I’ve always been a little bit dubious of the red parking meters set up alongside many of the maps and signs along Mill Avenue. They come along with notices that point out that “a hand out is not a hand up,” and a lot of other slogans about the homeless population. It’s true, giving someone money when they’re spanging doesn’t do much to help their situation and tends to encourage them to stay on the street, but this didn’t seem to me to be the way to educate the public on the matter.

Now I know that feeding these meters also feeds the Salvation Army and that’s not an organization the public should be supporting.

According to an article in AZ Central, “The 11 bright-red meters were installed three years ago as the basis of the Change for Change program, the brainchild of Tempe Leadership Class XXIII.” They’re highly recognizable and you’ll probably know what I’m talking about the moment that you heard about them. Initially, I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about them. I enjoy that someone in Tempe actually wants to think of doing something good for the homeless population and comfort the Mill rats.

However, further reading of the article reveals that the proceeds from the meters go to Tempe Community Action Agency, Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development and HomeBase Youth Services—and the Salvation Army.

Right now, the Salvation Army promotes evil, bigoted views involving members of the LGBT community—a notable number of whom are represented within the homeless population in Tempe—and this organization also lauds themselves for spending some of their money on their bigoted behavior. A Facebook page popped up last year to make obvious that this behavior isn’t welcome in a free country like the United States and that they’re prejudiced against a segment of the very population they claim to seek to aid speaks volumes about the care we can expect them to give to the subject.

The homeless population is better off if you give your money to HomeBase, Tumbleweed, or many others who do not have a reputation of anti-civil rights policies. Your money is better spent actually promoting the welfare of homeless individuals and our community in general than it is supporting an organization that cannot bring itself to treat all its charges with fairness regardless of their sexual orientation. Worse, the Salvation Army’s high level leaders have gone as far as to request that they be exempt from antidiscrimination laws from when receiving money from the Federal government; and when faced with being forced not to discriminate, they threatened to stop work for the homeless in New York City.

Now, I’ve spent my share of time slumming it with the Mill rats for most of my life. I love these people. They are my people and I enjoy my time with them.

We can do better than to fund a bigoted organization when there are many others who don’t have a civil rights and discrimination issue that they’re fighting to keep (using the money we give them to aid the homeless to do it.)

Until the Change for Change program stops giving money to the Salvation Army or the Salvation Army cleans up its act I will not be putting money into those meters.

Neither should you.

[Image credit Deirdre Hamill/The Arizona Republic, via AZCentral.com]

Tomorrow, the Stop Online Privacy Act heads to a vote in the House Judiciary Committee. This much-omened act places a multitude of cherished traditions of free discourse in the United States on the chopping block of corporate copyright with the law hovering overhead like the axe of Damocles.

Of course, numerous people who should know what censorship can do to the world have begun to rise up against this terrible legislation. Amid them are journalists, writers, and even the makers of the World of Warcaft.

In honor of this—and to spread awareness of it—writer Kyt Dotson has put up the short story Dragon Tamers censored. To uncensor it, you must send an e-mail to representatives about why they shouldn’t pass laws like this.

As a taxi cab driver, I listen to people speak every day. I have a strange glimpse into their lives and what makes them tick. Many on my beat have jobs that use the Internet on a regular basis and some of them spend most of the ride tapping away at their mobile phones on social media sites.

Instead of providing good and proper tools to fight what is seen as copyright infringement and piracy, the Stop Online Piracy Act will give tools of censorship to giant corporate copyright holders.

The United States does not need this tyranny of copyright; the law already provides a powerful resource for copyright holders both inside and outside of the US Internet.

Say no to censorship.

Link, via the EFF; and Dragon Tamers (censored) by Kyt Dotson.

Every now and again, I look around YouTube to see how the community of the Internet feels about our red bricks.

This one seems to be made by a well-voiced narrator and some lovely editing using background sounds and static images. Take a gander.

Link, via YouTube.

Head over to YouTube and leave some comments too, let the producer know that Mill Ave has fans.

Say what you will about Michael Monti—he’s been a big component of the ecology and politics of Mill Avenue. I often park in front of his establishment when I’m out on the town, checking out the people, but not so often when I’m trawling for fares. The establishment to which I speak is the restaurant that he owns and operates: Monti’s Steakhouse aka La Casa Vieja (trans. the old house.) A steakhouse built out of the Hayden residence when the family resided in Tempe—long back when it was still called Hayden’s Ferry.

Now, according to an article in The State Press, Michael Monti has added yet another accolade to his political belt: he’s been endorsed by now Tempe City Mayor Hugh Hallman as a candidate in the mayoral race for the city.

“Michael has ensured his family business on Mill Avenue has remained successful and vibrant while retaining its identity,” according to a press release Tuesday by Scottsdale public relations firm Rose + Moser + Allyn. “That is clearly the mission of the next Mayor of Tempe.”

Hallman, who has served as mayor since 2004, announced during the summer he would not seek re-election.

Monti said he was humbled to receive the mayor’s blessing.

Humbling to say the least—I didn’t even know that Monti was seeking the mayorship. I guess that shows how much attention I pay to most of Tempe politics; at least that which doesn’t directly affect Mill Avenue.

Looking at his opponents, I’d say he’s got quite a run in front of him. Two thorough politicians in the form of Tempe city councilwoman Linda Spears—serving from 1994 to 1998—and son of past Tempe City mayor and former U.S. congressman Harry Mitchell, Tempe councilman Mark Mitchell.

In a sort of way, it might be interesting to have an entrepreneur rather than a politician in the mayor’s seat for a while; but looking at the sort of path the city has made for Mill Avenue, I’m not sure anyone is going to be ideal for that seat. Truthfully, I’m going to be rooting for Monti because in a lot of ways he’s one of ours.

For good or ill, he’s been part of the Ave for a very long time and although this still divorces him from the day-to-day problems that have been heaped down by the city’s decisions; it also means that he knows some of their effects. It means also that he may have a better boots-on-the-ground strategy for fixing it.

If he wins, I’ll probably be one of the first to park my cab at La Casa Vieja to go in and congratulate him.

Tomorrow, Oct 15, Occupy Phoenix will be preparing their occupation of Cesar Chavez Plaza, 201 W. Washington St. I am offering a ride to several of my friends who will be joining you for the occupation event.

These protests have been changing lives for weeks now and it’s obvious that a mark is being made.

I won’t be able to occupy with you—except perhaps for a few hours at a time—but I’ll be with you in spirit.

Stand strong. From another one of the 99%.

It looks like Occupy Wall Street has come all the way down to the Sonoran Desert and even visited the red bricks of Mill Ave. Saturday evening a few dozen protestors gathered right in front of P.F. Cheng’s restaurant—you might know it: the spot with all the weird block-shaped artwork sticking out of the ground.

MyFoxPhoenix.com ran a video addressing the protest (however, it cuts off right in the middle of some woman’s speech…) From the article accompanying the video,

A few dozen demonstrators showed up in Tempe Saturday afternoon for an Arizona version of “Occupy Wall Street” protests, and their message was the same as everyone else’s — they want our nation’s damaged economy fixed.

A cry of solidarity could be heard for miles as valley residents readied to “Occupy Tempe” and kick corporate America out.

The group gathered at the intersection of Mill Avenue and University Drive for a street action to raise awareness — a peaceful protest they hope will bring about change.

Occupy meme protests have spread across the entire United States. While the initial protest emerged in New York a few blocks away from Wall Street, I have seen reports of protests at Seattle, WA (#OccupySeattle), Portland, OR (#OccupyPortland), Boston, MA (#OccupyBoston), among many others. One is even planned for Phoenix, AZ (#OccupyPhoenix) that involves a march that will start next Friday, wind through downtown and then finally come to rest and occupy Ceasar Chavez Park.

As I haven’t been able to get down there this week (most of my fares have me driving through north Phoenix lately) I’m not sure if #OccupyTempe is still across from the newly built CVS.

Don’t bring your own chairs people: City of Tempe apparently has an ordinance against it

Recently, a few friends of mine decided to run a D&D session on Mill Avenue–last Friday in fact–according to their accounts, they were approached by three bicycle police officers. They were told that the City of Tempe does not allow people to sit on unaffixed chairs on public property. The officers then went on to also tell a nearby busker with a guitar that he could not use a chair either.

I am told they’d set up three chairs, a table, and some tabletop gaming paraphernalia in front of the US Post Office on Mill Ave and 5^th St.

The game continued even after dismantling the chairs and table–although on the ground instead.

For the curious, I’m told that it’s a floating 1^st Edition Dungeons & Dragons game.

Questioned, one of the participants stated, “We just want to bring a little weirdness to Mill Avenue.” The spokesperson police officer nodded, then responded, “Oh, it certainly doesn’t need any more of that.”

As a fan of Mill Ave, I think the cop in question certainly shows little regard for what is good and proper weirdness.

Does anyone else believe that this police attention to chairs on Mill Avenue—which had not happened to previous D&D sessions with chairs on the Ave—might be part of a reaction to attempting to avoid an Occupy movement to appear in Tempe?

Perhaps the officers have received a memo to be on the lookout for people with chairs and shoo them away (or at least their chairs.)

The timing seems suspicious.

We had a bit of a rain splash down on us this week (following a bit of a dust storm) on Oct 4, 2011. Flickr user videoal got a beautiful photograph of Mill Ave after the rain showing the slick shine on the road reflecting neon lights and headlamps alike.

Rain in the desert is a cleansing experience—it blows away the hard heat of the day, rattled on our windows, and brings a sudden bloom of green to otherwise empty lots and land.

It’s also a little bit dangerous. A multitude of car accidents happen in the first five minutes of a rain when the oil and the dirt pressed into the road makes it slick and slippery. Arizonans aren’t used to rain, they’re bad at driving in it. Increase your stopping distance when it’s raining, people.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been driving my cab and had someone tailgating me on the freeway while it’s raining because I wasn’t driving 10 miles over the speed limit. I know my tires will stop me in time on a wet road—I have a mechanic check them regularly because I’m constantly on the road and it’s a safety issue—and I still won’t drive too close to someone else when the road is wet.

Everyone else: enjoy the rain.

Deserts don’t get a lot of this.

Link, via Flickr.

Mill Avenue is a collision of multiple cultures and a forum for both fun and exchange. We see lots of people gathering who want to visit the bars, stand on street corners, or simply carouse and hang out with their friends. As a result of this mixing of locals and tourists from both Phoenix and the rest of the United States, we see our own share of crime.

Some of that crime, of course, takes the fashion of vandalism.

This happens to be the problem Mill Ave is facing this year regarding the lights that get hung over the Yule season to make the trees look like they’ve been dusted with snow. According to an article in the State Press, Nancy Hormann, president and executive director of Downtown Tempe Community, Inc., spoke in front of a city quality of life council meeting to address the problems vandalism has brought to the red bricks,

“For some reason this past year, we had an amazing amount of vandalism downtown,” said Hormann, referring to the holiday lights on Mill Avenue.

“It was an everyday occurrence with our contractor to fix the lights that went around the tree trunks, and we said we need to do something in order to change the design,” she said. “We had a tremendous amount of trouble when the bars closed … (Vandals) would pull (the lights) out, cut them, (and) take lights out of the sockets.”

Hormann said it cost $3,000 to $4,000 last year just to maintain the lights from vandalism damage.

I like driving down Mill Ave during the winter holiday and seeing those lights on the trees, it reminds me of distant days in the northern US when I experienced fog and light. Arizona isn’t for wont of fog, so much, so instead I use my imagination.

It strikes me that vandalism will happen. It saddens me that it was possible for $4,000 to happen from people just yanking down the lights and fixtures. Yes, most of the population has a tendency to act like toddlers and hang off everything they can—including the lampposts—but there’s no reason to rip down strings of lights wrapped around trees or take a swing at an unlit snowflake.

I am not a fan of The Festival Of Lights.

It’s a gigantic waste of electricity, even if it is essentially a marketing gimmick for APS. Yes, it’s pretty and interesting and brings interest to Mill Ave; however, we could do it much better with other things. In fact, the lights on Mill Ave are themselves expensive to operate and we might want to look into alternatives that use less electrical power for a similar effect.

The General Manager of Blondie’s Sports Bar and Grill on Fifth Street and Mill Avenue, Kevin Rodgers, weighed in on how drunk people behave on Mill Ave. “These people were ripping the decorations down, for no other reason but to be destructive,” he said.

As a result, the city will focus on decorations that are harder to damage.

Problems with vandalism have led Hormann and the DTC to focus clusters of star and snowflake-shaped lighting in the sidewalk tree canopies alone from Rio Salado Parkway to Third Street and Seventh Street to University Drive this year. Swooping lights will hang between Fourth Street and Seventh Street.

“We’re not going to put anything in the trees low enough to reach without a ladder,” Hormann said.

With luck, we’ll see the lights along Mill Ave return on the Saturday after Thanksgiving until they’re extinguished again after December 31. This has been a tradition for Tempe and Mill for the last 20 years.

I’ll see you then.

I don’t even know why this is news for anyone, but I suppose it’s part of the cult of celebrity that our culture is so tied up in. I tell you what, I have my own celebrities—most of them are dead—but many of them actually sit in my cab time to time and I get to talk to them. As for Mr. Kiowa Gordon, he apparently should have dealt with his DUI rap before running around the state.

According to MTV News, there’s enough truth to the matter of his arrest to comment on it,

“Twilight Saga” actor Kiowa Gordon was arrested in Arizona earlier this week. The 21-year-old was taken into custody by Mesa-area police on the morning of August 8 because of two outstanding warrants, MTV News has confirmed.

Gordon was a passenger in a car registered to him when was apprehended by the Tempe Police Department. Upon discovery of the outstanding misdemeanor warrants, the actor was taken into custody to to the Mesa City holding facility. Contrary to original reports, no new DUI charges were filed against him.

Today I learned that there are misdemeanor DUI charges. I must say, although as a cabdriver I take a lot of drunk people home late at night and end up driving with people still sloshed and on the road, and I’m surprised that there is any DUI charge ever that can be considered a misdemeanor. My understanding of the law is such that I cannot comment on this…but what?

Last I heard, he bailed out of a Tempe jail and received another order to appear.

We also learn that Gordon grew up in Arizona, he’s a Native American actor belonging to the Hualapai tribe, and he’s also a Mormon. He belongs to the same chapter as Twilight author Stephanie Meyer, who deputized him into his role.

He plays a werewolf named “Embry Call”.

It’s been a long low legend for Mill Avenue, the way that the Hayden Flour Mill has lurked on the periphery outside of the scintillating lights of the Ave itself. As a result, it’s something that I have been watching with heavy eyes from through my windscreen for some time now. It’ll be an interesting fact to put this one in the rearview, but first I’m going to have to see where this goes.

The flour mill is our best and brightest historic structure right off Mill Ave between the main drag and the Tempe Town Lake. Constructed in the 1870s, it’s been a strange edifice that has soaked up every sight, sound, and smell of Mill culture—so much in fact, the street itself is named after it. As a historic structure, it’s been defended from the certainty of being crushed beneath the wheels of the Backhoe-of-Progress and has stood there abandoned and derelict for many years.

In fact, when I started taking fares on Mill Ave in my cab, it’s one of the first landmarks I recall using to orient myself.

According to Benjamin Leatherman over at the Phoenix New Times blog, we may be seeing some dramatic changes coming to the old mill within weeks. Decisions that will affect the future of the structure have finally come to fruition and even Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman is talking about it. As such, we can expect a renovation by Valley architect Bill Tonnesen who intends to transmogrify the old mill into a space for events and a Tempe history museum.

Something that I’ve been arguing for since I first put foot on the red bricks.

As one of the oldest and most iconic structures in Tempe, the Hayden Mill has undergone a number of changes in its lengthy lifetime. Constructed in 1874 by legendary Arizonan Charles Trumbull Hayden, the mill ground wheat into flour for generations. It was rebuilt twice in the late 1800s after being destroyed by fire, and functioned as an operating mill until it was closed down in 1998.

Ritzy redevelopment projects utilizing the property were announced in 2001 and 2008, only to be sabotaged both times when the economy tanked.

Besides giving a new lease on life to Hayden Mill, the renovation will also eliminate a blighted and abandoned property along the city’s main thoroughfare. Furthermore, Hallman says it will fix a “dead zone” and help better connect Tempe Beach Park with the rest of downtown.

Amid the attractions that should attach themselves to the newly reconstructed mill, we can expect the Tempe Urban Garden. The garden will move itself from its current location on Forest Avenue and will even include some picnic tables and benches. Perhaps the mill will become a romantic sweet spot for people to pause while moving between the Tempe Town Lake and the Ave proper.

As the place is being turned into a museum, the city expects to leave some of the ancient machinery in place as well as other fixtures as part of the display.

“The goal is to turn it into an operating museum,” Hallman says. “Opening these windows to allow visitors to view inside the building and the historic equipment to show people what’s been going on inside the mill for more than a century.”

There have been numerous attempts to do this to the Hayden Mill in the past, and yet we’ve seen them all fall by the wayside due to politics, economic recessions, and just bad planning. It’s been over a decade since anyone did anything with the structure and it’s about time that we actually set about preserving it.