Sunday, July 12, 2009

'Trailer Park' tourism

DARTMOUTH, N.S. - Anyone who thinks the spotlight died on Ricky, Julian and Bubbles the day the axe fell on the cult TV hit "Trailer Park Boys" hasn't been to Nova Scotia lately, ya know what am sayin' dawg?

Their unfortunate DNA is littered all over the province.

On a recent spring night spent at the Bubbles Mansion night club co-owned by Bubbles' alter ego Mike Smith, a fellow restaurateur from Ulsan, South Korea sits at the bar, hoping against all odds the soft-hearted and soft-in-the-head kitten freak will come through the door.

The Canadian television classic has such a global following, fans who frequent her club a million miles away from Sunnyvale Park gather regularly to watch re-runs and sink shooters every time their most cherished character drops an f-bomb.

At the Mansion, followers can take souvenir snapshots of themselves outside Bubbles' shed - the real deal, which was torn down and set back up again on the bar's dance floor after every season - kittie plaques, table top hockey game, toilet and all.

The shopping carts that Bubbles would steal from one grocery store and sell to another to make a buck hang from the ceiling.

Photos of him in his trademark Coke-bottle glasses and protruding lower lip playing guitar with Rush idol Alex Lifeson, with Getty Lee on bass, decorate the walls.

Smith owns several more restaurants in Halifax, including Bubba Ray's sports bar on Spring Garden Road, which has 26 flat-screen TVs, 60 wing sauces and as many artifacts signed by another Nova Scotia hero, Sidney Crosby.

But it's across the Macdonald Bridge, in the working-class town of Dartmouth, where the real diehards can get their TPB fix.

If a visit to the Greenridge Mobile Home Park makes you feel like firing off your pistol or throwing a bottle, it's because Greenridge was once a set for Sunnyvale, where the boys grew their dope, hatched their half-cocked, get-rich-quick schemes and tangled with the law.

Any TPB fan lucky enough to be invited inside the trailer of Danny Kempt is in for a treat.

Kempt is brimming with stories about what life was like when the lovable louts filmed their show along the park's otherwise tranquil streets.

"It was like living in the city, it was beautiful, all that activity," says Kempt in his easy-on-the-ear East Coast lilt.

"A hundred days or so they were here. It was just like living in the graveyard across the street the next morning when they were gone. I got up and I said 'What?' Nothing. Not hardly a car. It was a riot when there were here. It was a riot."

Danny's friends J. Bird Dorey and the girls Mandy and Cindy are over, having a lunchtime party that will stretch well into the evening hockey game.

J. Bird beams with pride as he explains that his daughter was one of the bottle thrower kids who tormented Mr. Lahey, the park's alcoholic manager.

The whole scene is classic Trailer Park Boys and yet the true pot of gold is still a short drive away on Bissett Road.

The jail, where the boys ended and began almost every season as the drug deals that would catapult them out of the park bombed, sits at the top of a long driveway.

A sign on the locked fence says that trespassers will be prosecuted but it's not hard to find another way in.

Ray's "house," the red and black truck cabin that Ricky's dad lived in after the chip pan fire burned down his trailer, is still on the grounds.

The white picket fence that surrounded the park with irony is there too. The trailers have been taken away but the outlines of where they once stood still mark the spot.

An earthy brown substance still clings to the only paved driveway on the lot, likely the famous hash driveway Julian was trying to hide from the cops in Season 5.

So, is living in a Nova Scotia trailer park anything like the way it looks on TPB?

"It depends, you know what I mean?" says Danny Kempt, a cold can of Molson Export in his hand.

"Like as I say, the tray is there, it don't matter who comes through the door," he adds pointing to the ashtray next to his swivel arm chair that's never without a smoke.

"It's just the boulevard of broken dreams, right?" he says, collapsing into laughter as he points to the James Dean movie poster to his left, and the one of Cheech and Chong to his right.

"As they say,'Up in smoke we go, har har har.' "

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If you go . . .

-Bubbles Mansion night club: Located at 5287 Prince St., at the Market Street intersection in downtown Halifax, across from another national historic site, the Citadel.

-Bubba Ray's: Bubbles' wing and sports bar is a five-minute stumble along Brunswick Street to the popular Spring Garden Road.

-Greenridge Mobile Home Park: To soak up the atmosphere, hop in the car and cross the Macdonald Bridge to Dartmouth. Take Portland Street (it turns into Cole Harbour Road), until you come to Bissett Road. Both the park and the old jail set are on Bissett.

-The stunt yard: Where the cop cars hauled the boys to jail, is just across the road from the park. The TPBs didn't travel far.