Month: August 2007

Tonight’s the night: Facebook Developer Garage (a.k.a. FacebookCamp) happens tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Mars Discovery District (101 College Street, Toronto). This will be the first of a series of Facebook Garages/Camps; there’s already talk of holding another one for the fall. If you’re interested in developing applications to run on the Facebook platform, this is a must-catch event, as not only are about 300 local developers planning to attend — the event has garnered so much attention that Facebook is flying reps up to speak. As you can imagine, seating will be limited, so if you can come early, do so.

I’ll be taking my usual copious notes and will post them here, so watch this space!

Here’s the schedule of tonight’s events:

From 1999 to 2005, I lived on Sullivan Street, a five-minute walk from Accordion City’s Entertainment District — a.k.a. Clubland. Although my friends and I preferred to do our clubbing at the alt-rock clubs farther west on Queen Street (Velvet Underground, Zoo Bar/Zen Lounge/Funhaus, Bovine Sex Club, Savage Garden and the first place I’d ever played accordion in front of a large crowd, Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar), I’d sometime catch up with friends at the various hot spots in Clubland. I busked in Clubland now and again, which landed me some very interesting accordion gigs at club such as This is London and hanging with my accordion from the ceiling at Money.

That’s why I’ll be reading the current issue of Toronto Life magazine with some interest. The cover story — titled Party Monsters — covers Clubland and poses the question: “The kids are hammered. The cops are overwhelmed. The condo owners have had it. Are we having fun yet?”

I believe that as long as the clubs have taken reasonable measures to keep the noise inside the clubs, condo residents who’ve been lured by the marketing to “live where the action is” should probably have to learn to cope with living in a nightlife area as long as their safety is not threatened.

I think that the neighbourhood’s real problem isn’t the noise, but the increasing thuggery. A friend of mine quit her job at a club because too many patrons were flashing firearms. As Clubland attracted more people, more fights began to break out; I myself have had to stop a handful of fights while busking (there’s a dent in one of my accordions that came from some fool who tried to punch it — his hand got the worse part of that deal). Among the bar staff in the area, the term “nine-oh-five” — that’s the area code for Toronto’s suburbs, where most of the troublemakers seem to come from — became a synonym for “asshole”. There’s something about crowd density, hormones, alcohol and “Hey, it’s not my neighbourhood” mixed together that can bring out the worst in some people.

I’ve only read about the article on the Spacing blog and will read it later tonight. It should be interesting, coming from the perspective of a Toronto Life reporter. To give you a hint of its intended audience, a random selection of their advertisers includes Trimark Mutual Funds, stone-tile, Maus Park Antiques and the ClubLink golf club network.