Mill Avenue Nights: Friday, August 12th 2011

I couldn’t remain on the Ave more than 20 minutes even at 10pm at night after encountering sweltering heat and high humidity. The oppressive atmosphere, however, didn’t discourage many of the townesfolk from idling on the red bricks and enjoying the night.

I found myself amused to discover a busker outside the Post Office bearing an acoustic guitar who, caught up by a passerby, allowed her to borrow his instrument to play “The Timewarp” from Rocky Horror Picture Show. She did a passable job at singing the song, although, for some reason whenever I hear it I always feel like it needs itself a hellish chorus of awkwardly unmelodic voices from an audience.

Otherwise, we had a somewhat dull night on the Ave. People came and went from bars, walked the streets in their revere, and the lights in W6 dimly lit from the newly opened lofts in the Tombstone Towers.

Let’s do the Time Warp again!

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, August 6th 2011

A few nights now, there have been drummers set up in front of the Post Office and that had displaced the evangelical preachers across the street. However, this evening there were no drummers and thus they set up in front of the post office.

We saw a few of the usual folks standing around, including Marcus,

That’s when Arienne and I were approached by an older gentleman of notable more than average height. He attempted to offer Arienne a Way of the Master fake-money tract depicting President Cleveland. (Of course, after I got home and examined the tract, I discovered it’s in Spanish.) After introductions, we learned that his name was Ken.

Like most of the Way of the Master evangelicals his approach is decidedly deep in the propaganda training than it was much personality. It took me a while to determine that this was his first time on Mill Ave and that he’d come to the Ave with the other evangelicals after meeting Tom.

He spent some time using a lot of different elements of propaganda on me and even held a long conversation with Arienne. He seemed a little bit ignorant of the history of his religion but has spoken about tightening up on his understanding of the lack of historical evidence for mythological characters like Jesus (even going so far to repeat a common canard that suggests that there’s more evidence for Jesus than Abraham Lincoln. A slogan that’s as patently false as absurd.)

After many minutes of absorbing his knowledge of Way of the Master propaganda, and letting Arienne converse with him, I decided to see if I could speak to him as a person. As he was new to Mill Ave, he seemed pretty zealous about selling his viewpoint; but none of it is anything that anyone extracultural would want to buy. As Arienne actually belongs to his religion, I figured that I’d best observe his interaction with her to get a baseline, especially if all I was going to get happened to be mirror-speak.

Eventually, something unexpected happened and Ken started talking to Omni (the Reverend Übermensch Omnicynic) and that conversation became interesting. Not a person to sit down in front of a challenge, Omni cultivated a discussion of Christian mythology that painted YHVH as an ineffective deity who fled in the face of rivals and needed his followers to do everything for him. I couldn’t quite follow along with everything discussed; but I did hear Omni speak about much of the comparative mythology.

After some lively discussion, Omni tired, claiming that Ken had begun to repeat himself. He quit both the conversation and the Ave at that point.

Eventually, however, after Crystal arrived on the scene Ken actually sat down with us and held a much more personal conversation bereft of the propaganda that advanced a personal dialogue. We ended up in a rather lively conversation about the origin of birthmarks, freckles, and the pigment mutation in recent European ethnic descent that causes us to have much lighter skin tone than African ethnicities. The conversation wound on to discussing aberrant psychology such as schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Ken revealed to us that a relative worked in a mental hospital and spoke a little bit about the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome patients and its apparent prevalence in the population. Elaine Mercer from Black Hat Magick exhibits some of the spectrum of Asperger’s syndrome—as similar and fantasized about in the geek community—but even these examples don’t well reflect the reality of the condition.

I enjoyed the time I got to actually sit and speak with Ken as another person. I don’t know that I can adequately approach his cultural propaganda; he lacked the apparent cynicism and paternalistic simpering of many of the other preachers who speak down to passersby and could actually be an asset to the culture of the Ave.

Chicago Still on Mill Ave

Glad to see that Chicago is still bringing his interesting bottle-tab outfit out to the Avenue. He’s laconic, but smiling black neo-punk who fashioned his wardrobe out of metal bits and bottle-tabs; the effect produces a chainmail armor and coif effect as it’s a hoodie, a shirt, and a pair of pants.

When I hit the bricks, I often find him sitting near the clock.

Don’t Know Where I’ll be in a Month

I’ll miss the Ave the most.

Mill Avenue Nights: Friday the 13th, 2011

Too Loud Music Makes Bad Nights

Tonight the Post Office found its red bricks graced with two extremely loud hip hop artists. I know that I’ve complained before about having people on Mill Ave playing wars of amplitude (namely Shawn Holes and the Mill Avenue Resistance) but this one is equally annoying. It’s nice that we have buskers and people playing music on the Ave, but it’s not a concert venue where decibel levels can be ignored for adoring crowds.
When sound levels reach the point that I have to cross the street in order to avoid hearing damage, things have gotten less fun.
Everyone who uses the Ave as their venue of choice should really respect their neighbors.

Street Preachers

Due to the excessively loud buskers at the Post Office, the street preachers and their sign found themselves relegated to a new part of the Ave. They ended up in front of Urban Outfitters. They were the usual Way of the Master group, but this time sans both Al and Marcus.
They had a visible microphone set up for respondents to use; however, even though there was a visible wire running from the microphone to the loudspeaker, it didn’t seem to be connected. Not that it mattered much that the rest of the Ave couldn’t hear what the respondent was saying. It was the usual immoral “Good Person Test” they indecently inflict on everyone who speaks with them.
There was no sign of the Mill Avenue Resistance either.

Millrats

There were about five of them next to the Valley Art Theater. Saw some hippy-looking drummers across from then Coffee Plantation, now Five Guys Burgers. And there were a few others wandering the Ave. Even say Crystal on her new bike.

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Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, October 23rd 2010

This one is probably going to only be photographs and not that many. My camera’s batteries died during the night. Didn’t have that much of a showing on the Ave, for reasons unknown, but I did take a few pictures for everyone to see.

FREE CLOTHES. The Resistance protests the presence of the street preachers on the corner with the Post Office with charitable operations.

In the very center of the photo is Crystal, she spent some time posing – but due to the battery on my camera dying, I was only able to get one photo of her and it’s not that great.

I really need to get myself a stabilizer/tripod or something similar to go with this camera for night shots. It doesn’t deal with motion so well because of the increased aperture and exposure for dealing with the dim light.

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, October 2nd 2010

I didn’t feel well for most of the night due to an illness brought on my travel, but things got better with a bit of better living through chemistry. At least enough to gather up some of my friends from Mill Ave and parade them around my domain. I got to see Rocco, Steve, Kazz, and Gadfly from the Mill Avenue Resistance. I also got a chance to see some of the street preachers in the form of Al and Tom, and also Marcus (and his new two-planks wooden crucifix—an addition I should interview him about sometime.)

The Mill Avenue Resistance

A no show for most counts.

They appear to have started doing some sort of clothing giveaway involving used clothing and a rack. I haven’t seen the clothing rack yet as it didn’t arrive tonight. They’ve been doing this for a few months now. Mostly attempting to alleviate the needs of the itinerant folk on Mill Ave—an act that I appreciate greatly as the itinerant community of Mill does need a bit of help.

Drum Circle

Gone.

Not a single person appeared during my entire time on Mill. I floated in and out of the area where we usually find that gathering, yet it remained deserted. Perhaps we’ll have to wait a while for the seeds of community to sprout and flourish again. I am still investigating its disappearance.

Interesting events

While Marcus preached from the site in front of the Post Office, I listened to passersby and I noticed that we have a small, but noticeable, contingent of Muslims now—or at least one outspoken Muslim.

“Allāhu Akbar! Allāhu Akbar!” he shouted as he walked past. Cupping his hands to his lips but never turning his head towards Marcus. The well-known exclamation from Muslim culture is known as the Takbīr and translates literally to “God is the greatest!” It is a common Islamic Arabic expression and considered a formal declaration of faith. Extremely similar to the Christian English expression, “Jesus is lord.”

Marcus didn’t appear to notice as he continued on with his usual preaching through his loudspeaker.

The device seemed to have some issues through the night. When I questioned him about that he explained that it had been stepped on drunkenly in a previous outing and now had become temperamental.

Mill Avenue in political news, recruiting ground in claimed electoral fraud

I am really not sure what to make of this, but it mentions both the Ave and Mill rats! See for yourself over at the The New York Times website,

But Steve May, the Republican operative who signed up some of the candidates along Mill Avenue, a bohemian commercial strip next to Arizona State University, insists that a real political movement has been stirred up that has nothing to do with subterfuge.

“Did I recruit candidates? Yes,” said Mr. May, who is himself a candidate for the State Legislature, on the Republican ticket. “Are they fake candidates? No way.”

To make his point, Mr. May went by Starbucks, the gathering spot of the Mill Rats, as the frequenters of Mill Avenue are known.

I can’t say that most of us on Mill Ave have any political aspirations, but he certainly picked from the new crew. Nobody from the old school would want to fall for this—well, actually, I can pluck up a few. In fact, I can think of some Mill rats, like Josh and Vince, who I wouldn’t mind seeing run for political office.

The only problem that I see here is that they’d end up getting chewed up and spit out. The political vein in Arizona runs deep into a subterranean motherlode of backstabbing, corruption, and dark subterfuge. The actions in and around Mill Ave and Tempe represent only the first few tunnels that wind through that strange, dark recess of the political mindset.

I don’t know that I’d inflict that on my worst enemy.

Not that people in some of those political offices don’t feel like our worst enemy sometimes.

Fortunately, the current mayor of Tempe, Hugh Hallman, is no bad person, nor is he a pushover. But still, I wouldn’t want his job.

Mill Avenue Nights Friday, December 26th 2008

Cold.

Nothing else can really be said for the night. The temperature has dropped precipitously since the solstice; plummeting down to the low 40s. Anything hovering around and below the 50s is weather that makes my nose run. I hate that. I don’t know what was up with the dew point, however, since we couldn’t see our breath yet—which is something we had going on a few weeks earlier with less bone-chilling cold.

There are just particular types of cold. There’s the cold I recall from Minnesota. It drove me forward, stomping through the snowy forests; recalling a witerbite through my boots and into my feet, but nothing that reached down into my bones the way that Sonoran cold does.

Mill Ave was largely depopulated of the ordinary night-clad folk visiting clubs and bars, but they were certainly still there. They just didn’t choose to stop and dawdle in the chill so much. Possibly because a number of people were out in short sleeves, swinging their arms in the frigid air. Walking off of the Ave, the wind would pick up between the aisles of buildings. My cheeks felt cold from the bristling breezes.

All I did much on the Ave was talk to some of the streetrats and enjoin in a few gatherings outside of Valley Art theater; but there was little to discuss. Most of them have been huddling back at their squats or hiding in what housing they’ve been able to find during these colder days.

It’s particularly difficult for the itinerant culture during the winter. Fortune, of course, favors those out here due to the fact that we’re at a low altitude and latitude. The desert can reach freezing at nights, though, so anyone sleeping outside is at something of a risk. I still recall some of my nights sleeping out near the Mill Ave bridge. Cold causing all of us to shiver even as we were huddled together, listening to every passing car, and flicker of lights thinking it might be the police.

At least jail would be warmer.

Strange for me, of course, since unlike many of my friends I did have a place that I could go to if I chose to—and I did, often taking some of them with me. The number of street rats who I kept in my dorm room later that year was a little amusing. Possibly less-so to my patient and kind roommate at the time. Who managed to suffer well through the sick kids that I let sleep in my bed while they were taking their medication and recovering.

Healers. Can’t go far without us fostering some ailing stray under our wings.

That was a great deal of time before.

Now the chill simply hurts my fingers and makes it hard to type.

I hope everyone else had a warm Yule. Be well out there everyone.