What is the deal with crazy people in Davis Square?

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Not to vent here, but seriously.  Some guy tried to stop me to talk to me outside of the Starbucks area as I was walking down the street and when I was like, "sorry, can't stop to talk" he shouted after me "I oughta smack you in the face for walking away from me!"  Is he a regular?  Is this why people have their ipods in when walking through the area -- it's like you can't walk through without someone stopping you to save the whales, water or apparently, smack you in the face. 

Comments

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

So you were inspired to setup a LJ account just to post this message?

[cos]

Apparently you didn't realize that we davis_square maintainers retain some crazy people to go out into the square and inspire people to sign up for LJ and join the community. I'm not sure if oughta-smack-you guy is one of ours, though. Gotta check with my colleagues...

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

I like the guy who hangs out in front of the thrift store and asks "do you have a quarter", when you turn him down, he says "do you need a quarter?" and holds one up. I know a couple of people who have taken his money.

You don't often see reverse panhandling.

[pooka-madness.livejournal.com]

I like the "Do you have 50 cents?" guy, myself. Such a specific amount, and the emphasis is so fantastically sardonic. Like 'of course you have 50 cents, how could you not, so why don't you give it to me?'

I've seen him in Central as well as Davis, and one time at Harvard. Maybe he just uses the money to ride up and down the red line.

[livingadream.livejournal.com]

mr. butch (RIP) used to do that all the time in allston.

mr. butch was the fucking man.

[ron_newman]

I'm going to guess you are the same person (with a different username) who posted a message about "The bums at route 16 and Mass. Ave." a few days ago. That one was offensive enough that I deleted it. This one, I'm going to let stand for now unless the comments start violating our rules again.

-- One of your friendly moderators

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

This is why I hang onto IPs.

No, actually I'm a different person

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Really, this post was offensive? Why?

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

I dunno, Ron,

Albeit the poster opened a LJ account to vent, for some reason the guy who's always talking to himself and looks like a dead ringer for Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Southie) immediately came to mind.

Or maybe I'm off base here. But I generally try to dodge Lynch's doppelganger, particularly if I'm with the Trickettes.

[pooka-madness.livejournal.com]

That's Yelling Guy. There have been a whole mess of davis_square posts about him. I'm too busy to dig 'em out, but someone genuinely helpful like ron_newman might.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

He lives at the halfway house on Broadway. He is harmless. I see him sometimes in coffee shops and laundromats writing really intense poetry or something on napkins.

[studeronomy.livejournal.com]

He only wants cigarettes. He's nice enough. I used to know his actual name, but now that I don't travel through Powderhouse as often I've forgotten it...

[aquaflame16.livejournal.com]

I believe his name is Michael, and usually he's harmless, but I have seen him get very close up to people while walking with them like he does, in a way which could make a lot of people very uncomfortable, and I did see him actually shove someone once, which surprised me a lot.

He seems to approach men more than women. On his good days, it's not all gibberish (repetitive and nonlinear, sure, but not entirely gibberish), but you kinda have to get used to how to listen to him. Most of what he does have to say is pretty sad, makes me really sad for the kind of life he has.

When he's relatively calm, flashing a peace sign seems to be his thing. If he does follow you, he pretty much always stops within about two blocks (he tends to stay in a very limited area). I don't think I've ever seen him approach someone talking on a cell phone, so that might be one strategy if you really don't want to interact with him at a particular time. (Obviously this may not always be true, it just has been consistent in my observation.)

[livingadream.livejournal.com]

Yelling dude is completely harmless (as far as I can tell).
He did follow me down College Ave once when I was in a rush - yelling things at me along the way. We got to Kidder Ave before I stopped, turned to him and said "I'm really sorry, but I can't talk today." And he promptly stopped yelling, paused a moment and said "ASSHOLE." and walked away.

The next night I saw him at 1AM walking very quickly toward me, but he was only coming to tell me to get home safely.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, thanks for the welcome!

[carlagaglione.livejournal.com]

I damn near snorted out my juice thanks to that..hahahaha

[ifotismeni]

you win at life, just FYI. we're damn glad we stole you from the west coast man.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

it's like you can't walk through without someone stopping you to save the whales

I. hate. that.

It's like I have this huge thing tattooed on my forehead, invisible to me, which says "YES! I totally wanted to have my personal space and my train of thought invaded! The fact that I am studiously avoiding eye contact while lost in my own thoughts notwithstanding!"

Makes me wish I were male, tall, and covered in biker tattooes. Oh well.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoy turning those people down.

Person: Don't you care about the environment?
Me: Nope, not at all! Burn it down!

Person: Do you have a mninute to save the environment?
Me: Don't you think it'll take more than a minute?

[sasha-bee.livejournal.com]

i sooo have compassion fatigue now with all those activists out asking for money. i used to feel sorry for the masspirg folks but not anymore.

[hopkinsgranada.livejournal.com]

Thats not to guy who was harasing the real busker playing the fiddle? Yelling loudly "I can sing better than she can play" and then trying to sing..and sounding terribly offensive. he leaned over at me and said "hey hunny watchya reading" and then started yelling something about if you're going to hit a woman your a coward come fight me!
..very odd. Wonder if its the same guy

[koloratur.livejournal.com]

I'm late to the party, apparently...but I noticed a (new to me) scary guy in the T on Monday. As I was heading toward the escalators to leave, he was coming down into the station. He was a big tall guy, and I noticed him because he was SCREAMING at a girl on her way out. "Haven't you ever seen a MARINE?" He screamed at me, too, and came towards me. Freaky.

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? This has been quite the glut of posts about annoying characters in the square recently. I am pretty surprised to hear people talking about Yelling Guy swearing at them and grabbing them. All I've ever seen him do is semi-follow people and recite some halfway legible riff about "bitches" and never getting married....at least that's what I think he's saying......

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

my dad taught me this one
me: "do you get paid to do this fundraising?" (I believe they're required by law to tell you if they are)
them: "yes"
me: "If it's such a worthy cause, why don't you volunteer?"