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ALAN MILLER’S FAVOURITE POEM
ALAN MILLER (1967-2005)
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It’s a crisp night in April, a few days before we all head back up to Troy, New York, and memories of yesteryear flit about the East Village. I’m walking across East Houston Street, taking the last slug from my Thomas Hardy ale as I stop in front of ‘Element’, one of the hot new clubs in the City. It’s another ‘French Tuesdays’ party and all the beautiful Francophiles are queued on the corner of Essex Street. They eye me warily.
Drinking a beer in public, c’est terrible!
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Not long so ago this haute couture hangout was ‘The Bank”, one of the great alternative music clubs in the City. It feels strange to be here tonight, even stranger since I am wearing a suit. Back in the day, Alan and I wore our Doc Martins with a Peter Murphy tee.
But, tonight, Alan Miller is nowhere to be found.
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Most of you will remember Alan Miller as A1317 from his RPI days; the shy kid with the Davey Jones haircut and the hardware store jacket. The one who surprised you with his rapier wit.
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But he was so much more than that. Few knew the engineer-cum-stock options trader-cum rockstar with bleached blonde locks; the guy who was king of the Bank. Standing here tonight, in downtown New York, I wonder if these French wannabes know who tread here before them.
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It all started at 321 West 94th Street. Here Alan lived with Sean (a1283) and me (a1288), as one of three Theta Xi’s trying to make it in Gotham City. Alan was more than a roommate to us. At times munificent (who knows for how many nights the Mill’s never-ending quarter jar fed Sean and I), at time eccentric (we never quite figured out how he survived on a diet of Captain Crunch and Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout) and always kind-hearted and quick-witted, Alan defined much of our early New York experience. He infused us with his musical taste, a gift we still carry with us today.
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Back then, most every Friday night would begin with a bottle of good vodka (i.e. one in a real glass bottle) and Peter Murphy’s ‘Deep’. Replete with glittery sounds and lifted by rich vocals, ‘Deep’ is the seminal album of our 1990s. To listen to its ten tracks is to understand Alan.
- Deep Ocean Vast Sea
- Shy
- Crystal Wrists
- Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem
- Seven Veils
- Line Between the Devil's Teeth
- Cuts You Up
- Strange Kind of Love [Version 1]
- Roll Call
- Roll Call (Reprise)
I was usually first out of the shower on Fridays, and so it was my job to get the music going and call the inimitable Patty Kiernan (an honorable Alpha 1317A) to make sure he was en route.
Roiling and raging, “Deep Ocean Vast Sea”, would begin the night with its sounding booms. The apartment would shake, Sean and I would finish our game of Sega hockey and Mill would mutter his approval and turn over for another 10 minutes of sleep.
“Shy” would morph into “Crystal Wrists”, Mill would stir and the freshly showered Sean would walk Patty Kierns, bearing a liter of Belvedere, into the living room. Vodka would flow and Mill would follow, bowl of Captain Crunch in hand.
On the good nights, the four of us would sit through “Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem”, a song that is nearly tear-jerking in its rich tone and soulful voice.
Alan always loved the string work in this song.
And on some of those nights we would anticipate visitors, be it Chappy or the legendary Mike Rivera. None will forget the night Rivera brought Dan Mac and Phil Cutrone down to 321 West 94th. One part Peter Murphy, two parts speed quarters (with vodka) and a trip to Bank that nearly killed them.
Do they remember waking up in a drunken mess on Easter morning in Grand Central terminal?
Back at West 94th, the music played on. Track 6, “Line Between the Devil's Teeth” would find Alan back in bed, taking one last nap, only to be lured out by “Cuts You Up”.
And then the negotiations began. Youthful impatience and the possibility (read: fantasy) of getting laid demanded that we leave the Upper West Side by 11pm. That way we would be at the Bank by midnight and have a good three hours of dancing and drinking and one desperate hour of rationalizing and failed pickups.
Alan never felt this pressure. Be it 11pm on a Friday night in New York or 3 am on Tuesday in Troy, he always felt that it was the right time and place. And his mood was infectious.
So if we were to leave before ‘Deep’ was finished there had to be a reason. And this usually meant a stop at the deli on 86th and Amsterdam, the only place that stocked Thomas Hardy ale, the nectar of the gods. Sean, being ever so prescient, would add a Saint Mark’s pizza rider, committing the lot of us to a 4 a.m. post-Bank pizza stop. There was, and still is, no better way to end a night than with a 3-pound slice of pizza.
And so it was agreed. The four of us would be off after Track 9, the bittersweet and haunting “A Strange Kind of Love”, the 3rd single from the album, a song every bit as soulful as the others.
For a last few minutes we would be together. We’d have to cajole Sean to have one last shot and Mill and Sean and PK would trade verbal volleys. At these times, I felt like there was no better place to be.
After Track 9, the race began. We’d flag down a cab and Sean or I would slide in front and Mill would squeeze in back with Patty Kierns (little in middle) in between. After the appointed stops, we’d argue the merits of crossing 86th or 82nd, but soon we be racing down the FDR Drive, savoring our Thomas Hardy ales.
And on more than one occasion, we’d walk into The Bank and, if as on cue, the DJ would play Track 10 from ‘Deep’, “Roll Call”
At which point Alan would turn to me and say, “See Ron, we’re right on time”. Alan Miller had that kind of karma.
But to end here, and toast Alan Miller as an engineer-cum-stock options trader-cum rockstar would not be complete. For, despite his Crunchberry-based based diet, Alan was a splendid athlete.
Moreover, to my knowledge, he is the greatest clim-cabber who ever lived.
[A gentlemen’s primer to the art of clim-cabbing: the offensive team consists of three or four intoxicated Theta Xi’s, the defense, one unsuspecting and stubborn cabbie. The game usually begins with a pickup on the Lower East Side and proceeds uptown. After cabbie ignores passengers’ suggestions as to route, said passengers direct him to a suitable location and take flight without paying the tab].
Yes, it’s a quick dine-and dash. But Alan played it like chess, choosing one-way streets and narrow alleys for drop-offs. He was a true Master.
How the name clim-cabbing came about is a mystery. Most think it was a bastardization of our first victim’s name: Choudrwy Clim. Not that we were racially biased. Black, white, green or yellow: if you gave us sass, we’d clim-cab your ass.
This could be sometimes problematic, as the cabbie would chase his deadbeat fares. Not so much for Alan, who could run like the wind, or Sean or I, who were fast enough. But Patty Kierns was caught on at least one occasion and dragged kicking and screaming to the nearest ATM machine.
Nowadays, every time I take a cab, I think of Mill. And every time the cabbie gives me flack over my choice of directions, I am tempted to tell him that I come from a long line of clim-cabbers and was in fact taught by the best of them, our friend Alan Miller.
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“Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms and foreign places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here and some are missing
In the nineteen-nineties
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You'd be sitting somewhere here with me”
-for Alan
from the hearts of Ron “Minty” Vogel (A1288), Sean “Toasted Almond” Hulsebosch (A1283) and Patty “Maverick” Kiernan (honorable A1317A)
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Comment from Mike Rivera:
Ron Vogel's account of Alan "Millboy" Miller are on point. Although I was a
guest at the upper west side apartment I was always welcome and every time I
went to party with Mill et. al. it was a true adventure. I recall Alan at
RPI as a very very quiet and shy freshmen and wondered how long it would be
before we'd "break" him. He lived in the "closet" on the second floor and
never complained about the cramped space but instead made it his own. Much
to all of our surprise Millboy rose to the occasion and exceeded all
expectations as a brother, friend, and partner in crime. I did not see Mill
when he was in Billy Idol bleach blonde hair in his later years but heard
many stories. Alan Miller is yet another brother that was a great person
and is sorely missed by all of us that knew him. Continue to rest in peace
Millboy.
Yours In The Bonds,
Michael A. Rivera
A1261
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Please email your memoirs regarding Alan to mglaccum@geosphereinc.com
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