Raymond Lyman, The Scranton Avenger (videos)

Raymond Lyman has a problem.  Let me rephrase that: Raymond Lyman has many problems.  But I'll get to that in a moment. 

City Council meetings in Scranton, Pennsylvania just wouldn't be the same without the city's most illustrious local schnook.  Nestled among the many barriers to justice Lyman faces--large drifts of snow after a massive storm are totally blocking off the stop signs but the city doesn't send out its plows...we get the stupid, underpaid DPW guys plowing the street near Ray's favorite local greasy spoon; weakly enforced ordinances--the worst of them he was put on this earth to crush are the city council members themselves.

Videos start after the jump.

Council "potato heads" Judy Gatelli, Sherry Fanucci and Bob McGoff are violating The Scranton Avenger's civil rights.  Violations enough to warrant five letters (sound familiar?) to the ACLU and the "Fedral Attorney Genral" for their intervention .  Well, come on, they only let him talk during the public comment period for three or five bloody minutes.  That ain't enough.  Why not ten or fifteen? 

Well, for one, Ray's a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal.  Every Tuesday at 6:30 on Scranton's Channel 61, everyone in the Electric City who really believes he needs to be in the know about local politics just so he might one day be able to knock Lyman out of his public comment throne--and you, thanks to the 'Tube--gets to be privy, whether he wants to be or not, to Ray's creepy milquetoast outbursts.  I know, contradiction in terms, right?  Ah...no: 

The King of Scranton would almost be reminiscent of The Charlotte Shaker if he wasn't extremely slow on the uptake, a slightly better facultied Billy Redden.  Whether Lyman means well tackling Scranton's bureaucracy or the cop the Council hired to keep him from physically tackling Scranton's bureaucracy is moot from here; Lyman has escaped from the reality inside his own head and clearly taken ours hostage.  I have one word for The Scranton Avenger: Huzzah!!!

Comments

[Bren Collins]

This is one beautiful, beautiful man! It gets even better when you Google the guy:

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/07/16/top_local_stories/19853586.txt
(Scranton councilwoman says critic is stalking and harassing her)

[Bren Collins]

Unrelated to the city council, but yet another jump at quasi-celebrity in Scranton:

http://thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/11/08/news/doc491642b242301409184571.txt
(Firefighters were dispatched to 857 Capouse Ave. at 4:47 a.m. and remained on scene for about two hours, according to Scranton Fire Department Capt. EJ Gallagher. The fire was on the second floor of the three-story brick building.

“Fire was blazing out of there,” said Raymond Lyman, who lives nearby on Phelps Street, and was awoken by sirens.)

Can't even sleep, poor ol' fella.

[Joe]

Ugh. This post is awfully mean-spirited toward a man who is not very smart and has obvious emotional and mental health issues. "Let's make fun of the paranoid, angry, dumb guy" just doesn't fit with WFMU's "celebrate the weirdness of life" philosophy. If you're going to pick on someone, pick on someone other than this poor schmuck.

[Jonathan Steinke]

Ya read Irwin Chusid's Tallowcross post lately?

Joe, you're reading a little too much into it. All my posts are innately sarcastic; the last sentence would surely make clear I AM celebrating his weirdness. My approach is not going to be PC and never has been.

[EagleS]

You gotta watch this guy to believe it !!!!
It almost seems staged but he is for real, regardless of his issues of whether or not his road is paved of whether or not the city council is having "secret meadins" and they need anger management....fact is stranger than fiction.

Sadly, he isn't unique and city council meetings around the USA are subjected to regular or serial citizens like this or the occasional stage of someone with an in discernibly weired agenda.

I used to live in a town where there was a guy who would come to every meeting and describe how he washes his laundry or he would spend the five minutes reading the obituaries from other cities or last years newspapers !

The laws entitled him to do so.

[Brian Houssock]

I totally live in wilkes-barre. i came across this dude on youtube!!! its so awesome.. i swore he said SCRANTON!! im seriously coming to a council meeting soon.. with michael and dwight.. as well.

brian

[D'anna:)]

Haha, he's my neighbor. I swear he's a puffer. His dogs bark ALL the time, and they stay out for hours at a time without water. He says he's been in the military, and his mother claims that half of our yard belongs to her. You gotta love it.
He's "Rediccaless" and completely out of order at the city "console" meeting.

[Brian]

Ray is hilarious !! Now the subject of wether the man has mental issues or not has nothing to do with the fact that he at least has the balls to stand up to council,on what he believes to be wrong.Those clips on you tube are hilarious!!!!

[Rocky]

Actually Billy Redden is not a retarded inbred, just an actor.

[Martin Hogg]

Come on people, the guy need an anger management course not to be further humiliated- let it go.