After some much needed r and r, R&R are ready to give you the full monty. It’s pretty full, so read what you want/can.

There are many things we could tell you about yesterday…like a billion. But let’s start with the gist: it was pretty awesome. We talked to a LOT of people (Ryan estimates 50-100; it was more like 20, 25 tops). We got a lot of great information, all positive. 

We have a main thesis question…which you may have seen on our site…it’s “Should a young artist move to Detroit?” Well, we’ve only heard “yes” so far. So for now, Detroit wants us! 

Before the details of our first day downtown, let’s back up to right after our first blog post (about 1:30 Monday morning). Literally, we’re finalizing the first entry in the Hostel and in limps this very tall, thin, bespectacled blonde woman. We exchange pleasantries and continue editing. But she keeps piquing our interest as she limps past us the second, third, fourth time. On the fifth time we had to ask: “what happened?” 

What happened next was totally surreal, jaw-dropping even (quite literally; I had to concentrate on keeping my mouth shut). This is the condensed version of the story, we may include more in the podcast later this week. 

We spent the next hour and a half listening to her story, which spanned two countries and about a week…or was it two weeks? She wasn’t sure.

This Canadian PhD candidate studying kinesiology is in Detroit for…we’re not entirely sure. She explained that she had scholorship money from her University to fund the trip but neither of us really understood. She had an obsession with Eminem and no return ticket.

She asked us to change the names if we wrote about her story so, let’s call her Leslie.

So Leslie’s in Detroit to hang out, or something, and thinks she wants to move here.

Leslie got the ankle injury when a guy tried to nudge her out of a dangerous situation but ended up pushing her off a porch. She got the black eye from the man who made the situation dangerous; let’s call him Victor.

At first, Victor seemed like a great guy. She met him on a sunny day playing chess by the river. He was nice, he offered her alcohol, pot and who knows what else. They hung out at his house and had a great time several nights in a row…accompanied by his crack-addicted girlfriend. We weren’t clear on whether Victor and Leslie had a sexual relationship; but it was clear that Victor felt protective and possessive of Leslie when he threatened to kill a man for walking her to the store, claiming he had ulterior motives.

The plot thickened when we found out that apparently Victor killed for the first time when he was imprisoned at 17…don’t know what for. But we do know that he remained there for 21 years, long after his initial release date, because he violently murdered several prison guards.

This did not put her off. In fact, she felt sorry for Victor and his girlfriend, seeing that they were not well-adjusted in the world. Leslie decided she would help them using her PhD funding. She called this “doing God’s work”.

This mission ended with Victor beating Leslie repeatedly in the face with the butt of a long, curved knife for reasons that he (or she) did not articulate. She was able to calm him down just enough to get away, sometimes hobbling on her black-and-blue foot and swollen ankle; sometimes crawling. 

We were floored at the end of the story, not totally sure what to say or believe. We have been in Detroit for less than 3 hours and we have heard a story of a woman being violently beaten…Welcome to Detroit? 

Since then, we’ve spoken to several people about her. One of our trusted guides said, “if she continues what she’s been doing she’ll be dead.” He went on to say, “I’ve heard people from Detroit say ‘yeah that’s a good neighborhood’ or ‘that’s a bad neighborhood’; but when they heard about the places she went to they were like ‘why in the fuck would you go there?!’ I’m serious: she’s gonna die, man.” Another guy, a Detroiter since childhood, said, “I mean, you just pick up on things [that you shouldn’t do] growing up in a place like this.”

It’s clear that Leslie picked up few of those things in Canada. Hopefully her story will serve as a warning for Ryan and me: doing the “right” thing is secondary to doing the safe thing.

Then we went to sleep on our wobbly bunk bed and simultaneously had some very vivid dreams.

We planned to start off Monday by viewing six houses around the city, all managed by one guy. Well, when that guy stood us up we moved on — his loss. And it would have been one thing if the first house on the list was a real looker; it’s another thing entirely that we pulled up to see boarded up windows and an unkempt yard. Needless to say, we could do better. 

We got lunch in town at a place called Chickpea in the D — a tiny, neon green window in the corner of a building through which we were served some delicious Mediterranean cuisine. After the meal, we talked to the people working there (our first “yes” of the day) and got an invite to a standup comedy open-mic night, which one of the Chickpea guys, Brett Mercer would perform at. 

We tooled around downtown for a few hours afterwards. We talked to everyone: employees at Jon Varvatos’ designer clothing store, a chef, the chef’s boss, a pizza delivery guy, we cornered a priest who was having his afternoon smoke, and several people from the corporate giant Quicken Loans. 

Quick blurb: Quicken is run by a guy named Dan Gilbert, a Detroiter who has invested millions of dollars into the revitalization of Detroit. He built a beach-like oasis in front of his downtown office building, complete with beach chairs and a tiki bar (as in liquor). In addition to this obvious attempt at beautifying the city, he has bought condemned buildings around the city. We call this area Gilbert arena. 

We went to the security desk and asked to speak to Dan Gilbert’s secretary. The sent us across the way to another Quicken building. We did this and spoke to the “ambassadors”. They took a listen to our spiel: “Hi, we’re two theatre directors from North Carolina. We’re here on a grant to investigate whether or not we’d like to move here and open a theatre company after we graduate.” We embellished this a bit for the corporate big-wigs, after which they exchanged few words and gave us a business card for Bedrock Real Estate Services, the company that handles the purchase of condemned buildings around Detroit.

So no a face-to-face contact with Detroit’s financial savior…yet. But we’ll get the info we need and maybe make it all the way up the food chain eventually.

Both of us had somewhat sketchy run-ins while downtown.

Ryan saw a man aggressively catcall a woman and stare at her for a while as she walked by him.

Mine came when I rounded a corner alone (Ryan was lagging behind for some reason, probably grabbing some sweet pics) and saw a large, older black man walking toward me. As he passed me gestured slicing his neck and seemed to nod to someone behind me. He then looked right at me with what I would call a matter-of-fact glance. I was totally confused. Was it meant for me? There was only one other guy on the street, so it was one of us. Was he serious? Is he mentally handicapped, within his senses, having a bad day? It was a very puzzling moment.

On the upside, we heard great things about the downtown economy. The Jon Varvatos employee says that their store in downtown Detroit is doing surprisingly well after a few months of being open — mind you, they sell $3,000 jackets, $200 t-shirts and $150 belts on a daily basis. Jon Varvatos, a Detroit native, always dreamt of opening a store in his hometown; and now, with the revitalization of the city and its economy it is not only possible but profitable.

We met an angry pizza delivery guy as he was taking a picture of a road sign with the hopes of nullifying a parking ticket he got several days before; profuse cussing ensued. We have noticed that almost all of the electronic parking meters Downtown are broken. When we questioned him about business, he said that the downtown Detroit store was making more than all the other franchises (49, located all over Michigan and several in Ohio, namely Columbus). That’s incredible.

After leaving downtown, we met with the next, last, and only potential landlord on our list.  The hostel has been amazing but tomorrow is our last day staying here. We need a private space where we can be productive and write this blog! So, thankfully our 1st and only option ended up being amazing!

Kirk Goodlow is a 65 year old retired principal with a PhD and an active pastor with two bedrooms to spare…if the bedrooms are up to parr — but let’s be honest, if they’re anything like the rest of the house, we’re sold. We spent at least 45 minutes talking about art, not including the discussion about the house and its amenities. He says that we will be his sons for the month that we live there (not creepy I promise). He even wants to talk to our parents to put them at ease: “I want them to know that their sons will be safe with me.” Just amazing.

Then, we Slow Rolled. Kinda. 

On our way to the meet-up spot, we followed a group of bikers who we assumed were going to the Slow Roll. Turned out they were a separate bike group who were touring restaurants eating and drinking together. Whoops.

We soon found the spot but our phones died while navigating us to the location. Whoops. More about that later.

The Slow Roll is one of the biggest community bike rides in the country. 1500 people rode in the first one of this season. The event has gotten national attention — I mean, Apple featured them in an ipad ad. 

We not only met one of the founders, he’s pretty famous. Without hesitation he told us that Detroit is the place to be for young artists right now. The Slow Roll was great, except that it got canceled while we were biking over to the meet up spot from the Hostel. There were about 40 people that still wanted to roll including us!

The slow roll was amazing, we cannot wait to do it officially next time. Here are a few highlights. 

 

After the roll, everyone headed over to PJ’s Lager House to see some stand up. 

We had to bring our bikes bake to the hostel before going out to PJ’s. We were 1.8 miles away from the hostel and both of our phones were dead. The sun’s light was falling fast. With the help of a few giant and bright landmarks we were able to make it back before it was completely dark. Phones will be charged at all times from now on. 

Coincidentally the Chickpea in the D guy, Brett was doing standup! We got there just as he got up for his set. He was so happy we came. Friends!

It’s coming up over and over that this city is kind of like a small town: everyone knows everyone. The comedy show was a great time, great people, lots of laughs. A man named Stretch was the MC. He had very long limbs. He offered people cucs ( ) and a steamy hot or cold towel after their set.

Rory even tried standup for the first time! Got a couple laughs, no big deal. 

So the day started with a let down and ended with a pick-me-up. Not a bad time at all. 

To sum up, we met many people over the course of the day. One dilemma came up: younger, excited people tend to say move to downtown Detroit; older, more settled people say move to areas like Ferndale or Royal Oak, wealthier communities not far from downtown. They say that’s where the money is along with the interest in the arts. My question is this: is it possible to bring those audiences to downtown? Bert, a 60-ish year old truck-driver, says “Ferndale and Royal Oak are the present; Detroit is the future.”

So what do we do? More to come.

Tomorrow we move in with Kirk and order some business cards!

Much love,

R&R