Mill Avenue Nights Friday, December 12th 2008

Upon my arrival I bask in the electric glow of the lights strung through the trees on the Ave like frozen fireflies. They rest their wings, asleep, on trunks and hung like glowing fruit in the canopies above. The traffic is sparse, but there are definitely people about, it’s only about 6pm and I have come to see the STFS meet at Borders.

Borders is closing up shop! Come January 31^st we will see them no more. They are offering 20% off on most of their wares, so everyone should show up and get their fill. I have been asked, “So, what do you think will take its place?” I think it’s likely that nothing will—the economy of Mill is hard up and not in a good place. Especially with the Tempe Marketplace not that far away, sucking away the retail vibe. Which could be good for the Bohemian atmosphere.

Just not so good for the income.

At this rate it’ll be a restaurant. However, what I think that Mill Avenue District should do with it is: booths and kiosks.

That’s right. Until some major store is called to move in there. Which may take months. Open up the space for a mini-bazaar. Let various small-time entities set up tables, booths, kiosks, tents, and the like as if a marketplace of its own. Let us have an indoor swap meet. In fact, how about we invite both the Resistance and the Mill Ave evangelicals to have their own little corners? How interesting would that be?

Well. I suppose that it is much more in the interest of the Mill Avenue District development to move in another big name retail store into the spot. Another bookstore would be good. Because with the exit of Changing Hands Bookstore and the closure of Those Were the Days, we are now down to only Old Town Books and that’s not exactly a contemporary bookstore. Excellent store, though, for antique and out-of-print works.

Orange taxis lined up in front of the Valley Art Theater and My Big Fat Greek restaurant wrapped themselves up in plastic to help keep outside patrons warm against the encroaching winter. With solstice approaching we are marching into the depths of cold; although tonight wasn’t really that chilly, possibly low 60s high 50s.

The median of the Ave has a series of wireframed red lights spelling out: TEMPE.

A small group of drummers set up in front of the brightly-lit American Apparel.

Spent most of the night handing out Lost Sphinx Cat, probably burned through about 20 of them before I ran out of people to give them out to.

Mill Ave evangelical preachers

After the STFS changed membership and transformed into the Resistance they went out to find the preachers, but they didn’t appear. However, I still have some notes that pertain so I have put those on my Mill Avenue Resistance observations blog.

Graffiti Shop

There are some extremely fun gothic clothes by Living Dead Souls. Not just the usual Gothic Lolita clothing (which is there also) but basically an anatomical sweater showing off bones of the arms, chest, and right up into the neck of the shirt the lower mandible.

Marissa and Friend

Actually, I cannot properly remember either of their names—so I might be getting Marissa’s name wrong—I haven’t seen her in almost three years. However, she and her friend look healthy enough. She’s been a Mill rat for almost a decade now.

Says that she’s in a bit of a situation involving her job, from which she’s been shuffled off, which is probably a good thing because they’ve been bouncing cheques. A lawsuit appears to be looming on the horizon for her against the company to get the money they’re owed. In the meantime she appears to have gone into a stint where she’s doing phone work for someone else, so that they can make rent and car payments.

She also has another Carcass in her social circle. (Have I mentioned that the two most common street names on the Ave are Corpse and Carcass?)

Greg and Shamancat

Shamancat came by again today and said hello. He’s been in town for months now and it’s good to see him around. He brought a friend with him, Greg, who isn’t too happy about how Mill Ave has been treating him—when I welcomed him, he said he’d be glad to get on with his travels.

He’s come out of California, San Francisco mostly, and is heading through Arizona towards Louisiana to reach New Orleans before Mardi Gras. Not an uncommon thing for passersthrough.

Greg has a golden labrador retriever with him, don’t know the dogs name but s/he is gorgeous. A leather jacket, red baseball cap lettered SF intertwined, and an obviously heavy backpack.

Shamancat says that he’s rescued over seven dogs and has gotten them all homes.

Daniel Nickels

A larger, heavyset man with a fuzzy neckbeard and a fey look in his eyes. He talked and wobbled as he tried to start a conversation with Vince, starting off that he probably met him on the “flight deck.” Which, according to Daniel, is military slang for the psych ward. He complained that he didn’t feel so well; he had been released from the Veterans Hospital without night med. Only day meds.

“Daniel Nickels,” he said. “Like the money—more dollars than sense. I feel like I might walk right out into traffic right now.”

Vince suggested to him that he might cross the street and talk to the mounted police officer to ask her for a crisis unit. Shortly thereafter he did cross the street and a Rescue arrived.

We saw a lot of Rescue that night. Ambulances and fire trucks driving willy-nilly around the Ave; possibly five separate events all around the corner at the Post Office. Certainly had to have been a busy night for them.

Osiris

He came by with a new cane, which matches the configuration of a modern sheleighleigh, although a lot shorter than the ones that I’m used to; the fighting sticks are short, but their shepherd’s counterparts are a bit longer and are what I was used to from my time spent with my Irish family.

Wednesday, whom I lovingly call Squirrel

She showed up with her boyfriend and possibly aunt/mother? I don’t know—I was too polite to ask, I suppose, probably a failing on my part because now I am talking about her and I’m not being so polite.

Whatever the case, it was very good to see Squirrel. I haven’t seen her since last year. She appears to be doing well. I spent most of my time talking to her boyfriend who just lost his house (a common malady these days) and had spent a bunch of time repairing a vehicle to move to another place.

I made sure that she got a copy of Lost Sphinx Cat and let it lay at that.

Mill Avenue Nights Friday November 21st 2008

Dawn, Shamancat, Sebastian, Vince

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Dawn and her dog. They used to come out to Mill Ave pretty much every night years ago, but since I haven’t seen her around much at all. It wasn’t long after I reached the red bricks that I found her sauntering past, hippy skirt and dusty-gold dreadlocks in her wake.

I managed to stop her for a bit and inquire as to her health and whereabouts, which are both good. Apparently she’s spent most of the summer in Chicago. A place rapidly getting cold so she’s returned herself to these warmer climes—which has precisely been my idea on the matter.

She used to spend her time selling hemp jewelry bound up with the requisite glass and plastic beads in interesting designs. However, two years ago or so she stopped due to harassment by the local police who had taken to mistreating transient-looking individuals and Mill rats in order to “clean up the streets.” Even now there are propaganda messages posted alongside some of the Mill information signs.

This has changed slightly, according to Dawn.

“Yeah. I was set up near ASU the other day and the police came to tell me that I couldn’t sell there. ‘Go to Mill Ave,’ they told me, ‘It’s okay. We know who you are and we like you, it’s okay.’ In their words a Mill Avenue Council has been set up and word has come down from the mayor not to mess with vendors selling stuff on the Ave. The shops and culture have taken several major shakeups and hits due to the economic downturn; and he’d like to see a return of musicians and other reasons for people to visit our little carnival. However, they still don’t like spanging (panhandling)—but it’s interesting to see this change in attitude by the distant powers-that-are.

Sebastian Rain Valintino is an interesting fellow who I’ve seen a few times on the Ave already and it was good to be able to stop and talk to him. He has close cropped hair that curls in tight bunches—possibly due to his Italian ancestry. Looking at him from a distance you’d think that he had a very light goatee or beard, but really it’s a carefully pinned tattoo around his lips that extends in sharp fang-like markings. At first it reminded me of a Celtic brooch pin, but upon closer inspection it’s designed from two bridled-arcs and fangs around his mouth. He also has his left eyebrow tattooed (no hair) and a small teardrop from his left eye.

By way of explanation the tattoos around his lips are an Irish-Italian mixture relating to a Bear Clan and Wolf Clan, hence the fangs. I did not properly document his reason for the eyebrow—but he explains that the teardrop is for his uncle who is in a Federal penitentiary for killing several police officers in a firefight.

I also ran into Shamancat who was standing around with an older gentleman. We didn’t discuss much but he might be making his way down to Sedona. Which, he suggests, that he might go see the “spaceships.” Sedona is well known for its alien and UFO cults, occultists, esotericism, and other supernatural activity. It’s a real hub of the weird.

Vince appeared on the Ave today. He was wearing a gigantic tweed/wool trench coat that reminded me of a German barrack coat. Grey and dismal, but possibly massively warm. Turning him into a giant, woolen version of Cousin It.

I also had a moment to visit with some of the other newer street rats. One in particular, a girl who kindly warned me not to sit on the ground due to an anti-homeless law that the police do like to enforce. She mentioned she’d had a wound on her foot, thus her boot was loosely tied. I couldn’t get her to let me look at it, but the skin lividity in the area was fine, no visible signs of infection (shooters or puffiness) outside of the region. She also promised to go to the medical van tomorrow and get it checked out.

The Preachers Tonight

Out tonight were Jim and Valerie. They brought with them a number of props. I had some discussions with Valerie about typesetting, desktop publishing, cover design. A lot of the things that go into my prints of Mill Avenue Vexations—my seminal work that is attempting to capture the evanescent zeitgeist of Mill Ave in fiction.

I gave her a book but warned her that she might be outside of the audience. Being neither street-rat nor goth.

She described an interesting in writing but never knew how to properly get it printed. I told her about how manuscript creation is often very separate from the editing required to produce a book. Fortunately, when writing a work thou need concern thyself little with how it’ll format when it’s done—it’s the words that matter. Let the typesetter and binder (even if that person is thee at a later date) worry about that when it comes around. Plus, Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop can be used to produce an extremely professional work and the learning curve is only a few months.

Maybe she’ll decide to write something and take my advice. I even explained to her that booklets come in pages of 4. Since every letter-sized page is folded in half producing two pages to a side, and two-sided, meaning each sheet creates 4 pages.

They eventually got set up with amplification in front of the Post Office and the SFTS showed up to talk to them. Pretty much tying them up the entire night.

The rest of my observations of them is available on my Better than Faith observations blog.