Angry Mike follow-up

[ronhaha108.livejournal.com]

You may not know him by his name, but if you've walked around PowderHouse square and noticed a homeless guy yelling at people as they walk by, then you know Angry Mike.  This guy scares the heck out of my wife because he can be loud and aggressive.  

Anyway, someone posted last month (that post has been removed) that flashing him the peace sign calms him down and I'm here to attest to that. I was driving through Union Square and got stuck at the main intersection, I saw Angry Mike walking up the sidewalk yelling at people and looking around.  I caught his attention and flashed him the peace sign, he did a double take and smiled at me and put his hand over his heart.  It really seamed to change his mood (at least for that moment).  

So there ya go, thanks to the person who gave this little gem!

Comments

[georgy.livejournal.com]

This is good to know! Thanks.

(PS - I call him Yelling Mike.)

[prog.livejournal.com]

I give this same advice to people.

Does this LJ comm maintain a Davis Square FAQ? This should totally go on it.

[ron_newman]

Nope, no FAQ that I've ever seen. We have a bunch of links on the profile page, and I should reorganize that and add some more, but I can't really see putting Angry Mike on there.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

My heart goes out to him.

[ceo]

I'll have to remember this one. Though he seems to like me, probably because I look like a longhaired hippie freak, so I'm not sure I want to endear myself to him further. :-/ More than once I've intentionally gotten on the wrong bus in order to make a graceful exit from his company.

[delahk.livejournal.com]

Now it's just going to be used so much that it will lose its mojo.

[coeceo.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I also use this, it would be wise for those of us "in the know" to reserve its use only when necessary aka, when angry mike is approaching rapidly while yelling, when angry mike is yelling at yuppie/tourist who looks like a deer in headlights, etc...

moderator note

[ron_newman]

For those who are curious about why the moderators deleted the earlier post, I posted an explanation in davis_meta. We felt that the combination of the 'Crazy Mike' headline and the two large photos was unnecessarily invasive of his privacy.

I apologize to anyone whose comments also went away as a result, but LJ unfortunately doesn't provide moderators with any way to hide or edit someone's post while keeping the comment threads intact. Feel free to continue talking here.

Re: moderator note

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Your meta post should explain how you emailed me at 10pm on a Friday night to ask me to take the photos down and clarify that the 'two days' you waited for me to respond were on a weekend. As it turns out I was out of town all weekend and didn't get any of your messages until I returned.

Beyond that is the hilarity of your explanation that the reason moderation was necessary was that one single person sent you a private message expressing discomfort. Really? One person is all it takes? What about all the people who had commented on my post saying they were in support of it?

And why no meta post explaining why my follow up post ("what happened to my crazy mike post?") was also deleted?

You guys are obviously free to moderate your community however you see fit. But I think you're a bunch of PC fuck-faces.

Fuck crazy mike, and his privacy. As soon as the DNS flush goes through, www.crazymike.com (www.crazymike.com) will be live and I'll be doing a photo-documentary of the guy (I already have his consent, and the consent of his social worker). I'm going to invade his privacy the way he invades ours on a regular basis. There will be merchandise too, so stay tuned!

Re: moderator note

[ron_newman]

I never saw a post titled "what happened to my crazy mike post?" and did not delete it.

(Are you really 'The Nassau Pops Symphony Orchestra, Inc.' ?)

Re: moderator note

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

quit invading my privacy. i demand you edit your comment to remove that.

Re: moderator note

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

One cannot edit a comment once a response has been made to it, fwiw.

Re: moderator note

[doogly.livejournal.com]

Wait, so when it's your privacy, you care?
Hilaaaaaaaaarious.

Re: moderator note

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

welcome to the world of 'jokes' moron

Re: moderator note

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

And why no meta post explaining why my follow up post ("what happened to my crazy mike post?") was also deleted?

Question: Are you sure you posted this to davis_square? Because I wondered where Ron got that information you demanded, so I clicked on your journal and saw "What happened to my crazy mike post?" And it wasn't written in a style that you were addressing your f-list.

Re: moderator note

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

yeah turns out it didn't post where I'd intended it.

i drank a lot the weekend I was away. and took benzodiazepines on my flights. lets just say mistakes were made.

Re: moderator note

[soft-shoulder.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

This didn't work for me when he ragefully accosted me and my boyfriend at the bus stop last week. But he did leave when I ordered him to. And I felt justified in doing so because we were obligated to stay at the bus stop or miss our bus, and we didn't want to spend 10 minutes with him spraying spit and profanities in our faces.

So, I would say try the peace sign first, but if it doesn't work, "GET AWAY" does, or at least it did for me.

"You're scaring me" works too

[winterhill.livejournal.com]

I had a run-in with him a few years ago which ended when he followed me into the laundromat in Ball Square and continued to yell even as I tried to flee. I turned around and said firmly "You're scaring me, please stop yelling." and he did.

My heart goes out to him too, but not when I'm feeling threatened and pursued.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

He often plagues that laundromat, and it's particularly bad because a lot of the customers there don't speak English and don't understand why he's yelling at them, and there are usually children there as well. Once I had to ask the manager to remove him (which he did, probably for the 5,000th time).

Just say hello to him

[bearhug.livejournal.com]

I used to live right there in Ball Square (right above that laundromat actually), and I found, after getting yelled at a couple times, that all you have to do is give him a friendly wave or say "Howya doin" and he's immediately friendly (and asks you for money). It seemed that he didn't like when people walked by him without greeting him.

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

First of all, I believe that he is not, in fact, homeless but lives in a halfway home near Powder House Circle.

Second, I used to be a bit scared of him but in the past few years I've not had a problem with him at all. Yes, there's the peace sign that he appreciates but a lot of the time what he really seems to want is to be able to talk at you for a while. His voice is loud and edgy but judging from the content of what he talks about, that's just the way he speaks; as in, he's not able to modulate his speech to not sound aggressive, even when he's talking about puppies and kittens.

The longest I've had a conversation with him was about 20 plus minutes. He seemed to appreciate it and then trotted off to do his own thing without engaging anybody else before I lost sight of him.

his real name is mike febo

[steveluvskaren.livejournal.com]

i know him well he has schizophrenia , which is at it's worst sometimes...

he and i were members of ruby rogers ctr. now in union aq then in davis

in the old 1 davis sq where cvs is now. i havent been there since 99 but

he still goes is wht you see him in union. ive known him for years. and

the rest of you quit calling him crazy mike! just say hi if he needs a

smoke and you dont give him a few bucks. hes nice harmless and severely ill.

naysayers - get off his back!!!

[docorion.livejournal.com]

I pretty much say "Hi, Mike." He waves, usually a peace sign but often not, and goes on his way. It probably helps that I am 6'2", male, and at least somewhat imposing (and deal with crazy and disruptive people as part of my job), but as a result of all of that, he doesn't frighten me a bit.

[smokeyjoewood.livejournal.com]

So, Mike's his name? Yeah, he's harmless. But, I can totally understand why he would scare the crap out of people. Since he often hangs out in front of that townie bar in Ball Sq, people might think he's a belligerent drunk. But, that's not the case. Just tell him to back off, and he does.

[dmcgettrick.livejournal.com]

I wonder if a swift kick to the nuts would get the job done?

moderator note

[ron_newman]

While 'Angry Mike' may be annoying, I don't think a call for violence is ever an appropriate response in this community.

Re: moderator note

[smammy]

we'll see ;)

Re: moderator note

[ron_newman]

Some things shouldn't have to be spelled out in rules. Advocating vigilante violence is not funny and really is not OK here.

Re: moderator note

[smammy]

Sorry, Ron. Things get a bit heated around here sometimes (c.f. teele_sq, nvidia999999, etc.) and the idea that a call for violence could be an appropriate response amused me.

Re: moderator note

[squirrelitude]

Heh, those aren't the ones *I* would have called out. (Not gonna summon the devil by saying his/her name, though -- and it would not be appropriate, besides.)

Re: moderator note

[smammy]

Does that name begin with "t" and end with "uril" by any chance?

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

This man is most certainly mentally ill. I think it is cruel to exploit him, or make fun of him. Unfortunately, he should probably be in some type of institution, but Massachusetts deemed that hospitalization was 'cruel' and that it was better for many of our mentally ill citizens to roam the streets, often living in the streets, too. Hmmmmm, you tell me which solution is the more 'cruel'.
And by the way, when you live in a densely populated urban area, you get to deal with all sorts of people, it's one of the perks.

[ronhaha108.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, do you think my post was to exploit or make fun of him? It's not, it was to share something to people are frightened by him.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

No, sorry, I didn't have a problem with your post. The further comments about posting his picture and videos and that sort of thing just bothers me.