Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Rise and Fall (and Rise!) of UNIT 102 (PART 1)


This blog is a story. And like most stories, the plot twists and turns like a paper plane grabbed by the wind.

On November 1st 2011, UNIT 102, the theatre studio I helped create with a handful of others will finally shut its doors. Since its inception, there was a lot of adversity with some of our surrounding neighbors regarding sound and the nature of the kind of work being done at the studio. After struggling to find common ground, we were evicted. Unit 102 had been a hub for emerging performance artists to hone their skills, rehearse their shows and refine their craft. And it provided an affordable space to hold performance and artistic events, at a time when many of our theatre spaces were, and still are, shuttering their doors. And after taking nearly 6 years to establish that kind of theatre space, we finally have no choice but to close it down.

But all is not lost. We have found a new venue, located at Dufferin and Queen and as one place sees its last days, another will grow in its place. In the my next blog I will post more details but unfortunately can’t say more until the contract is finalized.

What I realized while dealing with all this is that many people don’t know of how Unit 102 came to be or that I even ran a theatre venue in the first place. My memory is as fuzzy as left over lasagna, and I’m known for my rampant (and often dangerous) hyperbole but if you will read onward, I would like to tell you the story of how this all came to pass. Perhaps as a final tribute to the place I called my creative and literal home for so long, perhaps because I don’t have cable and I’m bored sipping on this Yankee Jim tallboy.

On July 1st 2005, I moved into a loft space at 46 Noble Street, just north Brock and Noble. I was fresh out of school, nearly broke and had been living in a dumpy three bedroom off of Crawford and Harbord Street. At the time, I was living with two roommates and we existed in that slovenly state that many twenty somethings find themselves living in post University. Fast food cartons littered the floor and a thick tinge of semi-permanent marijuana smoke laced the air and after about a year there, I started to feel stagnant and in need of a change. So when my roommate Jay found an 1800 square foot cavern in the middle of Parkdale, it was hard not to be excited. OF course at the time Parkdale wasn’t the Club land monstrosity it is now. When I mused out loud of its potential as a theatre, people said it was too west and too sketchy to ever really work. Too West now seems like a joke, as the Junction gets eyed as the next emerging place and Queen West extends its shops and entertainments all the way down to Roncy. But to be truthful, sketchy it was.

When I told both my parents I was considering moving to Parkdale, they both warned me of the grave danger I was placing myself in. OF course they were thinking of the Parkdale of the eighties and weren’t aware of the gentrification going on. But that is the reputation Parkdale still has: a place of vice, prostitution and drugs. But trust me, today it is like Disneyland compared to how it was when even I first moved in. I was offered $10 blowjobs by toothless women on a daily basis. I saw crack being smoked in broad daylight. Hell, you had to push through the hookers at night lined up on Brock where the Stamped Bison Grill now sits just to get to 102 in those days.

But despite all that madness (madness that still hasn’t really gone anywhere) it was and still is a great place to be. It’s a place where real people live. And it has a hugely political and progressive community. And although I secretly miss the time when it felt unknown and underground, before the roaming bands of screaming 905ers began drinking their Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, and hipsters opened up their millions of coffeehouses (not that I don’t love those coffee houses, I wrote most of this in one), I am still happy being here six years later.

When I first stepped into 102, the previous tenant was still sleeping on a shaggy couch lying in the middle of the room. When we woke him up, his bleary eyes suggested drug use and partying the night before. Around him sat nearly a dozen empty tin cans; it looked as if he had been eating directly out them. After apologizing profusely and leaving, Jay and I sat in 102 for the first time.

It was a fucking dump.

Our bedrooms were nothing more than wooden coffins hastily constructed out of flimsy aluminum braces and dry wall. When we removed those years later, we discovered they weren’t even attached to the ceiling. My bed was a loft with no ladder, Jay’s was on a make shift landing sitting right underneath our neighbors toilet pipes. The third “room” was about the size of a toilet stall. (I admire both Trevor and Daryn, the two gentlemen who called this their room. Clearly they would have no problem living in Tokyo) the place was an awful yellow stained colour. The radiator hissed, the pipes clanked, the floors creaked and somehow still, I knew that it would one day be a theatre.

No one else did.

I would show people the place and guys would think it was cool, as it resembled the stock hideout for a group of gangsters planning a heist. Females thought it was cool if they bought that I was an artist. Otherwise, they thought I had lost my mind.

But for many it was nothing more than a large hole in the wall to hold parties. And party we did. Our rent was ludicrously expensive and parties were the only way to keep the place afloat.
And without being to immodest, they were fucking huge. I remember at one keg party people kept coming off the street with their own glass wear, help themselves and walking out. At that point my neighbors would come from different units to join and a real sense of community seemed to exist. These nights were truly epic. Standout moments from this era include:

-Two hipster girls walking in. Taking pictures. Walking out. This happened a few times. I have no idea who they were but I would like to imagine they were documenting the place for some trendy magazine. Either that or they were undercover officers keeping tabs. This is all sheer romanticism on my part, but I have an active imagination and that's my best guess.

-Being solicited for sex by a girl who knocked on my door and said, “This is where the parties always are, eh? Why don’t you crack me a beer and introduce me to the place.” At the time, my girlfriend was inside. I was terribly awkward and turned her away but I did feel kind a cool albeit in an extremely dirty sort of way.

-During a particularly raucous party, my friend Matt trying to bike home, and immediately wiping out and breaking his collar bone. We all laughed until he didn’t get up. We carried him back to the party and lay him on the couch. Later, he disappeared and my neighbor found him unconscious at his door step. Not a great story but it sure was memorable.

- I was vending at the Skydome (well, I still do) and I would often run into these two pretty ladies who would flirt with me and buy my $10 beers AND tip. In fact, it would appear they would wait for me to buy the beer, even when I was busy and would neglect them. This happened over a number of games and one day I vowed that if I were to run into them again, I would stop being a pussy and ask them out for drinks. Well the day came and I nervously invited them out.
Luis the stud: So what you ladies saying this weekend?
Linda: Nothing.
Liz: I’m not sure yet. Why?
Luis the stud: Well I was wondering if you wanted to come to my party.
Linda: When is this party?
Luis the stud: when are you free?
Liz: I don’t know. Saturday?
Luis: Saturday?
Linda: Yeah, I’m cool that day.
Luis: That’s great!
Liz: Why is that great?
Luis: Because I’m having a keg party that night.
Linda: On Saturday? Oh wait, no, I can’t do that.
Liz: Oh yeah, we have that thing.
Linda: Yeah, shit. Too bad your party’s not Friday.
Luis: Did I say Saturday? No, I meant Friday.
Linda: Really?
Luis: Yeah, I get so confused with my dates.
Liz: No wait, that thing is on FRIDAY not Saturday.
Linda: Oh yeah. Shitty.
Luis: Well it’s kind of a two day thing, so I mean, you could come on either day, I’m sure I’ll have beer and stuff…

Truth was I didn’t have a keg party. After the awkward invite was given, I had two days to set up a keg party in order to meet girls who probably wouldn’t be showing up. By the time the day came, I had a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon sitting in the centre of my empty space with about 5 or so male friends. We sat with the keg facing the door. I’m sure it was quite a bizarre room to walk into, a bunch of drunken men staring at the doorway with a huge keg between them. I’ll just go out and say it: we were lame. We had a bet going as to when the first women would arrive. It ended up being my buddy’s girlfriend and she clocked in around 11pm. So it looked like a bust…until the Liz and Linda actually arrived. Liz wore a superman tee-shirt, immediately appealing to my inner-geek. When the two girls entered my dungeon, they LOVED it. They looked around and marveled at my comic collection, my Fireball Island board game, my ‘impossible to reach without breaking a sweat’ loft bed. I wondered if I was in the middle of a wet dream. But it was reality, and for the first time, I thought my place was pretty cool. I ended up dating Liz who would become instrumental in 102’s development, more than any single contributor I could name.

-New Year’s party where we recorded the dance floor, served out champagne and rang in the New Year with over 100 people. The party would later be edited and turned into a trippy music video by a friend of mine who now Dj’s with projection. When I watch the video now, it’s hard to imagine that it was 102. In the night vision and with the crazy soundtrack, it looks sort of like a happy hardcore party in East Berlin.

Of course, partying wasn’t the purpose of the space. I wanted a theatre. And as much as I loved partying, I had larger visions in mind.

During this time, I worked with an emerging theatre company called Column 13. They are a young, actor driven collective, that stages intense American works. (I still work with them time to time and they are still doing their thing. You can check them at column13.org if you are interested). Being a company without funding, rehearsal spaces were hard to come by. We would often spend hours bartering our labor for time at Equity Showcase theatre. Sick of vacuuming dirty carpets and moving risers just to rehearse, I tried hard to convince them to rehearse at my space. And for a while they did. But the place was a disaster; there were empty cups everywhere, the smell of stale beer coming off of the sticky blotches on the floor. We had two cats that would jump onto the actors, many of them who were allergic. It didn’t help we were doing a production of Balm In Gilead, a play with over twenty actors in it. It was a difficult production, and I remember in one heated moment an actor blurting out, “well how you can you expect us to work? Look where we’re rehearsing!”

That hurt.

But there was truth in that. We were not a theatre yet.

And so it came to be that Jay would have to move out leaving me alone with a huge empty hole in the wall. 102 was already expensive with the rent split two ways, without him being there, it would be nearly impossible. The time had come to make some big moves or else all would be lost. I sat down with my comedy troupe Stag Nation, hoping they would be interested in turning it into our home base. Sort of a comedy club house where we could develop sketches and routines, throw the occasional fundraiser party, do small shows. The guys didn’t think it was a good idea. We didn’t have any money and we weren’t doing enough to justify having a space for just our work.

So I turned to Column 13. They were in the midst of organizing themselves, putting together a website, getting on top of grant applications, making big plans for upcoming shows. I thought having a hub for our work would be beneficial, so I proposed running the space as a group. However, to many of the company members, 102 was Luis’ apartment and Luis was a drunken hipster train wreck who had two cats too many, and was living some bohemian early mid-life crisis fantasy out in an former crack house deep in the slums of Parkdale. For many, it wasn’t something they were particularly interested in.

Now it just so happened that I was, perhaps for the only time in my life’s history, working steadily and saving money. So by the time Jay moved out I was sitting on nearly $7000 in savings. I decided to hold onto the space until someone would take me up on my plan to make it a theatre. Well it only took three months to wipe out all of my savings. And still no one had joined me on my epic quest.

I was dejected. I spent a few shitty nights crying at Liz’s place, lamenting a world that lacked vision or rather, a world that wasn’t insane enough to indulge me in my particular vision. Liz and I had only been dating for a few months but she offered to move in with me and help make it happen. Of course this was a big deal, I had never moved in with a girl before and at this point I was still too emotionally immature to comprehend such an idea. We discussed it for awhile, and eventually, I decided that it we should. We loved each other, she genuinely wanted to help and moving in with a woman wasn’t a big deal, I mean she was over all the time anyway, right?

Side note: If you ever move in with a woman thinking that it’s no big deal, you are wrong. Moving in with a partner, whether you frame it as such or not, is always a big deal. This is a fact and I advise all those thinking of doing it to proceed with the utmost respect for the gravity of such a decision.

For me, the move in worked out. Liz and I had a fabulous partnership and her fresh energy and eye for details proved to be the piece of the puzzle that had been missing. She introduced the concept of having a “plan”, which I guess was something that I lacked. We started to ask, “How does one start a theatre space?” Well we discovered that the first step would be letting people know that it existed. So we started to post info about it on Facebook, at casting agencies, on-line theatre resources, places where people who had need for a space could see it.

Of course, we didn’t have anything to offer people other than a space. So, with the help of my friend Matt, we built a stage. I remember the day it was completed, Matt turned to me and said, “Amazing things will happen on that stage.” He was right. I think I spent that entire night dancing on it, screaming out random Shakespearean monologues, bowing to an empty room.
As excited as I was, having a stage didn’t mean I had a theatre. People need a place to sit. And that’s when my uncanny luck came into play.

So I work at the Royal York as a bartender. But before that I spent 5 years being a Porter, a guy who sets up the tables and chairs for each event. On the balcony overlooking the Canadian room, the hotels largest ballroom, sat a number of chairs. These chairs were of a different style then the rest of the ballroom chairs and could no longer be used on the ground (mix-matched chairs clashing with the Royal York’s décor naturally). And so they just sat there. It was my fellow performer (and Royal York employee) Kristian Reimer who noted there existence. We inquired as to what would happen to them, I for use at 102, Kristian whose friend was opening a theatre space in Montreal (which would eventually become The Nouveau Theatre St. Catherine but that’s a tale for another blog). Our supervisor informed us that the hotel was going to hire a removal company to get rid of them. How lucky for them here were two employees who would do it for free! We signed off on it with the upper management types and suddenly we were in possession of a number of really well made, dusty and ripped chairs. Score!

And so we had venue, stairs and a stage. What we needed next were people to use it. And luckily for us, some fantastic people did.

Next week: The rise and fall (and rise!) of Unit 102 pt. 2! Join me as I take us through the many shows and events that we hosted!

Side note to readers:

AS you can imagine, the loss of our little theatre is a strenuous and emotional thing for me. But that being said, I did promise a weekly blog and although I will use the move as my excuse for not coming through, I will freely admit that I shit the bed royally. As I’m sure that we have come to expect slovenly service here at youbloggingbastard.blogspot.com, I would still like to formally and humbly apologize for my inability to come through with a single promise I’ve made here. I am very thankful to those who actually take the time to read this thing and I hope you will continue to read. I’m a huge douche bag who loves you very much even if I’m currently drinking those feelings away as we speak.

Second Side note to readers:
Have you ever noticed that Yankee Jim Beer taste like it has sand in it? I mean, it doesn’t matter how much you chill the damn thing, it still tastes like your drinking it off the curb. It was that, Pabst, or Old Milwaukee Ice but Pabst tastes like it has pennies in it, and old Milwaukee ice has that naked girl on the can now and I get self-conscious holding it, plus it only comes in six packs and I only had $4 to spend and wanted to get two cans. I guess this is totally unrelated but shit, just spend the money on getting a half decent beer for Christs’ sake. Drinking is supposed to be pleasurable not a punishment. Seriously.

No comments:

Post a Comment