Reader Submission du Jour: “Madman On Bedford”

November 5, 2008 by missheather
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic, Williamsburg

Some of you can imagine my amusement when I discovered the above item Monday on The Gowanus Lounge. Having personally made the acquaintance of said “madman” recently and noticing that he is rapidly becoming quite the YouTube celebrity I was surprised to learn that some folks on Brooklynian are curious to know more about the man with the scraggly hair and ill-fitting Dockers. manic_depressive writes:

I hope this “preacher” gets a good beatdown some day. Religious nuts are a pain to deal with.

I have seen many a religious nut in my day. Trust me, m_d this man is not one of them. He operates on an entirely different level. Ywap shares my assessment:

I agree that religious nuts are pain, but this old boy’s no evangelical. He’s mostly harmless.

I’m just wondering if he’s been doing this for a long time, or if it’s something he started after the area became so popular.

This, dear readers, is an excellent question. One which I do not have the answer to. However I learned yesterday this chap is famous enough to merit being Halloween character on Bedford Avenue.

Alf writes:

First off, I am a long time fan of New York Shitty. (THANKS! — Ed. Note) I just read one of your articles, “Crazy Guy at GreenMarket“Â when my jaw almost dropped.Â We have been seeing this guy around for years he has a very interesting back story, or at least one we created for him.Â We call him “The Mystic.”Â Â His many rants are a portal into future happenings.Â (Actually they are just non-nonsensical tirades but we like to give them some meaning.)Â My friends and I do a lot of people watching in the neighborhood and The Mystic is part of a larger group we like to call “The Wack Pack.”Â There are several ” eccentric characters” that are always around the hood just being crazy and we have nick names and stories for them all.Â Anyway back to the point,Â we are such a fan of The Mystic’s rants that my friend James actually dressed up as him for Halloween.

Thanks for sharing this choice bit of Halloweeniana, Alf. And for the record, this “madman” has been spired in Greenpoint as well. I will close this post with my favorite sighting as recounted by a New York Shitty commenter, dbcn:

He was at the Associated on Calyer & Meserole yesterday speaking about sperm and eggs and how the sperm fertilize the ova. The checkout girls were not happy.

Miss Heather

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Comments

2 Comments on Reader Submission du Jour: “Madman On Bedford”

d on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 7:59 pm

I saw him in the Associated the other day but he was just shopping!

ryanthegirl on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 1:47 pm

hey. my roommate lived near tompkins park in the early 90’s and he said that the “madman” was a regular ranter in the park back then……he seems to have moved to our hood around 2001ish.

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