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This from Colin "Uncle Moneybags" MacDonald... "I shall recount the tale of my brief encounter with the man known only as, repent sinner. I was traversing the grounds, beyond my veranda. I was pleasantly engaged in the task of attending the market for my usual supply of pork sausage and Uncle Tom's rhinoceros wax. My trip was brief, though it lacked any great urgency. As I retraced my steps, returning homeward, I perceived a curious sight. Suddenly apparent, were the telltale markings of repent sinner. Having been past the same spot minutes before, I was rooted in the certainty that old RS had been by only moments before. I honed my senses in on my surroundings, attempting to perceive any people who could have fit the profile. Not a hundred feet from where I stood, I saw an old man walking away from me. In his hand he carried a blue plastic case, the sort you might expect to see a tool carried. I set about following this odd bloke; trying seeing what mischievous doings he might be engaged in. Not long after, he seemed to notice my inquisitive behavior. He looked upon me quite suspiciously, then proceeding to take rest on a nearby bench. I opted to wait, but to no avail. I waited for some time, but the man stood firm. I decided to take my leave, not wanting to engage the man, without having seen him in the act".

This from Owen James seems to contradict this earlier account, and affirm the earlier accounts... "The signs are handed out by an old black woman who sets up a booth on the corner wherever she feels like with her stereo and a red flag with a black cross on it.she looks pretty destitute and is definitely crazy. she makes up the cards and offers them to passers by. if they refuse, she verbally accosts them, often throwing the cards at them (im sure thats how they make their way into the gutters and such). just 3 weeks ago i witnessed her screaming her head off at a middleaged man who seemed to be ignoring her".

 

But wait! this account from experienced Repent Sinner Hunter, Jhayne Holmes, seems to affirm Colin's account of the culprit... "The thing is, there are now MORE than one repents sinner. In fact, there are a collection of the homeless/crazies,/etc and now there are also, the highschool students, the art students, the emo people, etc. It's silly/trendy in it's own silly way to keep the repent sinner going. It seems though, that the first repent sinner is a streetdweller who writes these out and then pastes them up wherever he goes, so it is possible to follow the trail of stickers. He is tallish and when asked about the stickers, begins to sermonize on sin and sinners and the burning fires of hell, all so quietly to be almost silent. Since tracking hiim down, (over the course of two years), and accosting him with a camera crew, I have since seen him give his sermons al over the downtown core, though i've never seen him west of Burrard. Sadly, the footage is not in my possesion, nor can i get ahold of it any longer as the beaer has moved to Montreal".

 

And the idea that there are a collection of freaks doing this is borne out by this account from another friend of mine... "Looking for the person who is responsible for this is not really a good idea. I know who it is. He is a jerk. He is also the guy who raped me. Repent sinner is not anything specail just his tag that he puts around the lower mainland because he thinks he is cool but in reality he is just a loser in his mid-20's who smokes too much pot and fucks up women's lives. If you really want to get to know a loser like that then it is up to you, but it has no meaning.".

 

Similar stories of poseurs and fakes abound. It was at this point that it seemed it was time for me to hit the streets and let the hunt begin in earnest; I was only going to find more uncertainty on the net. Colin and I began our hunt in the middle of downtown Vancouver. Initial investigation proved fruitless, as any surface one might affix signs or stickers to downtown are scraped clean by city workers with distressing regularity. For reasons I cannot name, it seemed to me that the downtown art store, Art-Topia seemed like a good place to hunt for spoor. Sure enough, the owner of the store, a decent fellow named Dave, told me that the crazy Jamaican lady of myth and lore was his suspected culprit; he told us that she had once been a regular customer of his, buying black and red magic markers from him, until he banned her for theft. He also said that she was incoherently insane, and made her home just a few block down, on the corner of the old Woodward's building.
	Sure enough, we located her just where she was supposed to be. And sure enough, she was nigh-incomprehensible. We tried our best to question her about the signs, with only middling success. She mumbled, muttered, and screeched, but we were able to glean that she was not the one who made these signs; she received them from someone she called "the next man". When we tried to take a photo of her up close, she attacked us with her umbrela. We fled. A half-hour later or so, we decided she was likely to have forgotten us. I got Colin to approach her alone, wearing my hat, and with his pants rolled down over his pants, because, as he said, she was unlikely to see anything above his knees anyways, with that hat and stooped posture. Sure enough, she gave no inkling of recognition. All the same, Colin was unable to get much out of her; only that she was emphatically not the one responsible. Though she wasn't clear on many points, she was clear on this. So, myth dispelled. Though she does distribute these things, as Colin said, "She doesn't seem ambulatory enough to get around and stick these up all over the lower mainland". Time to move on.

 

At this point, were set adrift. No more leads to follow. So we figured we'd check out the area that we'd most often seen these things. The corner of Terminal and Main. Getting there, we found dick all. Frustrating. Paying homeless folks for information proved misleading; one man told us the Salvation Army puts them up. In the absence of anything more promising to check out, I decided to ask some folks I know who work security at the VanCity location on that block; they frequently come into conflict with the loons in this neighborhood, I reasoned, so perhaps they'd know something. The result was mixed. One of the folks there said he lived near Patterson Skytrain Starion, and that he'd seen some around there. It was time to travel again.

 

And off we went! We went off in two different directions, and we found a bevvy of spoor. This one was obviously pretty old and faded. It seemed as though he hadn't been this way in a bit. Or had he...? These one looked a little bit fresher; they couldn't be more than a few weeks old! I asked a local resident about these things, and he reported that they were put up by an old man on a bike. I asked him what this man looked like, but this is where the fellow's cooperation broke down. "He looks like an idiot", was all he would say. Then, this! These are obviously fresh! He had been by recently! So, what do we learn from this expedition? He clearly visits this neighborhood frequently. Perhaps further investigation of this area will yield some eyewitness accounts...! At this point, it was getting late, we were getting tired, and no further leads were forthcoming. We decided to head to our respective homes. But what should I find, not two blocks from my home?     Proof of ancient visitations to the Edmonds area by Repent Sinner! Remarkable!

 

 

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