This Past Weekend - E496 A Carny
Episode Date: April 18, 2024Mitch Candiano is a Carny from Lawrence, MA whose family has been in the carnival business for more than 100 years. He has worked numerous roles in multiple carnivals all along the east coast. Theo... is joined by a Carny to chat about the wild life of a carnival worker. They talk about the difference between carnivals and fairs, his personal connection to freak shows (and a three-legged man), games that used to rip people off, smoking weed with one of the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz, rivalries between different groups of carnies, how he saw the business change over the years, and much more. ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Today's guest is a carny out of the New England area,
and his family has been involved in the carnival business
for over 100 years.
I'm excited to learn all about the behind the scenes
of the food, the games,
the prizes, the, um, the debauchery, everything that goes in, uh, to the carny universe. Today's
guest is carny baby, good carny baby.
Good to see you.
Thank you, man.
Thank you for having me.
So thanks for coming on, dude.
So we just want to learn about carneys and carnival employees, fairs, everything like
it.
What is carny an appropriate term?
Yeah, I was born and raised a carny.
Really?
My grandparents were carneys, my parents were carnies,
my brother and his kids are carnies still.
No way.
Oh yeah.
So it's-
It runs deep, man.
1918 he started.
And can I say before we really get going,
I gotta thank you for having a poor pedestrian like me on.
Cause you know, I don't wear a watch
and I don't use a washcloth,
so Tom would never have me on.
You're a cigarette?
I appreciate it, yeah.
Oh yeah, does he?
He doesn't like the pores or whatever.
He doesn't like the pores.
I don't know why.
Yeah, I don't know, dude.
I think we're great people.
Yeah, look, I don't.
Yeah.
I don't have a washcloth.
I probably should have one.
That's what I use.
Yeah.
He hates washcloths.
Oh, he hates them?
He hates them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, well, I'll use a washcloth like to get like in here though
Yeah, right. I mean, how do you get it out?
Get in there.
I really
I try to use my fingernail and getting it out and then just like putting it like that into the drain or whatever
But I don't think that's enough sometimes especially as you get older. Yeah, you know
But yeah. It's a good old wet willy. Yeah, you got it. Doing a wet willy on somebody?
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember doing.
I'm going to sneak one up on you later.
Are you really, dude?
Just wear a condom, man.
Oh, I will.
OK, that's all I'm asking for.
I mean, it's a leash you could do, dude.
The Irish hello.
Oh, for sure, man.
It's our first time hanging, too,
so I'll definitely keep it covered.
Yeah.
But dude, thanks. Yeah. So I guess I'm just curious, like, so what is a carny? What is the term?
So a carny, carnival, you know, carnival worker, I guess is where it came from. And
so that's what we are. And I know there's all different versions. I know people sometimes
think of like, somebody that just got out of prison, covered in tattoos, smelled like cabbage, you know,
missing a couple of fingers, and they think that's a carny
that's working the ride or something like that.
Oh yeah, that Iris deodorant thing.
Yeah, you know.
And, uh, we don't, we carneys don't call him carneys.
We call him like 40-Milers or Green Help or something like that,
because like a 40-Miler, he's just trying to get onto the road
and get 40 miles down the street to the next lot
so you can get out of whatever situation he was in when he joined the carnival. Okay, so there's different types
You have actual carnies that are like they've been in there for a while. Yeah, like their families are out there
They have kids they raised their kids out there and then you got 40 milers
Yeah
We call them 40 milers and those are guys that are just kind of like maybe just got out of doing some time and they're
Just trying to try to get a job and you know get out of town just got out of doing some time and they're just trying to. Try to get a job and you know, get out of town.
And get out of town.
Yep.
Just trying to get there for just something.
Yeah.
And so a lot of times the carnival
will hire folks like that just because they need like a lot.
It's tough to find help out there.
You know, people that want to travel and just be out there
every day, you know, living at the carnival.
Yeah.
And you're in a different town every week
and you know, you don't get much time off.
So it's wild. Yeah, it's interesting. Well, it's kind of interesting. It's kind of similar to comedians because you go to a town or a city for a few days and then you hit the road and you go
to somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. I'd say that's like calling like an open mic or like a comic is kind
of like calling one of those ride guys a carny is kind of like the same thing, you know?
Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, that makes good sense, man
And your family's been doing he said hundreds of years. Well since 1918 my grandfather started selling cotton candy in 1918
Wow. Yep. And what brought him into that?
From Italy when he was born in 1900 and so he was about four or five years old,
came over on the boat to Ellis Island and all that.
And I don't know, he was 18 years old
and started selling cotton candy at like street fairs
and little things like that.
And yeah, it's just kind of how we started and got into it.
I actually still have some cotton candy machines
that he built handmade, like wooden frame
and like belt driven, like old, old school.
They obviously don't work,
but because then now they're like all sturdy metal,
like industrial looking.
Like the ones we use now.
Oh yeah, like Whirlpool makes them.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.
But yeah, we have some old ones.
Yeah, you're cotton candy
and you'll have a fucking sock in it or whatever.
You're like, this is like one of these you're looking at?
Yeah, so we have a couple like that.
I was older.
Those are kind of like,
those kind of seem like residential ones
that you can kind of like buy for your house.
So your grandfather came over and he started selling cotton candy.
He started selling cotton candy, yeah.
He started selling cotton candy and then, like, what, he just gets a job and he stays, like...
He just kept doing it and then, you know, he had kids and then my father got into it and my father and mother started their own whole carnival business.
Oh, they started buying rides and games and food and everything. And you know,
we had a whole carnival called Candy Ono's Amusements, you know, way back before I was born.
And then when I was born, they kind of split up and my dad started working for bigger carnivals,
like the real big ones that did big, the big county fairs and state fairs and stuff like that.
Yeah. So he started working for a company like that.
And then went for, ended up working for another,
the biggest one in New England called Fiesta Shows.
And so he worked for them up until he died.
And so he was kind of like, you know, a big shot out there.
He ran like food and games and stuff for them out there
and was a lot, man.
So what, and so did you, was one of your first jobs in the carnival?
Yeah.
Yup.
And so what's the difference between a carnival and a fair?
Because we had the fair would come a lot.
Right?
Yeah.
So the fair is the same thing.
Yeah.
It's basically, except the fair is they have like the animals and everything like
that, like you have the whole agricultural part of it, you know, and sometimes they'll have like demolition derbies and all that, and like the animals and everything like that. Like you have the whole agricultural part of it, you know,
and sometimes they'll have like demolition derbies and all that.
And like the races and all the agricultural, like the pigs,
the cows, all that stuff.
So that's what kind of distinguishes it from a fair to a carnival.
And they kind of been long running like up where we are,
we have the Topsfield fair.
It's been around for like 150 years or something like that.
Yeah.
How does that 4-H element fit in?
Because that's also a whole different element
than the rides and the games.
Yeah, that's kind of...
You would always, I remember we'd always have to walk over
to the livestock shed or whatever,
it was like a bomb shelter or whatever,
that had a bunch of pigs in it and stuff,
and you'd have to go over there and...
Pig races, you ever see those?
Yeah, and they'd have the kids' art,
like you'd won third third place or whatever.
And it was pretty bad.
A lot of it.
She's like, Jesus Christ.
Like they hit it over here behind the goats.
You know, it wasn't that great of heart, but you'd be able to go over there and
like, um, they had like crocheting and a lot of local crafts.
But, uh, did you guys ever have beef?
Was there like a lot of like beef between the carnivores and the livestock people?
The beef was in the carnivals, between the carnivals.
Like, so during the spring when we're doing just carnivals, we would split up into
like three different sections.
So you could do three cities at the same time.
But then when we got to the fairs, we would all get together and then the fights
would break out.
Wow.
Oh yeah.
Like crazy fights.
So what was a lot of the beef between the people though the workers?
Oh, I'm a first unit
No, you know, you're just a lonely from guy from the third unit like, you know
You shouldn't be over here like with us or partying with us. So hey, you know, they kind of look down on you
Like it's just like anything else
You know the first unit got all the big rides and the nice stuff and then the second unit was kind of stepped out
Oh, yeah
And then the third unit was like they got all the shit all the big rides and the nice stuff. And then the second unit was kind of stepped down.
And then the third unit was like, they got all the shit,
all the bad rides, all the bad stuff.
So whenever they all teamed up,
there was all these beefs going on, like, you know.
Territorial stuff.
Territorial stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
So like, what was your first job in it?
My first, I think I was probably selling cotton candy. Probably in the floss, we called it a floss stand,
and it was the one that did cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, and candy apples.
Ooh, yeah.
Yeah, and the caramel apples with sprinkles.
I love that, man.
Oh, man.
I still make caramel apples.
Do you?
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good, man.
And people don't think about them that much.
No.
If you ask somebody, what are you thinking about?
They never say caramel apples.
That's true.
It's just, you know, it's like something you don't hear as much as you wish you should
because they're so good when you get them.
They're so good.
Yeah.
They really are.
And was that like, what goes into making cotton candy?
Like, what is it?
Sugar and coloring.
Oh, okay.
That's it.
Sugar and coloring.
Yeah.
And it's honestly not a lot of sugar.
But what, how does it get the cotton or whatever?
It heats up.
Uh-huh.
So it heats the sugar up so it like gets real stringy and like fluffs out like that.
It goes in the machine so that's, that head there in the middle spins really fast and
it heats up.
Some people get crazy with the cotton candy.
Have you seen the people that make the animals and stuff out the cotton candy?
Uh-uh.
Oh no?
You should check that out.
Really?
Oh, they get crazy.
They make all kinds of animals and stuff
with the cotton candy to give to the kids.
I don't know how they do it.
I got a girl that works for me, one of Mitch's bitches.
Yeah?
Yeah, and she wants to start figuring out how to do that.
Really?
Yeah.
And that's why you call them Mitch's bitches?
I don't call them that.
They call themselves that.
Oh yeah.
So don't cancel me, guys. No, it could be a union. Yeah, you know a lot of
There's a lot of different unions. Yeah, so there's in the pipe fitters union and he's always yelling about something
But um, yeah these girls they call themselves Mitch's bitches. Huh? Yeah, they all made shirts that say Mitch's bitches on it
It's pretty wild and those are your friends? Yeah, friends. Yeah.
I pretty much hire friends
or they become friends real fast
once they start working for me.
Yeah.
Like still love you babe.
And so what about this?
Bring that back up.
Sorry, I'm just trying to learn about this.
So, cotton candy, it is made by heating
and liquefying sugar and spinning it centrifugally
through minute holes, minute holes, causing it to rapidly cool
and re-solidify in a fine strands.
It is often sold at fair circuses carnivals.
Wow.
So you just put some sugar in the hot.
Yeah, and that thing that spins in the middle,
you pour sugar in there,
and you color the sugar ahead of time.
Okay.
And it starts spinning,
and next thing you know, it makes cotton candy.
Yeah, it's coming out crazy,
and you got your stick, and you're whipping it around.
How fast? How long does it take?
It doesn't take long to fill up a bag.
Wow.
But I don't know if this guy's going to get crazy. Maybe he does. I don't know.
I've seen some, there are some people that really make some intricate stuff with the cotton candy.
Yeah, there's a machine that's just kind of like the one I have, just like that.
So that was like my first gig, you know, like there's a picture of me. I was born the summer. So like as soon as I was born my mom had me right down on the road with her
Uh-huh
So there's a picture of me sitting at by the cotton in my little car seat sitting up by the cotton candy machine while she's making
Cotton candy, you know a month old
Seriously, so your family was just out there like oh, yeah, and so like what towns was that usually? Oh, man
We did like the Topsfield Fair the Marshfield Fair out on Cape Cod,
the Bangor and Skowhegan Fair up in Maine, Rochester Fair in New Hampshire,
a Hopkinson Fair in New Hampshire.
Um, but it was a really big one in Connecticut.
We did.
Wow.
Yeah.
And then in the spring, it was just all the spring was always, sometimes
you do some, a lot of the same stuff, but a lot of times
it would get switched up because like, if you didn't do that well the year
before or whatever, you know, they would find you another place to go.
Yeah.
You know, and towards the end, I don't do carnivals anymore.
I'm still in the business of like selling food and stuff like that,
but I don't do carnivals because towards the end of what I was doing it,
they were still like, we were doing like these closed down strip centers,
you know what I mean? Like old Ames and Kmart parking lots
where everything's boarded up and we're in the parking lot
trying to make nobody's coming. You got like, you know, nobody there.
So this is somebody making cotton candy right here?
Is this the machine you're talking about?
Mine's similar to that.
I don't know if it's they have a different speed or a heat.
It might be the same, but it does seem like a different consistency
than the one I use that I make.
And so what is it?
The sugar's in there, and it's just spraying it out really hot?
Yep.
And it cools off immediately.
Oh, wow.
So this is.
That's all cotton candy.
So this is a cotton candy machine right here.
Yep.
OK.
And so the sugar is inside of that. See that little thing? Yeah, that's spinning super fast right in. Yep. Okay, and so that's the sugar is inside of that.
See that little thing? Yeah, that's spinning super fast right in the middle.
It's spinning so fast. You can't even tell it's spinning.
Yeah. And it's just blowing hot sugar out of there?
It's just blowing hot sugar, baby.
Oh, yeah. And now this guy, wow. And this is a Korean guy.
Oh, he's getting down, huh?
Yeah, look at him.
He's gonna make an umbrella.
It looks like he's making, yeah, like maybe a UFO.
Yeah, something.
Wow.
Yeah, these guys get creative.
I don't know how they do it.
So you guys would never do anything like this
at the fairs, huh? No.
I didn't even really leave it on sticks that often
because I wasn't that good at spinning it
because you want it to be like nice and big
and fluffy on a stick when you do this to people.
That's true.
And so I wasn't even that great at that.
I would always put it in a bag and sell the bag cotton candy.
Wow, this is unbelievably creative.
Yeah.
Here we go.
Now, do you get jealous when you see somebody taking it to another level?
Of course.
I know, me too.
It's like when you see somebody that's just that great.
They're crushing it on the stage.
It's like meeting Tim Dillon, you're like, ah damn.
I'm just regular cotton candy.
Oh man, you and Tim were on the same level,
come on, don't say yourself short.
Oh that guy's so funny.
He is, he is.
Oh, he's just so funny to be around.
Thank you for saying that, it's nice of you to say that.
Okay, so you're working the cotton candy,
that's how you get started out.
What kind of like groups are at the carnival?
At the...
Yeah, we definitely say separated.
Okay, what kind of groups are at the carnival?
Like are there, cause there's the games, right?
There are...
The joinies.
The, what is it?
We call them joinies.
Joinies?
Yep.
And what is that?
The joints, the trailers, we call them joints.
Okay.
And so they work the joints.
Okay. So they work the games, those are the joints.
And then there's the food.
Yep. And then the concessions.
Concessions. And then there's-
And then you got the ride jocks.
Ride jocks.
Yep.
And are those groups kind of like, they keep to their own a little bit or what?
Yeah, for the most part. The jointies and concessions are mingle.
And you know, I mingled with everybody, just I knew everybody.
But you know, a lot of times some of the ride guys would mingle with some of the,
some of the concessions a little bit and, you know, they would mingle a little bit,
but for the most part, they were with their own crews, you know.
Yeah.
Did you ever work the rides?
I, yeah, yeah, I did it all.
I, cause, you know, I was just out there and when I was a kid, before I even like
worked officially, I would like, I knew everybody, so I would jump on the ride.
Hey, let me run this ride for a little while.
Or I would work inside the haunted houses,
scaring people when I was like 12, 13 years old.
And they had the walk-in haunted houses,
all the ones you ride through.
And I would go in there and scare the people coming through
and stuff like that.
That was always fun.
Why is your family so tied in?
Just for doing it for so long. Right.
Honestly, and you know, even before my father, you know, I had my grandfather around the same time, I guess.
Well, yeah, he was my, I had a great uncle or he was my father's great uncle, I believe, or cousin.
And he was already big in the circus business. He was one
of the biggest freaks in the world. He was a most famous three-legged man, Frank Lentini.
Frank Lentini?
Yep. There he is.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. He had three legs, four feet, two dicks, 16 toes.
Oh, wow. He had two wieners on him?
Yep.
Oh my gosh.
Two peepees.
Dude, I couldn't even, you could serve, dude, you could serve,
yeah, it's almost like you'd like a damn soda fountain
at that point, you know?
Leg, dick, leg, dick, leg, leg.
Oh, you could have urine and infant out of the oven.
Yeah, man, it was wild.
And they both worked.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, and how did y'all know that?
Did they write it down somewhere?
Yeah, well, because he was so did y'all know that was it? Did they write it down somewhere? Yeah, well cuz he was so
Everybody wanted to know you know
so like when he was traveling the freak shows and he was really well spoken they called him like the mayor of the
Freaks cuz he would go and speak for everybody like when he'd be like, you know
We want more money or we want better working conditions or whatever
He would be the guy that would go talk to everybody. He worked for a ring lane
Barnum and Bailey worked for all the all the big freak shows and circuses.
Wow, Frank Lentini was born in Sicily in 1881.
He was the fifth of 12 children.
Yeah, and his parents didn't really like him that much,
gave him to his aunt.
Yeah, they were kind of ashamed of him.
Because he had three legs, each of different lengths.
Now, that's a lot to, you know, because then you're like...
Throw it in your hip, like that's going to be crazy.
Yeah, it's got to be tough on your joints. A fourth foot that stuck out of one of his knees,
16 fingers and an extra set of genitals. Wow. Running on that spare genny, dude. Keep the lights
on, bro. His condition was the result of a parasitic twin that was attached to his body at the base of his spine.
Wow.
It was too, they couldn't take it off
because especially back then, I'm sure,
but they definitely, it was too dangerous to try to remove.
He would go on to work with every major circus,
including Barnum and Bailey.
In his act, he would kick a soccer ball,
ride a bike and skate.
He'd kick it out of his third leg,
like hold the ball over a football
and kick it with his third leg.
Oh, bro, that's gotta to be so incredible, huh?
Yeah. Imagine running and you can just kick somebody with your third leg while you're running.
Dude, imagine you could play footsie with two women under the table.
And still have an extra leg.
In different directions, yeah. And one extra foot to tap to the music you're listening to.
Dude, what a time, brother.
His career spanned more than 40 years,
and he came to be known as the king
in the circus industry for his hard work and presence.
He married and had four children, wow.
Yeah, all his children came off fine.
He got a lung failure, damn.
You'd think he got one of his legs caught in something.
You know what I'm saying, just the odds.
Because every now and then, I almost get one of my legs caught in something. You know what I'm saying? Just the odds. Because every now and then,
I almost get one of my legs caught in something.
Wow, look at that.
Zoom in on one of these photos, please.
I love the one on the right
where he's got like the one in the middle,
and he's got each other foot on a stool.
It's such a trip.
Yeah, it almost looks like a,
no, let's go to the other one that he was talking about.
Yeah, you mean the black and the leather?
Yeah.
Wow, look at those pants.
Those pants have to be like, what the fuck are we doing?
He said he would buy two sets of shoes,
and he would give his fourth shoe,
the extra shoe to a buddy that lost a leg.
Oh.
So they all went to use.
Oh, that's beautiful, man.
Yeah, you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore.
That's the toughest part about stuff.
Wow, unbelievable.
Look at that.
Dude, I mean... Oh, there he is as an old man down there. Yeah, unbelievable. Look at that.
Dude, I mean- There he is as an old man down there.
Yeah, can we get one more picture of him?
Frank Lentini.
Oh, how, I wonder what would it be like?
Imagine you, this had to be such a flex
that you cross your leg
and then you cross the other one over.
Bro, you must have, people must have thought
you were Jordan Peterson no matter what, Right? That had to be so wild.
Unbelievable.
What else?
They used a picture of him on the back of an Alice in Chains album.
Was there?
Yeah.
They have a three legged dog on the front and he's the three legged man on the back.
I think I remember that.
Yeah.
It's actually their best album.
Down in a hole.
Is that them?
Yeah.
I'd like to fly.
I'd like to fly. I'd like to fly. I'd like to fly. I'd like to fly. I think I remember that. Yeah, it's actually their best album. Down in a hole. Is that them? Yeah. I'd like to fly. But my wings have been so denied. You know it. Dude, that's so
incredible. So this is a relative of yours. Yeah, yeah. He was my dad's
either great uncle or cousin. I can't remember remember I tried to like really narrow it down, but it's you know so long ago and
My dad's not with us, so I can't ask him anymore. I'm sorry to hear that man. It's all right
23 and me though they might not even have these kind of yeah my brother actually started doing that
So I'm back to see with the 23 and me and like yeah
He's got the ancestry going on so he's trying to like put it all together.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I tried to find out some more information
about him through that.
I know he had four kids.
They were all came out normal.
No parasitic twins there.
Wow. So yeah, being a parasitic twin,
can you bring that up for me?
First of all, I've always thought twins should have to
fight to see who,
who gets to make the shots, call the shots.
Yeah. You know, that's gotta be tough.
And I'm not saying that nobody deserves to be alive, but it's just like,
cause it's kind of crazy when you meet one guy and then you meet and you know,
they're kind of just each half of a guy or whatever. And you're like,
you're like,
at least you two get together and decide what you want to say and then come tell us.
You know, it's like,
cause it's a lot of extra kind of like back and forth,
you know?
A parasitic twin is a type of conjoined twin
where one fetus stops developing
but remains attached to its twin.
Wow.
The other twin continues to develop
but is usually born with the limbs, organs
or other tissue structures
from its parasitic twin still attached. It a very rare condition gosh dude imagine to just see
in what is that sorry oh no that's another child oh that's how does it uh
she looks like Tila tequila a little bit I can see that you don't know if that's Doja Cat, dude.
That's fucking hilarious, dude.
I don't even know what Doja Cat looks like.
I don't know, dude.
No, that kid has longer hair than Doja Cat, I think.
Yeah, imagine being a parasit.
Imagine knowing that your brother or something was a part of you,
and now that they're...
It's almost like you got to live.
It's like nature, like you must feel alive.
There must be like a lot of responsibility, you know?
And then seeing your brother's wiener, if you look at your own wiener and seeing your
brother's wiener.
Does that make you gay if you jerk off that wiener?
No, dude.
It just makes you a cool brother.
I think.
Touché.
Dude, to not polish your brother off once a year or something brother, I think. Touche.
To not polish your brother off once a year or something on Christmas, you know, day after Christmas or whatever.
It's not rude.
I think it's just.
Well, if you don't ever let them come.
Yeah.
That is kind of rude.
It's, uh, I bet when you get to heaven, he's gonna be like, Hey, come on, God.
36 years and not one nut.
Yeah, brother. I left that thing down there for a reason.
I couldn't have took advantage of that.
Yeah, I'm the one who helped you out and gave you the third leg.
I gave you a fucking job, you know?
That's wild, man.
So people like Frank Lentini, what was that group?
That group was called, what is it?
Freaks.
Freaks. Okay.
They were the freak show.
The freak shows. And that was popular.
Did you ever work with that?
So occasionally, the carnivals would have freak shows join up
with us.
But they were all corner store freaks.
They weren't really great.
Like we had the rip off of the lobster man.
And I actually think he was a relative
of the original lobster man.
But he had fake gloves that he would put on
to make himself have fake lobster hands.
Oh, really?
Oh yeah.
That's not real.
No, we had a lot of that.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it was a lot of, yeah,
cause they had like, the freaks were like,
the bearded lady I remember you would hear about,
what, like the four titted sister, whatever.
They'd always have something, you know, the lispy Jew. They'd always have something rolling.
The lizard man or something like that.
Yeah, lizard man.
A real-life mermaid would be one.
They'd have a girl in a tank with a fake suit on,
acting like she was a real mermaid.
Oh, yeah.
The four-shouldered Italian, they'd have that guy.
Yeah.
Oh, the smallest horse.
I met the world's smallest horse one time.
Oh, we used to have that too, yeah.
Yeah, Tom Thumb is the one that I met. I don't world's smallest horse. Oh, we used to have that too. Yeah.
Tom Thumb is like one that I met.
I don't know the name of the one I had.
We had, but yeah, he was at the fairs with the agriculture.
He'd be there, pay 50 cents and get to walk up and walk around and see.
And go in. Yeah. They had the dollar.
They had, I remember they had one dude at the fair in our town.
It was like, if you gave him a dollar, he would tell you if you were fat or not.
Yeah. Like guess your age or your weight or like stuff like that this do
I remember you give him a dollar and he just call you fucking fat oh really and
then you did it yeah he was like the fat dollar guy I think he was just out there
hustling people yeah he might not even have worked with the, with the carnival.
Yeah.
So that's a new one.
That guy could have been working different.
Here's a couple of them right here.
General Tom Thumb, Charles Sherwood Stratton was actually a relative of P.T.
Barnum.
When Barnum learned of Stratton's dwarfism, he sensed opportunity.
Barnum took Stratton under his wing and taught him how to sing, dance and
impersonate famous historical figures.
Wow.
Oh, that was the lobster boy.
Oh, here's lobster boy right here.
As shocking as his appearance is, Grady Stiles' real life story is even more shocking.
Stiles' condition was known as ectrodactyl...
Ectrodactyly?
I think you got it.
Ectrodactyly?
Which causes hands and feet
to fuse into claws.
Yes!
Yeah.
The condition ran in Stiles' family.
In fact, he was the sixth generation in his family
to have it.
His father was already performing in the circus
when Grady was born, so he entered circus life early
as the Lobster Boy.
Wow, huh?
That was his kid, yeah.
Pinching ass and taking names on that guy
Wow look at him, and there's a picture right there a bearded lady and lobster boy. They fell in love. Oh, that's that's romantic
Valentine's Day love story huh?
Wow, I wonder what their kids would come out like huh yeah
Here good lobsters. Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean it would probably be something
Yeah, you'd see it like one of those fancy. Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, it would probably be something, yeah.
You'd see it like one of those fancy
Omakase places or whatever, you know.
I don't think Benny Hanna would be running that.
Probably not.
You know, get you a cut of fricking hair lobster, you know.
It might be.
Who else did they have?
Let me see a few more of them.
These were all the freaks, right?
Yep.
Lionel the lion faced man,
born Stephen Bibrowski in 1891 Poland. Lionel the lion faced
man endured a medical condition known as hypertrichosis, which is commonly associated
with werewolf syndrome for obvious reasons. In an odd twist of fate, his mother was convinced
the condition was caused by her witnessing his father being mauled by a lion when she was pregnant.
Still, that was a coincidence, albeit a crazy coincidence. Wow.
I haven't heard of him.
Unable to handle his appearance any longer, she put him up for adoption when he was four years old.
He was adopted by a German entertainer who put him onto the circus circuit.
See? And he made a life for himself. We still, we need freak shows.
It's true, huh?
That way these freaks can make a living.
Yeah, they don't have, and they had, I remember, what was that thing they had, a dime?
I want to think, because they almost had one in the, a dime museum. Can you look that up?
I thought you were talking about somebody that pays a dime, dime museum and freak shows.
From the popular Coney Island amusement park in New York city,
traveling circuses and side shows,
exhibits that featured people with physical differences with some sort of
the most prevalent attractions in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Wow.
Dime museums often featured humans who were considered different for the
public to view and experience.
Yeah.
Cause I think they had some places
where you could pay a dime, I guess was the name,
I'm assuming.
From 1840 until 1940, freak shows were at their height.
Historians typically marked 1840
as the beginning of the freak show era.
The museum contained many exhibits
of historic artifacts and gaffes.
Oh, that was the year P.T. Barnum began the American Museum,
a New York City attraction that cost a dime to enter.
There it is.
The museum also house many people who are considered to be
rarities worthy of exhibition.
Wow.
So you'd have, oh, the people included Tom Tom.
Tom Tom, there he is.
A person with dwarfism, the Aztec twins, albinos,
and many other living curiosities.
Wow. Dude, that's almost like a Deke fraternity somewhere. albinos and many other living curiosities.
Wow.
Dude, that's almost like a deke fraternity somewhere.
It really is.
I mean, it's different, but it's probably similar.
So you crossed paths with some of these guys,
but it wasn't like-
Yeah, not like, like I said,
the lobster man, a boy that was with us,
I had heard, I didn't really talk to him,
that he was a relative of the actual lobster man, but he
had fake claws that he would put on.
And we actually had one of the last living
munchkin though, that was out there touring with
us at the freak show, is one of the dwarfs.
And he was on, yeah, he was one of the
original munchkins and smoking bongs with him.
He'd have to stand up on the, on a picnic table
in order to like hit the bong.
Really?
Yeah. Ah, that's beautiful. Yeah. He was like 70 years old hitting the bong with us.
70? Yeah. Wow. I think he was that old. I was, I was young, but I'm pretty sure he was up there.
And he was a little, little guy? Yeah. He was in a munchkin from the original movie.
Wow. From Wizard of Oz. He was in Wizard of Oz?
Yeah. You smoked dope with a Wizard of Oz munchkin?
Munchkin, yeah. No way. Dude, that's incredible, man.
It was pretty wild.
God dang, that's lucky.
Yeah, that's crazy, man, because just to be able to get to do something like that, yeah.
Wow, I watched that movie a bunch.
Jerry Maron, that was the guy.
This was one of them.
The last surviving adult munchkin.
Okay, when did he die?
What's it say that?
2016.
Okay, yeah, it was probably him
He said he was the last one
Bring up a picture of this dude. Wow
Jenary is right there. I was at the carnival so he could have been bullshitting me too. Yeah
He could have been full of shit. It could have just been a little dude trying to fucking get high
Yeah, well he could have been a seven-year-old with a cane trying to fucking
You know a beard on him. fucking you know, a beard on
Look at Jerry Maron right there on Wikipedia. He's huffing. He's got a cigar on him right there Wow. Oh
Yeah that guy
That's beautiful. Um
So so the freaks weren't as much of a part of you guys's universe not as much No, you know and now what about the rides because yeah
I want to go through some of the different stuff because by us,
they would have the rides would come, right?
Oh yeah.
The fair would come.
We were excited.
We lived right down the street from the fairground.
So we walk over there and, um, the day before the fair, you could go and for
50 cents, you could get on a ride, but they were just plugging in bitches in.
Yeah, man.
And you were the test subjects.
Oh dude, you would, Oh, the test subjects. Oh, dude, you would
Fying off. Oh the zipper we go in that dude. I you ever you remember the zip zip is my favorite ride. Oh
I'd get all my money. I saved up my allowance
I would go down there cuz the day before cuz if you went regular day, it was $8 to get in
We're like fuck that dude, you know, I got $2, I'm going in,
I got my quarters in my pockets.
But the zipper would shake all your money out of your pocket.
They did that on purpose.
Oh dude, it was horrible.
I'd get out, I had no more money, I had to vomit.
It would shake, I remember I shook a couple of my teeth,
like my baby teeth out of it.
I was like.
I believe it.
Yeah, you'd get out, you had no enamel, you had no money.
Yeah, because they could really get it going when they want.
They know how to run it so they could really get you whipping around and drop it.
It was unbelievable, dude. It literally felt like you've been put in the garbage, I suppose.
Yep.
That was a tough ride.
I loved it.
Did you?
Yeah, it was my favorite one.
Really?
Yeah. What was cool though, when I was a kid in school, and you would go on field trips to the
fair, I don't know if you guys did that at your school but we would take
field trips to the Topsfield Fair when we were in grade school but I would skip
that day of school and I would just go to the carnival of the fair of my father
and the rides weren't open yet they kind of were only there to supposed to be
going to the 4-H stuff and all the agricultural stuff and so I would go
over and grab sneak over some of my grab my friends from the from their
chaperones and bring them over to the rides.
And the ride guys would let us all ride the rides while they were,
rest of the school was at the four H section. Oh, that's nice. So it was pretty cool.
Oh yeah. Cause you were kind of dialed in, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew everybody,
you know, they all looked out for me. I was like, Oh, it's little Mitch. Like I knew it.
Cause I was running around as a little kid. So everybody, you know, knew.
And it would copy a little bit of drugs or something sometimes? Oh yeah, it was wild. Was the drug use out there? A little bit. Yeah.
Just a little bit. And what were the drugs really? What were some of it? I mean we, yeah. Oh of course
we'd alcohol I mean especially I mean when we were at the fairs you're open for so long like you
close at 11 at night you had to open 11 in the morning
So we're crushing beers as fast as we can once we close to get as drunk and as fucked up as fast as we can
To go to sleep or just if we could yeah, just have fun and we're people doing drugs, too
Like what kind of uppers are we talking cocaine?
Yeah, plenty of cocaine
I'll tell you just to step up though, they have straightened out these days.
They drug test and all that shit now.
Oh, why?
Bro, if you drug test the guy who's working the fair ride for me, get fucked.
You want a good ride or not?
I want a real ride from a real drug-using American.
That's what I want.
Yes.
Okay?
Dude, we used to go, we would get on the Gravitron, right?
The Gravitron was great.
We would throw so many parties in that at night.
Bro, this dude, one guy we'd get in there, right?
And I remember that you would get against the thing
and it would slowly move you up the wall and start spinning.
And there was a guy in the middle who was like,
are you ready to rock?
I'm like, who the fuck is he talking to, right?
This guy was always just in his own world Oh, yeah
and the thing was spending and I swear one time his dude got his we like we just showing his wiener to people who were and
He was playing a nice day for a wide wedding and you were so
You couldn't even turn your so even though you felt like you were visually being molested or whatever
You could turn your head to look
and see if anybody else knew what was going on.
So you get off and everybody was afraid to say,
I think we just seen that guy's wiener, you know,
to November rain, you know.
Oh, that's pretty sweet.
There was some parts of it were nice
when they would play some of the ballads in there,
but that was harrowing going in there.
Yeah, that ride's pretty crazy.
Sometimes the guy would get out, if you got a really wild guy, he would get out and he would
come, because you know how they had the fence, and hang on the pole.
Yeah, dude, it walked and hang and pull himself around it and go back in while the ride was running.
You're like, what is this guy doing? Yeah, the dude would be walk. I totally, he would walk. He could even walk around the thing.
Yeah. You have to hold onto the railing, but he could walk around it. Yeah.
Oh my God. I forgot about that. Yeah.
He kind of was like the guy at the skating rink that kind of was like,
would the chat,
like the dude who would go through and do the backwards skating and like skate
through your girlfriend's legs or whatever. Like who the fuck is this guy?
Yeah. It like kind of reminded me of that guy, you know?
Oh, here he is right here.
This is somebody on a Gravitron.
There's somebody trying to sit up on it.
Yeah, he's trying to push it up on his own or something.
We used to like flip ourselves upside down
and be upside down in there against the wall.
Yeah.
Because you could move all around.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, we didn't know,
we were too small to do some of this.
This is like late teens.
Oh, that kid looks about our size.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, he's standing straight out.
Oh yeah, that's dude vapes.
Oh yeah, he does.
Yeah, it was fun.
We used to throw a lot of after parties in the Gravitron.
In the Gravitron.
Yeah.
Yeah, take me through some of that.
And is it men and women come too or no? Yeah, I mean we had some girls out there working forron. Yeah. Yeah, take me through some of that. Like, and is it men and women come to her now?
Yeah, I mean, we had some girls out there working for sure.
Yeah. Some of the guys were definitely better looking.
Yeah. But, you know, we had we had we had some ratchets up.
I mean, if you're going to work a ride and travel the carnival,
especially if it was 20, 30 years ago. Yeah, yeah it was. You gotta be a tough chick. You sure do.
And like there was some of them, I mean this one girl,
they had crazy, this girl had Bust a Nut on me,
tattooed on her ankle.
Oh yeah.
You know, Head Ho was another one tattooed on her.
Wow.
These girls, some of them had the lot lizards
tattooed on their feet.
Really?
Oh yeah.
So it was women that were probably
just doing their best out there that had been through a lot probably.
Yeah. I mean, you got good ones too. I'm not gonna lie.
Bust a nut on me is a lot.
That was pretty rough.
Well, it's like when...
Yeah, I thought it was sexual harassment every time she walked past me.
I was like, this is... She wasn't good looking.
Oh yeah. Well, she's not saying marry me. You know what I'm saying?
But still, that's all.
Yeah, that seems to be, yeah, bust.
And then what do you even say now
that she's married, has a family?
What do you even adjust those letters?
Like, like, um.
Yeah, what could you change that to?
Oh, you could do us, you, me, I think.
Bust, if you put the B and T, bust, A.
Take out the A, cover that up.
Nut, take out the N and T, just the U.
Us, and then it would be a blank.
And then it would be you, just the you.
And then nut on me.
Take out the on, just me.
Does that make any sense or not?
Not really, but it's probably still better
than busting out on me.
Yeah, it would just say you.
I would say us, you, me.
Yep, yeah.
Make it work.
I mean, I think it'll work.
It'll go over better if you're at the grocery market.
It's going to go way better.
Because if you're walking over by the cab,
and you get some hella fresh produce on your back, you know?
You're like, where's that from?
Well, you told me.
Yeah.
Dude, that's the freshest produce they got.
It's fucking semen, bro.
Yeah, take me through like a good party night out there.
Well, the party nights like in the Gravitron,
yeah, because they had the sound system in there already.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and you had the walls.
So you can get in there and like, you know,
really be able to party and get loud
and not bother too many of the, you know, the bosses.
Cause you know, the bosses still stayed out there
in their trailers too.
So you didn't always,
you didn't want to wake them up in the middle of the night
and have them come out.
You're like, why is everybody getting here?
Bunk house everybody, you know, we open in three hours.
Wow.
So yeah.
And what was the sleeping quarters like?
So, I mean, to be honest with you,
my family didn't care where I slept at that point.
Like, I was 13, 14, just sleeping wherever.
Wow.
Yeah, mostly in games.
I'd sleep in the game at night, one of the games.
No way.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
That's pretty wild.
That's wild.
Yeah, it was.
I mean, I've even slept, I mean, wherever sometimes, especially when you're going over the road,
like everything's torn down, you got no place to go,
you're waiting for your ride.
Like I passed out in the generator box before,
just waiting.
And what is that?
Just the electrical thing?
Yeah, the giant generators that run everything.
Yeah.
Because everything's packed up, and that thing's always open.
You got a nice cozy pile of wires
you could crawl up on like a cat and pass out for a little bit.
Yeah.
And it's kind of romantic almost. Yeah, it's wild. I mean for the most part
when you got a little older, you know... Yeah, were there bunks? Like where did
everybody sleep? So they had bunks. The ride guys had bunks. Okay. So the ride operators had bunks.
Yeah, they would put most of those guys up in bunks. And were they like a
trailer? Like what type of bunks? Yeah, it was just a giant trailer. They would buy like, they almost looked like one of the, like an 18-wheeler trailer,
and they would just turn it into bunk rooms. They would just chop it all up. Okay. Some of them,
they had some that were built professionally as house trailers. They had those ones too,
and they were, I mean, those were, it was pretty tough because it was like two bunk beds and,
you know, you're in there with, and it was tiny, it was like but two bunk beds and you know
You're in there with and it was times like a closet which is two beds
Yeah, and you know, that's where they had the ride got the ride the games and the join ease were on their own unless you know
What do you mean on their own like you would sleep in sleeping bags or people say motels or what?
Yeah
Wherever you could like if you made enough money to get a motel you get a motel if you didn't you didn't
You sleep in a tent or like there was at a point after I stopped
staying in the games when I was younger, I ended up bringing a couple of my
friends out on the road with me.
And so as soon as high school was done for the summer, we'd go out on the road
until, you know, school started back up.
And so I'd bring a couple of friends with me out there, Doogie, Jay, and, uh,
we'd set up like our own tent city away from
everybody so we could party and not bother anybody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We'd have a nice campfire.
We even brought, we used to travel with a lizard with us too.
We always brought him with us.
We had a nice little cage for him and he was our little buddy.
Oh, that's beautiful.
And we'd set him up.
Yeah.
And we'd just drink.
We had all our tents and nice fire going and we'd party out there.
Couple men and a lizard, bro.
It's like the Bible. Or, you know, like a,
whatever the new Bible they'll write will be. Yeah. The Carney Bible. Yeah.
Yeah. It was fun, man. And, um, yeah, a lot of people slept in their games.
So that would be it. You just crash in there and they would just pop it back open in the morning?
Yep. Okay. Roll your sleeping bag up, put it under the counter.
And what were some of the other rides, man? Do you remember the Skymaster?
The Skymaster?
Yeah, well, they call it the Apollo sometimes.
It was two...
Yeah, like two boats, it almost looked like.
But they would go upside down, so you were closed in.
And they'd just walk like this.
They were opposite, they would swing opposite of each other.
And then they'd go upside down.
And sometimes they would hold you up there.
Yeah. And hold you while you're upside down. And sometimes they would hold you up there. Yeah.
And hold you while you're upside down.
And you could shake it and like shake everybody's money
out of their pockets.
Oh yeah, there it is.
God damn, dude.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, this was for the big kids.
I don't think I went on this at the time.
Yeah, I used to run that sometimes.
So it was really easy to tear it out and set up.
And sometimes I would run it and you're in the dog house.
And you know, it's just a kind of,
just a remote control, like a little joystick you get it going
you rock it back and forth until you get enough energy to get it up and around
and you can hold it up there and you'd hold it and you just shake it a little
bit and wiggle it so it would go back and forth a little bit you start shaking
the money out of their pocket so it all falls down although one time there was a
bad scene bad scene because you're always supposed to wait till the end of
the ride to go pick up the money.
Well, a kid who ran it all the time was trying to be a daredevil and he ran through to get the money
while it was on, while the ride was still in, while it was up top, ended up getting hit. Oh,
yeah. It was pretty wild. He lived. He did live. Wow. But it was a mess. I wasn't there at that,
at that carnival or fair when it happened, but I was at the next one.
And you lose a limb, they put you just right over in a freak show.
Yeah, now you go right to the freak show.
That thing punts you right over in a freak show.
Or you could be in a game after that too, you know, because you can work a game with
one arm.
Yeah.
Or in a wheelchair.
Wow.
So, so a guy got damaged up pretty good.
Yeah, he got hit pretty good.
Damn.
That was pretty crazy.
Is that one of the worst accidents you've ever seen out there?
That was probably the worst, yeah.
We were running that skydive at one time,
and how you got the shoulder bars that come down,
it had let go while the girl was in there.
But you're caged in still too, but she was flopping around
while it was going around.
While she was upside down
The shoulder bars came up and she fell into the cart and like
Just getting just bang banged around while I was spinning around and how and how long if somebody's not doing well on a ride
Can you shut it down for him? Does it take a few seconds? Yeah, it'll take sometimes
Some take longer than others to slow it out and come to a stop
Yeah, I mean there was one the freakout. Yeah. I mean, there was one, the freak out.
I don't know if you've heard of the freak out.
That's a freak out.
Yeah.
It's a pretty dope ride now.
Now that's my favorite ride.
I'd say at all.
Let me see.
Kind of like a, it's an arm and it's got these other arms that come down.
And those spin while it goes back and forth.
And you get an awesome sense of weightlessness, almost like a
like a roller coaster, I'd say. Like that first drop. There it is. Freak out.
Oh, that's pretty cool looking. Yeah, they didn't have the freak out. Oh, so that goes like a pendulum and spins?
And spins, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, dude, I remember, yeah, we would get on that swing,
one of them was like a swing set you just faced out.
Yeah, the swinger?
Yeah, and it would just, then you would just,
people would just be, you would just,
people would be vomiting.
Like, people would be like standing watching you
and then literally come around and just splash.
Oh yeah.
Maybe just dose them up with that fucking,
with that tummy skeet, baby, that vomit.
You gotta wash up a lot of puke on some of those rides.
They get a lot of pukers.
We had one, I don't even remember the name of the,
official name of the ride,
but we called it the puke barrel.
Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying, dude.
You guys were making shit up.
Yeah, that was the name of it, the puke barrel.
That was like, okay, I don't even know the official name.
And if, what ride caused the most vomit you think?
The puke barrel.
Really?
Probably.
It was, it looked like one of those metal 55 gallon drums, you know, those metal like
garbage can barrels, but it was huge.
Okay, yeah.
You know, and so it was massive and say it was on its side and you go in, it had a sliding
door and you go in and then there were two seats that people could sit in circle seats and those spun like this while the floor rocked
back and forth like this and the outside barrels spun like this with strobe lights
going on inside.
I mean, who's not going to puke.
Yeah.
It was pretty wild.
Yeah.
It's good stuff.
So we actually owned one of those candy on, my mom and dad owned a couple of them actually would have been so they split up when I was like a year old. So they ended up, I was too young to kind of help with the business.
So my mom sold most of the rides by the time I was, you know, a teenager.
So we still had some stuff, kiddie rides and stuff, but we had gotten rid of all,
she had gotten rid of all the major rides that she had had.
Yeah.
Bring that video up.
You're going to show us.
And now what do you do when something what
is this what is this here oh that's looks like the what we call them the
thousand and one nights I'm not sure what this version is called but that's
what it was okay yeah it looks like the whole thing is shaking so people are
going and jumping on the side like hold hold it down. Oh, they like hold it. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
A carnival ride in Traverse City, Michigan suddenly malfunctioned.
What do you do when this kind of thing happens? What do y'all do?
Shut it the f down.
But how do you, I mean, people are trying to save this thing from falling over.
Yeah. They're all trying to get some weight on it.
Is that a realistic approach you think? Is that safe or would you tell the people not?
I mean, it could be.
Oh.
Because...
That was one of the things about the carnival, you always felt like nobody had your back in a way.
Yeah.
Which was something exciting about it.
And deathly alarming.
And you felt like if you died, they
wouldn't tell your parents.
Yeah.
I could, I mean, we've probably buried
some bodies out back.
I mean, in the haunted house, probably some
of those bodies in there are probably kids
that just never made it out.
Yes.
But I'll be honest with you though, the
carnival rides are a lot safer than
probably music parks, amusement parks.
Really?
Yeah, because they get inspected every week.
So you're getting state inspectors every single week, every time you set up, they have to
come in and like, and, you know, give it a go ahead.
So what's the worst accident you've ever seen out there?
So that was, I mean, I didn't see the kid get hit by the Skymaster, but that was probably
the worst. Although at one fair that I was at, at Topsfield Fair, I forget the name of the ride,
but somebody did come flying out of it, but they didn't die.
I wish I could remember the ride.
But they always say those people didn't die, but you never see those people anymore.
Yeah, that's true.
Or like, yeah,
Janet didn't die.
And they'll be like, well, then why isn't, yeah.
Where is she?
Yeah.
Oh, she went to Florida.
She retired.
Yeah, people, yeah.
She retired.
She's 11.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, where did she?
So that's just the thing I think sometimes
about that kind of stuff that seems
like a little bit tricky, man.
Where you're like.
Like I was saying, they do inspect them a lot more than like your your regular music parks
I mean that I just set up year-round
They only got like one or two inspections a year
Oh, yeah, and so but the carnival like they have to get state inspected every week every time you set up in a new place
so
Okay. Wow. I didn't I did not
Expect that yeah, cuz it seems like they're not even...
You know where the shady part comes in is where like, say something breaks or something happens
during the week and then it gets fixed, not up to par. In between inspections.
In between inspections. And you just got to have the ride,
you got to have it going, You got to make the money. Yeah. And then, so you have, you have, uh, your main ride guys.
So all the ride formants have to do a once inspection every day.
And they have to fill out a form and say they inspected their ride.
I mean, but, yeah.
And then you have the ride super who was in charge of all those guys.
And is he, yeah.
But it's like how, how, how,
if they're locked in, cool.
If they're not, then it's whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can be a ride.
Yeah.
If I was a ride super dude, you're like, yeah, okay.
You just take it to forms.
You're like, yep, everything's fine.
Yeah.
Oh, you know, yeah, people ain't going to be everybody not going to be living.
Cause I'm a ride super to be honest and no no offense to anybody. Okay so you got the rides,
I'm trying to get the other rides there were. There was some, you know what we used to do too
on the, remember the super slide? Yeah super slide was pretty fun with that burlap sack. Yeah you
know when it's really fun? During the rain storm and you get a black trash bag. Really? Oh yeah. You don't even touch that bottom hill.
Yeah.
You're just launched off.
Oh, that's awesome.
You gotta open up the fence at the bottom of the ride
because I've seen people,
oh, hit that fence so hard.
Oh yeah. Go right under it, hit it hard.
Just get scalped on the way under.
Oh yeah, they got that fishnet face
for the rest of their life.
Oh yeah, I've seen some crazy stuff.
Oh yeah, there's nothing like just, yeah, really hitting the chamber fence.
After hours, you know, getting drunk, going down.
Sometimes we would just wed it on our own. We'd get a hose and soak the slide and grab a trash bag.
Yeah, that sounds like fun, dude. Would you guys have some fun like that?
Oh yeah. I mean, there was one crazy party. We were all partying.
It was like the beginning of the year. It was like the second and third carnivals.
So we were all like warmed up now
We're like, all right
Let's say this is one because you'd have parties where everybody would party together like the ride guys everybody food joints
Even some of the owners, you know what I mean some of the parties once in a while. Mm-hmm
And so this was like a beginning of the year like let's get you know
Let's have a welcome home party
Everybody's in and so we're partying all throughout the carnival like we're on the sea dragon and you can unlock the sea dragon and get it swinging manually
You just get a couple of kids on each side
Swinging it one way and you just really you can get it going. So we were partying on that
Yeah, we were partying up on the sea dragon late one night and there was a new guy
That I guess the ride super didn't like he had just started
Oh, yeah, and he passed out drunk in his car and he was driving like this brand new white
escort or something like that, you know,
nice and white.
Pretty nice, yeah.
But it was small car, cheap car, but it was,
it was new and the ride super really didn't
like him and he was passed out drunk in his
car right on the side of this, on the Sea
Dragon and we're up in the top seat, just
sitting up there having a couple of drinks,
putting them back.
And what'd they do?
They set them on fire?
All of a sudden, well, not quite.
All of a sudden the ride super goes over to his house trailer and he opens up
his, he gets a five gallon bucket and he opens up his shitter drain, his tank.
And he fills up the five gallon bucket with all the shit water and he goes over
and he dumps it on the guy's car and nothing, the guy doesn't wake up, nothing.
So he keeps doing it over and over again until he dumped his, his
whole tank onto this dude's car.
And he just slept through the night like that all day.
And we're laughing hysterically about this.
But it's outside of the car, right?
It's outside of the car.
It's on his car, but on the outside.
So it's just COVID now and just everything.
And that night I didn't see him, but the next spot,
I remember I'm walking by and he's outside
and he's outside and it's
He's trying to scrub it all off and it's just got this brown tint and you could see where it like Swirled all around like he could not get that thing clean for the life of him. He didn't last another week
He didn't know was there a lot of stuff like that. There's a lot of like, uh, um
Hazing and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah
And what about, um, take me into, so I feel like that's kind of the rides.
I'm trying to think of any more of the rides that I, the zipper was just.
A harrowing.
I know I would get on it and I'll be like, I'm not getting on it this year
because last year I got hurt and I don't have any more money or whatever.
And I got electrocuted.
And so dude, I got electrocuted. And so.
You got electrocuted.
Oh dude, I got electrocuted.
Cause that was one of the big things is one time I got off of,
I think it probably was the zipper.
I got off and I touched, I've told this story before.
I've touched the two like metal bars.
You're getting off of like the stair bars or whatever.
And it completed a circle and I just, bro got lit and I couldn't let go.
Right.
And some guy working the ride behind me, um, it was a black gentleman.
He called me, he's like, get moving.
And I, I was like, ah, can't, oh, and then he just fucking
kicked me right in the back, dude.
I think he even called me the inward, but I think he
kicked me in the back and thank God he did. Yeah called me the inward, but I think he kicked me in the back.
And thank God he did.
Because I was just like part of the,
I was just completing the circuit.
I was just probably powering a fucking lantern
or something down the street.
Probably got the lights back on.
Yeah, yeah, whatever I was doing, dude.
It was unhealthy for me.
Yeah.
Because I was conducting electricity and thank God.
But yeah, I just remember it was very,
very, it seemed like there were some safety issues,
I would say probably.
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it.
Yeah, I've definitely run into a few live rides before.
Yeah.
Especially Dirt and Rain.
Oh, has that happened?
Yeah, it's happened to me.
Okay.
Yep.
So that's a real thing.
Yep.
Because I know my whole life,
I was like, I know this happened, man.
How does that happen?
Because there's so much wiring going on in those things, like all the lights and everywhere.
And back then too, you know, now with LEDs, they don't take as much.
But back then you had those really hot lights and they took a lot more power.
And so you got bigger currents running through and something could just get cut or pinched
somewhere along the line.
And next thing you know, you're making that live.
Damn. God. Yeah. That thing really caught me up to speed, boy. I fucking aged probably eight
months. I went home. My mother's like, God, you seem different. You know?
Hey, my, you already grew a mustache.
Yeah. I was like, things are going to change around here.
mustache from it. Yeah, I was like things are gonna change around here. But I remember that dude, we walk over and yeah, the rides would just be getting set up in the distance and we'd come in
and they'd have somebody standing over there and for 50 cents you could get over there and get you
a couple tickets and go get on them. Yeah. And the other kids, people didn't know because the fair
wasn't open.
But we knew this could be live right there
and so we'd all walk over there.
That's cool.
We never did anything like that.
It was pretty cool, man.
What about, so take me into some of the games.
Yeah, the games.
The games are fun.
Let's get into some of the games.
They're definitely interesting.
Because you had the booths, you had the game booths, right?
Yeah, we had game booths.
We own some.
My brother still has, I think he still has one or two.
You know, they're definitely not as profitable as they used to be.
Yeah.
But yeah, I used to have all kinds of games.
I mean, a lot of them are illegal now.
You know, maybe I should throw on...
Really?
Yeah, maybe I should throw on some like shades or something if I want to spill secrets.
Like the magician telling us secrets of the...
About the games? Yeah, if you want to put some on.
No, I'm just kidding. They all know who I am now anyway.
Well, I, yeah.
Cause I know there was videos that came out years ago about like exposing all
the games or whatever. I didn't like that shit. I knew
that you pretty much weren't going to win.
No, there's some that you are not going to win unless they want you to win.
If you, if they got, if you,
if they got enough money out of you and they
got a good tip going, there's a big crowd.
Or if you're in a wheelchair or something, probably if you're.
Maybe it all depends on how much money you spent.
Yeah.
And then like, if they got a nice crowd and they want to keep that and a lot of,
like if the crowd is really like, they've been there a while and they really
want to see that dude win and he spent enough money and you know, you could get,
now you can, if that dude wins, everybody spent enough money and you know you could get now you keep if that
Dude wins everybody's gonna stop playing. Yeah, you know, so the part of it is some strategy. Yeah
Yeah, there's a lot of strategy to it
What was one of the games that was the toughest game to win probably you think the toughest to win like?
Legitimately
Well, so there was some that just can't be won. Okay. So, okay. So take me like, what is one of them?
So like the cover the red spot.
Do you guys ever have that one?
Cover the red spot. So there would be a big red circle.
Yeah.
And you get like little discs.
Yeah.
Could not be won legally.
Oh.
There would be one that could be won on that the guy would show you how to do it
on, cause that one can be won. Okay. And he would always use that one. And be one on that the guy would show you how to do it on because that one can be one.
Okay.
And he would always use that one and I've worked that game before so I know how it's done.
And then you have all the other ones, the circles are just slightly too big to be completely covered.
Oh, so the base circle?
Yep, there it is.
Ah, cover the spot.
Okay.
So you see how that one's covered all down there with the five discs,
it's completely covered. So sometimes those red circles are just slightly too big where
it's mathematically impossible to cover it all. Dude, the saddest part, I just remembered this.
So my brother, he was like the older brother, you know, and like he like was trying to win a game
and I knew we didn't have much money, you know, so like he like was trying to win a game and I knew we didn't have much money
you know, so like he kept trying to win and like I
Knew it started to be a little bit thing. Like I gotta win this my brother's watching me
You know, and he fucking didn't win and I could feel it just break his fucking heart. Oh man. I have seen
God, I just remember broken really. Oh my god. I've seen families broken up. Oh
I mean, they've spent their whole mortgage, lost the car,
like lost everything.
Yeah.
He traded that kid in like trying to win.
I swear to God.
Sometimes you'll see the kids still up there as a prize now.
You can win them.
Yeah.
You guys want this.
Stuffed bunny with a cleft palate or you want Ricky.
Nah, nah, we ain't gonna do that. We got Ricky. Hey, you guys want this off. Stuffed bunny with a cleft palate,
or you want Ricky.
Nah, nah, we ain't.
We got a real life ginger over here.
We gotta feed Ricky, man.
We'll take that fucking,
we'll take that hoppy, the cleft palate fucking Easter here.
Oh yeah, man.
If you got a gambler playing,
somebody that gambles.
They know it's up?
No, they lose everything.
Cause they want to win. They want to win. And then you tell them, Hey man,
if you win, not only will you get the prize, but I'll give you all your money
back. Oh, every dollar you spent,
I will give it back if you win. Want to play again?
Wow. And our gambler is not going to say no.
And how hard is it?
Have you ever had to run somebody up like that?
I kind of have.
By the time those games are kind of, I mean, I've ran the red spot and stuff, but I was
a kid.
I was still a teenager then, so I wasn't a real agent, you know.
But were there some people they were good at?
Oh man.
They were so good.
Like when I was a real little kid and before I was working, I would, you know, sit on the counters with some of these guys, you know, and they're not busy.
And I'd sit down and hang out, but then all of a sudden a mark would walk by
and they'd get them and I would just see them run them up.
Cause like you pay your bills, right?
Yeah.
Do you know, like you pay your bills every month.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So just don't worry about paying me upfront.
Just keep playing.
I'll tell you how much you owe at the end.
Oh yeah.
What do you think is the most you ever seen somebody lose on a carnival game?
I've seen somebody lose a car.
Like legit how to give up their car.
Nuh-uh.
Yeah.
Who's going to enforce it though?
Well, because they're a gamble.
They're a gamble. Like most gamblers pay their, like if they have it, they'll pay their debts.
So they'll go get, they'll go get the title and sign it over right there to keep playing.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, you ever been to a casino?
Like some of these guys, some of these gamblers are like, they lose everything.
I'm amazed at somebody.
Yeah.
I have friends that are real successful and I'm amazed at some of these
guys that just go gamble all the time.
I don't, I'm so thankful. I don't get any
Like I like to play, you know, I'll play some games, you know, I like to do
Yeah, we play prize picks and stuff like that. And but I don't I'm not the guy that's betting better in the house
Yeah, yeah, I know I'm so good man. I'm thankful to God that I don't have that
I've seen I've seen people like it eventually like they'll go home and they're like,
I just got hustled.
And then they'll end up like going to the cops or something like that and coming
down the next day and you got to squash the beef and make everybody happy.
Like I've seen that happen.
New Hampshire man loses life savings on carnival game. Let's look at it.
I probably saw that.
Epsom New Hampshire from from the salts, I guess.
Henry Gribbom says he lost his life savings,
$2,600, damn.
Oh, that's your life savings?
Carnival game.
And all he has to show for it is a stuffed banana
with dreadlocks.
Wow.
You got the dreaded one though.
Dude, BLM, bro.
That's all I'm saying, dude.
Yeah, at least you got the dreaded one though. Dude, BLM, bro. That's all I'm saying, dude. Yeah, at least you got the dreaded banana, dude.
Wow.
Yeah, it was crazy.
Those games are illegal now, though, up there.
Well, it says, you're expecting the kids
to win a few things.
Let the kids have a good time, said Gribholm.
It just didn't turn out that way.
Gribholm says he attended a Manchester carnival run
by New Hampshire-based Fiesta shows.
Bam!
You mentioned them.
That's us. It is?
That's who we worked for.
Wow.
And wanted to win an Xbox connect at a game called Tubs of Fun.
Yeah, I'll tell you about that one.
Where contestants toss balls into a tub.
Ah, ain't happening.
It isn't?
What is it?
So the bushel basket, that's what it is, the tubs of fun.
So they take those, remember those old apple bushel baskets?
Oh yes, I remember this.
And they'd be up on the side.
Yeah, like at an angle kind of.
Yeah, at an angle kind of.
And you got to toss the softball in there.
Yes.
Yes.
There it is.
Oh, there's some guys getting it right here.
Yeah.
Yeah, so there's a trick to it.
Do you see how he's doing it?
You got to give it a spin and it's got to hit right on the edge.
I see. So it'll like, it'll spin, and it's got to hit right on the edge. I see.
So it'll kind of use its momentum to stay in there.
And they're using plastic ones, too.
I don't know if they're.
Right, go back to the bushel baskets.
Can you find the bushel baskets?
They might be just as hard.
So we're referencing the one we're talking about?
It's the same game, but those were
made of the wooden ones, like the original Apple bushel
baskets.
Yeah, so take me through it.
So the problem with those.
They were at an angle, right?
It's that same, same, same thing as that with the plastic ones, except they were
wooden, um, they just won't stay in there.
The softball is so light and bouncy and the back of those baskets are just so
bouncy as well that they would just bounce out.
You can't get the ball to stay in there.
It's, it's really, I mean, if you know a trick and like they were
doing, if you could get the right backspin on it and hit it right at the edge, you can get it to
stay in there. But how they get people so easily is they'll, the guy sitting in the, in the booth
can easily toss the ball in there from his angle. It'll easily go in there and stay in there. And
then you give the other ball to the guy and be like, look at how easy it is to throw the ball in
there and give him a free, here's a free shot. See how easy it is. And then they throw it in there and stay in there. And then you give the other ball to the guy and be like, look at how easy it is. Throw the ball in there and give him a free shot.
Here's a free shot.
See how easy it is.
And then they throw it in there.
And because that other ball is already in the basket,
it'll dead in that second ball
and that second ball will stay in.
So now people are like, oh my God, that was so easy.
But now when you give them the balls,
they don't have that first ball in there
and they won't get that ball to stay in there.
Wow.
And you're like, no, it's like this. this, you know what you're doing wrong, bud?
You're hitting it in the wrong place. Watch what I do. Watch what I do. You take that ball and
you're like, just like this, throw it in there and it goes in and you're like, here's this ball,
watch, try it now. And they do it and they're like, oh, I did it. You're right. And then you give them
both balls again and then they can never do it again. And you just keep it going, keep the cycle
going. Dude, I remember the weird,
there was always the weirdest energy when you were the kid and you were up there
at the thing. Once you'd engaged in the conversation with the booth guy,
if you're a kid, you're like, you start to feel like, man, I got to play now.
I already started talking to this guy. You know,
I only got a couple of bucks here. What am I going to do? You know, and then you would play and then you
would fucking miss the first one.
And you'd be like, I am such a fucking loser.
Yeah.
I am a loser.
They know you're not going to win too.
And then just trying to get that two bucks out
of you and get you out of the, get you out of
their hair.
God, that was hard.
And I'll tell you what, if Eric Adams was there,
he would have found out that there
wasn't an Xbox in that box.
Yeah.
Oh, so you're saying that if they have the prizes, some of the prizes
aren't even in the boxes.
No.
Wow.
Oh yeah.
Cause they know nobody can win it.
So why are you not even going to put a real prize?
They just put PlayStation boxes and Xboxes.
I mean, dude, in the crazy,
Eric Adams will probably find the yay.
Oh, that's tight in there. What's in here? I mean, dude, in the crazy Adams will probably find the yellow that time.
What's in here? And Mitch is talking about the episode with, um, who we wish Shane Gillis.
And we're like that.
Yeah, that's just, that was so funny, dude.
Yeah, that was a crazy video.
I can't believe they're doing the drug searches like that, but yeah.
Oh, but sometimes we would win something and it would be a felt Elvis or a felt
picture of a something. Oh, I remember those felt pictures. Remember it was like, it was like neon
and felt. Yeah, some of it would be felt, like not all of it. Yeah, if you had a black light or
something, it would look like you'd be able to see it really good. Oh, and the posters, they had those
felt posters. That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah, it sounds like we
would win those. I forgot about those, yeah.
The start arc games, like the ones that you throw the dart at.
Oh, that was fun with the balloons?
Yeah, the balloons are a hustle though too.
It is?
Oh yeah, because they don't always have like, because-
Oh, because you had to have a dot behind it or something?
You had to have a, they'd have different circles under there
and they'd say small, medium, large, like what size prize you win.
And you know, they would never have an extra large up under there.
Or if they did, it would be under like a really like barely blown up balloon.
So the dart would always bounce.
Oh, you couldn't do it. God!
Because I based how I felt about myself for the rest of the year on how well I did on these games.
That was the thing.
Even the start-art game, like if you didn't get that dart right in the red.
Star dart, you said?
Yeah, that's what we called it, the star dart, where it was like you had to throw a dart,
get it in the red, and it couldn't touch the border around it.
It would be a black border around the red star.
And if it touched any part of the dart, it was touching the black just a little bit,
you didn't win.
Oh.
And the thing was, if you think it would be in there completely, you know, you're on the
ground, you hit it, and you're like,
oh, did that go in?
And the person working the game would go up and look,
and if it was all the way in, but it was close,
he would just touch it a little bit and push the dart so it would touch the black.
Uh-uh.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I don't even know.
You just have to do it nice and smooth,
so you just barely push the dart up a little bit so it'll start touching the border
and be like, oh, you're so close, bud.
Come on up and take a look. You'll see it's touching the black. I don't even remember that one star
dart. I remember they had the water horse but that was a competition against other people so
somebody always won. Yeah I mean there are ones that are slower than others. Yeah. Naturally like
the games like you could hit them both at the same time and one just rises a lot slower than the other
one or blows up the other one. I remember yeah, sometimes it didn't even make any sense.
I remember one time it was like ring the fucking fish
and they had fish swimming
and you just throw the fucking rings in there.
Get a fish.
You didn't get shit, you're like,
how do you even know if you got it?
I was like, you lost, you're like, ah, fuck, dude.
I'm a loser, man, 12 more months of winter.
It's like Punxsutawney Phil,
just seeing your fucking reality each year when I went. It was loser, man. 12 more months of winter. It's like Punxsutawney Phil, just seeing your fucking reality each year when I went.
It was like, God, I forgot how much, yeah,
I based my like, who I was off of that, man.
And just like, cause I would save my money each,
you know, I was very particular about saving my money.
So when we go down there, I'd have an, you know,
I'd plan ahead and I would get my little,
I would keep my money in like one of those Jim Beam,
those purple Jim Beam bags, you know?
You remember the sacks?
Oh yeah, with the drawstrings, yeah.
Oh yeah.
I would keep my money in there.
The Crown Royal too?
Yeah, the Crown Royal bag, sorry, the Crown Royal bag.
And I bring it down there and God, dude,
this felt horrible.
Oh, ring toss, that was one.
Now that was fun, I will say this,
cause you know why?
Because you got a bunch of rings.
Yeah, and they can't lie to you.
You're either getting it on the bottle or you're not.
That's a legitimate game.
Those are still around.
Right, that was a lot of fun, I remember.
Those ones are a hustle.
Oh yeah, the weighted.
Yeah, the weighted, everybody knows that now.
And this is, we're looking at the weighted milk bottles.
Yep.
And the softballs.
What was so hard about it?
Just they're weighted.
They're not gonna knock over with a softball
because you'd fill them with lead or cement or whatever.
And the top one would be empty.
So if people said, oh, they're weighted,
you would just grab the empty one and hand it to them
and be like, oh, look at it, dude, they're not weighted.
Oh, wow.
That's pretty crazy, dude.
The bushel basket, that was another one. That was a hustle.
What was that?
I mean, not the bushel, the bankable.
You remember the bankable?
It was like, um, there was a wooden backdrop back and there was like a laundry basket underneath and you had to like throw the ball against the bag and it would fall into the basket.
Yes. Yes. I remember that. So
some of them were so confusing to me I didn't play them. You would just push
that basket in. So it would never do it. So it would never do it. So it would never drop in.
Where did y'all keep the fish at night? Who was with all the fish? We had a fish lady.
No way you had a fish lady? No. The girl that ran the rides like I never worked a
fish game or like we didn't own one
But I knew the girls that ran it and yeah
They just had a trailer that was full of five gallon drums full of fish and they'd bag them up Wow
Cuz that was the craziest part cuz you'd fucking get home when you'd have a fish, you know
Yeah, you're like look at this fish. Yeah, and your neighbor would be like we're gonna cook them bitches
You know, and you have your neighbor go six, six of those goldfish or baby koi that they called them.
Goldfish get pretty big if you let them,
if you just let them go.
Yeah.
I've seen some really big ones.
My sister wanted goldfish once and they put it in
their fish tank or whatever, and it grew into like a.
A big fish.
Carp or whatever.
Yeah.
I didn't realize how big they got.
It couldn't even turn around.
The tank they got for it was so small, the fish couldn't even turn around.
It was just like, it would just always be
straight ahead.
Look at this dude right there.
Crazy.
One of the world's biggest goldfish has been
caught weighing in at 67 pounds, four ounces.
The enormous specimen was found in a fishery
in France by British angler, Andy Hackett, who reportedly spent over 25 minutes reeling the fish in.
Can you imagine reeling that in and being like, what in the fuck?
What did I just catch?
I thought these were two inches.
Bro.
And if we're not, this right here, cause I should tell you, if you don't
think there's stuff in the water that is, and if we're not, this right here, cause I should tell you, if you don't think there's stuff
in the water that is turning your kids trans
or multi-armed or whatever,
then this is a fucking fair goldfish.
This is a parking lot, minnow,
half of them probably spray painted goldfish that was supposed to die right when you got home.
Yep.
If you made it that far.
Yeah.
That's the ETD on these things.
The second you cross your doorstep, they're supposed to die.
It's how most kids learn about death is from a fair goldfish.
But here we are modern day and this mother f*****g 67 pounds
and living in France.
Unbelievable.
Probably working at a creperie or something.
Chocolat.
It's just unf*****g and people are like the water's safe.
The water ain't f*****g safe bro.
God, I'm sorry to get crazy, but this sh**.
Dude, how much proof do you need? It's in your face. I'm fucking saved bro. I said fuck no. God, I'm sorry to get crazy, but this shit.
Dude, getting crazy.
It's like how much proof do you need?
It's in your face.
That the water's bad.
Yeah.
I mean, that is, that thing could work in the freak show.
Yeah.
I'd pay 50 cents to go see that.
Oh, you staple another little cock to that thing.
I think a fucking, it'll do 11 years in a freak bowl.
Work over here and Nipsey's freak bowl or whatever it's called. Step right up.
When you were a damn dreaded banana, son.
Alive, alive, alive.
But some of the gay, yeah, I remember some of the people that worked,
like some of the, one lady, I remember we gave her 50 cents.
And we were just scratching her back
while she was smoking a joint or whatever.
Oh nice.
And then she's like, I'm all done,
and we're like, what the fuck is that?
Did you get the roach?
We didn't get anything, we might've got a little contact
higher, secondhand high.
Yeah, that's what you were paying for.
But yeah, I remember we gave that lady a couple of us,
it was like three of us scratching her back
at the same time, we didn't even know her. I was
like, damn, this bitch is wild. It's kind of cool. Yeah that sounds like she would
work, she'd be good in the dunk tank man, those dunk tank clowns were something
else man. Yeah so yeah take me on some of the other periphery characters that
were part of the carnival. Yeah the dunk tank clown guy was, he was, I mean you
have to have a really special guy to be up there and really like, be able to like go at people all day, get them pissed off enough to like spend their life savings trying to knock you into a pool of water.
Like what kind of stuff is he saying?
He's just saying like, I slept with your wife last night.
Oh yeah.
Like, you know, ahh.
Your brother's an N-word or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and he would have to get. Sometimes he would have to have cops protect him when he closed,
like to walk him to his, you know, get him off the lot.
Because people wanted to kick his ass.
I mean, I've seen people, you know, beat up, like not beat him up,
but go after him if they're what, if he didn't have protection, you know,
because not all the time, you know, at the fairs you had cops around,
but you wouldn't always have cops at the carnivals and stuff,
and he would really get people going.
Like they're not even trying to dunk them.
They're trying to throw the ball through the fence.
Like they're smashing that fence with the ball.
Really?
Oh yeah.
So that guy had to have some real cojones
or just be not even mentally that great or whatever.
Yeah.
Wow.
It was wild.
He would, yeah, they would,
he would get into some serious shit.
Yeah.
A lot of beefs.
You don't see them anymore.
What were they, yeah, said they would just like, yeah. Yeah, A lot of beefs. You don't see them anymore. What would they yell?
Said they would just like, yeah.
Yeah.
I was with your sister's mother last night.
Oh, I was with your daughter last night.
You know what I mean?
With your daughter and the guy's saying his daughter's 11 or whatever.
They don't care.
That's what I'm saying.
These guys were getting mad.
The dude's just yelling at him.
Like I slept with your 11 year old daughter last night.
What are you going to do about it?
Yeah. The dude's just like, hey, I'm a pedophilist.
He thinks he's protected by fucking 40 guys.
This dude's just like walking by with his kid,
doesn't even know.
All of a sudden the guy's like, what?
What did you say?
God, it's just heartbroken, dude.
It's a sick world, man.
Who else was there?
They were like, Barkers, I remember. Oh, there was the guess your weight guy. Yeah, guess your weight. Was that a real thing? Did you ever see him? That was a sick world, man. Who else was there? They were like Barkers, I remember.
Oh, there was the guess your weight guy.
Yeah, guess your weight.
Was that a real thing?
Did you ever see him?
That was a real thing, yeah.
He would guess your weight or your birth date,
or what else would he guess?
There was something else.
How did they do it?
It was just a, it was really,
just came down in numbers.
They couldn't really do it,
but you could tell, they just got good at it.
You could look at somebody,
because you had an average,
you know what I mean?
You could be off by like 10 pounds or whatever it was,
you know, five pounds either way,
or when they guessed your birth date, they could be like,
I don't know if it had to be like the same month.
I know there was like a window where it wasn't the exact date,
but I think it might've been if it was in that sign,
you know what I mean?
Oh yeah, if they're Sagittarius is I'll know dude.
Exactly or a Leo or something you could tell.
One of my ex girlfriends was a Sagittarius and
I'll spot them bitches anywhere now, you know, I'll spot them 200 yards away.
You got a Saggie on the fucking coming over the ridge.
Watch out.
Um, we had some characters man.
I remember the guy that worked the big old guy that worked the diner, the sausage stand when I was a kid.
I mean, this is when Smokey was still allowed.
He'd have a big old cigar in his mouth.
Italian dude.
It's like, what do you fucking kids want?
Huh?
Fucking ashes are falling into the pile of onions and peppers right there.
Big old cigar just always hanging over his mouth while he's working the grill.
Those were the best onions, too.
You were like, you know, get them riled up until you get the ash in there. You know what I mean?
You want that ash.
Yeah. A little free burnt Winston.
You gotta be careful on the first day of the carnivals though,
maybe sometimes if they brought like some,
sometimes they'd bring the leftovers from the last carnival and try to sell it.
Oh yeah. It's like,
That's a good point, right?
Yeah.
So because the carnival ends on a Sunday and then it starts back on a Thursday?
Sometimes a Wednesday. Sometimes we do overnighters where you would tear down Sunday night, set up Sunday night and then open Monday. Yeah. It's like tearing out. So they'd close you
a little early like five or six o'clock on a Sunday night. And then you got to tear down,
drive to the next location, start setting up and then open up that night.
So what other periphery people do you all use?
Do you guys hire other locals?
You said there were like 40-mileers,
like guys that would come on.
Yes, I mean, they're always looking for help.
I mean, it was kind of set up back then.
You had like the main carnival owner
that owned like, like, say, Fiesta shows.
He owned all the rides, mostly.
And sometimes some of the games and food,
but you would have other families that owned
like, you know, they had a whole grip of, you know, games or a whole bunch of food stands.
And you would, and with the games, there was a lot of families that owned a bunch of different
games and they would join up with the carnival and you would tour with that carnival for
the year.
Okay.
So it was a lot of like smaller family businesses would join up under the larger umbrella of the carnival. Yep
Ah, I see. So there was a lot of that and so a lot of that's gone by the wayside now like
They start buying up by the carnival
Businesses then they start buying their own games and food and hiring people to run them for them instead of like, you know
Having people come in rent and everything. Yep. So it's some larger conglomerates now you think?
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I know like Fiesta definitely bought a bunch out and that's how they got so
big in New England. And yeah, it started like, we own some stuff, my family still does, my brother
still owns stuff out there and does it, but then he also manages stuff for the owner of Fiesta shows.
Okay. So that gets him like good locations,
you know what I mean?
And prime spots and stuff.
Was there a lot of comradery amongst you guys?
Was there a lot of party and what was that like?
Like what was some of the lifestyle like?
Yeah, so we had some comradery,
like definitely like the ride guys,
like they would all have their own crews,
especially like some of the bigger rides had like
four, five, six guys as a crew.
If they would like, there would be different crews.
You'd have the music fast and like the sea dragon crew.
They called themselves the dickhead crew and you'd have
these different crews.
And so they had a really tight knit.
And then like the ride guys on a whole mostly did.
The food guys too would, and then, you know,
the different families obviously with the people that
worked for that family were pretty tight knit. And then, you know, yeah, at night, you know, the different families, obviously with the people that worked for that family were pretty tight knit.
And then, you know, yeah, at night, you know,
whoever you clicked with, you know what I mean?
And I clicked with everybody.
I would party with anybody from like the lowest
ride guy to like the owners, you know.
Were you a pretty hard partier or no?
Yeah, man, real hard.
Yeah, pretty hard.
Yeah.
By the time I hit 21, I was already shitting
and puking blood for drinking so much. No way. Oh yeah. Jesus. Yeah, pretty hard. Yeah. By the time I hit 21, I was already shitting and puking blood for drinking so much.
No way.
Oh yeah.
Jesus.
Yeah, it was pretty wild.
Did that run in your family, alcoholism
or drinking that much?
Because that's kind of a lot of drinking.
Yeah, it's all like really, like I didn't grow up,
my dad, like my mom and dad got divorced
when I was a year old.
And so, you know, I had one foot in the carnival
and another one in the carnival
and another one in the city.
I grew up in like a pretty inner city city, like, you know.
In New York?
No, outside of Boston called Lawrence.
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Yeah, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Wow.
So it was like a lot of gang activity and stuff there.
Oh yeah, that's fun.
So, and like the carnival was like my escape in the summer.
Yeah. Which isn't much of it.
So it's like the carnival of the hood,
like which one you want.
Yeah.
And I am.
And so yeah, I drank a lot, partied hard.
And would the parties get pretty crazy
or should it get a little bit weird out there?
Yeah, it would be pretty crazy, especially
when you go to these bigger towns,
because like you go to some of these towns,
and the girls are like, especially the lot lizards,
the ones that like, they love the carnival, the carnival
when the carnival comes to town.
Cause they ain't got nobody else, like especially up in the sticks of Maine or something like
that.
Really?
So you're saying there was a lot of like, uh, like hookers almost that would come and
service the carnival workers.
Yeah.
Not, not hookers.
Like straight up hoes, I guess.
Oh, girls that didn't want money.
Yeah.
Girls that just wanted to party. Yep.
Oh, wow.
You get carfuls of them sometimes.
Really?
Oh yeah.
Oh wow.
I never thought of that.
At like a fair, you know, one of some of the big fairs, man, they would show up
after you're already closed down and everything, carfuls of chicks would show
up looking to party.
No.
Yeah.
Why did they know you guys had drugs or something?
Yeah.
They just look like, oh, the carnival's in town.
Like, let's go meet the carnies, you know?
You know, it's the only thing that happens every year in their town.
Wow.
That's fricking ripping, bro.
Then the next night you got the car fella, the dude showing up looking at me like,
yo, who fucked my old lady last night?
Oh, yeah.
And you got fights breaking out all the time.
Yeah.
How, how wild would some of those parties get?
Pretty wild.
Yeah. Yeah. Some of the fights were pretty crazy.
I mean, it was no different than meeting in the city sometimes.
Like it was.
So the dudes would roll up and they'd want to settle the score.
Yeah.
Right.
And they couldn't.
Cause there's just so many carneys.
Like.
Really?
Yeah.
You know, you show up with a car full of people, even two cars.
I mean, we have hundreds of people.
Would you guys get in fights a lot? Were there a lot of fights out there? Yeah, there were. I didn't fight a lot. I wasn't much of a fighter. I people, even two cars. I mean, we have hundreds of people. Would you guys get in fights a lot?
Were there a lot of fights out there?
Yeah, there were.
I didn't fight a lot.
I wasn't much of a fighter.
I didn't like to fight, but I've seen some crazy ones.
Like I was, I got arrested for one of them.
So we were at just a situation where we were in
Connecticut and all the carnivals got together, you know?
And so you got the first unit, like, Oh, the third
unit's down there.
Like we got to go show them
Who's boss you know what I mean and they go to and I'm and I didn't even really know anybody from the third unit
at that point and I was friends with a lot of the kids from the first unit and I
Was on some I was on some I think I was on
Some dancing condoms, maybe that night some paper some acid. Oh some LSD. Yeah, yeah, baby
Yeah, and so there was a few of us on it.
And so they came up and they were like, oh, we just
got into a big fight down there, like down in Tent City,
and blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, and a couple of kids are like, but no way.
Like, let's go down there again, and blah, blah, blah.
Let's go.
And so I'm tripping, and I'm like, all right,
let's see where this goes.
And I just went to go see the action.
And so I'm down there, and like, it just see where this goes. And I just wanted to go see the action. Yeah. And so I'm down there and like,
it just all hell breaks loose.
Like people are getting ripped out of their tents.
Like swords are coming flying out.
Like it was wild.
Like I'm seeing like little droplets of blood fly by my face,
like laughing at me and stuff.
And I'm standing in the middle.
Like, what is going on?
Like this is like, there was just like 30 people.
Yeah, it was crazy.
And like security tried to stop it and they got beat up.
And so now they're all standing up against the
fence, like ripped shirts and like holding on for
dear life.
They're like, we don't want no part of that.
And the girls are screaming at him like, stop
this, help, go stop the fight, go stop the fight.
And they're like, we're the cops are on their way.
Don't worry about it.
Like we are not, we don't want nothing more to do
with it.
So Stadies showed up and I left and the cops were out there looking
around or whatever, and there was some people and I, I didn't really think
much of it cause I didn't, I wasn't involved, I was there, but I wasn't
involved, I wasn't fighting.
And so I was just like, I'm not too worried about it.
I'm going to go walk around and see what's up.
And as soon as I went out there, cops like, get on your knees.
He comes running up to me with a can of mace.
Really, like he's trying to get a BJ, huh?
I guess, I don't know.
He comes running at me.
Oh, with mace.
With mace.
Oh my Jesus Christ.
I'm like, what is going on?
A lot of gay cops now too.
And so, and I'm tripping.
So I'm like, oh God.
Oh damn.
Dude, I'm like, yeah, whatever.
What?
Bro, one time I and whatever, have they taken you to jail?
They maced you?
Yeah, no, they didn't mace me,
but they did take me to jail.
They did?
Yeah.
And you showed up in jail.
Were you still tripping?
You started coming down?
Oh yeah, yeah, I was tripping pretty hard.
I remember I was like standing in the hallway
and a few of my friends got arrested
and a bunch of the kids from the other side
that got beat up got arrested.
Oh yeah.
And I'm in the hallway and it was like,
I remember there being like this textured wall
and I couldn't stare at it. I was just like, it was going crazy at me.
And so I turn away and the cops just like, put
your fucking face against the wall.
They're spitting on me.
And like, yeah, I get a Guar concert.
Yeah.
I was like, wow.
Okay.
Worse than Guar.
And so I faced the wall and they brought me into
the cell and whatever we, I bond out the next day.
I had a hitchhike back to the carnival.
No.
Oh yeah.
As soon as I get back to the car and they put me in a cell with one of the kids that got beat up.
And so my friends are in another cell.
I'm in the cell with them and I'm still tripping and I'm just like yelling fresh fish.
And like, I'm just kind of being out of my mind.
Who are you yelling that at?
Yourself?
No, the cops.
Oh, the cops, huh?
I think, well, maybe it was the kid that got beat up.
Cause yeah, I think people yell that at you
if you're the fresh one.
Yeah, I know.
But you were like, I'm going to beat him to the punch.
I'm going to yell it.
Yeah.
Oh, I like that.
And they decided to keep me in there for a while
because they, like, everybody got bonded out.
They let everybody leave and I'm still in there.
And then they went to lunch, the cops.
And I'm like, what is going on?
I'm like, they even, they were gone for an hour, hour and a half or so, and then they come back
and I finally had calmed down.
Wow.
And they, and I was already bonded, like I, but
they kept me in the cell for an extra couple hours.
They finally let me out, hitchhiked back to the
carnival because of the whole scene.
It was on the news. I got fired that day and had to pack up my house was, they finally let me out hitchhiked back to the carnival because of the whole scene.
It was on the news.
I got fired that day and had to pack up my
house trailer and hit the road.
Damn.
That's wild, man.
It was pretty crazy.
So, uh.
But I got back home and my mom was doing an
event that weekend.
So I just jumped on with one of her events and
just went right back to work.
Were your parents, were they always in the,
were they working at Carnival's as well?
Yeah.
So my dad was at, was he at the one that happened?
He might've been there.
He might've been at another one.
What was he doing at the Carnival's?
So my dad was, he managed food and games.
Okay.
So he was just running around doing that?
Yeah.
He was an old man by then, by the time
I was around. He was 50 when he had me. Oh, okay. So by the time I was like working 15, 16, he was
already almost pushing 70, you know? Yeah. And he looked like an old Italian mafia like dude, like
he kept like this with his cane, like, what are you guys doing over here? Get to work, hitting his cane,
hitting his cane at you, like, come on, come on. Like Colonel Parker?
He was a good dude, miss you dad.
What was the, what's some of the wildest,
was there some pretty good sex activity going on out there?
Cause everybody always thinks,
I think there's this vibe you think about like carneys,
like the ride shut down and then the party starts.
Yeah, yeah, the party starts. Yeah. Yeah.
I think that's what the, the energy you feel like happens, you know?
Yeah.
Like I said, you get those car full of girls show up.
Like one of those girls that showed up, the head hoe tattoo I was telling you
about, that was one of the girls that she wasn't even an employee.
She was one of the girls that showed up looking to party.
It said busting that on me.
No, this one said head hoe.
Head hoe on it.
Yep.
Wow.
Yeah.
Just the advertising that they have, that's wild to me.
Usually you don't know.
Like a girl's tattoo will be like a secret, you know?
Yeah.
Like anything, like, you know, like,
love is forever or whatever.
You're like, well, I'm gonna have to decipher this,
you know?
But if somebody's just like bust a nut on me or whatever,
it's like, well,
it's just like, not as much guesswork, I guess, but yeah.
And it would be crazy.
I mean, they, the girls like to party just as much as the guys.
So, you know, there would be a lot of crazy stuff going down, you know,
I'm looking to party, looking to get down and yeah, I've seen some stuff.
I mean, there's, you know, a friend.
Yeah, I've seen some stuff, a friend of mine, like this chick really wanted to get down with a couple
of friends of mine.
So he breaks into somebody's house trailer that
we had never, I don't know whose trailer it was.
He climbs through the window.
Goldilocking, huh?
The next thing I know he's kicking the door open
and the door comes flying open.
We're all standing outside and we're like,
well the hell, what's going on?
He's like, we got a spot now.
And he brings her in there and right on
somebody's bed. I don't know whose bed, because they had the couch pulled out. So
the door is wide open. He's going to town right there. Wow. Yeah. Just making love,
huh? I don't know what you call love, but something going on. Yeah. Making almost
love. Yeah. So it was interesting was, um, it was interesting to tell
you about another crazy game that we had was, uh,
it was called the crazy bike.
Have you ever heard of that one?
Crazy bike.
Yeah.
It was a bicycle where if you turn left, the
wheel went right.
And if you turn the handlebars right, the
wheel went left.
Oh my gosh.
No.
Yeah.
And so I owned one of those and I couldn't ride it.
I couldn't, but I forgot my, one of my best friends learned how to ride it.
So we put it out there and if you could ride it 10
feet, we would give you 50 bucks.
Yeah, that thing was a hustle.
It was, it was pretty tough to run.
I mean, but if you could learn how to ride it and
the kid that worked for me was really good.
He'd be able to sit on the handlebars backwards
and ride it.
Like he got really good at it.
Is it unicycle?
No, it was a bicycle, regular bicycle, two wheel bike. and ride it. Like he got really good at it. Is it a unicycle?
No, it was a bicycle, regular bicycle, two wheeled bike.
A crazy bike.
And we called it a crazy bike.
And so if you turn it to the left, the wheel went to the right.
Yep.
If you turn to the right, the wheel went left so hard
to try to figure out how to ride that.
Really?
Especially if you've never had, oh my God.
I couldn't even imagine this, right?
It's like, because your instincts.
It's like dyslexia, yeah.
It's like dyslexia made up piece of transportation.
But he could, yeah, he, my friend could ride it all around the carnival like
that. Wow. Oh, that's a vibe. Yeah.
And so we would do it. If you drove it 10 feet, we would mark it on the ground.
If you drove it 10 feet, we'd give you 50 bucks.
And now was there a lot of ladies to me? Did you guys call regular people civilians? What did y'all call them?
Marks.
Marks.
Yeah.
God.
And we got-
So everybody that walked through it was like,
we, how much can we, we gotta, we gotta get it out of them.
Yeah, we gotta get it, get that mark.
And if you got one, you'd call it out.
Like, you know, we got one, you got a fresh one,
you got a mark here.
And a lot of people would wear these pins called,
I love Robin Marks, but it would be spelled out like Robin,
R-O-B-I-N and then
Marks underneath it.
So it looked like somebody's name.
Who was Robin Marks?
I was.
I was Robin Marks.
I got it.
But nobody was really actually Robin Marks.
No.
Bring up a picture of a Robin Marks.
Let's just find some, there's gotta be somebody.
There we go.
Robin Marks.
Oh wow.
There is one.
And so yeah, if you get a- Robin Marks. There she is right there.
Oh sweetie. I could fall in love with her.
With her husband, yeah.
And like for the games, you would either be an agent or a clerk.
That's what we call the people that work the games.
Like they're joinies, but an agent is somebody that can rob a mark.
And a clerk is somebody that's just going to collect his money and not really hustle him.
So like give me an example of how those would be at the game. Like a clerk is somebody that doesn just going to collect his money and not really hustle him. So like, give me an example of how those would be at the game.
Like a clerk is somebody that doesn't really know how to hustle somebody.
Okay.
You know what I mean? He would just be there like, oh, you want to play?
He'll collect your money and you can play the game, but he's not going to sit there and try to hustle you out of all money.
Okay.
Where an agent is going to try to take you for everything you got.
And who were the agents? Were there, was it like usually older people? Was it young? Could it be anybody?
It was anybody.
Anybody that was good at hustling, really.
Like there was all ages.
Was it whites?
Was it Native America?
Like who type?
Was it any?
It was whites.
Whites.
Yeah.
It's kind of a white sport, carnivalling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Has it changed like, or I remember it being like that.
It was like kind of maybe white and black guys at work
or white and black people that worked there, I guess. Yeah, it was a couple that. It was like kind of maybe white and black guys at work or white and black
people that worked there, I guess.
Yeah, it was a couple blacks.
That's kind of all we had in our area too.
Yeah, up there and up north, we didn't really have, there's not a lot of blacks up north.
Yeah.
I mean, one of my best friends, artist, he was an older guy and he worked out there
my whole life.
He was best friends with my brother because all my siblings were much older than me.
And so, yeah, we had some out there and some, you know, some, I guess it's some Puerto Ricans
and stuff like, but not really.
I mean, now they have a lot of Mexicans and South Africans.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's pretty much who's running the rides now.
Why?
What's changed?
Like how have things changed since the past to now?
Well, it was hard finding, I think, really good ride help.
So I don't know why it was Mexico and South Africa.
I don't know why those two countries were picked, but apparently it sold to them that
you're going to go on a work and vacation.
You get to see the United States and work and make money while you're at it, which is
all bullshit.
You're just doing the carnival and you're at that carnival.
It doesn't look any different wherever you go.
You just, it's the same lot.
So you're not, you're not seeing anything different.
Would you ever get some free time?
I did, yeah.
Because you were a kid.
I was a kid and like...
Your parents were...
They didn't make money.
They weren't made, I mean, we were poor.
Yeah.
Wow. So it's not a big moneymaker.
No, and my parents were divorced, so like mean, we were poor. Yeah. Wow. So it's not a big moneymaker?
No.
And my parents were divorced.
So like-
So they were splitting the money?
No.
I don't know.
Or like when you have two homesteads going, it's like-
Yeah.
But I didn't see my dad much growing up.
Like really.
Like, yeah.
Until I started joining the carnival.
I mean, I would once in a while, like I would see him on like holidays and stuff.
And once in a while I would go stay at his house, I guess I remember.
But yeah, it was, I didn't see him that much until I really.
You almost had to be at the carnival to see him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh man.
It's kind of a bummer.
It's kind of interesting.
It is.
Yeah.
I mean, my dad was a hard ass too.
So I'm guess I'm glad that I didn't see him as much from what my brother said.
Oh yeah.
He was great when I was I mean
He was an old man. So he was like us
Whatever people yeah start to lose their steam. Yeah their edge
But so it was definitely different and my mom, you know trying to hold the carnival together
Herself when all the kids were already grown and out of the house and not helping anymore
And I was still like a really young kid
So yeah, we didn't and we live we didn't have much money like I was getting school lunches and shit like that
Oh, yeah, same man
Yeah school lunches is always so weird cuz you had to go get the ticket each day in the morning
Do you have to do that? No, I forgot how they did it
I think it was just like when you signed up and I don't remember
We had to go get the free ticket each day,
so it'd be like kind of embarrassing, I felt like.
It was embarrassing, I remember that,
because I think it was by name or something like that.
Or a separate line or.
Yeah, a separate line, I remember,
you'd have to go to get the free ticket from the lady
and add a Y on it.
Yeah.
And if you paid ticket, it had an X on it.
Yeah.
And I remember, yeah, we had to get the free ticket.
I forgot about that, man.
Yeah, I'm not saying like I'm ashamed of anything,
but I remember feeling at the time like-
At the time, yeah, you feel ashamed.
You were trying to just like,
pretend you weren't getting that one.
I don't know why they have me on this list.
That's strange.
Yeah, you're there.
Really, why it happens every day.
God, they must have made some poor, whoever's making these lists is just confused.
A lot of times people look at the carnivals as sad. I think it got that rap over the years in a way, that it just like was a negative.
What is some positives about it? Because I also loved I loved go, there was something like,
he almost felt like you were in the big city in a way, because there was these
lights going on and there was, you know, people would come that you didn't
normally get to see because there were kids that went to different schools.
And then if they didn't go to your school, then maybe you'd see them there.
Um, those are things that I liked about it.
There were like gang, you know, like, yeah, you got to gamble or play games.
You didn't get to do that.
There was no other world that you got to do that in as a kid.
Yeah, no, you definitely felt a sense of like,
whether you had a good weekend or a good day and stuff,
and you felt like everything went off smooth,
especially if you're doing food or like,
games that aren't a rip off of rides,
like, you know, a lot of the ride guys would feel pride
in having like a really nice ride with all the lights working and stuff like that, making sure every bulb is fixed.
Because then you've got some rides where the ride guys didn't really give a fuck.
Like all the lights are busted. They got one blanket light going and like, yeah, that's it.
No music. And yeah, the ride guys, you know, like I said, he's like one of those guys that just got out of prison.
And yeah, so he's done.
He doesn't really care about the ride that much, but when, but for the families that are out there
and like, when you have a good weekend or like a really nice fair and you feel good about like, you
know, putting on a good show for everybody and like having a good, you know, I had pride in having
a really like the cleanest stands and putting out quality food, you know,
you've been like a family's running, like a a family owned like we do the games or we do the
right like. We do the food and we do the right games. So there would be some organization to that.
Yeah, there would be multiple families. There would be like, you know, sometimes 10, 12 different
families out there. Yeah. All owning, I mean, sometimes you would have one guy that just owned
his one game and he would travel everywhere with you, just running his one game and that's what he owned.
Was there another world of carning where it was like somebody owned all of it and they
would just hire all the people?
Yeah, it's becoming that now.
Oh, it is?
Yeah, it definitely is.
What is it like about that?
What is it that makes people go to a carnival you think or go to a fair? Like what is it like about that? What is it that makes people go to a carnival, you think, or go to a fair?
Like, what is it?
Fun.
They wanna go on the rides.
Yeah.
They wanna have some fun.
They wanna escape.
We need more escapism these days.
Yeah.
It was fun.
I definitely remember it was fun.
Yeah, and that was the thing.
Like, it was crazy and stuff,
and we have some crazy stories,
but we always wanted to make sure, like,
we had, we wanted to provide a good time for the people too.
I mean, granted the rides definitely, you know, are, I mean, the games are a hustle
and some agents did take it too far.
You know, I agree.
Like those people that were getting robbed of their life savings, like you're
taking it too far.
Yeah.
But, um, for the most part, like you do want the people to have a good time and
come back the next day and bring more people.
And any animals ever get loose out there when you guys...
Oh man.
One time we let a chicken go.
We stole a chicken or a rooster and we put it up in the dog house of the music fest.
So when the next day they came to work, there was this wild rooster up in the dog house.
And the dog house is the control room where you run the ride.
Oh nice.
And the music fest is the one where they go around, it's like you're in a car that kind of swings
and it goes around like this big, like not a track,
but it's kind of, cause it's on an arm.
So they kind of, the cars swing and they swing around
and they're playing like crazy music or whatever.
Yeah, I think I remember that one.
And then it's like, are you guys ready to go backwards?
Yeah.
Let's go backwards this time. There it is.
Music fest. Yeah, dude.
God, those rods were such a big thing.
Yeah, we put a chicken in the dog house one time
for the ride guys.
So when they showed up the next day.
Yeah, yeah.
Cause I remember one time a lady just brought a box of cats
and fucking just dumped that bitch out at the fair.
That's a good place to get rid of them.
Yeah.
I think that was like some of the vibe.
It was just like people that had extra animals or whatever.
And they're like, we're going to bring them up here because we knew people be up here.
And if they want a cat, they got it or whatever.
But yeah, there was always some weird shit like that going on.
Any love stories over the years?
You see where carnivores met each other and?
Yeah, I met. I mean, back in the day, that's the only place I really met.
I mean, my friend April, who I was, been with,
I was with for, you know, almost 10 years or
something, we were 16, 17 when we hooked up.
Y'all met at a carnival?
Yeah, she worked for somebody and I was
working out there and she worked for a friend
of mine, another family.
Let me dart that balloon, huh?
She was actually pregnant when we hooked
up already too.
Really? Yeah.
Wow, that seems illegal.
That's crazy in the eyes of God, but I don't know.
And we're still friends.
I mean, Raekwon, her son, works for me now.
Yeah, really?
Yeah, her son works for me.
Really?
Yeah.
So, wow, that's love, man.
Yeah, well, that's the thing.
We're still best friends.
Oh, really?
Yeah, we're not together, obviously, but yeah, we're best friends still. Damn. So, yeah, we're still best friends, you know. Oh really? Yeah, we're not together obviously, but yeah, we're best friends still and.
Damn.
So yeah, we've had some.
Love can happen out there. I think my nephew met his wife out there.
He's met, he just got married a year or two ago.
He met her out there.
Yeah.
She was South African.
I think she came over from that whole, when they brought,
cause they keep bringing more South Africans over every year.
Why?
Just for that work and vacation they sell them.
People think that they're going to come to America and make a lot of money and travel
and see the country.
But are they bummed out when they get here or no?
Most of them are.
They are?
But they're already here.
They're already here.
Some of them pay to go back home.
Like you've got to like, but some of them love it and some of them end up rising up
and getting positions of power too.
Yeah.
So it goes both ways. Some of them hated it. Some of them didn't mind it and some of them ended up rising up and getting positions of power too. Yeah. So it goes both ways.
Some of them hated it.
Some of them didn't mind it and some of them loved it.
Oh yeah.
Mexicans, I don't know, because they all spoke Mexican.
I couldn't figure it out if they liked it or not.
Yeah.
I think Mexican people adjust pretty well.
Yeah.
They just adjust well to most things, you know?
I would like to be Mexican.
It'd probably be fun. Oh yeah.
I think I'll be, I don't know if I'd be good at it,
but I would be, I know I would try my best,
but I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, my girlfriend's half Mexican.
Really?
Yeah.
And yeah.
Does she seem, does that part of her seem good?
I love it.
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
I would just, we'll see what happens,
but anyway, that's like a bigger conversation,
but what about like gypsies?
Did y'all ever run across those types of folks? Oh yeah. We had some gypsies.
Yeah, man. We had some that did like the psychic readings and stuff like that.
Yeah. Yeah. And they traveled. There's a lot of mushes out there.
We didn't see them much. They were gypsies. So they were travelers.
They were travelers. Like, cause normally like,
if you wanted to do the big fairs, you would have to, like,
as a, like, if you were a gypsy that just wanted to come in and do it, like, in us family,
or different families that were out there, they would make you do the spring season with
them.
And you had to do all the shit spots if you wanted to get the good spots.
You know what I mean?
Oh, yeah.
It's just like comedy.
Yeah.
So, but I don't know how the gypsies got away with it.
Maybe just because.
Like, what do you mean mean they got away with it?
They would do what?
They wouldn't have to do the shit spots.
Sometimes you would just see a gypsy,
like a psychic reader or somebody that did like
the palm reading or the cards.
And you would only see them at like some of the big fairs.
And they wouldn't have to do like all the shit spots.
Oh, they didn't have to play the smaller ones in this
and the ones you didn't love.
Yeah, and they were funny, man.
And you'd walk by like, cause I never went into them, but she would always
like, come on in, I don't know.
And they're, they're so perceptive because they would try to get you to
think that they were being psychic or they knew something, but they're just
watching what's going on out in the carnival and they're like, oh, there's
going to be a blonde in your life.
I see it.
And it's like, yeah, cause you saw me last night hanging out with her.
Right.
Like, but they're funny.
Yeah, the gypsies are, yeah, real interesting.
My brother's friend, Donny is a gypsy, I think.
He won't, I mean, he might not admit it,
but I think he is, but I don't know if he is.
But he is.
He is.
But I wouldn't mind being a gypsy.
I don't know much about it.
I don't, I just wish I knew more about it
I like kind of simple, you know, I like kind of like jewelry or whatever and
Sometimes I don't like a lot. I mean, I they're so secretive. They're like gypsies are unique. They're unique. Yeah
They're like co. Yeah, you don't know what's going on
No, you don't like Navy Seals, but of like complete bullshit
You don't know what they're thinking what they they're doing, like if they're being,
if they're being serious or not, if like they're telling you.
Yeah, you don't know. They just say stuff and they have their own language.
Oh, they do. Yeah. It's pretty fast.
I can't even speak it right. Really? Is that Pig Latin?
Carni. Oh, that's Carni. Yeah. Carni is tough because you have to.
Oh, there's a carny language. Yes.
Really?
Yeah.
What do you tell you about this?
Eezoghizanspizik.
Oh, it's like a Pig Latin kind of?
Yeah, you put E-E-Z before every vowel.
Oh my.
So it gets tough.
E-E-Zod.
E-E-Z, yeah.
Oh my, E-E-Zod.
It would be Gizod.
Oh my, Gizod.
So O would be Eezomizogizod. Oh my God, Eezomiz gizod. Oh my gizod. So O would be Izo, Miza, Gizod.
Oh my God, Izo, Miza, Gizod.
Wow.
Breez, Bzod.
You put Ezod above.
E-E-Z before every vowel.
So God would be Gizod.
Bezost.
Ezon.
What was the, what did the lady say?
Beezust, Eezaw, Meezut. Beezust.
Eezon, Meezeezz.
Meezeezz.
Bussin' that out, man, that's a cr-
So how do you shut the carnival down and move it to the next place?
What's that like? What's the breakdown like in the setup?
When you close at night, you wait for the big
gondola wheel to close down.
That's how you know you're closed.
What is the big gondola wheel?
The big Ferris wheel, the giant Ferris wheel.
You wait for the lights to go off and that means you close.
That's when you know it's time to close and you close down.
And, uh, depending on what you ran, um, games were really easy to tear down.
You know, the hardest thing was putting on the hitch after they took your game away. Cause the hitch has come off. on what you ran, games were really easy to tear down.
The hardest thing was putting on the hitch after they took your game away, because the hitches come off, they pull the trailer that you pull the trailer by.
You got to take those off so you can put all the games,
butt them up to each other, make the midway.
Wait, hold on. When you say make the midway, what do you mean?
And you put them what into the truck?
When you put, you know, when you go on to the midway,
the midway is like where all the games and the food are.
They're all able to butt up against each other flat
because you take the hitch off,
where that goes onto the, that you hook the truck up to,
you back the truck up to the hitch.
Oh yeah.
And so that comes off.
And that's probably the hardest part
of like tearing down a game.
Okay.
Is taking that on and off.
And how do y'all travel it all out there?
How does it all move out?
So it's up to each family.
They usually have trucks that pull their stuff
and somebody that works for them, usually it
would be a driver or two.
They might have a couple of drivers.
Or you might hire a trucking company to
come in and pull your stuff.
The carnival that like the carnival itself,
they own big trucks that pull their stuff.
And they also hire people out too,
depending on how fast you got to get the stuff
over the road, how far it is, if you can make
multiple trips or not.
Cause sometimes if you're only going, you know, 50, 60 miles, you can make multiple trips,
but if you're going a couple hundred miles, you might not want to make as many trips, you know,
you don't have the time.
So you'll hire a trucking company to come in and take it.
And I used to tear down rides and stuff too, for extra money.
So I would do like sometimes up to five rides a night.
I'd tear down and set up.
I would tear down five rides, go set up five rides and you know, I'd make good extra money doing that.
Yeah.
That was cash.
Yeah.
So what do they pay an extra 50 bucks to help tear down a ride or something?
Yeah.
So you do four or five a night, maybe an extra couple hundred bucks.
That's great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so like the stand I have now, like some of the, even back then at the carnival, we had a wooden frame.
Like I ran, towards the end I ran the, I was in charge
of the food stands for my brother and my father.
And we had the wood frame sausage stands that had
the counters that came along the side that you could
sit at and sit at the counters and like watch them
cook and stuff like that.
I don't know if you had them down here or not, but
that's, so that's what I have now. That's what I use out at the festivals too. Okay. And that's what I use out at the counters and like watch them cook and stuff like that. I don't know if you had them down here or not,
but that's what I have now.
That's what I use out at the festivals too.
Okay.
And that's a lot of work
because everything has to come out of the truck.
You know, the grills, the fry laters, the fridges,
like everything comes out.
You set it up.
How would they move the big rides?
How do they get those to the next town or whatever?
Yeah, big truck.
You tear it down and most of them,
they fold down pretty small. Like a lot of them,
you fold them.
Do they fold onto a semi or just onto a trailer?
Onto a semi trailer. On a semi trailer. Yeah, it's got wheels under it.
Some of them are ground,
we call the other ones that aren't on a trailer ground mounts. Okay.
So they'll have a trailer for it and,
but everything has to come off the trailer and set up on the ground. Okay.
But then some are on the trailer itself and the trailer just unfolds like a,
you know, like a transformer.
How hard is it to break down a whole carnival?
Does it take a whole day or they get it done
in a matter of?
It depends.
I mean, you could move, you could get it done fairly fast.
You know, sometimes you can be,
have everything done in like a good six hours or so.
Wow, really?
Mm-hmm.
And do they travel at night usually? or what does it happen? Yeah.
Yeah because usually close Sunday nights and so you're done depending on how late you close.
Sometimes you'll close early. Some Sundays though they do the bracelets where you buy a bracelet
you could ride all the rides all day and night and so when they do that and if you're making
money you stay open later because you don't want to you don't want to close on
People is what we call it. Oh, yeah, there's people still there. Yeah
Was one other game we used to play where you would like put the slide the money and it would you pay and get these
Thing of coins and you put the coins in and it would push all the splash down was one of the ones we called it
Yeah, it would move the coins forward and sometimes it would push a little like a
An actual quarter would be on top of it would push a quarter off for a dollar. We use quarters in ours. Oh you do. Yeah there was
sometimes depending on the state sometimes you had to use coins sometimes you can use quarters in
Maine you can use quarters. Yeah. And so but those are a hustle too. Are they? Yeah because
there's a couple different ways they hustled it sometimes there would be something under the
quarters of the coins there's like this triangle right at the front of the lip. So when they're pushing,
they push sideways. And if you want to see on the sides, there's the splashdowns on the
sides. Did you notice before that there's an out of bounds? So the coins can put into
the outer bounds. So you would put a lot of weight in the middle. So instead of pushing
forward, it would push to the
side yeah cuz they could fall off to the side yeah and if they fell off in the
middle you got you got it right but if they fall to the sides the house gets it
yeah that was it right there and so the more weight you put in the front the
more it's gonna push to the sides sometimes people would glue that shit
down no oh yeah you know what it taught you though it taught you about loss man Sometimes people would glue that shit down. Nuh-uh. Oh yeah. Oh, God.
You know what it taught you though?
It taught you about loss, man.
It taught you that life is gonna fucking, you're probably gonna lose.
Yeah.
You know?
And you're probably gonna knock somebody up.
Yeah.
It just taught me that everything is a fucking hustle, man.
Everything in life, whether it's your HVAC guy,
whether it's your teacher at high school.
Yeah, whether it's your second fucking wiener.
Yeah, it's a fucking hustle.
Life's a hustle, dude.
Cause yeah, life's a hustle man.
That was another thing, speaking of his wiener,
that was the way he made money.
You were asking how like, I knew he used it.
He used to make these pamphlets
and he'd sell those things to everybody.
Cause he was tired of answering all those questions of his penis worked or not.
How he like it, like his like a hygiene and stuff like that.
The great Lentini, you mean?
Yeah, the great Lentini.
So I'd love to get a hold of one of those.
Wow.
That'd be fascinating if you had that pamphlet.
Bring up that, bringing that up one more time.
I want to look at him as we close out here.
My dad had three nipples.
Did he really? Yep. Wow. at him as we close out here. My dad had three nipples.
Did he really?
Yep.
Wow.
An extra nipple right down here.
That's almost, that's like a third leg.
It's kind of like a third, it's like,
it seemed like it's the same genetics, you know?
Yeah, I was kind of wondering that
if it was because of the gene type thing.
Franklin-Tini for as long as I can remember.
Sideshow attractions, let's look at two more of them
before we go. Mirandajo, the invulnerable man.
Miren Dajo was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1912.
Miren was famous for piercing his body with sharp objects
and suffering no pain or even bleeding as a result.
He also had boiling water hurled at him and survived being shot in the head multiple times.
Miren was not affiliated with any one Sideshow actor or circus,
but the idea of being a human pin cushion
was one that was popular in that industry.
Wow, so he would put pins right through himself.
He was the real article.
Wow, that's pretty crazy.
I think I remember hearing about him.
Really?
When I was researching my uncle there,
I remember seeing, and the elastic man too,
there was a guy that, maybe that was him,
that could like stretch his skin really crazy.
Mirin Dajo. Maybe it was him. that could like stretch his skin really crazy. Mirindajo.
Maybe it was him.
While he would perform, he would also preach and say that his abilities were the result of God
showing those he performed for that there was something better out there.
While he preached, he would also condemn the idea of materialism.
Huh. So, we kind of had a message with what he was doing. Interesting.
Interesting, man. Mitch, man. nice to meet a carny, bro.
Nice to meet a guy that's been through it
and able to come here and share a little bit
what the world and the universe is like.
Yeah, it's been quite a ride, man.
It's definitely been interesting
and I wanna change it for the world.
It's taught me a lot.
And it got me, yeah, it got me, I, it, I mean, it's where, it's
where I am today.
It got me here to meet you.
Yeah, man, it got me here to meet you.
And I'm, I'm the job I have now, like selling food
out there is, uh, they treat me like a rock
star out there and I'm not going to lie.
Like they, they really do.
And I have to give a shout out to all those, all
those, all my nieces and nephews out there in the
world that really like
support me and take care of me out there.
Like they really love uncle Mitch's Munchies,
home of the turtle dick sandwich.
Really?
Yep.
And it's real meat?
Yeah.
Turtle dick sandwich.
There's only two places in the country that
could sell it.
Oh wow.
Yep.
It's endangered.
It's got to be endangered or whatever.
Yeah.
So we do it, we do it, you know, night we go get,
we get the turtle, we snip it and send it back off in the wild.
You serious?
No. But we do sell a turtle dick sandwich.
But it's not real?
But it's not a turtle dick.
Okay.
But that's what it says on the menu. It says turtle dick sandwich and then it says, if you have to ask, it's not for you.
Oh, I see.
So we fuck with everybody.
Well, that's just one of the things. It's like, you just can't even get real turtle dick anymore.
No, but you should see all the turtle dicks we have now.
People make turtle dick, like we have all these turtle dicks
that dance in turtle dick.
All this crazy shit out there.
The games continue, man.
Oh man, they don't stop, I love it.
Thanks so much for your time, man.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming, dude,
and spending some time with us.
And I'm gonna see you on the 9th.
Yeah?
Yeah, it's actually what I do in the winter.
I work for my buddy's company, North Beast, up there with Ashley and Frank Lee at UMass Amherst.
Oh yes, Saturday night or something? Saturday night, yeah. I think a Friday night, Saturday night.
This Friday night? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna be working it. That's crazy. Yeah, I'll see you soon.
Yeah, it's crazy. Mitch, thank you so much, man. Nice to meet you, bro. Nice to meet you.
Thank you so much man, nice to meet you bro. Nice to meet you.
Sorry for the sweat.
Oh good.
I'm nervous still. I'll share this piece of mind I found I can feel it in my bones
But it's gonna take a little