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, December 13th 2008

Little newbie Christine really needs to calm down a little bit. It is apparent that she’s a bit hyperactive and possibly mildly Aspergers—something that most geeks can probably relate to. She doesn’t seem to understand that assaulting other people is a very bad thing, after striking Osiris with an image she had drawn, throwing water in my face, and other things. She’s been stirring up a lot of animosity with the group through hyperactive behavior and assaults. I figure, though, that as long as enough people are firm about what behavior is bad she’ll eventually calm down.

The drum circle group is fairly mellow and do deal with people acting out rather well, however, the frat crowds and the drunken outsiders who visit are not. So it may become a problem if she gets too abrasive with one of them.

She’s a young blond girl, wearing a hoodie, constantly talking about her boyfriend and pretty much insinuating herself into every conversation.

Others that I found out there

Remi came by, drunk off his respective ass.

Jimmy also ran about offering hugs to all comers—I got about three.

Vince made an appearance but I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him. For the most part he stood around and discussed theology as per his regular status as Preacher Man.

I also got a chance to talk to Ogre (Paul) and his girlfriend. I haven’t seen him since last year. Apparently he and his kaywng have been together almost 13 months now, which is going strong and is good to hear. He’s been avoiding the Ave due to drama that permeates the place—but it’s still cheerful to have him back in the group.

Osiris also came out again, which is good because I like having him around.

Jim, our wheelchair bound friend

I had a chance to sit down an interview Jim for my first recorded interview with one of the people who comes out to Mill as an evangelical. He is not connected to the Way of the Master evangelicals, but he has been out there for years now and I haven’t gotten his story.

I am going to start making interviews shortly of street rats and evangelicals, and anyone else, to post on this blog about their experience on Mill Ave. This will also be added to my anthropological research.

Anyone who would like an interview and a biographical post, go ahead and contact me by commenting and we can get together.

Mill Ave street preachers

Of whom Jim is sort of included in a cursory fashion, they were out caroling, cavorting, and so on. I have more about them in my Mill Avenue Resistance observations blog.

Hanna is awesome

She is a petite blonde girl, ASU student who started out in CSE but moved instead to a Mathematics major, if I recall correctly, because CSE at ASU yet seems a bit too far behind the times and tended to put her to sleep. Her joining the Ave is definitely a good influence. As readers are about to see.

Near midnight a newcomer joined our little revelry and since she looked like someone who might like Vexations, I gave her a copy of Lost Sphinx Cat; the result of which became a trade—a trade for Pop-its! Little micro-explosives made of wads of paper, gunpowder, and flint (or some sort of rocks) that when struck against the ground, or any other hard surface, make a crack! sound.

This lead to a great deal of merriment.

Until several mounted officers came by, stood for a while, and then approached to tell Brian that we were littering. I’m not sure that I fully support this sort of “stop that because your littering,” because certainly they could have just asked us to stop because they felt like it was disruptive. Littering? The amount of paper litter produced by these tiny things isn’t even enough to make a single tract or flyer handed out by the other various groups. And we could have been asked instead to simply clean up some tracts/fliers or even the bits from the Pop-its.

Littering?

It is easy to disrespect people who use obviously stupid reasons to stop a behavior rather than plead for calm. As police officers they will always be facing a certain amount of animosity from the public because they’re being told what to do; but when the rule of law from their mouths is so transparently asinine it’s only going to feed into the notion that they’re not worth respecting.

Try keeping the peace with a little bit of actual respect for the citizens rather than using bad rhetoric; people really do not want to be part of a problem, leave it at that rather than insulting them.

Mill Avenue Nights Saturday, December 6th 2008

We arrived on the scene a bit late into the twilight gloaming, with dark gently descending over the marches of empty white tents. Streetlights illuminated the red bricks of the sidewalk and the asphalt streets, hiding the dust, scratches, and errant debris that remained strewn from the Art Festival during the day. Some random sculptures—a green plate-like molding, and a spiderwebbed red-and-black bristle of almost-coral—stood out between some of the tents.

A lively crowd gathered outside of hooters, eyes staring upwards at a TV. An announcer’s voice booming back down to the glittering pupils as they watched the distant screen. Pugilism and 20/20 vision. A fight had been progressing on the screen and the crowd found themselves in hushed gazes in the middle of the street.

Yes, that’s right: the middle of the street.

When the Art Festival is in town all of Mill Ave gets shut to vehicular traffic. We get to walk down the middle of the road without a care. An event that brings joy to my visitations as I get to walk, twirling, between the lonely tents and through the street without fear of being run down. Nor having to wait for the WALK signal to bear me safely through.

Our street rats certainly came out today, but by in large the drum circle wasn’t. We did have some drummers at the entrance to the area but they were playing bongos its sounded like and singing a strange variety of songs including Tool. Which…did not lend itself to the bongos so well.

Remi

Apparently I have been spelling Remi’s name wrong. A danger of linguistic homonyms as I thought it was spelled with a ‘y’ all this time. No problem. This can be fixed.

Other Mill Rats

There were quite a few of the old guard hanging around the bronze legs and I had a time to actually speak with them and handed out the remaining copies of Volume 9. Next week I will have Lost Sphinx Cat to hand out! By in large it received a fair amount of glowing cheer and hands reaching out for it.

Amidst the Mill rats were also a few new faces but I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to them as the evangelicals were far more interesting.

The Mill Ave Evangelicals

Kazz from the Resistance took a while to reach the Ave due to hold ups at his house, so when he arrived it was wearing into 9. The Way of the Master evangelicals tend to turn into pumpkins at 10pm, so there was going to be little dialogue between Kazz and them. Erin, Suzanne, her daughter, Al, Jim, Sean, Trevor, Lee, John, others…

I actually finally got to meet Vocab tonight. He’s a hiphop artist who also writes poetry and sometimes breaks out into raps directly on the street. Lee had a white amp speaker with him and let Vocab use it for a little while; but eventually when different members of his cadre were using the mike, Lee cut them off.

During his little rap, Vocab even said my name. He’s actually pretty good. I have received a CD from him of his work. I will try to review it at some point.

After some caroling most of the larger Way of the Master group did vanish from the Ave but remaining behind were still enough for some fun discussions between the Resistance and others.

Also to note, Richard came back today! He has been missing ever since I first came back from Michigan—and as much as I was happy to see him, he really didn’t spend a moment to talk much with me. Just enough time to say, “I had to go off and do my own thing,” when I asked him where he had been. I am just glad that he is alright.

More of this is written up on the Mill Avenue Resistance reports blog.

Mounted police and furlough

I was walking down the street from the evangelicals when a mounted policeman came charging past. I believe that Kyle or Cael had to leap out of the way or get run down—although I think that the horses are actually trained not to stomp on people. Cael came back and said that someone had broken into a tent and wrecked someone’s art.

And then got promptly run to ground by the horse.

General population wandering around

I got to meet some random people as well on the street. By in large people passing by were fun to talk to and many of them took booklets.

I also got a chance to talk to Nikki, a reporter from the New Times, who might do a story on Vexations so we’ll see where that goes.

Then there were the two guys dressed up in Star Trek shirts—right down to the silvery communicator symbol on their shirts. Neither one was a red shirt. I think one was blue and the other one was black. Brothers who say that they dress up every time that they go out, tonight just turned out to be Star Trek.

Mill Avenue Nights – Saturday October 25, 2008

It starts on Friday.

On the feathers of a bird—or more like an Airbus A320—I returned to the Phoenix genus loci with a wing and a prayer. Doped up on numerous painkillers to handle my myriad pains from the flight I rested a while with Omnicynic and waited for the day to unfurl around us. The sights and smells of my old home city kept me company while rubber muttered sweet nothings to asphalt and Omni laid out the events of the summer that I had missed.

There are no deep secrets to Phoenix. She’s a creature of geometries of glass and steel, blacktop and desert; just barely a juvenile as it comes to cities, leaning, gawky and tall in her teenager rawboned, all elbows and knees—clumsy on her feet, flirting with everyone and never quite going home. That’s her skyline, filled with jagged blue and hopeful horizons; clothed in the forgetting perfume of mesquite, dust, and the halitosis of exhaust fumes.

In spite of myself I feel almost as if I’m home, but everywhere is my home.

“If home is where your heart is then your real home is in your chest!” Captain Hammer.

Omni and I hit the Ave briefly to see the various sights and possible people, but there wasn’t much to it so early in the day. Just the trickling remnants of the crowd filtering from ASU classes and preparing for the nightlife after their day’s work. But, it is the Ave, and I enjoy all of her states—even her quiet slumber.

Saturday rolled around to deliver unto me my first experience of Mill for the winter.

Drum Circle

Like a ragged army we still descent around the dusty feet of our bronze lord, the statue of Mitchell that cuts a flat figure over the drum circle and her inhabitants. I saw a few familiar faces scattered in the crowd, but few that I speak to on a regular basis. It may take me some time to find the usuals teeming up between the newcomers, like sentimental ghosts visiting their old haunts.

After exile (the exodus that happens at midnight from the drum circle’s proper spot to out in front of the post office) I discovered a few people to speak with who remember me from the old days of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I smiled in amazement as an old timer regaled me with his memories of how the Ave’s drum circle Saturday

Cindy and Corky

She is an extremely lovely elderly lady with a proud carriage and narrow-eyed comportment. For the most part I liked her hat and her conversation—which I quickly learned she was a mathematician who works at ASU. Reminds me with some interest of my friend Rapunzel’s mother to whom I ascribe mathematical genius as well. I think I like the fact that we have such an erudite woman keeping up on the Ave.

Kazz tells me that she and her partner, Corky, are regulars with the preacher’s now. I will have to find a way to split some extra time away to accompany them in conversation and interviews sometime.

Talking to Cindy led me into some thoughts about how I could use Vex’s voice at Mill Avenue Vexations to provide some constructive observations to the growth and changes that are happening on the Ave. We have too many people in the city and the merchants guilds going in obviously bad directions. For the most part it’s easy to tell that they’re vastly ignorant of how the street works on a demographic and social level; but as much as I want to blame them, if I don’t offer the tools of understanding I doubt they will harvest them themselves.

See the first segment of Mill Avenue the Beautiful here.

Corky appears to be a writer and ad editor. I am not sure what he’s written yet, but he wears a bearded and bespectacled professor-face and also looks like an excellent element to the culture of the Ave.

The Preachers

With the advent of the ASU Secular Society stepping up their immune response to the preachers on Mill Avenue, so has increased the presence of the preachers. I haven’t studied fully their changes in tactics but here’s a run down of my observations.

There were at least twenty-five people in total making up the full group of the Way of the Master crew. This doesn’t count children under the age of 13, of whom I believe there were at least three—I did have a brief chance to meet one of them, but we didn’t really speak. Being on too many opiates makes me a bad conversation partner.

They have broken themselves into independent groups across three different corners. The more traditional spot in front of Urban Outfitter is still defended as proper, but they also put a microphone and speaker immediately across the street (manned by Al) and they’re also persistent in front of Borders now (where the larger crowd of them gathered.)

The ASU Secular Society appear to have fielded about eight people between Kazz, Sam, Jordan, Brian, Rocco, and several others. They have brought with them further signs, petitions, handouts, and even their own speaker on a tripod from which rebuttals are spoken directly to the emanations of the preachers on their own microphone. Static bursts of sharp cadence to break up the rhythm of the preachers as they try to get going, only to have their rails kicked out from under them.

In front of Urban Outfitters I listened briefly to a woman trying to do the Good Person Test (a dishonest bait-and-switch heartstrings used-car-salesman pitch to religion) but it didn’t last and eventually she dissolved into arguing with the rampant drunks who decided to surround and confront her speech. Drunk people are certainly a hazard of the Ave, but I definitely do not wish them on anyone. She finished up her spiel with some commentary on the Titanic, but nothing that I really caught onto. Shortly after I came to listen they packed up and moved elsewhere.

To Borders.

At Borders the time had reached about 10pm—it was only at about 9pm that I’d arrived on the Ave, having come down late—and they spoke for less than ten minutes and said nothing of much import or affect. A soon as the ASU Secular Society had their speaker and microphone set up it seemed like the preachers were once again breaking down to leave.

I did have a chance to see some of the preachers that I knew as well while I took my notes. Edwin I stopped and cheered on about his usual way, wishing him luck—he doesn’t believe in luck, only the Lord, I’d forgotten his wit.

However, Saturday was interesting for those that I didn’t see: neither Richard, nor David, nor Jeremiah seemed present. Their absence did spur me into inquiring as to their health, and perhaps I shall see them the upcoming weekend. Hallowse’en is going to certainly bring out as many people who want to speak about it as shall come.

In spite of being a wholly commercialized holiday people still like to hearken back to its pagan origins and paint it with all of its strange plumage however misunderstood. It should be fun with my hopeful words and smile telling people that it’s my people’s holiday and we’d like it back.