The Wall

I remember every tasty shot of Polish potato vodka: gathered around Liliana’s kitchen table our first night in town, hanging out on the porch after Luca’s band’s show, at the club as Wiktor mixed some serious industrial beats… whenever it was poured, it seemed like there was no limit to how awesome the night could get. But around 4:30 this morning… I found the limit.

It was Philip’s last night; we had to.

…Let me back up.

Friday began with a tour of the Łódź Film Center where they house one of the largest blue screens in Europe as well as one of the largest prop and costume collections (medieval armor, Nazi uniforms, an entire arsenal of guns...).

Then we put a couple of our hosts in the hot seat. Topografie is a social mission much like Detroit Lives. The collective sponsors City Games, an interactive map of Łódź featuring notes from locals as well as historical photos, and they even do community art installations- my favorite was when a bunch of people took household lamps to a dark park one evening and lit it up, so when residents went for their nightly stroll, it made their evening a little brighter. (pun intended, sorry).

Friday night, the reality of Philip’s Sunday morning departure was sinking in, but we couldn’t quit yet. We needed B-roll. Crazy, underground DJ B-roll. Hell yeah. This is something we couldn’t approach from a “professional” standpoint even if we wanted to- after all, the real parties don’t start until after midnight. Good thing Luka (our original sound guy) was back, and as you may remember from a previous post, he knows how to have a hell of a night.

For the pre-party entertainment, he introduced us to “the wall”… which is exactly what the name suggests: a wall. …a low stone divider in a petrol station parking lot. This is where everybody goes to drink. Everybody. The parking lot is packed with Polish hipsters. It’s not legal, and police show up every hour or so. But it’s just a procedural stop for them. They’ll drive though and disperse the crowd, and within 30-minutes, the wall is back in full effect. Even if police cracked down, (which I’m sure would send the petrol station food mart out of business), the wall would live on; the common belief is that “it isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind.”

As midnight rolled around, Wiktor’s party was raging… we just had to get to the opposite end of Piotrkowska Street. …and if you recall, that’s a helluva long street. There was only one solution… BIKE RICKSHAW RACE! We partnered up and flagged down our rides. This was gonna be some badass Ben-Hur shit. …until Philip and I got stuck with a wheezy old man. At least we made it there.

Like the wall, everyone knew about this party. And like the wall, the cops broke it up. Damn. At least they didn’t completely shut it down. Wiktor transferred his energy from savage industrial techno to dreamy trance. Made for some cool visuals.

By the time we stumbled out, the night sky made for some cool visuals too as it was slowly infused with morning light. Don’t ask me how, but we still had the energy to set the camera in the middle of the street and shoot some time lapsed traffic. Vodka hard at work.

Saturday morning was a rough one, but not as bad as one might imagine. We knew we had to power through Philip’s last day. Our last interviews.

We spoke with a documentary filmmaker who had one of the bitterest outlooks of any of our subjects. Then we got hopeful insight from our host Łukasz. Like many in Łódź, he frequently travels 90 minutes to Warsaw for work and sees the future of Łódź as becoming the creative counterpart to the nation’s capital. Finally, we interviewed local artist/ fashion designer Gregor Gonsior. He’s one of those guys that oozes with understated intrigue… and I didn’t even know what the heck he was saying.

It had been a long two weeks. It was time to celebrate.

Across the street from Łukasz’s flat, we sat around the ornate columns of the Łódź Academy of Music and drank. The summer air was perfect. The vodka was delicious.

After a few bottles, it was back to the wall. Damn good times. I remember learning Polish tongue twisters… I remember Agnieszka’s dream about penguins… I remember going to the bar… it was very red… then we started walking… then the sun started rising… Agata got orange juice… Philip got ice cream… and when we finally got home I remember standing in the bathroom thinking to myself, “I’ve been peeing for a really long time…”

100% awesome …until I closed my eyes and the room started spinning.

It’s a miracle I was able to function this morning. I’m pretty sure I was still sleeping when I somehow backed up all the footage on our second drive and packed it into Philip’s suitcase. He hopped on the train, and I hopped back into bed.

The wall… damn. With this headache I'm gonna be in that state of mind for the rest of the day whether I like it or not.

Worth it.