Hello love,

We spent Thursday moving from one thing to the next.

“Nothing brings a city back like art”

We met with Lisa Mohler on the main strip of Pontiac, MI, about a 30 minutes’ drive North of Detroit. She took us on a tour of an intimate performance/venue space that she will manage after renovations.

She was very clear about its purpose: “we’re not creating a theatre group, it’s a venue.”

We met the man behind the project, Robert Karazim, who now owns several storefronts along the main drag in Pontiac.

He is investing not simply in property, but in the future of Pontiac. “It’s proven that nothing brings back a city like art.” He puts his money where his mouth is: he bought and is renovating a 90 seat venue space, and plans to open an art cafe.

He also started Canvas Pontiac which “invites local artists from around Michigan to submit and display their art to be shared on public display throughout Downtown Pontiac” (from their website).

And it may have proven his point; according to him — “since starting Canvas Pontiac every building on this street has sold.”

Very interesting work happening. We could definitely see ourselves touring to this theater, along with venues in Ferndale, Gross Point, and other municipalities in the Metro Detroit area; it’s possible that we would get entirely different audiences touring to these places, given Detroiters’ tendency to stay in their neighborhoods.

“Welcome to City Hall, where it’s a crap shoot whether you’ll get what you need”

A.J. O’Neil has been too kind to us. He has given us an up-close and personal look at the city from a businessman/activist and native Detroiter’s perspective.

But he went above and beyond when he arranged a meeting with Melvin “Butch” Hollowell, City Corporation Counsel.

We walked into the building to see a sign saying “Restrooms in the basement”; according to A.J. they don’t have the budget to have them on all floors.

He also said that the city and county share the building: Wayne County has its offices to the left of the entrance and the city has its offices to the right. Again, most likely budgetary.

We took the elevator up — to the fifth floor this time — and were shown into his office in less that five minutes.

This experience differs greatly from entering the palatial Quicken Loans building. The City Hall building was older, fewer smiles, more frank business. Dan Gilbert’s headquarters felt like a Wall Street penthouse hangout with offices.

We sat in Butch’s office 15 minutes past our appointment time — he was tied up in a meeting several floors away.

As we waited, A.J. talked to us about the current administration. “This mayor has people working 7am to 7pm and they don’t look up until it’s past dinner and they say “why am I still here?…One time I saw mayor Dugan, at that time candidate Dugan, drive by in an Escort to get to a TV interview.. And that’s when I knew he’d win. He’s a regular guy saying “I don’t need the trappings of this office I just want to get the job done.”

Then A.J.’s attention went to someone walking through the foyer.

The man who entered the office was nothing like I expected; he was no bookie or middleman, he was a leader. No surprise that he heads up a team of lawyers.

He had us all sit at one table and asked “who are you?”

We told him our purpose in town at which point he said of Detroit’s art scene “it’s hot because it’s edgy.” His information on the scene had little in the way of directing us to a plan: “we have an active theatre and film community here…the tax credits changed with the gubernatorial administration…we have the third most theater seats below New York…and Chicago maybe.”

He did give a lot of information about the progress the city has made since he and the mayor got to work. “We have more engineers per capita than anywhere else in the world…220 houses are torn down per week…we will have the entire city lit with LED streetlights eight months earlier than projected…the emergency response time is now 10 minutes, it used to be 18; the national standard is 8…police response time was an hour, now it’s 17 minutes; the national average is 10.”

A lot of positive stuff.

Here’s more: “I have a job performance review every Wednesday at 9 o’clock.” And it’s not just him; apparently people throughout the government are reviewed weekly, from people in law to police and fire to department of development. He used the department of transportation saying that if the buses run more than five minutes late (that’s the national average), they will replace those responsible. “We’re measured against deliverables every week…if it’s out of whack over so many weeks I’ll find someone else who can do it…it’s not for the faint of heart.”

At that point he was called back to action. “I’ve got the whole police department waiting for me.”

On his way out, though, his right-hand-lady said “the mayor requested your immediate presence to discuss the curfew.”

Busy man, many responsibilities…curfew, though?

A.J. sings Danny Boy.

View from the Sky

After that we had a dinner date with Kirk and his lady, Gail at the Skyline Club.

This was another palatial building, with an indoor garden and pond right inside the atrium.

Our ears popped as we rode the elevator to the 28th floor.

We had a wonderful gourmet dinner on Kirk (what a guy). While we ate, we filled Gail in on our purpose there and summarized our research, which was very good for us to solidify our ideas.

Gail commented that our presence has been very good for Kirk. He chimed in saying that it’s been the most incredible experience of his life: “it just doesn’t happen here or anywhere else, fellas.”

Then we brought out a present wrapped in a burlap bag that was used to transport coffee beans from Mexico, (courtesy of A.J). In it Kirk found two sketch books, a set of pens, graphite and charcoal pencils. He told us that he used to love drawing; pens and charcoal were his favorite medium.

We said goodbye to Gail and goodbye to Kirk for then, knowing the final farewell would happen a bit later.

“Hey boys! Aren’t you sexy”

We then drove over to Royal Oak to check out Drag Queen Bingo at Five15.

Richard Payton of Ringwald’s 10 Naked Men had been nice enough to get us tickets for it — he works there. He escorted us to a table he’d reserved for us, which just happened to be the best seats in the house.

As we sat, in walked a tall drink of water in a shiny red dress and full make up. This was our bingo announcer.

“I’ve been a drag queen for over twenty years…and I’m an equal opportunity bitch: I will fuck with every single one of you. And if you have a problem with that, why are you taking me seriously? I’m a six foot tall man in a dress.”

She didn’t disappoint. The evening was a two-hour long diatribe in which she roasted nearly everyone in the place, including herself. Oh yeah, and she would sometimes call out bingo numbers.

While we didn’t win, we got a lot of attention from her. “Look at these cuties, all sexy corporate looking. Coming in wearing full suits — one of you is just sexy, the other looks like a mormon.”

We have argued about which of us she called “sexy” ever since.

It was an amazing last event of the trip. What a riot!

“Real talk, guys”

We were writing when Kirk got home that night at about 1:30am. We’d been looking forward to this moment ever since Kirk said “I’m gonna tell you some things before you go, but not right now.”

The suspense was immense.

After some small talk about the game (Golden State!) Ryan asked straight up: “so what have you been waiting to tell us?”

His voice dropped almost to a whisper, as if we would be overheard.

“Guys, I’ve been in real estate for 45 years and I’ve never encountered white people. Never. I’ve gotten close to renting to them, but it never happened…now I have; it’s on my bucket list.”

Forty five years.

He went on. “You’re gonna remember this the rest of your lives. You may not think anything of it now, but as you get older you’ll see. This just doesn’t happen, fellas. You’ll tell your grandkids…when you get older you’ll be able to tell people “guess what I did: I lived in a black guys’ house. In Detroit — in the hood — for a month.”

This is not just a tenant-landlord relationship. We have proven to this man that the world is changing for the better. He took us in as his sons and treated us as such.

We then spoke about Detroit. Again, we summed up our research, but now we got real.

“Kirk, it would take a lot of work coming here. And even then, we’d be making contacts in Detroit, not in New York or any of the larger markets. We want to work in those larger markets at some point, but it’s so hard to start a company in a place that’s so expensive. And here we’d be making work for less expense but we’d have a very small audience because not many people go to the theater here. If we wanted to get those people to come we’d have to literally change their minds about what theatre is, or trick them into thinking it’s not theatre, whereas in New York people just go. We’re honestly more confused now than we were coming in.”

Kirk got real too: “you can do it, it just takes time. It’s gonna be ten years of your life, at least.”

That’s when it really sank in what kind of a project this would be. I (Rory) was right from the start, before any research: going to New York is about building my future; going to Detroit is about building the future of Detroit.

Is now the time? Do we want to spend our youth here with no guaranteed return on our investment?

That’s the question now.

How would you answer?

That’s not rhetorical; the comment section is just a scroll away.

All the best,

R&R