Wildest Fool Thing I Did Lately…
by JP
I’m a cautious, stick-to-my-rut kinda guy, so the wildest thing I did this year was to get off my butt and say “Yes” when my friend David asked for help in building a stage in a huge, old theatre in downtown Detroit. A bunch of other pals said Yes, too. We showed up and were shown the ambitious things we were to do. It was crazy. We had no idea of how to do what we had to do–to start with. But David was the pro and pointed the way; the rest of us looked and figured out what to do, stepbystep. …Then plunged in and worked our fool butts off, then got fed and watered. Then said DONE! When we left there was a brand new stage where there had been a rotting hole. What a rewarding, refreshing experience, being part of such a team, a great change of pace for this computer geek!
So, if you’re a bum like me and tend to say No to crazy ideas *that other people think up*—man, you better snap out of it while you can. Goosechases thought up by someone else are often ideal for helping you expand your own mind. They work and challenge you in ways you literally couldn’t think of. You can’t see how it could work—and that’s the point.
Anyway, you gotta check out this place we worked on. The Detroit Opera, I think it’s called. Run down and abandoned, but it was one of the finest show houses in its day. Why, U2 played there just ten years ago. But she went downhill fast, with falling plaster and gaping holes. Totally gothic for us with hanging work lights throwing shadows on the vaulted ceilings 200 feet overhead. ‘All’ we did was put up a stage and prep an area for David’s post-modern urban decay play. Killer setting.
When I’d finished my chores, others weren’t done. So I thought I’d do a little exploring. I went behind the huge, old velvet curtain and almost fell 3 stories in the dark, through the flimsy rotted flooring. You could see down to water below. 15 stories up you could see sky and pigeons. Crazy doors with little railways opened out into nowhere way up there…like they were for carting circus elephants out onto fancy towers. Awesome faded glory.
Then I went to the back, up to the third balcony. To highest, blackest part. Since it was summer in an unventilated building, it was hot. I found a door. Which led up. A few yellow work lights on a string lit up here and there. I went up, up. To a projection room full of huge old projectors and reels. A door up there opened out to…gaping space. No fire escape. Just a skyscraper high fall out into the bright day. Yikes.
A door led out of the room. I saw a walkway and timbers and blackness, interspersed with yellow bulbs, stretching out forever. The catwalks. I gingerly walked out. Gapped floorboards flexing. I could see thru the ceiling to the balcony 50 feet below. I went out further. I saw another projection room out in the stifling hot dark. The plaster floor in this booth was rotted away. 2×4’s led out to more catwalks. I went further out. The walk swayed from its rebar supports hung snuggly over the reverse curves of the majestic old plaster ceiling vaults. I walked past stained-glass skylights curving in huge reverses up past the catwalk. The yellow lights strung out further. Another 50 feet out I came to a ribboned-off area where one side of the catwalk was missing…so was the ceiling below. I leaned out and looked down thru the rebar. …To my friends looking like ants, 200 feet below! Yow! I scampered back.
…And said nothing to the already-worried-about-a-million-things-including-our-very-tenuous-safety David. But what a thrill! Who could’ve thought I’d ever get to do such a thing?
(I’m pretty sure this building has already been fixed up now. Those Detroit people just don’t know when they’re dead! They keep reclaiming block after block.)
[POSTSCRIPT: Yes, indeed, the Detroit Opera House is back in action. I guess it’s now the fanciest opera house in the land. It just reopened in early May. To a celebrity packed gala event. Pavarotti (My Man) sang! Hooray! —I wonder if they kept our stage? Actually, I heard that the lounge isn’t finished yet. But the photo on the cover of the Free Press showed a wild postmodern new building…which I suppose has the theatre of our tiny exploits built into the back somewhere. Well, well.]
