Hey overlyverbose,
That fella has been doing his act in the Central West End area of St. Louis for many years. I saw him last week, right before Easter and he was dressed like a cheerleader Easter Bunny, complete with twirling baton. This was near the Barnes-Jewish hospital complex. My sister was seeing him for the first time and was certain he had just escaped from the Psycho ward.
fandj
Back when I went WCU (in Cullowhee NC), there were two characters, Jimmy and Coonie Buchanan, who hung around campus a lot. Turns out their family owned the land the campus was built on, so they were the unofficial mayors of Cullowhee.
Coonie was the older one. He’d go into banks with a mask on his face, go up to a girl, and say “Hi, honey, I’m the Lone Ranger.” Jimmie was this big fat loud guy with a walrus mustache who’d go around with a huge boombox playing country music and sing along with it offkey. I used to hang out at the University Center and play pinball. He was always there. He’d go up to people playing and say “I’m gonna tilt the goddamn machine.” He’d try to intimidate people but usually got laughed at.
One time I saw him playing pinball when there was this long haired guy by him lining up his pool shot. Jimmy turned around and said to him “You know what? I got this T shirt that says KICKING HIPPIES ASSES AND RAISING HELL!” The longhaired fellow said to him “You talking to me sunshine?” to which Jimmy replied “Shit, it’s nighttime, the sun ain’t shinin’ fool” and went back to losing at pinball.
When WCU held their homecoming parade, Jimmy got a float all his own. He stood on an empty trailer wearing a black tux, white vest, and top hat and cane while somebody drove a truck. He looked like a big ol’ fat penguin.
I just mentioned her in another thread, but oh well. There’s a woman who lives two floors down from us, and we’re not sure when she moved in, but she was really, really annoying last week.
On the Monday before Easter, a friend and I were eating dinner, and we heard screaming. It didn’t sound anxious, just loud, so we ignored it. Eventually, a fire truck, two cop cars and an ambulance pulled up, stuck around for a bit, and then left. We didn’t know what was going on.
On Tuesday, (or really Wednesday) at 2:30 a.m. Mr. Lissar and I ricocheted out of bed to the sound of the building fire alarm, which is really loud. Wake-the-dead loud. We pulled on clothes, stuffed the cat in his carrier, and ran downstairs, to find some woman on the floor, surrounded by firefighters, and the lobby filled with angry neighbours. She pulled the alarm, but we didn’t know why. There was no fire.
On Wednesday at about six, she started screaming again, while lying across the door into the building. Someone called 911, and they managed to calm her down, and then left.
On Thursday (or Friday morning) at 5:00 a. m. I woke up to the sound of loudly clicking heels, which I subconciously realized had been going for a long time. The continuous quality of the noise woke me up. She was walking back and forth in a ten-foot loop on the pavement outside the building. Then she started throwing stones against the ground. People yelled at her to be quiet, and she yelled back that she wouldn’t.
Mr. Lissar put some clothes on and went downstairs to see if he could talk her out of making noise. She invited him to play hopscotch with her, which he declined. He had a hallucinogenic conversation with her, in which she informed him that it was her responsibility to wake people up, because someone had once woken her up and it had saved her life, and he stayed with her for about half an hour, until someone phoned the police, and they came and talked to her.
She announced that she was not on medication, and needed to wake everyone up.They told her that she could sit around as much as she liked outside, but not wake people up. She was still clicking at dawn that morning.
She’s been quiet for the past week, but she sometimes lurks in the plants in the front window. She’s not dangerous, but I think there will be a tenant’s movement to get her kicked out if she starts making noise again.
When I moved into my apartment, I wondered around the block the first night to get a feel for the area. As I was walking back to it, I passed the house directly beside the complex. I heard an odd argument being held in Spanish. The first voice was fairly normal sounding, the second had this weird falsetto lilt to it, but also gravely. As I got closer I could see the arguement was being held by a single gentleman sitting on the porch and rocking. It wasn’t a whole lot different from Gollum arguing with himself. Seen him doing this a few more times since.
The next morning as I was driving to work a house a couple down from Gollum had a shirtless old man relieving himself in his front yard. Looked pretty pleased with himself too. While I haven’t got him doing this since, he does drink Pabsts at any time of the day any time of the week. I think that in and of itself should make him certifiable.
The boyfriend of the scary lady downstairs (nicknamed Methahotept due to her mummy-like appearance and penchant for methamphetamines) sings Marvin Gaye songs while they are . . . are . . . um . . . I really don’t want to think about that any more, but you get the idea.
Mullethead is the boyfriend of Methahotept’s daughter. His hair is sculpted from a single bezoar removed from the second stomach of a large Nepalese yak. It really is a work of art, but that’s another story. When he was evicted from the apartments, he kept returning to sleep in the laundry room at night. When the police arrested him for tresspassing, they found a sleeping bag, a broom with his name on it, five half empty frozen orange juice concentrate containers, and a penis pump. What the hell does one need five half empty frozen orange juice concentrate containers for?
He’s called…The Twiddler
He walks up and down the highway each day, twiddling a straw in his hands. I haven’t seen him myself yet, but nearly everyone else has.
Proof I need to get out more, neh?
There was a man who did this in a town I lived in as well. The bottom of the cross was worn into a sharp point from the dragging. Sometimes he’d bring his son along. Ugh.
In my home town there was a man who rode around on a bike and carried a wooden block with a nail in it. That was his “walkie-talkie” and he told everyone he was a cop.
In Vancouver there’s a bag lady who wears, without close inspection, carpets. Or at least one over her head. You can’t get close enough to her to check because her odour is nauseating. She got on a bus I was on once, and I wasn’t the only person who fled at the next stop. I see why the police are experimenting with using smells as a weapon. It wasn’t something you could possibly ignore.
There was also a woman there who carried around a duck and would tell your fortune. I haven’t seen her in a few years.
Our local crazies aren’t too crazy, just slightly odd-seeming to us so-called normal folks. There’s a big BIG guy in the neighborhood, probably 6’4" and well over three hundred pounds, who sort of “lists” to one side when he walks - what makes this odd is that he sometimes switches the direction he’s listing to for no apparent reason. He would not be so noticeable all by himself, except that he is always accompanied by the smallest, skinniest Chihuahua dog I have ever seen.
There’s another fellow who is reasonably friendly, but who looks so out-of-date that he draws peculiar glances. Picture John Sebastian circa 1972 - longish fuzzy hair and walrus moustache, with one of those flattened Superfly type hats, corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches. He bicycles all over town, and always has one leg of his pants pinned so it doesn’t catch in the chain. Black socks, always, and white sneakers. Not at all weird personality wise, although he’s very formal when he does speak (“good day, ma’am” and all that.)
We also have a 90-year old lady who speedwalks through the neighborhood. I can almost keep up with her if I trot.
Our town’s too small and de-centralized to have a local crazy, but we had two where I used to live.
First one was the “tee shirt man” who used to walk up and down the median of the main drag wearing a T shirt with something mocking John 3:16 in big letters. He also had a sign taped to his apartment window that mocked Jesus in some way. His mouth was always moving as if he were in a heated discussion with someone.
Then there was the “cane lady” on the crack side of town - somewhere between middle aged and elderly, dressed in garishly colored hot pants and halter, walking with a cane that she swung way up into the air with each step. She, too, was always deep in conversation with unknown persons, but it seemed to be more of an angry argument than the tee shirt man’s conversations.
Elizabeth Taylor lives in our town. She used to be Dolly Parton, but she’s been Liz for the past 12 years. Her real name is Joann, but nobody has ever been able to convince her of that.
She often comes into the Library and wants us to cash a two million dollar royality check. We always tell her we don’t have that much money on hand.
About every two years she starts acting out, and the judge makes her pay a visit to the “Resort”. Four years ago she met and married a mentally challanged man there. She has him convinced that he’s Richard Burton.
In Binghamton, there’s a guy everyone calls The Cowboy. He’s an old dude who wears a kid’s sheriff’s badge, a plastic belt with a plastic gun, a straw ten gallon, and these plastic slip-over cowboy boots with fake spurs. Every time he sees me he says, “HI, Linda Blair!” I have no idea why, but I suspect it’s the large quantity of gin he drinks daily.
In Ithaca, there is a fellow/lady known to all as David/Lisa. S/he is always dolled up in heavy makeup featuring blue eye shadow and dramatic black cat eyeliner. S/he also always wears skintight spandex skirts with fishnets and very feminine blouses with stiletto heels. Hair is in a bleach-blonde Farrah Fawcett layered wave 'do, and nails are painted red… but the knuckles are hairy and gnarly and s/he often has stubble on the old Adam’s apple. I’ve talked to David/Lisa a few times (actually a nice chap/chick), and s/he makes no attempt to disguise the maniless of his/her voice. Oh, and s/he rides around all day on a bike with the radio blaring 80s hard rock hits while s/he goes through the garbage pails looking for cans.
I lived next door to a lady in Ithaca named Ms. Lunetta Abrams. She is an African American lady whose hair hasn’t been combed out in so long I think it’s one big dreadlock on top of her head, under the black cloche hat and veil. Even in the hottest summer, she wore a rain coat and fuzzy boots and carried a broomstick,which she spins menacingly. On many occasions, she asked me if I had seen her purse. It had been stolen, she said; she also asked if maybe my cats had put it on the roof, or in the basement? Could I ask the cats for her? When I told her to call the police about the theft, she confided in me that the police had driven by and aimed their “sex-rays” at her, causing her to think evil thoughts, so she couldn’t call THEM.
I could think of several more, but suffice it to say that Central New York is a seething hotbed of weirdos.
Met him at the “resort”? Wouldn’t that make him Larry Fortensky?
Crazies abound in my area. There’s a major psych unit, a detox centre, a needle-exchange program, a residential unit for intellectual and psychiatric disability patients, AND a ‘drop-in’ centre for the homeless folk all within 2 km of my home, so there is also an overrepresentation of nutters. I feel right at home here.
Some of the more colorful ones include Leonard*, who is a big, bearded and ferocious looking Koorie who storms up to people with one arm hanging over his head. Once he is within 10cm of your face, he BELLOWS at you, asking if you might have some change for the tram. This is guaranteed to freak the non-locals out (and understandably so too), but those who know him tell him to tone it down a few decibels, and then they give him some coins. He really is a gentle giant, and he really does spend the money on tram fares. But the first time he confronted ME, I nearly wet me’self.
Then there’s Ronnie* who is a resident in a boarding house, but spends most of his time on the streets. No matter where in Melbourne I happen to be, I can almost expect to see Ronnie there too…he’s a seasoned traveller, and a most conspicuous one at that. He tends to ‘lose the plot’ after a few too many beers, and becomes incomprehensibly belligerent…basically, he starts raving, loudly, but nobody can make out what he is raving about. My first encounter with him was on my local tram and he was terrorising the other passengers. I told him if he didn’t shut-the-hell-up, the driver would kick him off, and then he’d have to walk to wherever he was going. It worked! Since then we’ve become ‘mates’ and if I catch him early enough in the day we enjoy a smoke and a few minutes of rambling together. He’s a tad more lucid in the mornings!!
I could go on and on about my local ‘characters’, but there are just too many of them. There’s John from the res. unit up the street and there’s the lady who sits in the tram shelter drinking long-necks out of a paper bag whilst sitting on her commode. There’s the crew who use the garden outside the supermarket as their ‘common’, and when Boofa passed away earlier this year used the cairn in the centre to paint their memorials to him. I thought it was cool, but the s/market management obviously thought otherwise and had it painted over within the week.
Yep…I live in the best place in the world. God I love Fitzroy.
*Names changed for obvious reasons.
Do you live in Honolulu? Because there’s a guy just like that who lives just down the street from me. Last year he rode across America raising money.
Honolulu does have a homeless problem what with the weather being so nice and many of them are quite unstable but none really stand out.
There was this Vietnam vet who’d stand at the corner of Kapiolani and Kalakaua in uniform with a large flag and wave at people going to work. He was by all accounts a nice sane guy who just felt an urge to do that for many years until he had a heart attack and died on the corner. There was a little memorial and the flags still fly there.
Ah, I was just about to post about him. I honestly feel badly for the man, my husband and I have come to the conclusion that he may have a Tourette’s type disorder, because it really seems like its a(n incredibly loud, odd, occasionally funny but just generally sad) verbal tic.
There’s a woman who occasionally turns up near our building (though the doorstaff will try to move her along, which bothers me somewhat) who seems to believe that she’s lost her little boy. She asks everyone “Have you seen my son? His name is Jimmy, he’s eight.” (Sometimes he’s nine, sometimes seven, once his name wasn’t Jimmy but I don’t remember what it was.) Unfortunately, the woman is of an age that if she did lose a little boy of that age range, it must’ve been thirty years ago. We never saw her before 9/11 so we’ve wondered if that didn’t trigger a psychotic break for her.
Seeing these people who so obviously need help and who are so easily dismissed (calling them the “local crazies” for instance, but that’s just the very tip of the iceberg) and abused by society just breaks my heart.
Eve stole my line! I was going to suggest myself, or rather me+mrIteki. We are not crazies (at least not so others notice) but I think we are definatly to be counted amongst the local “characters”. People nod to us in the street and will sort of mumble “Hi” and stuff. People we don’t know. I think it’s commonly understood that we are a couple, and what with mrsIteki being asian I guess we are just as exotic as all hell 
Similarly I have lived with two of Dublins “characters” at the time. They were two guys who everyone knew to see, due to the fact that they were Sharp Skins (the only skins in Dublin at the time, at all). People were really impressed when they found out I lived with them :rollseyes:
I forgot to mention that I live in a small, small town. But that probably came through in my post eh ?
A highway near me has a man walking up and down it almost everyday,the man is sunburned seriously in summer.
He has been wearing a neck brace for years and always carries a walkietalkie.
Sometimes you would see him in fast food places to the side of the highway,talking into the walkietalkie,no response he just had conversations with himself.
Now the scary part,all of his clothes had official police insignia on them 
Forgot to mention the “paperguy”,i have seen this guy for over 10 years.
He drives a fairly expensive luxury car,which he trades in every few years it seems,that is so laden with newpapers that i have watched his muffler scraping on unever streets.
He will go itno all night diner type places order coffee and pull out his papers and begin going over them with markers and cuts some into articles,as far as i can tell he lives in the car.
I can’t help but think of the movie a beautiful mind when i see him
There’s was a gentleman in my home town, don’t know if he is still there, who walked up and down the street carrying a seven foot tall wooden cross a la Jesus on the way to be crucified. Funny thing, he had attached wheels to the bottom to make HIS cross a little easier to bare I guess.