Santa Cruz
I used to live in Santa Cruz, California, which is essentially the American mecca for strange people when Burning Man isn't on.

For many years a regular feature was Pink Umbrella Man, who would dress up in a an outlandish array of pink clothing and makeup, including the eponymous pink umbrella, and walk up and down downtown verrrrrrrrrry slooooooooooowly with a vague smile on his face. He doesn't do it anymore, but for many years he was basically a mobile landmark. Google for images and/or video.

Another is The Great Morgani, who dresses up in a wide variety of brightly colored morph suits and stands on a pedestal playing the accordion. Although he's more in the vein of a street artist than an eccentric.
(+3 Baroque Vambrace of Icthyology, Thu 27 Sep 2012, 21:23, 1 reply)

Sounds much like Camden Lock market on a typical day
I have to walk through the place twice a day when i'm at ZSL. The last remaining seventies inspired punks (no one actually dresses like this in the UK anymore) all seem to be employed to carry those mobile banners advertising obscure local food outlets, and apparently charge £1 for a photo taken with them looking like the bygones from an extinct era they are obviously trying to actually be. They also tend to be a tad to young to be the real punks from the seventies, and most of them Italian.

It's quite comical
( Jahled Three shades of black, Thu 27 Sep 2012, 21:39, closed)