The 9 of Clubs (what Dryck warmly refers to as my "degenerate past")

I don't know if my late teens and 20s were any more special than anyone else's. It felt like a special time - the people, the places, the music... I'm sure people the world over feel the same way. How else can you explain why "Hotel California" still gets so much airplay?

However, what was truly special about my late teens and 20s was the community that was born on the dance floors at the 9 of Clubs, Aquilon and throughout Cleveland's alternative scene in the 80s and 90s.

What's unparalleled is how that community still exists across time and miles. I'm referring to how Lena acted as my personal "Welcome Wagon" when I moved to California; I had no clue Lena (whose last name I never even knew during our club days) had been living there for the last 10 years until I ran into her at a party my first weekend in LA. Or, how Julie Webber told me to pass along her contact info to Josh Lauber when I told her that he had moved to Texas, despite Julie not even knowing Josh. Or, how Lee Mars and Colin Miles (who I don't think I ever even met in Cleveland) helped me plan my job hunt when I bailed on California and headed east. Or, how when Dawn Phillips passed away last Thanksgiving, word radiated out across the country and many of us travelled back to Cleveland for the funeral. I'll be forever grateful that I had a friend from those days, Jason Merhaut, to fly with back to Cleveland. Or, how Berni Veider and Michael Nigro invited me (and a lot of other familiar faces from back in the day) to their holiday party in Brooklyn last year, despite my having lost contact with Berni well over a decade ago. I think that's a bit uncommon for acquaintances made in a bar years previously...

For those of you who have sadly lost contact with that community or who just feel like doing a little reminiscing, Richard Brown started a web site dedicated to those years at the 9 of Clubs. Check out the site and be sure to send him your old pictures.

Also, I just learned that there is a 9 of Clubs myspace profile. I don't know who created the profile but interestingly, I found a photo that I took posted to the site.