NYC's latest menace: the serial chatter

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2003-09-10 04:54pm

I found this absolutly hilarious.

Brooklyn News Wire, September 8, 2003

Police are responding to a number of complaints from Brooklyn residents about a man who is being referred to as "The Cobble Hill Chatter." Beginning in late July, there have been a rash of incidents where innocent people have been accosted and spoken to by this man, despite his being a complete stranger to them. Several of the victims agreed to talk with our reporter about their ordeals.

Tony D'Angela was at the Prospect Park Zoo one day, with his young son, when he realized the man next to him was addressing him. As Tony puts it:

"We was just watching dem seals, my boy and me, and dis goombah starts talking about how fast da seals swim, da way dey use deir flippers, how inneresting it is how dey streamline deir bodies. 'Streamline dis,' I'm thinking to myself. I sizes him up and figger he's gonna try and sell me something or he's like one of dem Mormon guys. But no! It's on and on about da friggin' seals. What does he, think I'm some marine friggin' biologist or something? I'm saying to myself I gotta get out of here, or soon it'll be on to da friggin' walruses and dolphins. I already got a friggin' headache cause I had a few too many at da card game at da club da night before, and da last thing I need to hear is dis guy telling me how da dolphins do it.

"So on da sly I take hold of da kid's arm and starts backing away. 'Daddy,' he says to me, 'I wanna watch da seals!' 'Vinnie,' I says to him, 'you can see da seals some other day. Your pop, he's got a little agita.'

"Now, here comes da piece of resistance: 'Take care,' da mook says to me, 'have a nice day.' Like I'm his old buddy or something. Den he turns around and starts talking to somebody else! Ain't dere a law against being a public nuisance?"

Yasoor Dinnglbari, a waiter at The Hungry Camel Café on Atlantic Avenue, tells of his hair-raising encounter with this man:

"It is this image which you must have in your mind: Our Yemeni restaurant is in the basement of our building. Everybody inside, customers, waiters, cooks, is an Arab. The cockroaches, they are Arab cockroaches. The TV news is on in Arabic. This guy, with milky white skin and a reddish beard, clearly not an Arab, wanders in. He sits down like it is he who comes here every day. I let him sit for a while, thinking soon the clear picture will come to him and he will go away.

"Finally, I say to myself, 'He is not leaving; I must go serve him.' I go over to his table and – Allah save me! – he begins chatting with me.

"Here I am, a scary looking Arab who scowls at all the infidels, and this person is asking me where I'm from, how do I like the neighborhood, how long have I been in Brooklyn. I tried deepening my scowl, but it was not in the least that it deterred him. When he was done eating, he told me he liked the food. You know, he was not so bad of a tipper – perhaps I could learn to tolerate his incessant babble."

Latrina McFarlane, a resident of Brooklyn Heights who commutes to Manhattan, describes the encounter she had with "the chatter" while she was riding the subway: "There I was, hanging onto one of the poles in the train and staring fixedly at the floor, you know, like you're supposed to on the subway. This guy next to me suddenly starts speaking. I glanced up to see who he was with… but he's alone. Like, he was talking to me. And not just me, but anyone around him who would listen. The train was moving pretty slowly, and he's saying stuff like, 'They must be pulling this thing with horses, huh?'" Latrina shrugs her shoulders. "I mean, he didn't look homeless or anything, but I guess he must be."

Although police refused to make an official comment on the progress of their investigation, an unnamed source told the Brooklyn News Wire that their attention was focused on an under-employed writer who had recently moved to the area from "Connecticut or Delaware – one a dem little New England states."

Raptor 597 · Post by **Raptor 597** » 2003-09-10 05:14pm

It would be really funny if they arrest him.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-09-10 06:53pm

This man must be stopped!

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2003-09-10 07:07pm

lmao. I loved this line:
Latrina McFarlane, a resident of Brooklyn Heights who commutes to Manhattan, describes the encounter she had with "the chatter" while she was riding the subway: "There I was, hanging onto one of the poles in the train and staring fixedly at the floor, you know, like you're supposed to on the subway

hehe, that made me chuckle.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-09-10 08:04pm

Mitth`raw`nuruodo wrote:lmao. I loved this line:
Latrina McFarlane, a resident of Brooklyn Heights who commutes to Manhattan, describes the encounter she had with "the chatter" while she was riding the subway: "There I was, hanging onto one of the poles in the train and staring fixedly at the floor, you know, like you're supposed to on the subway

hehe, that made me chuckle.

What are you talking about? That's what you're supposed to do.

Have you never been on the subway?

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2003-09-10 08:34pm

neoolong wrote:
Mitth`raw`nuruodo wrote:lmao. I loved this line:
Latrina McFarlane, a resident of Brooklyn Heights who commutes to Manhattan, describes the encounter she had with "the chatter" while she was riding the subway: "There I was, hanging onto one of the poles in the train and staring fixedly at the floor, you know, like you're supposed to on the subway

hehe, that made me chuckle.
What are you talking about? That's what you're supposed to do.

Have you never been on the subway?

yes, I don't ride it regularly (FL doesn't have any, at least not around me.. the ground isn't right for it IIRC), but I have. I liked to hang on the poles and talk to people, like the serial chatter. Or I looked at people and went "wow I'm glad I'm not them"... I also shouted "HUGE PEANUTS!!" every time the thing came to a stop once... (try saying it yourself, with strain on the PEANUTS part, like so: HUGE PEAA-NNNUTS!!!, sounds a lot like something else, doesn't it?). I never just stared at the floor. I probably pissed of all kinds of DC'ers in my time at the subway... oh well.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-09-10 08:42pm

Mitth`raw`nuruodo wrote:-snip crimes against humanity-

You, sir, are worse than Hitler.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2003-09-10 09:14pm

neoolong wrote:
Mitth`raw`nuruodo wrote:lmao. I loved this line:
Latrina McFarlane, a resident of Brooklyn Heights who commutes to Manhattan, describes the encounter she had with "the chatter" while she was riding the subway: "There I was, hanging onto one of the poles in the train and staring fixedly at the floor, you know, like you're supposed to on the subway

hehe, that made me chuckle.
What are you talking about? That's what you're supposed to do.

Have you never been on the subway?

Subways are teh pwn. Unfortunately, in NYC you have these piss annoying people who sing and dance and try to guilt trip you into giving your money away to their lazy asses. Makes me glad the water table in Florida's so high you can't have subways.

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2003-09-10 10:27pm

Vorlon1701 wrote:Subways are teh pwn. Unfortunately, in NYC you have these piss annoying people who sing and dance and try to guilt trip you into giving your money away to their lazy asses. Makes me glad the water table in Florida's so high you can't have subways.

Noo, there needs to be subways in FL, see my above post!

HemlockGrey wrote:You, sir, are worse than Hitler.

Oh, I've done worse. Much worse. I only had a week to ride these things, I made the most of it!

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-09-10 10:33pm

Hmm....I stare into the black darkness through the subway windows. Or look at the advertisements. Or look left and right of me to check for vendors bums and the like.
I wonder if I'll see this guy....maybe i'll start carrying a camera and try to take a shot of him heh.~JAson

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2003-09-10 10:41pm

I don't get it. Why do you people consider a talkative and overly friendly man to be a threat? Hell, I'd strike up a conversation if I weren't too busy running for my life...

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-09-10 10:52pm

Because usually the stuff they talk about...like that prick makes the commute annoying. Besides what they gonna strike? "How you doing?"~Jason

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-09-11 07:22am

This sounds just like London - wierd people talking to you liek you know them.

Of course, it's not as bad as the dirty old men and mad old women who yell at the vocies in their head...