SubponticatePoster posted:

To put things in perspective, I live in Salt Lake, one of the most whitebread areas you can imagine. A few months ago I was leaving my house and there was a man wearing a full Santa outfit walking down the sidewalk singing (it was not December). When he saw me he stopped and told me to have a great day and said "you know I love you, right?" I said, "yeah man, love you too" and went on with my life. I see poo poo like that all the time. This couple would have apparently run away screaming.

C.M. Kruger posted:

In a separate post, he suggested that at least two of the people he lived with had got into a drunken brawl after one of them was stung by a bee.

chitoryu12 posted:

NYC would probably make these two literally poo poo themselves. Crazy people of all stripes wander anywhere and everywhere and you're bound to encounter at least 3 or 4 per day, even if you eventually start tuning them out until you don't notice. Street preachers, one-legged homeless guys, schizophrenics talking to themselves in a diner, etc. Once I saw a guy who just walked down 9th Avenue late at night smashing the glass in every payphone booth he passed by for no apparent reason.

It's still a pretty safe city and has a surprisingly low crime rate. You just encounter weirdos everywhere.

mostlygray posted:

Whatever is faster than you are. Remember, this is a ridiculous person that participates in all such events. All that matters is that this ghost is always faster than you are, no matter how hard you push it or train, he always beats you to the next stop. You could be riding into a 40 mph headwind in the rain, or with the wind at your back and the sun at your face. Either way, he's always just ahead of you and looks like he's have the best day of his life with his stupid goddamn milk crate on the front of his bike.

Meanwhile, you're vomiting into a trash can from pushing so hard. gently caress guys that ride comfort bikes on their heels while wearing a raincoat. Who wears a raincoat on a hot day? Somehow, they always wear one. Why do they have a milk crate? What goes in it? You pass them going 10-20 mph faster than they are, yet somehow they overtake you. These goblins make no sense.

mind the walrus posted:

Going to second this, even if it's almost a trite statement by this point. Heard a saying on SomethingAwful that I'm pretty sure was repurposed from somewhere:

"You know that event, that one major thing--someone took a dump in the court hall, the schoolteacher was seen loving a student, that old lady plowed her car into the front of a house--that was the talk of the town for a year? Yeah in New York you'll run into an average of one of those a day."

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

yeah, urophagia as a fetish isn't so uncommon here, most people know a guy who has been asked at a club if someone can drink their pee or whatever. it is what it is, it isn't hurting anybody, and i like that there's a safe and welcoming environment where they can let their inner freak fly

in this instance i was quite stoned and this german bro came out of nowhere to duck a plastic cup under my pee stream. it would have been polite if he'd asked but what can you do except laugh. it's not like i needed it anymore

ekuNNN posted:

I guess the schadenfreude is that America doesn't have a functional mental health system


Here's some belated Olympics freude

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

in this instance i was quite stoned and this german bro came out of nowhere to duck a plastic cup under my pee stream. it would have been polite if he'd asked but what can you do except laugh. it's not like i needed it anymore

Baronjutter posted:

Jesus christ I thought you left out a word or something, like while you were peeing someone stole your bike or something you put down. But someone... someone actually intercepted your pee in a cup and ran off with it. That's amazing.

Also all of europe sort of smells like pee, at least the cities. When ever its a hot day and there's been some event and there's that pee roasting on concrete in the sun smell it always triggers memories of europe, which makes me happy. Smells are wierd.

ekuNNN posted:

I guess the schadenfreude is that America doesn't have a functional mental health system

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

i think if you're not used to this kind of stuff you'd probably freak out, but part of living in a big city is being able to determine malice or threat in strangers and react accordingly. these kids.. dont really seem to have that skill, or the desire to learn it

ekuNNN posted:

I guess the schadenfreude is that America doesn't have a functional mental health system

nerdz posted:

Well, my weirdo story then: this dude who was probably a lot more drunk than crazy greeted me like an old friend, asked me when I was going to make that barbeque I promised, gave me $50 to go buy the beer and left. I didn't want the money but I knew better than following a guy like that to give his money back

Baronjutter posted:

I never thought it was a "city people thing" but people from the deepest suburbs have no idea how to interact with anyone outside of their very narrow race/class/religious circle, let alone legit crazy street people and manage to start poo poo with the easiest to ignore crazy people. Like they'll say all the wrong things, do everything to escalate the situation or draw attention to them selves.
The very few times I've seen street people get a little scary on someone, it's always some dumpy suburban visitor who didn't know how to just avoid eye contact and say "sorry..." the moment a street person starts to engage you. Like they actually stop and listen to their whole "excuse me sorry I'm not a crazy street person and I'm not asking for money, I just want to make that clear, but you see my brother in law's cousin invited me here for a job that starts on monday but [10 min of rambling insane story later] which is why I'm going to walk with you to your bank and let you lend me $50"

Then they start to actually try to argue or point out holes in the crazy street person's scam story. You don't loving engage, you just say "sorry" and keep walking the moment they even look at you. The only thing that enrages a crazy street person's long scam story more than ignoring them, is letting them waste 10 min telling the story and following you 3 blocks while they tell it is then saying no and calling them a bad person who is trying to do a scam. That's when they start screaming and going to plan B, intimidation.

Just look straight ahead and make it very clear from your body language that you ain't got time for any bullshit and have places to be.

That said sometimes encounters with violent crazies just can't be avoided, but it's super rare. My friend had a crazy homeless dude jump on her windshield while she was driving and scream at her to get out so he could murder her, then punched her window until his hand was bleeding then ran off threatening to murder everyone on the street.

Like a week earlier 2 friends were walking down the street and a dude shouted "Hey friend of the family!!", they didn't even look since neither of them are black and you don't look when crazy street people are yelling poo poo. Suddenly the guy runs across the street shouting "gently caress YOU friend of the family!! I loving HATE YOU NIGGERS!!" and start punching and grappling the dude. Guy manages to throw him off and onto the ground at which point he runs away screaming about how there's too many niggers in this city. It rattled them a bit since it came out of nowhere, but by the afternoon they were already laughing about it and how absurd his racial-slur filled attack was.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

It also depends on how dangerous they are. There's nothing wrong with getting to know someone acting a bit strange or on the fringes of society (the homeless, mentally ill, etc), so long as you're aware of your poo poo, able to recognise warning signs, and know how to take care of yourself. If they start getting a bit too intense you just smile and shake your head, apologise, and gently, politely, firmly move on. I was outside a club on Saturday and some guy who looked like he'd murdered Cheech and Chong for their gold teeth was trying to flog some drugs (god knows what they would have been like). I smile, say no thanks, he moves on. A bit later on he comes past and asks if I smoke weed, we share a joint, have a chat. He's from Libya and a bit of a space cadet, kind of funny but not dangerous in the least. A week before that me and some mates were walking past a homeless teenager who asks us for change, we say sorry and then go to get water from a corner store, on the way back we come and sit down and have a joint and a chat with him. If you freak out and say "no" to everything you're going to close yourself off from a lot of interesting things in life, which is bad, but if you also have no idea how to recognise threat/danger, you're also going to end up in a bad way. It's about being able to communicate with people outside your immediate socioeconomic and ideological context.

e: A big part of it is also not being a maladjusted antisocial archetypal goon

mind the walrus posted:

This is true city attitude. If you ain't ready to let some German dude steal your pee and laugh about it because you can tell he ain't trying to hurt you then you ain't ready for city life.

quote:

I was sitting at the bus station and this old guy came up. He said to me "Hey man, whatcha doing?" and I told him that I'm an artist in town for a show. He said "Those are some nice shoes you've got there". And he just got down and grabbed my shoe and--

*mimes licking his tongue all the way up the sole of a shoe with an absolutely crazy face*

What I'm saying is, you're gonna have to be way loving weirder than that!

FCKGW posted:

"the city life is just so real and authentic" he says as he gets pissed on and robbed by a hobo retard.

Jastiger posted:

Hmm there is a city that I should mention here that is both interesting and full of things to do but also not a poo poo hole. Can't think of it, may need some goons to help refresh my memory

Jastiger posted:

Hmm there is a city that I should mention here that is both interesting and full of things to do but also not a poo poo hole. Can't think of it, may need some goons to help refresh my memory

Jastiger posted:

Hmm there is a city that I should mention here that is both interesting and full of things to do but also not a poo poo hole. Can't think of it, may need some goons to help refresh my memory

chitoryu12 posted:

One time in Ybor City I was at a concert for a gothic rock/techno artist I like, and he was telling us a story about the last time he was in Tampa and why he loves coming there. This is about as well as I can remember it.

Azathoth posted:

Sheltered suburban kids are more hayseeds than all the farm kids I grew up around. Most farm kids at least get taught how to be a goddamn adult and don't need mommy and daddy to swoop in and fix whatever minor problem comes up.

Hell, I grew up in a town that's as lily-white as they come, and small enough that once gets learned to ride a bike, they could easily go the length and breath of the town in an afternoon and even my naive, 18 year old self could handle big cities better than those two idiots.

What I guess I'm saying is that I know hayseeds and those hayseeds give all us hayseeds a bad name.

chitoryu12 posted:

NYC would probably make these two literally poo poo themselves. Crazy people of all stripes wander anywhere and everywhere and you're bound to encounter at least 3 or 4 per day, even if you eventually start tuning them out until you don't notice. Street preachers, one-legged homeless guys, schizophrenics talking to themselves in a diner, etc. Once I saw a guy who just walked down 9th Avenue late at night smashing the glass in every payphone booth he passed by for no apparent reason.

It's still a pretty safe city and has a surprisingly low crime rate. You just encounter weirdos everywhere.


I dunno, I might shoot them too.

Azathoth posted:

Sheltered suburban kids are more hayseeds than all the farm kids I grew up around. Most farm kids at least get taught how to be a goddamn adult and don't need mommy and daddy to swoop in and fix whatever minor problem comes up.

Hell, I grew up in a town that's as lily-white as they come, and small enough that once gets learned to ride a bike, they could easily go the length and breath of the town in an afternoon and even my naive, 18 year old self could handle big cities better than those two idiots.

What I guess I'm saying is that I know hayseeds and those hayseeds give all us hayseeds a bad name.

Weatherman posted: