A bunch of co-workers and I were talking (usual mindless blather) when one of them brought up “The Lipstick Lady”. Everyone was like yeah I know her, blah blah blah. So just out of curiosity I was wondering what the strange characters of other cities are like. Here are the 3 I can think of:
1-The Lipstick Lady: Hangs around the center city area, usually spotted early in the morning (standing still never moves), lipstick on lips and the 1 inch diameter around mouth. Has up to 8 garbage bags with her (5 points per bag)
2-The Jesus is White Guy: Uptown area, most sightings are early afternoon till rush hour. Has a handmade vest that says "Jesus is White" is adorned with a Barbie doll with angel wings
3-The Million Dollar Man: Very rare sightings, but he can be heard from a distance, has been singing the same song for about 5 years:
"I got a million dollar hat"
"I got a million dollar dog"
"I got a million dollar car"
"I got a million dollar....."
you get the gist. Seems perfectly happy to have the same song stuck in his head forever.
This post is not intended to make fun of the homeless or the mentaly ill. These people just stick out and everyone seems to know them. So if you have them in your city, town, etc…
I’d love to know all about them.
I don’t know if she’s still doing it, but about ten years or so ago in Toronto, we had the Traffic Blesser. She would wear white flowing robes and stand on the Don Mills Road bridge over Highway 401 (a freeway that is about 12 lanes wide at that point) with her arms out, “blessing” the traffic passing underneath.
Toronto is a big city with its share of eccentrics and oddballs, but this was strange enough to have her on the evening news and in the papers a few times. That was more for the interest than anything else; she was basically harmless and doing nothing illegal. But with the robes and the arms, she was quite a sight when viewed from the road.
Here in Ocala, we had a man who stood on the corner of two us highways with his “Love Jesus - Jesus loves you!” and so on signs. Sad to say, someone ran him over - probably deliberately - so the city put up a concrete wall section at that corner. He’s still out there, every day at five, but behind the concrete. City says that their putting up the barrier has nothing to do with him, but I wonder.
Oh well, he’s harmless - he’s the feel good kind of Christian, not the hellfire kind.
My personal (least) favourite is drunk-shadow-boxing-guy. This booze-reeking shaven-headed twentysomething once cleared an entire carriage on the Northern Line by shadow boxing vigourously and swearing at passengers.
For years in LA, we had the Cross-Bearer. He seemed to be about in his mid-30’s, dressed in a sort of nondescript rag toga thing, and carried a full-sized cross over his shoulder. You’d see him dragging this thing all over town - in locations as far as 30 miles apart. After a few years, he added a small discreet wheel to the bottom of the cross. Still looked damn heavy, though.
S.M.U. Dopers take note! - this guy may still be there!! When I was in college in Dallas we had this guy at our apartment complex (The Willowick) known affectionately as “skinny man”. He was mid-50’s, extremely thin, and all he ever did was walk around the complex and sometimes play tennis (in the exact same baby blue shirt and knee-high white socks…everyday). He was always very friendly. We once asked him how long he had been at the apartment complex. He thought for a few seconds then replied “hhhmmmmmm I think we have about 8 years left on the apartment lease so I guess I’ve been here about 12 years” (a 20 year apartment lease yikes!.
I haven’t seen her lately, but for a while there was a woman who used to take her exercise along the route where I often walk. She is/was about 70ish and extremely thin, and when she walked she would lift each foot up very high, as if she were stepping over something, instead of just walking down a sidewalk. She also made elaborate motions with her arms the whole time. Everyone just seemed to treat her as part of the scenery.
On a class trip to Rome, my friends and I encountered a few choice eccentrics.[list][]Captain Italy- Waering the Italian flag in a cape, Captain Italy would fight evil (or shout incoherently) at the bus stop whenever new passengers arrived![]Baskethead- With a, um, laundy basket on his head, concealing what you just knew had to be a Darkman-esque deformity, this menacing revenger scared the bejeezus out of us, then disappeared. Living behind only his basket. VVC.Heroin the Clown. Waering a bizarre amlagam of baby and clown costuming, and armed with a psychotic grin and ragged communist propaganda, Heroin the Clown strikes a blow against the tyranny of sanity!
An elderly lady (probably about 70 or so), has very thin hair, which has been dyed blonde and is always worn in an up do, well, that stands about 3 or 4 inches tall, straight up from her head. Think Teletubby.
An elderly man who dresses in dark blue uniform, with a hat that looks like a policeman’s hat, and carries an enormous boom box.
A man about 25 - 30, always walks very briskly, is completely bald and carrys and uses an umbrella. when it’s not raining.
Another man about 25 - 30, bald, carrys on loud arguments with his invisible friend.
We used to have a man who always wore a dark overcoat and carried a small suitcase with him, lived at the YMCA, grey hair, beard, very very stinky (you would know if he’d passed through the area within about a half hour). His daily routine included going to the post office, and to one restaurant where he’d order 2 egg sandwhiches, would sit and eat one, the other went into his pocket. I know all of this 'cause he died one day (they didn’t realize for several days), they went through the stacks of trash in his room, and found bank statements galore. The guy had millions in various banks around the country.
I know of one in a rural area. He is known as The Chicken Man. Somehow his parents died and left him loads of money, so he doesn’t work. He owns a house that looks normal from the out side. He dresses like a homeless person though, and people say the inside of his house is totally destroyed.
His trademark is his vehicle. Its an older minivan with about 50 CB antennas, some police car lights, and some air horns on it. None of them are functional. All he ever does is drive around the county scaring kids. There are some rumors that he tried to abduct some teenagers a few years back. He seems to be harmless, whenever people see him they always say “there goes chicken man.”
Well, so it is. I used to wonder where he’d gone… I never would have guessed. The site shows photos of Arthur on the Great Wall of China, atop Mt. Fuji, in downtown Beirut, on a boating trip down the Congo, and much more. In the photo showing Arthur in front of the Pyramids you can get a pretty good look at the wheel I mentioned.
And to think I was impressed that he got from downtown LA to the Venice Boardwalk.
On the Church Street Marketplace here in burlington, Vt, we had the Clarinet man untill a few years ago. He was out there practically everyday playing, and everyone knew him. He even recorded a song with Phish. A couple of years ago he finally saved up enough money to move to his dream city, I forget where that was, and he died shortly after. For awhile I heard there were plans to build a monument to him on the marketplace, but nothing has surfaced yet and this was probably 5 years ago.
Well, Kansas City has a few notables.
There’s the Jesus Guy, a fella who, during all weather & seasons runs all over down town carrying a large flag over his sholder which simply says “Jesus”. Is he nuts or just a very religious marathoner? I dunno. He leans towards the former, in my opinion.
And more colorfully, we have the Peter Pan/ baton guy.
This impish little character likes to dress in Peter Pan outfits and ballerina costumes and go to public places to either work on his baton twirling, or his ice skating.
What makes it especially creepy is the the skimpyness of said outfits. We used to cheer him on (unbeknownst to him) from our office window, 4 floors up.
I used to see him more often at a nearby skating rink until someone complained that he was scaring the children or something.
Most recently saw him sitting in the park with super-short, floral hot pants on. Just watching the joggers go by.
And Eve, once your done with that NYC list, you can help me sort out the legions of the insane in my ol’ hometown of Boston.
Cleveland had two that sprang to mind for me right away:
The Old Bus Lady. An extremely elderly woman, dressed very shabbily, with a terrible wig, who would ride the bus lines all day long, particularly through Lakewood. She often swore at the passengers and driver, and she smelled . . . “awful” isn’t even a useful word for it. The funny part is, she would carry a can of Lysol around and spray it at other stuff, as if the smell wasn’t coming from her. She was also a smoker, and I mean of pretty much anything. Leigh-Anne and I once watched her for ten minutes try to light and smoke a plain, scrunched-up piece of paper. Many drivers would refuse to pick her up.
Saxophone Guy. Walks around downtown Cleveland playing his saxophone. You can especially hear him before sporting events, hanging out near the ballpark or stadium. He plays everything from Christmas carols to TV theme songs to movie music. But he only ever plays, like, 8 bars, then it kinda falls apart.
Bowler Guy - a Gentleman in his eighties, who was always seen walking around town all day, wearing an extremely nice suit, complete w/ bowler and pearl handled cane. Rumored to have recently either died, or become bedridden, as he hasn’t been seen in about a year and a half.
Bicycle Guy - rode around downtown, picked up trash, sometimes worked as a paper’boy’. Died a couple of years ago, and left a couple of million to various causes around town. You never know.
‘Raped by the State’ Guy - walks up and down the main dusiness drag in town, wearing placards declaring that he had been raped by the state, with American flags flying overhead (hung upside down). Word is that he was protesting the fact that he had to quit his job, because the state insisted on taking out the child support payments he refused to make. I have NO sympathy for this guy, at all.
There’s a 50-ish man who stands along New York Avenue in Washington, D.C. on the northeast side of the street. (The street runs southeast to northwest.) If you’re coming into the city, he’ll be on your side of the street. He’s there frequently but not nearly all the time. I’ve never seen him anywhere else. He’ll be somewhere close to that entrance road for the large USPS sorting office. He stands there and waves a branch at the passing cars, always smiling and looking like he thinks he’s doing important work. (There are very few pedestrians along that part of the street.) He doesn’t look particularly disheveled and probably wouldn’t stand out if you passed him on the sidewalk without his branch.
This man is our President, George W. Bush. This is his way of welcoming visitors to Washington. Be sure and wave when you pass him.
(O.K., I was kidding about that last paragraph. In fact, this guy is a bearded, heavy-set black man, and he’s been in D.C. longer than Bush. And would probably make a better President.)
The Bee Guy: An odd fellow with a big bushy beard, he is slightly visually impaired and carries a white cane. He’s got this thing about the wood bees that can be found all over campus. He’s actually very nice and lucid, and told me a lot about bees, but once you let him start talking . . . Rumor is that the Kampus Kops have arrested him a couple times for transplanting wood bees to try to get them to infest new buildings.
The Skanky Transvestite: A really grody guy in a ridiculously bad wig and the very worst Salvation Army skany-ho-wear who bikes around town. Ew.