encounters with gibbering madmen on the street

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any good ones?

- yesterday, 9am. I was accosted by a man who demanded that we have coffee the next morning at 10. He then looked at me and said "I am the strangest man you will ever meet. There you are! It's a miracle!" then a friend of mine drove up and he immediately demanded a coffee date with him.

- in NYC several years ago I witnesses a man physically attacking a mailbox, knocking it over, and then pointing to a priest who was walking by, shouting "he did it! he did it!" Interestingly the priest looked shamed and jogged off. I laughed, the guy looked at me, and came at me like a Dawn of the Dead zombie, waving his arms and going "gahhh!!". I turned around and ran away.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a great one in Berkeley a couple weeks ago. He harangued me for several minutes with Jimi Hendrix trivia, then when I apologized and said I had someplace to be, he started in on Bootsy Collins trivia.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Heh, Until I read Jaymc's post, I was just gonna say - I live in Berkeley, I have two or three of these every day!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

My favorite - A perfectly ordinary-seeming man walking down Shattuck suddenly pausing to run over to one of those boxes selling Yank magazine (contacts, escorts, phone sex, etc.), grip it tightly and SCREAM into it for a full two or three minutes, ending in a tirade that included the phrase "YOU BLACK WHITE NEGRO MOTHERFUCKER!".

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I would say Alex in NYC to thread but I suspect he has other things on his mind today.

xpost -- @d@ml just won

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Though I do have this.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

When Anthony Kyle Monday and I (and attendant wives!) left the Dizzee Rascal show in SF for a while, we were treated to a reggae song about Osama Bin Laden by a skipping street crazie.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:27 (twenty-two years ago)

and attendant wives!

Excuse me, you mean you were the attendant husbands. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:28 (twenty-two years ago)

attendant, attentive, the whole package.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~jfrens/pete-and-pete/pictures/artie1.jpg

Was it this guy? He hasn't been seen since he left because younger Pete no longer needed him.

― chopher, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was a lot younger, there was this really weird guy following us home from school. He ran on ahead and we couldn't see where he had gone, so we decided to carry on, anyway a few minutes later he jumped out from behind a wall going "rarrrararararar", we legged it.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Jel that's unsettling!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a messenger bag with a Bloodshot Records sticker on it. I was having coffee several days ago when a chap asked me for a cigarette, I gave him one. He looked at the bag, looked at me, pointed at the sticker and asked "what are you, a commie?" I must have looked confused, because he said "you know, whenever I see red I see commie." he then walked off.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, it was kinda unsettling for a good few weeks after we saw him, but we never saw him again, I reckon he was just a drunk.

My town was full of weird drunks and madmen I'm afraid.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

One time I was sitting in the town centre, lending some CD's to a friend, and this guy came up to us and said "are you selling playstation games?" we were like no, and he just wandered of. A few weeks later I was just going into a newsagent when I saw him coming out gleefully proclaiming "hehe I looked at porn"...

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

He sounded content.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

recently, i stepped to the side of the subway entrance to check my wallet before heading down to the platform. i unintentionally cut off a very straight-looking, suited-up businessman who proceeded to hiss in my ear, "don't play games with me, girlie." i was spooked for hours afterwards. it was so random & creepy!

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

woh

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

OMG I would totally start hissing "DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME, GIRLIE!" at everyone on the T if I wasn't sure I'd get knifed!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Too many to count. But the killer thing about crazy screaming people is: When they wake up in the morning and look into their closets to get dressed for the day do they think " well I have a busy day of swearing at and accosting pedestrians today. I think I will wear the gray sweater."?

― danielle g. (danielle g.), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't remember if I've posted this before, but a few months ago, I was on the bus and this old man stared at me and said, "I pulled a woman's pants down." I ignored him, and he said it again, then proceeded to say it louder and louder every few seconds until I got off the bus, at which point he jumped up behind me and followed me for several blocks, shouting "I PULLED a woman's PANTS down!" at the top of his lungs. I was kind of laughing.

― kirsten (kirsten), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh dear.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

do they think " well I have a busy day of swearing at and accosting pedestrians today. I think I will wear the gray sweater."?

i wonder the same thing about flashers. is it an unbearable sudden urge or more planned out, like "to do list: pick up laundry, cat food, toilet paper; flash co-eds."

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Not in the street, but in the men's toilets at a library. I walk in, and half-register that there's someone in one of the cubicles (I notice big boots sticking out). I have a slash at the urinals, and just as I'm doing up my flies I hear this grizzled cockney voice - obviously coming from the person with the big boots - going "I can see you. My eyes can see through walls. I've got eyes in the back of my head. I've got eyes up my arse." I freak out, do up my trousers in record time and rush out of there without washing my hands. Just as I leave I hear him go "No come back COME BACK AH FUCK YER".

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"eyes up my arse"!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:38 (twenty-two years ago)

there is a raving guy at the cable car turnaround on Market St at the Hyatt who is completely rad. He obsessively shouts the same thing over and over for hours until he's hoarse; it's really difficult to figure out what he's saying, but sometimes you can glean words like "emily bronte" and "stagecoach." Lately he's had props such as old photoraphs of forgotten film stars or an ancient tape recorder fomr the 60's. He seems completely insane BUT he's capable of having a rational conversation, I've heard him. Apparently he just likes to sit there and make "statements." Despite my description of him sounding annoying, I'm actually fond of him now and would miss him if he were gone, he's a nice piece of absurdity at the end of the day.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I've seen that guy!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone who lives in the Bay Area and has seen Crumb - does Max Crumb still hang around Market?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Weirdest one I can remeber happened on a Boston bus on 9/11. A drunk construction worker was walking up and down the aisle screaming "Chaluuuupa! Chaluuuupa!" He then tried engaging various passengers in conversations that went something like this:
"Lots of people sad today."
(silence)
"You know why the're sad?"
(silence)
"'Cause of the chaluuuuuuupa!"
Repeat ad infinitum. It was a struggle to hide my giggling.

― the krza (krza), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:50 (twenty-two years ago)

man: (laughs hysterically, pointing)
me: (??)
man: YOU ARE... A CHEVY VAN!!!!

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I think max crumb died, but I might be wrong.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I am wrong

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, 25 March 2004 00:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I was in a coffee shop a couple of years ago, and this weird old guy stumbled in and walked up to the kids at a nearby table and started rambling pretty incoherently and shaking his fist a lot. The kids were trying to ignore him, but then he got down on the floor, somehow managed to execute a pretty decent headstand, opened his legs and farted very loudly in the direction of the table. He then tumbled to the ground and said, "Let's see your mom do that, yoga boy." The same guy once told me I had a "sunshiney smile." He is clearly insane.

― kirsten (kirsten), Thursday, 25 March 2004 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 25 March 2004 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I was walking in downtown DC in 1999 with my then-boyfriend, headed to a museum along a sidewalk deserted but for a guy in the middle of a yelling rant about the government. I was looking dressy in a long skirt and nice coat and shoes, and then-boyfriend had on a ragged pair of corduroys and sneakers with one sole kind of flapping with each step. The guy stops in the middle of his rant, open-mouthed, and watches us walk by for a few seconds before shouting,
"YOU GOT HER?! YOU GOT HER!? SOMEBODY GON' SNATCH HER OFFA YOU!!"
I laughed.

― sgs (sgs), Thursday, 25 March 2004 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

"I've got eyes up my arse."

"Let's see your mom do that, yoga boy."

― estela (estela), Saturday, 30 September 2006 11:05 (nineteen years ago)

five years pass...

-Man walked up to me to bum a cigarette. I give him one. He makes small talk about the weather (this is a few weeks ago, just starting to get nice). Then he asks if I am excited for summer, which I am. Then he tells me the sun is going to melt the planet this summer and that at least women don't need to wear tops anymore!

-In line at a cheque-cashing place several years ago in one of Toronto's worst neighbourhoods, dude tries to strike up conversation. I am pleased when the teller calls me and I can get away from him, because he is hitting on me. I leave the place, go to the corner, wait to cross the street. He catches up. DAMNIT. He follows me around for next 15 minutes trying to get my number, as I go in and out of stores and tell him it's never gonna happen, etc. I give him a fake, he promptly disappears.

-Man comes up to me holding a newspaper. "HAVE YOU SEEN OUR MAYOR? HE'S A CLOWN!" I wish I could remember direct quote as it is much more awesome.

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Friday, 23 March 2012 17:02 (fourteen years ago)

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