably matters more. I don’t remember how we first heard about the place, but then again the catchy commercial jingle was all over the radio then, and High Street as a whole was some kind of Machu Picchu for those of us living out of town. My girlfriend Heather and I would make the hour drive down from Lexington or Mt. Gilead or something back then just to shop this place.

This would have been the original campus location, mostly. If you look at the picture below, also posted on my catch-all High Street page, you’ll see a giant open space to the left of Maxwell’s:

Columbus Ohio's Maxwell's bar & Magnolia Thunderpussy, late 90s
Maxwell’s bar & Magnolia Thunderpussy, late 90s

Yeah, that would be where you would have found the OSU campus iteration of Waterbeds N’ Stuff, up until a fire consumed it in I believe April of 1996. Taking with it, I should mention, the treasured indigenous pizza joint Papa Joe’s.

Located further up High, about a block north of Lane, this newer Waterbeds location doesn’t have quite the same charisma nor the space, but offers a much more focused version of its standard notorious wares. A world glass selection of bongs and pipes and designer lighters underneath its countertop glass, the walls are adorned with black light posters and psychedelic tee shirts, with racks and display cases of trinkets both delicate and bizarre in the middle of the sales floor. Past a beaded curtain in back are the sex toys and adult games and pornos, and finally, in one remote corner, a few futons and papasans and pillows to justify its name. The initial spot and I think the one on Sawmill – also visited a time or two – had a second floor full of actual waterbeds, but space constraints rule out that offering here.

I’m happy to see they remain a thriving enterprise, with 13 outposts (a couple are furniture only, even, thus proving I suppose that the name isn’t a total nudge-and-wink wisecrack), an Instagram account and a blog. They have semi-rebranded themselves as Beds N’ Stuff in recent times, probably because nobody really buys waterbeds anymore. Otherwise, though, it appears to be business as usual – although I haven’t heard the theme song in many a year, however, and am wondering now if it might be available anywhere online.

Back to the pornos, which we had to – gasp! – purchase in the years preceding mass internet proliferation, these were already cheap enough at ten dollars a pop in mid-90s dollars, bargains made further so with a buy-one-get one coupon printed on the back cover of The Other Paper each week. Their prominent location on such a major publication – printed every Thursday, as was Columbus Alive – didn’t even seem that strange at the time, though difficult to imagine now.

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The Jailhouse

We subjugate the streets, demanding spoils. Damon and Alan attack the midweek happy hour with a fervor, and as I’m rolling in from another double sided workday, they’re already three sheets. They’re just now catching their second wind, they’re sucking me into an optimistic whirlwind which carries us like styrofoam keg cups all the way down to High.

A Wednesday night equals country music at the Jailhouse, and the first solid lead Damon has produced. Smack dab in the heart of campus, near the northwest corner of Lane and High, the Jailhouse seems an odd host for this weekly hoedown. A fashionable club pouring reservoirs of beer and throbbing dance music to the collegiate legions, the other six days draw an entirely different crowd. But Wednesday comes and the boots return, the ten gallon hats, to the backing of the lonesome western dirges these people know by heart.

A correspondingly older crowd, mostly, though also including two girls Damon knows from school, Laurie and Jessica. Roommates, they’re both majoring in fisheries management, same as Damon, and have invited him to the Jailhouse tonight. He warns us not to expect much from either, but we’re starving for prospects ourselves and are not inclined to miss it.

Even by location, the Jailhouse stands alone. Joined at the hip to a Greek deli, mounted a half dozen steps above the street, the nightclub faces West Lane Avenue in relative aloofness. Dozens of bars dot north campus and far more limn the university’s bottom border, but the ones between are spaced out piecemeal. So they’ve got this corner of the university sewn up themselves, at least as far as dance clubs are considered and at least for the time being.

Laurie’s a tall, suave blonde, stylish and beautiful like a classic Southern belle. Sophisticated, remote, she says little, but something about her watchful eyes, her fuss free wisps of hair, these imply her age might extend a few years beyond ours. At any rate, in her boots and tight jeans, her button down satin shirt, her demeanor and appearance suggest a sassy gold digger from the 80s soap Dallas. But she’s far too subdued to fit this timeworn stereotype, she’s as cool as winter rain.

Unfortunately, her roommate Jessica more than makes up the difference. Flat as a board, her facial features similarly bland, Jessica wears her brown hair bowlcut short. No dummy, she’s aware of our wandering gaze. Desperate for attention, she stops at nothing to seize it, she drops her pants now and moons us, all in the name of showing off a fish tattoo on her otherwise lackluster ass.

Bottle in hand, Laurie leans against the dance floor railing with impeccable nonchalance, eyeing the crowd packed snugger than her jeans. But upon the lip of the slightly elevated dance floor ourselves, Jessica insures we advance no further, yammering above the clamorous country patter, accosting Damon with a ceaseless rundown of her day’s spectacular achievements. Akin to Raymond on three pots of coffee, she’s shamelessly self exalting, enumerating professors delighted, tests aced, and papers penned with utmost precision.

Having long since given up on Meredith, Damon’s primary interest lies in working Laurie, but Jessica won’t let him. Thankfully Alan and I are not trussed as such, and we leave him nailed without pity upon that cross. We squirm through every dark corner of the bar, we climb into the zipper teeth mesh of this dance floor crowd and unveil our amazing club moves. Throughout, I follow Alan’s lead, waiting patiently for the moment this seasoned veteran approaches some of these genteel foxes. Given his pronounced buzz, what I don’t expect is this sudden timidity, an atypical Alan.

We can’t claim, after all, any misgivings with the atmosphere. Just as unexpected is the warm welcome we’re receiving here, veering sharply away from the glowering indifference those elitist snobs showered upon us at Coeds and the Edge. Here, the guys tip their cowboy hatted heads once by way of wordless hellos, the chicks place gentle hands upon our backs while squeezing past. For a senseless joke I’ve worn my old pizza delivery uniform here tonight and we’re both dancing like flagrant jackasses, but nobody seems to mind either. Twinkle eyed old timers watch from afar with faint, praising smiles, and couples cling tightly, while we hog as many square inches their passivity will allow.

This place is so packed, too, that even when I dip out onto the back patio for fresh air, one must shout to be heard. And now that we’re drawn into this hyperactive sweat lodge, with ladies similarly inclined, it appears a voyage to the dancefloor is unavoidable. Lain like a silicon chip on a motherboard, slightly sunken and tucked just so into the front left corner of the bar – if you’re facing the street – a rickety railing divides it from polite society on the backside. Floor to ceiling mirrors flesh out the remainder of that wall, wrapping around and continuing down the entirety of the furthest one. Windows line the front, meanwhile, overlooking Lane Avenue and the equally intoxicating nightlife beyond, the breadth of OSU’s massive campus of which this marks more or less merely its northern edge.

Somehow, nearly five months pass before our next visit. This time around, it’s a Thursday, and the three of us arrive as part of a house party relocating en masse to the establishment.  And while we enjoyed ourselves at country-western night in January, it’s quickly apparent that Thursdays are an altogether different animal, and we need to work this back into our mix pronto. Already one o’clock, which is possibly the perfect clubbing hour, and this Jailhouse, exquisitely named considering the number of clearly underage drinkers here, is packed to the point that idle contemplation a la Maxwell’s is simply not an option. A claustrophobic constituency so potent we virtually have no choice but grind up against the girls in our group, as we collectively storm the dance floor. Which isn’t to say we mind, only that absolutes are appreciated, eliminating second guess.

With the walk and an extended stand in line, lost time and the DJ’s skittering beats add an urgency to these motions. Though joining us out here, Damon does mostly lean against the cell block railing, determined to mentally capture every noteworthy creature prowling these grounds, employing a cigarette smokescreen to dissuade all attempts at making him dance. Alan and I, meanwhile, pounce on these passing moments, determined to master them rather than the other way around.

Keisha slithers between us, trashed and laughing as we mash our bodies against her, a tag team executed in this sanitized playground with all our clothes still on. Her bluish purple satin blouse and tight black slacks, not to mention her proximity, invite textile examination, and as she pumps against him, Alan grips her ass cheeks firmly in his hands, squeezing them, while I support her elephantine breasts in mine. Then he and I switch places, swapping duties, as Keisha continues howling her fool head off, shouting what a blast this is.

Like a gas filled balloon, physical laws dictate that these particles will never hold one constant position. Clusters break apart and scatter, reassemble elsewhere in temporary random sequences. Becky emerges, we drape one loose arm across the opposite’s shoulder, seal our interlocking pelvises together as one as we obey the hyperactive beat. Whereas Damon refuses yet this dance floor’s siren call, he manages hands full with Lauren’s backside, and she gamely shakes everything she has into them. Lauren now turns to face, and gyrate upon, his stationary mass, as I move from Becky in behind her, hands mobile, resurrecting the Keisha skewer executed moments ago.

The hourglass betrays, however, and our disc jockey’s amplified bellow announces, with as much merriment as possible, impending last call. Hordes deplete with tsunami force, depicting Maxwell’s as a Sunday knitting circle by contrast, and I pause for breath along the rail with Damon and Lauren, the three of us bound together, and little hope of locating the others within this mad stampede. But jokes about her looseness aside, Lauren’s dumbfounded gape fails to stir these loins. I can’t quite figure out why, but she bothers me. Striking off into this still grooving swarm, for half have gone nowhere, for the music continues and colored beams swirl where house lights have yet to come up, I stumble by what seems a miracle onto Becky and two of the other nameless girls, stepping lighter now with the rhythm, here where the dance floor cuts off near the bar.

“What’s your number?” I shout into her ear.

Without breaking her backbeat stride, she barks out the seven digit code. “Call me!” she urges, now abruptly throws her arms around me in a parting embrace.

I find Alan and Damon comparing notes by the door, and we exit together. We take only a handful of steps outdoors, however, and a brawl erupts before us, drawing our feet up short on the sidewalk. Two wiry males, shirtless, and one rams the other’s head against the Jailhouse’s brick front wall. Now a smattering of friends join the fray from both sides, and the battle spills out onto Lane Avenue itself. Traffic at an actual standstill, though whether in deference to the brawlers or simple rubbernecked curiosity is impossible to establish. Late breaking cops rush now on foot across this grassy expanse at the southwest corner of High, and all other factions, opposing or otherwise, disperse.

As the years advance and the Campus Partners scourge begins to wipe out all competition, this Jailhouse soldiers on unopposed. Owing to its location, along Lane Avenue and therefore insulated from that south campus cleanup effort, this place is spared that particular wrecking ball campaign. Even so, people for whatever reason aren’t as loyal to dance clubs as they are their favorite dive bars, and for the Jailhouse to hang around as long as it does is impressive. Steamy and overcrowded to begin with, in the face of withering options it becomes doubly so. Placement of the lights is also such that these swarms of bodies seem to blot out most potential illumination, making for a dim affair before you’ve even started pounding any beverages. Maxwell’s in its heyday is comparable, maybe, but not now and maybe not ever.

At some point, however, it does appear that this place did coincidentally enough (considering the name)…run afoul of the law. Not that it’s all that shocking to consider the cause, the familiar old bugaboo around these parts: serving minors. So yes, it was a constant campus plague, yet only one club was foolhardy enough to jinx itself with a name like The Jailhouse. After this, it became Quarters. Chances are I will create a separate post about Quarters sooner or later, but for the time being, you can sleep easy knowing that it was pretty much the exact same thing as before.

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Ruby Tuesday

OSU campus bar Ruby Tuesday, Columbus, Ohio

(click here to jump ahead to: 2000 Events Calendar, 2001 Events Calendar

Not to be confused with the national restaurant chain, the Ruby Tuesday at 1978 Summit Street is an OSU campus institution. A mellow dive, Ruby’s is basically your proper English pub, outfitted almost entirely with wood and a dark, smoky atmosphere that grows incrementally warmer the foggier it becomes. They opened their doors in August of 1973 and soon became a local favorite – all the more so, over the ensuing years, as virtually every other legendary campus tavern has bit the dust.

A creaky wooden beer stained floor and matching bar, matching tables and chairs and stage further accentuate this idyll, not to mention the mostly killer jukebox. Above it a chalkboard calendar charts the musical acts due up this month, horrendous though most of them are. Two pool tables near the front door and real darts, an elaborately stained glass window on the other half of the bar and the kind of chattering hippie clientele that unites the thread of conversation, on quiet nights like these, from one end of the building to the other.

When we first become aware of the joint, we’re living within stumbling distance at 1990 1/2 Summit Street, and are regular patrons soon enough. We walk two doors down to Ruby’s, where the rustic ambience blasts away our cabin fever. Here the sun slants through the stained glass of their elaborate front window, in warm shades reminiscent of a roaring campfire. More than anything, Ruby’s is a western saloon from the end of the 19th century, and if they’d only replace the jukebox with a beer soaked piano, the illusion would stand complete. Sometimes I imagine that I’ll glance through a pane of that multicolored window and feast my eyes upon a rutted dirt road with horse drawn carriages, a few stray tumbleweeds.

Were this the case, then our favorite Ruby’s regular would assuredly hold the post of town marshal. Unfailingly attired in cowboy boots and faded jeans, a thick salt and pepper mustache and button down shirt, he occasionally adopts a brown leather vest and ten gallon hat as well. Roaring down Summit Street in his enormous yellow 1970s auto, its muffler painfully ineffective, he parks in front of Ruby’s, breezes through the door arm in arm with his gloriously middle aged wife. Smiling in benign abstraction at everyone she encounters, the lady I peg as our mining boomtown’s lone seamstress, or perhaps the proprietor of its thriving whorehouse. A coy flapper girl perhaps, should she dress the part, were she twenty years younger.

As the sun sinks into purple twilight, this bluesy hillbilly outfit takes the stage. Pitchers of beer abound, and the air is alive with a dozen disparate conversations, audible alongside the band without drowning it out. On this side of the bar, they dim the lights down to accommodate a flickering candle atop each table, and we’re reclined here absorbing the group’s twangy wares. Though quite competent at what they do, this isn’t exactly our cup of tea, and we await the moment our quarters come up on one of the pool tables.

The band finishes its first set, yet this ungodly feedback fills the air, leaving the guitarist onstage to investigate its source YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and as Alan descends a flight of stairs to the basement restroom, the guitarist inspects his axe EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE he inspects his amplifier. He stands there literally scratching his head, but this voluminous, continuous squeal divides the atmosphere like a bandsaw EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and the din grinds down to absolute standstill, pin drop quiet if not for the banshee shriek. Miffed by this mysterious malfunction, the guitarist begins unplugging their equipment, walking off with a shrug.

It is only when our mustachioed town marshal spins around from his bar stool to face the crowd do we divine the genesis of this marathon wail. Drawing deep within his powerhouse lungs for one last triumphant hurrah, he concludes this raucous endorsement HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!  and grins with obvious delight, knocking off the dregs of his beer mug. He stands and grabs a pool stick as the bar explodes with laughter, and the conversation eventually swells back to life.

“What the fuck was that?”  Alan asks, returning from below.

“It was him!” I cheer, pointing at our friend.

Christ that was loud,” Alan declares.

His wife showering smiles from her own barstool, our hillbilly friend rustles up a redneck partner and in tandem, they own the table. Our quarters come up and we meet them head on, but they eat up an hour draining our pockets, reigning triumphant. And yet within this window of fierce struggle, while the first band wraps up its show and a second nearly identical group begins, we manage just three games.

In shooting the breeze with his fellow patrons, pausing for giant gulps of draft beer, the average time elapsed between the arrival of his turn and that which he actually shoots approaches five minutes.  With every female entering the saloon, regardless of age or appearance, our goodwill ambassador slings an eardrum puncturing whistle in her direction. He lines up to take a shot, then straightens, turns to somebody at the bar behind him in resurrecting a prior conversation.

“Anyway, as I was saying……”

Maddening, if not so hysterical.

In lieu of a good woman, or for that matter any woman at all, we turn to Ruby Tuesday instead. Drink, pool, music: not the least bit novel by way of escapism, but solace plenty in times such as these. She’s always here for us, welcoming us into her womb, no matter how varied and strange the occasion. Walking in one drowsy weeknight unawares, A Clockwork Orange is flickering on the giant screen behind the stage, and we laugh our asses off watching Damon squirm in his seat.

“What the fuck!?” he bellows, “I don’t get it!”

Super Bowl Sunday Alan and I wander in to watch the Packers trounce the Patriots upon the same rolled down backdrop, shocked at the enormous food buffet provided to patrons gratis. Pizzas and meatballs and wings of every imaginable variety, it’s a far cry from the bland, dry popcorn secreted by that machine in the corner, typically our only sustenance here. But they likely banked enough dough that night selling booze and beer to the massed throng of screaming savages to pay rent for a year, justifying the banquet’s expense.

Aside from bartender Randy’s scowl, our sole entertainment most evenings is the more familiar standby, live music. Yet even such a tried and true commodity is never formulaic, despite their apparent intent to book an endless succession of jam hearty hippie bands. Somehow, be it opening act or otherwise, wild cards slip through the ranks, chaotically diverse in style as well as quality. An enchanting neo-psychedelic band named Sugar Pill, for instance, with a lead singer in granny glasses and a paisley shirt, tall and white with a huge jet black afro. A bad by-the-numbers metal band called Chaos Theory. The worst band of all time, Weave, comprised of four overly earnest dorks playing generic college rock, a torturous affair redeemed only by their cover of Duran Duran’s Rio.

Far more typical is a jam band Damon and I catch here one night, four older gentlemen known as Men of Leisure. Arriving during the final notes of one set, we endure a forty five minute break before they take the stage again for their last – no band was ever more fittingly named. Though now nearly two in the morning, a point where most attendees have either left or no longer care, their first tune alone clocks in at eight minutes, and the rest stray not far from this mark.

From the outset, we’re convinced they suck mightily. The chops heavy quartet – drummer, guitarist, bass player, and saxophonist – proffer a loose vibe a la Local Color, but lack both the style and the grace of that band, playing the part of Southern rock and roll vagrant to the other group’s west coast acid hippie. Bored to the point of nearly weeping, we endure three such meandering epics, and are too lazy to relocate ourselves before they begin a fourth.

Yet this particular song begins with a captivating James Brown style groove, before flying off, halfway through, into a Neil Young-ian feedback tangent. This singular feat alone is enough to win us over, and we’re rooted to our chairs for the duration of their performance, which extends well beyond two thirty. Men of Leisure ultimately win a thumbs up, but for every one of them there are four or five Weave around town, a half dozen Chaos Theory. Ruby’s embodies this basic musical pie chart as well as any campus bar, and still we can’t refrain from coming here, drawn by the lopsided uncertainty of what we might find.

You might expect that with a live music palette this diverse, the clientele is by default hip to diverse jukebox tuneage as well. Yet there are apparently limits to this theory. I dare play the half hour Pink Floyd epic Echoes, which is fine and dandy until the music breaks away to that long section where there’s nothing but chirping seagulls or whatever for a solid two or three minutes. Randy preempts by storming over to the jukebox and skipping the rest of the song entirely, advancing to the next selection I’d picked with the press of a button. Applause breaks out in disparate corners of the bar, as three or four individuals clap their hands, shout their thanks to him.

An opening act now mounts the stage, Johnny Smoke. Hailing an hour west, from the eclectic rock and roll city of Dayton, Johnny Smoke hurl themselves into a breakneck set of punky pop.  But while the songs are unfailingly catchy, not to mention a far sight better than the standard fare here, an air of mediocrity pervades the performance, the musicianship itself. Their lone ace lies in the hand of a lanky, disheveled lead singer, who, while not vocally gifted, is nonetheless a ham actor born to be hogging the stage somewhere.

“If it weren’t for beer and pot, I’d be dead,” he announces, straight faced, between songs.

They launch into a tune concerning old Def Leppard and ZZ Top shows witnessed at the Hare Arena back home, in a jaunty vein akin to all that’s come before. Yet their set soon draws to a close, and the bar is swelling with an odorous flock intent upon catching tonight’s headliners. Judging from the crowd, we speculate another hippie jam band awaits us, an assumption soon proven correct.

Mary Adam 12 is the moniker this outfit operates under, but they just as easily could call themselves Local Color II or Men of Leisure Lite, a watered down version of what we’ve already seen done better. Sure, with a half dozen musicians who clearly know their instruments backwards as well as forwards, and a short, chubby chick doing a credible job on lead vocals, they stop short of outright hackdom. But every song they crank out sounds identical to the one before, and each is at least two minutes too long, a frightening cocktail for any group. Not to mention one that sounds like half the other bands we’ve heard around town, considering themselves a modern day Dead and cultivating a mob of would-be flower children wherever they wander. The music, accordingly, is an unrelenting, unwavering hippie shuffle – chick, chick chick; chick, chick chick; chick, chick chick – tedious as hell three cuts into the set.

Adhering to this vibe, the crowd seems also a strip mall version of the Local Color following. The swirly, elbows bent hands raised dance prevails here, predictably, but the girls are generally less hairy and the guys more inclined to shower, with both sexes dressing sharper, as a rule, than their Not Al’s brethren. A number of the same individuals assuredly populate both crowds, true, and yet whatever their particulars neither party has a problem displaying its affection for the meandering kaleidoscope of sound. Maybe if Alan or I are on drugs, like everyone else appears to be, then we might enjoy this grand spectacle better. We aren’t, however, and we don’t.

As much as we frequent this place, however, it’s only natural that we begin recommending it to others. Among the first such beneficiaries of our kindness are Mandy, Melissa, and K.C., a trio down visiting from our hometown area of Mansfield. Mandy especially falls in love the instant she sets foot inside the place.

She gapes at the bare wooden floors, scuffed, unvarnished, she marvels at the modest unoccupied stage. K.C. digs our favorite neighborhood haunt, too, mostly because this is one of the last establishments around still featuring actual cork dartboards. Everywhere else we encounter computerized plastic monstrosities, which tally the score, though offering nothing for aesthetics, the weight and feel of an actual steel tipped dart in hand, the joyous jolt of a successful toss.

Beer pours heavy from tap into pitcher, as we coalesce around a thrown together table on the other half of the bar. Setting up camp between the dartboards and the stage, pushing together three small square tables into a larger conglomeration. In teams of two we wage war upon the cork, each game an attempt to dethrone the previous winners. Adamant but the notable exception of Damon, who’s half crocked before we leave the house and spends his time trying to worm down September’s pants.

In the tavern’s cobwebbed basement, dust gathers on the ghosts of a bygone era. Robust years where a second bar, buried underground, thrives in autonomous glory and the booths, now dry rotted, cater to capacity. I look at these stained cement walls, barely visible in the lone light hanging at the foot of these stairs, and think of decade old conversations that died and dried against them, buried in spots by the handwritten, magic marker graffiti. I like to believe that the redolent swirl of voices and smoke and throaty barfly laughter never dissipated, but gradually morphed, through some mysterious alchemic process, into the mildewy stench that saturates the air down here.

Gone beyond reclamation, the basement serves no purpose at present other than he and she restrooms that were never relocated. Upstairs beside the first pool table, a fist sized hole in the floor peers directly into the ladies’ facilities, but this piece of information amounts to no more than a useless, well known curiosity. Voices occasionally float skyward from below, and nothing else, for not even we are perverted or depraved enough to risk sneaking a peek. Collapsing face first in a crowded room, cheeks flush against the floorboard as eyeballs strain and rotate in their sockets for one meager illicit glance, yeah, this might ruffle more than a few feathers.

OSU campus bar Ruby Tuesday close up
OSU campus bar Ruby Tuesday, up close

II.

Arriving home brings with it the kind of pleasant surprise often stumbled upon when, not only did you have no idea what somebody was up to, but it never occurred to you to wonder about it in the first place. Feeling completely drained already by the holidays, I’ve intended to just chill at home – even on a prime weekend night such as this – and yet here’s Alan, unexpectedly haunting these grounds.

“Leigh’s coming over, and a couple other people from work,” he says, “you up for heading over to Ruby’s with us?”

I can’t imagine what kind of twisted conversations must have befallen them, to make this sound like a reasonable option. Leigh’s obviously easing up on the schedule a bit to even make it out tonight, and beyond that I get the impression that slumming it here on campus is a cheap little lark, a low rent vacation. Ooh, let’s go see what those weirdos are up to down there! That will be a fun change of pace! Furthermore, owing to their tendency to schedule nothing but hippie jam bands basically every night of the week, coupled with our overindulgence in the place our first six months or so living here, Ruby’s has just about excised itself from our repertoire.

It will soon emerge that the ringleader behind this brilliant enterprise is a newcomer to our circle, a guy from the airport called Snoop. His given name is Kevin, but apparently nobody uses that. Alan warns me in advance that this dude is a little off in the head – in the best sense of the phrase, though, meaning a fearless party animal who, reminiscent of our former mentor Doug, is too out there to even recognize any boundaries.

Leigh is next to arrive, bringing with her some Rachel chick from the airport. Rachel is a sweet though slightly heavier blonde with a really pretty face. To paraphrase Damon, let’s just shorthand these attributes in a neat, simple phrase and call them trouble. Perhaps for the best, though, she’s also underage, a fact which is surely the impetus for this decision to drink on campus. No sooner have we set foot inside the door, too, does Snoop enter the fray with guns blazing, so to speak, affording an instant glimpse at his fabled shenanigans.

A pair of bartenders neither Alan nor I have ever seen before are slinging drinks tonight. Snoop saunters up to the bar and casually requests two pitchers. This duo, which seems to be issuing orders jointly, demands that if he wants pitchers, they’ll need to see the IDs for all parties involved. So now Snoop returns and, as the bar is packed and we’re kind of standing off in a remote corner, he hatches a plan that Alan and I should go up together, request the same quantity of pitchers. Surely these guys aren’t paying that much attention, it will appear as it’s just the two of us.

But of course this turns out to be a waste of time. Our buddies are nothing if not observant, and had seen the entirety of our small crew walk in together. If we want pitchers, then all five of us need to approach the counter with licenses in hand, now. Sheepishly, without much commentary, we do just that. The bartenders pour us the pitchers, though dispensing only four glasses – a move that doesn’t require any explanation – and telling us to sit within sight of the bar.

We stand around for a moment, at Snoop’s murmured insistence, before he tilts his head for us to follow him over to the bar’s dim other half, the side with the stage. Here we are able to cram into a table shielded from the bartenders’ view, courtesy of a thick central support beam. Yet both come running over within a minute’s time and neither barkeep seems to find this stunt very amusing.

“I told you guys to sit where we could see you!” one says.

“But she doesn’t even drink!” Snoop protests.

“Okay, but if I catch her with a beer in her hand, she’s outta here and so are you, since you bought the pitchers!” the more vocal bartender contends.

“Alright!” Snoop returns in a raised voice, and the one bartender leaves. The other, his silent buddy, sticks around and explains:

“Sorry, we don’t mean to be dicks, but the bar got hit for a thousand dollar fine last week ‘cause the cops came and caught someone underage drinking. So now we’re really paranoid…”

“Hey, that’s cool,” Alan says, responding a little more favorably to this guy’s approach.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Snoop and I concur, murmuring our assent. Then this bartender, too, walks away.

The end result, however, is that Rachel’s too scared to drink anyway. We keep ourselves entertained nonetheless, first via an increasingly rare real dartboard with steel tipped projectiles, then in placing our quarters up and commandeering one of the pool tables. When the pitchers are drained, Alan and Snoop continue pounding bottled beer at a furious clip, Leigh and I in much more relaxed fashion. By the time two-thirty rolls around, ol’ Kevin here is pretty damn loopy – although I have to admit that, while subjected to heaping doses of his off-the-wall humor, he’s kept the antics to a minimum since those introductory stunts.

Flipping on the house lights, our drink slingers begin shouting for everyone to leave. They collect any vessels encountered, whether empty or otherwise, and usher patrons toward the door. Then for some reason there’s a guy in a full-blown Viking helmet, shouting in a proper Scandinavian accent for effect, standing on top of the bar.

“GO HOME!” he commands, “GO HOME BEFORE I HAVE TO CHASE YE DOWN THE STREETS AND BEAT YER SKULLS IN!”

III.

Below are some of my original notes on shows glimpsed inside Ruby Tuesday – and I should caution, particularly if you or a loved one has graced that creaky old stage, a few of these reviews are not for the faint of heart…

Heavy Weather:  

Most of the acts gracing the stage at Ruby’s generally fall into the category of half-baked hippie jam bands. Terrible as a general rule, at least to anyone not blazed out of his mind on weed or psychedelics, but even so we can’t seem to stay away from Ruby’s entirely. Something to do with the warm atmosphere and its proximity to our home enables us to tolerate these nine piece cannabis laced outfits, even at their most droning monotonous extreme. For every Local Color, a tasteful, competent middle aged cover band specializing in cuts from the halcyon 60s, there’s a Heavy Weather plugging in and firing away here. It’s not so much that Heavy Weather’s bad – in fact they’re quite good at what they do – it’s that there are a hundred other bands around town proliferating the same material, the same vibe, a musical equivalent of the peace sign.

Local Color: as of 2000 they are playing here every Monday…and are still at it, same night of the week, through at least 2006! An impressive run, any way you slice it.

Johnson Brothers: 

Then again for every Heavy Weather there’s a dozen Johnson Brothers, groups even further down the food chain. A massive tribe of black guys who specialize in jittery funk, the Johnson Brothers command a sizable following wherever they go but to our overexposed ears nothing about them stands out as noteworthy. At first you’re enthralled with their musicality alongside everyone else, until three songs into the set when you realize whichever tune they play is going to sound exactly like all the others preceding it.

Lost Dog:

We manage the wherewithal to brave the elements and stroll a whopping two doors down to Ruby’s, to check out that Lost Dog band we spotted on the flier that night out with Cary. Chilling out at a dimly lit small table in the stage half of the bar, we feel like dupes when this band strolls onto the stage and there’s no blonde chick, or any chick for that matter, anywhere among their ranks. By appearances, she may have just been some random photo chosen as bait on their flyers. 

“What the fuck!?” Damon curses, when the group launches into the first of many covers. A decent outfit doing passable takes of songs everyone has heard countless times on the radio, okay on a technical level but damn near tortuous to our ears. The other problem is, I would guarantee there’s a band calling themselves Lost Dog in each of this nation’s top 200 cities, and then some.  

“Maybe she’ll come out a few songs into it,” I theorize. 

We sit through two solid sets, though, with no sign of our lady. But then, as the band emerges from their latest break for a third, who should grace the stage with them but said blonde of our dreams, the girl we’ve absently drooled over from afar. Here she had been chilling out by the bar all along. 

Short yet possessing one mighty fine body, she moves really well and has a good voice. And yet, still, the best thing going for her is that figure, and she knows it. Twice as many people, mostly guys, are gathered standing if not dancing in front of that stage the instant she claims it. Later still, mysteriously enough, Damon and I decide to troop up to Sugar Shack to really cap off this night, and pass her on the sidewalk beside Ruby’s. 

“Great show,” we tell her, and aren’t exactly talking about the music. 

“Thanks,” she replies with a smile. Somehow, I’m pretty sure she knows exactly what we mean. The whereabouts of that proverbial butter on her bread is no great mystery. 

Thirteen O’Clock:  

Not expecting much, Alan and I grab drinks and a pool table on the other side of the bar, as far away from the stage as we can arrange ourselves. Friday night means paying a cover charge, but damned if we’re going to listen to this stuff, at least in any capacity greater than incidental background music. Imagine our surprise, then, when Thirteen O’Clock graces the stage, a ragtag rockabilly combo who effortlessly manage to blow away our lessened, jaded expectations.

Thirteen O’ Clock, man are they ever the real deal. These cats are just it. The nimble fingered bass player employs only an upright, while the drummer spends their whole show standing, his energy and ebullient smile radiating enough warmth to flatten the entire room. Rounding out the threesome is a singer/guitarist who nails the whole thing perfectly, sneering and grinning as the moment demands, their sound reminiscent of the Stray Cats but only to a degree. With a style independent of anyone else we’ve seen around town, they’re far away the best band either of us have seen down here, even more so than Local Color. To compare the faceless mobs following those Johnson Brothers around against the relative obscurity Thirteen O’Clock toils in underscores the crapshoot nature of this music business, catering to a public that values hype over substance and likes their entertainment nothing if not spoonfed. For two hours, Thirteen O’ Clock sails full throttle through their frenzied set, and we’re held rapt in their sway.

Welfare Gypsys: 

Later this same night, an odd collection of souls by the name of Welfare Gypsys inherits the stage, squashing all momentum their opening act has created. Sure, they’ve got their own unique sound, too, but not in a good way, not in any positive way at all. The word eclectic springs to mind although in its truest sense that term is used complimentary, which means that here it doesn’t apply.

They have some long hair Joe Satriani wannabe on lead guitar, a guy who looks and plays as though he’s bounced from one musical equipment store to the next for the past ten or fifteen years. This old hippie left over from a Vietnam protest in the sixties plays acoustic, while the lead vocals are handled by a soulful black chick with a deep, resonant voice far too powerful to be slumming amidst these hacks. Meanwhile, two clean cut kids straight out of some frathouse hold down the bass and rhythm guitar, respectively, with the spiked haired blonde kid from Thirteen O’ Clock manning the drums.

Fittingly, the music they play is also a total hodgepodge of styles. The first song they launch into is a cover of Christopher Cross’s Sailing and while opening with such a pisspoor choice is debatable, it is true that by doing so these Welfare Gypsys almost ensure that they will improve as the night progresses. Simply put, there’s nowhere to go but up. After this abominable leadoff track a number of like candidates follow, none of it holding together very well until midway through the first set. By now they’re at last able to lock into a steady groove, but the unfortunate repercussions are that we’ve already heard too much dreck to care.

Gravy: 

When darkness falls, we saunter next door to either drown sorrows or celebrate, depending on which end of today’s burning powder keg wick we choose to focus upon. Another cover charge and another series of stoner hippie bands await Alan and me, but we’re too worn out to wander much further from the house.

Gravy’s playing when we arrive, a bunch of good old boys specializing in hillbilly rock, a welcome respite from the endless parade of sunny 60s jams we’re accustomed to hearing here. Beers in hand, we grab a table near the back of the bar, finding comfort in the deepest, darkest corner, away from the prying eyes that a well lit room makes possible. Upon sitting down, the first song we witness Gravy rip into is a cover of Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River, which they stomp and shred to pieces, a romp so majestic that ol’ Willie’s probably hearing them, too, in whatever corner of the world he’s withering away in at this very instant.

“OWW!” Alan shouts.

“HOO-EEEEE!” I add.

“WHOOO-DOGGIE!” he enthuses.

“Whiskeeeeeeeyyy Riverrrrrrrrrrrr!” I call out for good measure, as the band begins its next song.

So impressed are we with this sizzling slab of Southern boogie that Alan and I shout out “WHISKEY RIVER!” at the end of every song Gravy plays, but they refuse to oblige us with an encore performance. The crowd surrounding us, tucked away in their isolated circles of candle lit tables, pays no mind to our overtures, though then again for drunken maniacs to hoot and holler song titles here at Ruby’s is nothing out of the ordinary.

     In between acts we’re hanging out by the bar, talking to some more coworkers of mine, Jackie and Scott. Jackie’s a plump, short little hostess, always laughing at everything regardless of its humor content. She’s embarking tomorrow on a trip out west to visit some guys in Colorado who used to wait tables at our restaurant, in essence the same trip Tiffany just returned from. Scott, meanwhile, is a long haired dreadlocked kid who cooks in our kitchen part time, when he’s not busy playing with yet another local hippie jam band, Uncle Sam’s Dream Machine. He hasn’t been employed at our restaurant long, and I get the feeling he won’t stick around much longer, either.

Men Of Leisure: 

Next up on stage are those boring old bastards Men of Leisure, the most aptly named group in history. We reclaim our former table, Alan and I do, whereupon I immediately begin timing the band from the first note they play. A prior victim of theirs, I’m curious to examine not only how few songs they cram into a set, but how long each song stretches out, as well as what portion of the evening, exactly, these Men of Leisure spend on break.

A hybrid of sorts between Gravy’s hillbilly stomp and the meandering bongo-redolent noodling of everyone else who graces the stage here, this sums up the Men of Leisure in a nutshell. These guys all look to be in their 40s and thus should not only know their way around a decent classic rock catalog but also how to crop their selections down to an acceptable length, but these overindulgent wankers have no concept of either. Their first song alone I clock at ten minutes, and it’s the shortest of their set. Four songs total lasting just short of an hour and they’re off the stage again, gone outside to smoke for half hour break number one. Alan and I are debating whether or not to stick around for set number two when a welcome face drifts past and plops down at our table, that of Jenny Hughes. Rare among my female coworkers, I feel a kinship with Hughes, that she can relate to my crazy lifestyle. She too has lost her license due to various infractions stemming from an insurance lapse, she too has a pair of roommates sharing an upstairs house on campus. One of these roommates, a meek, pale and skinny little blonde chick by the name of Jenny Kramer, has tagged along and dropped into the other remaining chair at our tiny corner table. Their spotting us back here is a minor miracle, though one I’m thankful has transpired.

Most groups are in the midst of a third set by this late hour but they’re just beginning their second, yet it’s difficult to fault these guys for the lackadaisical approach. Bands around here can get away with playing just about anything, for any length of time, so long as it has the appropriate trippy groove they can all shuffle to, one that enables them to spin around in circles while making animal mating calls.

The girls return this time with a half full pitcher of beer, laughing as they claim they’re too drunk to finish it. Alan and I have our own pitcher we’ve barely even made a dent in, but readily accept their offer, as Hughes gracefully sets hers next to ours. Then they bow out into the night, bidding us adieu, leaving us to smolder in their wake.

“Whew, she’s hot,” Alan gasps, his perspiration visibly intensified just from that brief interaction with the Jennys.

“Yeah, she is,” I agree. Kramer’s cute enough in her own right but I know he’s talking about Hughes, I don’t even have to ask.

      Later we’re standing by the bar, preparing to leave, when Seresa drifts in. Cafe Bourbon Street is dead tonight, she explains, and they decided to close up early. Alan and I are just finishing up our last cupfuls of beer as she grabs a bottle, slugging it down at a pace to rival ours while the three of us huddle in a loose semicircle. Gorgeous as she is, though, even a master conversationalist like Alan can only muster up so much small talk with her, a relative stranger, and after our beers are finished we’re the next ones out the door.

2000

Okay, so I’m admittedly kind of torn as far as how to post events calendars for these various bars around town. At the moment, I’m leaning toward posting these in the venue itself, instead of the yearly roundups, unless I have something significant to say about the event. So without further ado, fueled by the pure randomness of what I happen to be working on right this second, let me kick off the Ruby Tuesday event calendar for the year 2000:

1/8: The Shakewells 

1/13: Peach Melba & Bender 

1/14: the aforementioned Foley. Maybe they’ve straightened some things out, a couple of years down the road, or maybe we just left that other gig a little too early. Either way, at this point, they are booked to play Ruby’s every Friday, so you can pencil them in from here on out, until further notice.

1/15: Bob City with Spiveys & Mitch Mitchell’s Terrifying Experience 

2/24: Peach Melba

2/26: Toast

2/28: Local Color play here every Monday, of which this is one.

2/29: Every Tuesday, meanwhile, brings with it an open-stage night called Dan’s Acoustic Revolution. Ladies get in free.

3/1: And then each Wednesday, there’s a reggae night featuring The Flex Crew.

3/2: Spider Frendz headline, with support from A Planet For Texas, Missing Girl, and The Staggers

Fridays (as of at least Jan-March) – Foley 

Tuesdays (as of at least Jan-March) – Dan’s Acoustic Revolution (open stage; ladies get in free) 

Wednesdays (as of at least Jan-March) – Reggae night with The Flex Crew 

3/9 – The Shakewells 

3/11 – Bender, Jared Oriams 

3/16 – Rays Music Exchange 

3/17 – St. Patrick’s Day Bash featuring Bob City, Black Love, The White Outs, The Fur Traders 

3/18 – Willie Pooch or Foley or both (conflicting ads) 

3/23 – Jack Neat (according to ad – they’re actually listed at Oldfield’s on High as well) 

3/24 – Knee Jerk Reaction 

3/25 – Uncle Sam’s Dream Machine 

5/27 & 28: Quarkstock 2000 prog/space fest featuring Quarkspace and 7 other bands 

8/16 – The Shantee. Miles and I catch this show, it’s fantastic.

2001

October 25 – Sister Flow, Sugar Pill

October 26 – Holiday Throwdown features Bloody Matt Dillons, Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party, Grafton, Lylo Americans, The Husher, One.point.three.

 November 9 – Bloody Matt Dillons, The Jive Turkeys, The Take

November 16 – Bloody Matt Dillons, Estee Louder, Geraldine, The Guinea Worms