It would be dishonest of me to say I was one of the first people to live in the house on East Broadway Boulevard once known as, “The Gnarwhal House”. I didn’t name it that, and to be honest, I don’t know exactly how it got that name. But for all the more reason, it made it that much more spectacular. It was a house allegedly built in 1929, near downtown and the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, AZ. The biggest aspect of the house was the backyard, complete with a huge fire pit that people used to dispose garbage into. Often people would park their vehicles back there, given that the house was facing a major main street and had little room on the front driveway, or lack there of, but a large front porch. Besides the essential kitchen, there was a large common space that was used for bands to perform or practice in, a living room, a decent sized bathroom, laundry room, and three bedrooms. Technically, it was either two and a half bedrooms, or two bedrooms and a den, but the den had two doors that could open into either the laundry room or the bedroom in the center end of the house. I was perhaps the second or third generation of people to live there for what it was known for - an anti-jock DIY punk run house. Before I get into my share of my life in the Gnarwhal House, provided will be some backstory. It was perhaps my junior year of high school. I ran with friends that had no particular name, but we later became known as “The Gnarwhals”. If memory serves correctly, this was mostly a result of selecting the most obscure animal in our school textbook, wearing canvas Vans, and gray hoodies of the band, ‘Down To Nothing’ of their album art, “Splitting Headache”. A straight-edge, young man that was about five years our senior, known as “Tucson Tim” had headed the household along with two others about his age. Personally, I never attended any shows at the Gnarwhal House before 2006. The only thing I knew about Tim was that he was a pretty well respected man in the scene, known for stealing books and knowing his hardcore. He’s what some may call, “militant”. I heard he was moving up in the northern states, and his fellow roommates were moving out too. In place of Tim, there was Josh. Josh moved in early 2006 and signed a year lease. Shortly after, two additional people moved in, one of them being not on the lease. As they took on the mantel of having touring bands play often, the house became a shit wreck. Of course as a party house, no one, not even the residents, cleaned up after their guests or themselves. Not to mention, it was full of testosterone of southern youth. One of the said residents of the household at the time had a young dog and would shit often, and everywhere. Sure enough, holes began appearing in the floor, garbage piled up outside, and there was most certainly never any pleasant odors as people left cigarettes and empty tallboy cans and bottles everywhere. The house mostly lacked furniture, which was to be expected more or less if the space was mostly provided for bands to play and crash on the floor if they were touring and needed a place to stay.
