aggienaut | Yesterday (Cont.) - Crazy Preacher Man (Reply)

   Picking up where I left off, no less than ten minutes after making my addendum to last entry, I met with my roommate Adrian and some friends of his where they were sitting with their guitars on the quad. There, with a number of other bystanders, we were amused for about 40 minutes by the antics of a crazy religious man on the quad.

   Unlike other crazy religious men, this one actually referred to himself as a prophet or oracle. He alternated between shouting his sermon at the local student traffic, occasionally singing, and at one point suddenly adopting a conversational tone for five minutes. Adrian used his new tape-recorder & attached microphone to record most of it.

   At one point I hippie tried to offer him a cup of water but he pointedly refused to make eye contact with the hippie, turning his back to him continually and addressing the crowd in different directions.

   Eventually a someone from SPAC (Student Programs & Activities Center I believe), a girl who looked to be a student herself, came to tell him that he had to speak on the other corner of the quad, the "free speech corner" to which they always attempt to exile counterprotestors ("Yes, you CAN counterprotest, but over there in the appropriate designated location ::points to distant and forlorn corner of quad::") and other undesirables .
   To these attempts the crazy religious man responded "this is America, I preach whereever I want.. we have this thing called freedom of speech in America, I don't know how they do things in Somoa or whereever you're from" followed shortly by "you're not very pretty you know."
   I don't think Jesus would approve of those latter comments.