This one is sad because she was obviously mentally ill and not getting the help she needed, but it’s the best example I have of the city I grew up in.
We had “Toonie Lady.” She would roam around downtown begging for a Toonie and would get very upset if you gave her anything else, even if it was more.
For the non-Canadians, a Toonie is a $2 coin.
We had one woman like this everyone called “dime bag Debbie” because she always asked for “ten dollars for chicken”
Not happy (but still accepting) if you gave her anything other than $10, and a few people I knew apparently tried to buy her raw and cooked chicken, as well as chicken sandwiches from various restaurants and that was also unhappily accepted.
I think the $10 thing is a coincidence, and people call her “dimebag” because they assume she does drugs. No idea if she does or not though.
This is amusing to me because we have the “20ct guy” in my city who always claims he only needs 20ct and as soon as he sees any more money he’ll steal it from you.
Kitten Guy.
Dude was a little strange, but otherwise a good person. He just kept taking in strays, and if he had kittens in need, they went everywhere with him. Most of them ended up at new homes, but he had a few who stuck around. Wasn’t unusual for him to be feeding two or three kittens and have two more sitting on his shoulders.
It was an extremely small town, so he stuck out like a sore thumb. They went everywhere with him. Never caused any trouble.
That’s awesome, sounds like a cool dude!
A bit strange… but yeah, if he isn’t doing any harm 🤷.
Aww… I’m glad there are people like him, those kittens were probably doomed otherwise unless there was a local animal shelter and even then finding homes for animals tends to be difficult.
My hometown’s got the yellow man. Some random dude who’s wearing nothing but yellow clothes, riding a yellow bicycle around the place. I wonder what his favourite colour might be…
Does he by chance have a small, rather curious monkey with him?
I’m afraid I don’t know the reference. Care to explain?
Curious George’s “friend” is a dude who wears exclusively all yellow.
Brooklyn has artist Elizabeth Sweetheart, the Green Lady. I met her in the subway once and told her I’d seen her interview on Youtube, and it brought me joy to know of someone just loving a color so much and expressing it so fantastically. She gave me a hug :) Genuinely lovely human!
That’s very wholesome. Thank you for sharing.
Is it red?
We have a yellow lady in Montréal.
There is a man that wears chainmail armor made out of soda can pop tabs that is famous in both Tucson and Phoenix areas of Arizona. His name is Chicago, and you can catch him on the bus or at random punk and metal shows around AZ, if you are lucky.
F-ing A! Props to him, it’s a very unique look and most people can’t seem to work up the courage to do more than follow trends.
Ass-man of Szeged, in Hungarian ‘Szegedi Picsaember’. He wears very-very tight jean shorts. Even during winter.
Here is an article about him: https://444.hu/2013/05/03/holgyeink-es-uraink-a-szegedi-picsaember
He is pulling it off.
He gives dean from community energy
Those are the tightest shorts I’ve ever seen. He does have amazing legs though.
Crackhead Dan.
He started out as “dancing Dan” because of how often you could see him jamming out to something walking down the road, but he didn’t like the name. Somehow it changed to crackhead, and I haven’t heard his opinion on it.
He looks rather disheveled, leading many to wonder if he’s homeless or not. Nobody seems to know. I’ve never seen him panhandling, dumpster diving, or with anything other than a backpack.
He likes to support the city’s high school band though, goes to the football games and always goes to the band concession stand and leaves tips.
You could tell anyone any story about him and they’d just go “yeah that sounds about right”
You could tell anyone any story about him and they’d just go “yeah that sounds about right”
Should be added to the meke cause its a quintessential part of this trope lmao.
Austin used to have Leslie. He was frequently seen riding around Town Lake on his bike, sporting naught but his hot pants or brightly colored thong. RIP
We had the phone guy. He used to walk around town with a red plastic rotary phone, and occasionally tell passersby they had a call.
Then cellphones happened, and he just sort of… vanished.
It’s been a long time now, of course, but sometimes I still think of him and worry what it must have been like, being sort of outcompeted off his little self assigned ecological niche of sorts what must have felt like overnight. One day you’re the phone guy, next day everyone’s walking around with a phone on their ear, and you’re stuck with your old unplugged red rotary phone. Tragic.
Wow, that… that really makes you think. No wonder UFO nuts refuse to admit Roswell was revealed as Project Mogul in the 90s, their belief might be all they have left and if that’s somehow obsolete…
Ahhh the naked roller blading cowboy that plays guitar…
No I’m not kidding. Bonus points if you can name the city
Dude jams out around Boston on a keytar wearing a bear costume. The music is actually pretty great.
Neat!
St Louis has “keytar guy”. He sets up at random intersections in the city and jams out on his keyboard. He’s usually sporting a mullet and is shirtless with cutoff jean shorts. He’s pretty good and is entertaining as hell.
We also have/had the Bridge guy. Haven’t been around there in awhile, hope he’s doing fine
My town has a disabled guy that trained his dogs to pull his wheelchair
carrot man in melbourne, australia
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/12/melbourne-fitzroy-carrot-man
And Baba Desi the Belgrave wizard.
I either live in the right part of the world, or the wrong part, because I’ve never seen this stuff.
IDK, we have a few legends like that around here, I presumed every place has at least one.
Albuquerque had little shorts guy. Walked around Central Ave near the university wearing naught but a tiny, tiny pair of shorts or thong and usually carrying an anti-war/pro-gay sign. Pretty fun fellow to talk to, but was too into drinking urine imho.
