Recording all the Oddballs in your Town

I need a project and I was thinking about interviewing all the 'seemingly' odd characters in my town, photographing them and then self-publishing the collection for local consumption. I'm sure all kinds of people are interested in the freaky spoonman who begs on the main drag, the guy who makes a run of all the trash cans in town each morning, the guy who booms out sermons by himself in the ball field at 7 a.m. on Sundays etc. etc. Has anyone else done such a thing? It seems easy and I know it could sell.

 

Sounds like the type of thing I would probably be interviewed for!

 

I've interviewed the only guy who has hair longer than his ears in my town...Does that count? He also plays a mean guitar and hates America...

It was interesting, but I couldn't publish it. Damn community standards.

 

i wish i knew more 'oddballs' in my town! there's me.
there's three or four furs i know. there's an old fat drunk
semi retarded guy who used to hang out by the station and
walk arround with his pants half falling off.

haven't seen him in a while. there was an teller of wonderful
'honest abe' tall tails who was 'curator' of the local historical societie's musium where i docented at when i didn't have any place else to be or things to do. but he's gone now.

there's the local train and model train clubs i used to be a member of. some of whome i managed to drag to my wedding eight or nine years ago.

i think most if not all of those a pretty marginal as to real oddness though. i mean the're mostly alright or even in the case of the furs pretty darn wonderful people, but none of them are really the cream of the strainge if you know what i mean.

maybe i set too high a standard of straingeness myself.
i mean how many eco-socialist furry train enthusiast star seed otherkin who listen to alternative radio, tecno-ambient fussion, or the sounds or nature and trains, wear brown doubleknit bell bottoms and lime green nerd pocket shirts with love beads and refuses to own an automobile or indenture themselves to doing so do you know?

the hell of it is, no who sees me even immagines the straingeness that lurkes in my heart. to them i appear as a perfictly, well maybe not too perfectly, ordinary little old 56 year old gnome, who happens to prefer intensified earth colors to primaries. someone who could be their own slightly eccentric genteely impoverished unkle or even grandfather.

and being a-social as i am, unless i join some group like furrys or rail fans or anime enthusiasts, i don't really 'hang out' with, or for that matter without, anyone. well other then all over the internet that is.

and the town i live in, well it isn't small enough and remote enough to go for long walks by myself in the woods like i would prefer to, nor is it large enough to have university engineering libraries, trolley cars or very many and diverse exotic restaurants. though of the latter we do have somewhere arround a handful.

=^^=
.../\...

 

That sounds really interesting... there's 0 "oddballs" in this town that I know of, but I'm sure there's some...

 

Interesting responses! Clearly, every community is more complex than many might imagine. I just think the people on the periphery are often our most interesting. And our most media-neglected. And they do disappear. We take them for granted and then someday passing down the street, it pops into our head: Whatever happened to that guy?

 

Hahaha, that was really funny, the guy who booms out sermons by himself on the baseball field at 7am. yea man, i'd really dig reading about some truly insane everyday people. sounds awesome. keep me informed, for real. this sounds really intriuging, so drop me a line when u got your first interview with one of these wackos, so i can read it.

 

Thanks, God! I now feel divinely inspired! Now it's up to me to move beyond just planning.

 

Be careful!

Some crazies really ARE dangerous.

 

I've talked to a few people around my town when I've given them food or what not. Or sometimes the people that hold up signs with warnings and sayings to traffic, stuff like that. I haven't documented it, but some really were interesting, others just kind of made me sad because they were really crazy.


The worst one was I was giving some food to a homeless guy on a cold night and he was obviously not altogether there. He started rambling something about being a deadbeat and leaving his pregnant wife, it made me want to take back the food altogether, but so it goes.

Like ^ said be careful, some of them really are crazy and possibly dangerous.

 

Thats somethine I would love to read, but you'd really kind of be making a freakshow out of those poor eccentrics. But I suppose if they know you plan to publish the interviews and still consent, then why the hell not?

 

I think it would be really interesting to read. I live a block away from a man who is clearly "not all there", and he rides his bike around and thinks he's Jesus. I've always been fascinated by him. The one time I said "hello" to him, he stuck his tongue out at me. There's also this elderly lady who is very petite and also rides her bike around town. It's a little kids' bike, and there are tons of American flags in the basket and on the seat. She has a hat with flags in it, too. I've never talked to her, but my mom told me she has some kind of terminal illness.

 

Seems to me that there is a lot of literature that deals with freaks, crazies, and others at the fringes of society, and like all great fiction it will be based on actual characters.


Having worked in social services for 12 years in my home town, I got to know a significant number, both the locals and the transients - the ones moving from night shelter to night shelter, from re-hab to re-hab, and got to hear the stories they wanted you to hear,and then see the case notes. The truth, or as near as you were ever going to get to a fair representation of them as individuals, was an amalgam of all the sources.

So I guess my question is what are you going to do with these pieces. If they are going to be straight factual, then one or two really good ones wil be better than 50-60 repetitons of "It wasn't my fault\All the worlds against me" mixed with a medley of social pressures that these individuals couldn't cope with or were denied help with. If you're looking to semi-fictionalise them as a series of character sketches, then you have a good, if not original project. Do you seek to be their chronicler. Either way thepieces will be shaped by your agenda - human beings are involved, so there is no objective truth, only subjective truth.

Yes, some of these individuals can be physically violent, they can also play with your mind, some can charm all your money away but most make life a more interesting place. I would suggest trying something like volunteering for your local night shelter for a night, or talk to prison visitors, (if you have that organisation in the states - basically prisoner befrienders) or ask around to see if there are any nurses\social workers known to friends or relatives that will talk to you informally. Of course, take what they say to you with a pinch of salt - it can be damn difficult for them not to start thinking along the party line.

Ok - if I was to do this, my top five from Norwich would be

1 Chris - walks around in a frogman suit with a poncho over it, is a bag of skin and bones and has a 'girlfriend'(Melissa) - a plastic inflatable doll that he takes for walks on a dog leash.
2 Marrigold - can be seen every morning directing the traffic on the busy dual carriageway near the Night Shelter in bright yellow kitchen gloves - always well groomed and immaculately attired. Has been there so long he is one of the trustees but refuses to move into long term re-habilatation.
3 George W - died in the last war for people like me. Was as hard as teak, drank lighter fluid for fun, and would come into the waiting room and start eating the furniture. Was last seen walking towards an oncoming lorry, ("because it was looking at him funny"). Deceased.
4 Tony - knew black was white, left was right - whatever you said he would take up the opposite position,(no I don't) and could repeat back to you verbatim something you said three months ago.
5 Jesus - wore biblical robes and a shepherds cowl, with a shepherds hook and a large crucifix. Read from the bible in the market place. Flagelatted himself and chucked ashes over himself. Said he was on a pilgrimage to save the world - image somewhat tarnished when he tried to hold up a liquor store by sticking the crucifix in the store owners back and telling him it was a gun.

 

..the only oddball in my small-ish town is a guy who apparently is in his 30's 40's ish(well he dosent seam to be reliable about letting people know how his actual age is!)
who loves ,and i can bet my low self esteem on that(!) knowing that people thinks his abnormally gr8 in his strollingness of freakiness and weirdoness2!
Personally i think his gr8 as a performer of "MIRRORER OF SOCIETY!".
Slashing giant questionary points about what actually the old lady,or the abused child dressed by those blind"parental guides " in absurds wrapping of deformed cultural way of growing up,or the poshy -oshy lord,and the sparkling scented religiuos humanoid at sundays chucrch sessions really are ..?.
I do like his abusive statements towards the"public egoes" 'coz of the hillarious way in which he plays around wid the spectator not letting them know what he is actually doing!
..the saddest thing instead, is that i haven't seeing him round lately...

 

I have had more then a couple of run ins with one of the most dangerous odd balls in our town. This guy likes to smash his head off of lamp post, pick fights with random people in the streets (I have been one of those people) and will say Merry Christmas to just about everyone. I have talked to him a few times. The most vivid memory was when I was working as Santa's elf in our local mall. This guy walked up to Santa and told him that he had an 80 year old woman that wanted to sleep with this Santa. It was some weird stuff but the guy is alright. He hasn't beat me up or anything yet so I'm cool with him. Enough ranting for me...night.

Casper

 

Some amazing contributions! Moominpapa, you should write your own book. You've obviously got some real characters closeby and I'm sure half the town is puzzled by them. Sillylid, you've pinpointed the need for such studies or reflections- these people aren't here forever. Casper, maybe Santa himself would be a town oddball- but then you'd have a hard time interviewing him. He has too many impersonators! Thanks to all!

 

..the only oddball in my small-ish town is a guy who apparently is in his 30's 40's ish(well he dosent seam to be reliable about letting people know how his actual age is!)
who loves ,and i can bet my low self esteem on that(!) knowing that people thinks his abnormally gr8 in his strollingness of freakiness and weirdoness2!
Personally i think his gr8 as a performer of "MIRRORER OF SOCIETY!".
Slashing giant questionary points about what actually the old lady,or the abused child dressed by those blind"parental guides " in absurds wrapping of deformed cultural way of growing up,or the poshy -oshy lord,and the sparkling scented religiuos humanoid at sundays chucrch sessions really are ..?.
I do like his abusive statements towards the"public egoes" 'coz of the hillarious way in which he plays around wid the spectator not letting them know what he is actually doing!
..the saddest thing instead, is that i haven't seeing him round lately...