E496 A Carny

30:07Yeah. Wow. I watched that movie a bunch. Jerry Marin, 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. because he said he was the last one. Bring up a picture of this dude. Wow. And there he is right there. He could have been bullshitting me, though, too. 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 was - It could have been a seven-year-old with a cane trying to fucking - Fucking threw a beard on him.

30:39You know, pop a puff, yeah. Somebody put a beard on him. Look at Jerry Marin 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 them bitches in yeah man and you were the test subjects oh dude you would somebody's going flying off oh the zipper we go in that dude i you ever you remember the zip zip is my favorite ride oh bro i would i'd get all my money i'd have saved up my allowance i would go down there because the day before because if you went regular the day it was eight dollars to get in we're like fuck that dude you know i got two dollars i'm going in i got my quarters in my pockets but the zipper would shake all your money out of your pocket.

31:45They did that on purpose. Oh, dude, it was horrible. I'd get out. I had no more money. I had to vomit. It was shaking. I remember it shook a couple of my teeth, like my baby teeth out or whatever. I believe it. Yeah, you 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 dropping it. It was unbelievable. It literally felt like you'd been put in the garbage disposal. 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 know, you would go on field trips to the fair.

32:18I 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 with 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 their chaperones and bring them over to the rides. and the ride guys would let us all ride the rides while the rest of the school was at the 4-H section. Oh, that's nice.

32:46So it was pretty cool. Oh, yeah, because you were kind of dialed in, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I knew everybody. They all looked out for me. I was like, oh, it's little Mitch. I knew it because I was running around as a little kid, so everybody knew who I was. And it would copy a little bit of drugs or something sometimes? Oh, yeah. It was wild. Was there drug use out there? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, just a little bit. And what were the drugs really? What were some of it? I mean, weed, yeah. Of course, weed, 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.

33:18You had to open at 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 have fun. If we could. Yeah, just have fun. And were people doing drugs, too? Like, what kind of uppers are we talking? Cocaine? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, plenty of cocaine. Fuck, yeah. I'll tell you just to step up though they have straightened out these days they drug test and all that shit 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 for a real drug using American that's what I want yes okay dude we used to go we would get on the Gravitron right Gravitron was great we would throw so many parties and that at night bro this dude one guy we get in there right and I remember like that you would get against the thing and it would like slowly move you up the wall for spinning and there was a guy in the middle who's 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 bro and the thing was spinning and i swear one time this dude got his wiener like was just showing his wiener to people 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 couldn't 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 um to november rain you know oh that's pretty sweet and there was some parts of it were nice when they would play some of the ballads in there but yeah 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 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 yeah yeah you have to hold on to 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 shat, like the dude who would go through and do the backwards skating.

35:34Yeah, try to show off. 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. Yeah. Or something.

35:51We used to like flip ourselves upside down and be upside down in there against the wall. Yeah. He 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. Oh, yeah. He's standing straight out. Oh, yeah. This 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 for sure. Yeah. Some of the guys were definitely better looking.

36:25Yeah. But, you know, we had some ratchets up in there. 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've got to be a tough chick. You sure do. And, like, there was some of them. I mean, this one girl, you know, they had crazy. This girl had Busta Nut on me tattooed on her ankle. Oh, yeah. You know, Head Ho was another one tattooed on her. Oh, wow. Yeah, 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.

37:01Yeah. I mean, you got good ones too. I'm not going to 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, she wasn't good looking. Oh, yeah. Well, she's not saying marry me. You know what I'm saying? But still, 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? 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.

37:43Nut, take out the N and T, just the U. Yeah. Us, and then it would be a blank. And then it would be U, just the U. And then nut on me. take out the on and just me. Does that make any sense or not? Not really, but it's probably still better than bust a nut on me. Yeah, it would just say you. I would say us, you, me. Yeah, yeah. Let me make it work. I think it'll walk in. It'll go over better. Yeah. If you're at the grocery market, it's going to go way better because if you're walking over by a cabbage and you get some hella fresh produce on your back, you know? Yeah, you're like, where's that from?

38:24Well, you told me. Like, dude, that's the freshest produce they got, for good 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. Because, 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.

38:52You're like, why is everybody getting here? bunkhouse everybody you know we open in three hours wow so yeah and what was the sleeping quarters like so i mean 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 it was pretty 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 and because everything's packed up and that thing's always open you got a nice cozy pile of wires you can crawl up on like a cat and pass out for a little bit yeah and it's kind of romantic almost yeah it's it's wild i mean for the most part when you got a little older you know um yeah were there bunks like where did everybody sleep so they had bunks the ride guys had bunks okay Okay, so the ride operators had bunks.

39:53Yeah, 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. 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're in there with and it was tiny. It was like a closet with just two beds. That's where they had the ride.

40:27The games and the joinies were on their own. What do you mean on their own? People would sleep in sleeping bags or people would stay at motels or what? Yeah, wherever you could. If you made enough money to get a motel, you get a motel. If you didn't, you didn't. You'd sleep in a tent or 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 school started back up. And so I'd bring a couple of friends with me out there, Doogie, Jay, and we'd set up our own tent city away from everybody so we could party and not bother anybody.

41:02Yeah. And 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. 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. A couple men and a lizard, bro. It's like the Bible. You know, like whatever the new Bible they'll write will be. Yeah. The Carney Bible. Yeah, huh? Yeah, it was fun, man. And 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?

41:34Yep. 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, they call it the Apollo sometimes. 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 swung 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 you could shake it and shake everybody's money out of their pockets. Oh, yeah. There it is.

42:06Damn, 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 down and set up. And sometimes I would run it and you're in the doghouse and, you know, it's just a kind of just a remote control, like a little joystick. You get to go and 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 pockets.

42:32So 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 he was up top ended up getting hit oh yeah it was pretty wild he lived 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 now you go right to the freak show i think punts you right or you could be 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 it 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 the you know how you got the shoulder bars that come down it had let go while the girl was in there but that you're caged in still too but she was flopping around while it was going around like while she was upside down the shoulder bars came up and she fell into the cart and like just getting just banged around getting banged around while it was spinning around and how and how long if somebody's not doing well on a ride can you shut it down for them does it take a few seconds yeah it'll take sometimes uh some take longer than others to slow down and come to a stop yeah i mean there was one the freak out i don't know if you've heard of the Freak Out.

44:04The Freak Out? Yeah, it's a pretty dope ride now. Now that's my favorite ride, I'd say, out of all of them. It's kind of like, 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 roller coaster, I'd say, like that first drop. There it is. Freak Out. Ooh, that's pretty cool looking. Yeah, they didn't have the Freak Out. Oh, so that 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.

44:44Yeah, 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. And then you just dose them up with that fucking, with that tummy skeet, baby. You got to 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 official name of the ride, but we called it the puke barrel. That's what I'm saying, dude. You guys were making shit up. Yeah, that was the name of it, the puke barrel. I was like, okay.

45:17I don't even know the official name. What ride caused the most vomit, you think? The puke barrel. Really? Probably. It looked like one of those metal 55-gallon drums, those metal garbage can barrels, but it was huge. Okay, yeah. 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 barrel spun like this with strobe lights going on inside. I mean, who's not going to puke? Yeah. It was pretty wild.

45:53Yeah, it was good stuff. So we actually owned one of those Candianas. 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 kitty 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 gonna show us and now what do you do when something what is this what is this here oh that's looks like the we called them the thousand and one nights i'm not sure what this version's 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 to like hold it down 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.

46:58Is that a realistic approach, you think? Is that safe, or would you tell the people not? I mean, it could be.

47:06That 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 mean, we've probably buried some bodies out back. I mean, in the haunted house, probably some of those bodies in there, probably kids that just never made it out. I'll be honest with you, though. The carnival rides are a lot safer than probably amusement parks. Really? Yeah, because they get inspected every week. So you're getting state inspectors every single week.

47:45Every time you set up, they have to come in and 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. Or I can, 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. You know, or like, they'll be like, yeah, they, yeah, Janet didn't die. And they're like, well, then why isn't yeah where is she yeah oh she went to florida she retired yeah people yeah if you retired she's 11 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 i was saying they um like i did they uh they do inspect them a lot more than like your your regular music parks that are just set up year round they only get 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 because 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 your main ride guys so all the ride formers 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's in charge of all those guys and is he yeah but it's like how if they're locked in cool if they're not then it's whatever yeah if I was a ride super dude dude you're like yeah okay you just take it to forms you're like yeah everything's fine yeah or you know yeah people ain't gonna be everybody not gonna be living if i'm a ride super to be honest and no offense to anybody okay so you got the rides i'm trying to think of the other rides there were uh there was some um there was like 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 rainstorm and you get a black trash bag.

50:17Really? Oh, yeah. You don't even touch that bottom hill. You're just launched off. Oh, that's awesome. You got to 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. 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 getting a chain of fence. After hours, you know, getting drunk, going down. Sometimes we would just wet it on our own. We'd get a hose and soak the slide and grab a trash bag.

50:48Yeah, 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 or third carnival. So we were all warmed up now. We're like, all right, let's have it. 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. 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 kids on each side swinging it one way and you just really you can get it going and so we were partying up on that yeah we were partying up on the sea dragon late one night and uh there was a new guy that i guess the ride super didn't like he had just started oh yeah and uh 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 uh 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 c dragon and we're up in the top seat just sitting up there having a couple drinks putting him back and what they do they set him on fire all of us 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 yeah 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 oh 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 covered now and yeah just everything and uh but that night i didn't see him but the next spot i remember i'm walking by 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 no was there a lot of stuff like that there's a lot of like uh um hazing and stuff oh yeah yeah oh yeah 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 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 executed oh dude i got electrocuted because 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 whatever and it completed a circuit 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 i can't oh yeah and then he just fucking kicked me right in the back dude i think he even called me the n-word but i think he kicked me in the back and thank god he did yeah because i was just like part of the sir i was just completing the circuit i was just probably powering a fucking lantern or something down the street yeah yeah whatever i was doing dude it was unhealthy for me yeah you know because i was conducting electricity and um thank god but But yeah, I just remember it was very, very, it seemed like there were some safety issues, I would say.

54:27Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah, I've definitely run into a few live rides before. Yeah. Especially during the rain. Oh, has that happened? Yeah, it's happened to me. Okay. Yeah. So that's a real thing. Yep. Because I know my whole life, I was like, I know this happened, man. Well, 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 ma you already grew a 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 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 no the other kids people didn't know because the fair wasn't open yeah but we knew this could be live right there and so we'd all walk over there.

55:43That's cool. We never did anything like that. It was pretty cool, man. What about, so take me to some of the games. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. like a good neighbor State Farm is there yeah the games the games are fun let's get into something interesting because you had the boost yeah the game boost yeah we had game boost we own some uh 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 um but yeah used to have all kinds of games I mean a lot of them are illegal now you know maybe I should throw Yeah, maybe I should throw on some shades or something if I want to spill secrets, like the magician telling the secrets.

56:41About the games? Yeah, if you want to put some on. No, I'm just kidding. They all know who I am now anyway. Oh, yeah. It's too late. Well, yeah, because I know there was videos that came out years ago about exposing all the games or whatever. Oh, really? 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. Oh. if they got enough money out of you and they got a good tip going there's a big crowd if you're in a wheelchair or something probably 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's going to stop playing yeah you know so part of it is some strategy yeah well there's a lot of strategy to it What was one of the games that was the toughest game to win, probably, you think?

57:36The toughest to win, like, legitimately? Well, so there was some that just can't be won. Okay, so take me, like, what is one of them? So, like, the cover the red spot. Did you guys ever have that one? Cover the red spot, yeah. So there would be a big red circle. Yeah, and you get, like, little discs or something. Yeah. Could not be won legally. there would be one that could 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 kept trying to win and like i knew it started to be a little bit thing like i gotta win this So my brother's watching me, you know, and he fucking didn't win.

58:56And I could feel it just break his fucking heart. Oh, man. I have seen so many hearts broken. Really? Oh, my God. I've seen families broken up. Oh. I mean, they've spent their whole mortgage, lost a car, like lost everything. Yeah. Really? He even traded their kid in, like trying to win. I swear to God. Sometimes you'll see the kid's still up there as a prize now. You can win them.

59:20Yeah. You guys want this. stuffed bunny with a cleft palate or you want Ricky. Nah, nah. We got a real life ginger over here. We got to feed Ricky, man. We'll take that hoppy, the cleft palate fucking Easter hero. If you get a gambler playing, somebody that gambles. They know what's up? No, they lose everything because 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. Every dollar you spent, I will give it back if you win. Want to play again? Fuck. Wow. And now a gambler is not going to say no. And how hard is it?

1:00:07Have you ever had to run somebody up like that? I kind of have. By the time those games are kind of, I mean, I 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 sit on the counters with some of these guys. 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 because like you pay your bills, right?

1:00:36Yeah. Like you pay your bills every month. Yeah. Yeah. So just don't worry about paying me up front. Just keep playing. I'll tell you how much you owe at the end. Nuh-uh. Oh, yeah. What do you think is the most you've ever seen somebody lose on a carnival game? I've seen somebody lose a car. like legit had to give up their car nuh uh yeah who's gonna enforce it though well cause they're a gamble like most gamblers pay their like if they have it they'll pay their debt so 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.

1:01:20And I'm amazed at some of these guys that just go gamble all the time. I'm so thankful I don't get any, like I like to play. I'll play some games. I like to do, yeah, we play prize picks and stuff like that. But I'm not the guy that's betting. Betting the house. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm so, man, I'm thankful to God that I don't have that. I've seen people like, 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 the salts i guess um henry gribom says he lost his life savings twenty six hundred dollars damn on a life savings carnival game and all he has to show for it is a stuffed banana with dreadlocks.

1:02:20Wow. He got the dreaded one though. Dude, BLM bro. That's all I'm saying. 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. Say Grip Home. It just didn't turn out that way. Grip Home says he attended a Manchester carnival run by New Hampshire based Fiesta shows. You mentioned them. That's us. It is? That's who we worked for. Wow. And wanted to win an Xbox Kinect at a game called Tubs of Fun. Yeah, I'll tell you about that one. Where contestants toss balls into a tub.

1:02:55Ain'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. And you got to toss the softball in there. Yes. Yes. There it is. Oh, there's some guys getting it right here. Yeah.

1:03:47Yeah, so there's a trick to it. 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 you like they were doing if you could get the right back spin 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 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 because that other ball is already in the basket it'll deaden that second ball and that second ball will stay in so now people 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 you just 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 gotta play now i already started talking to this guy you know i know only got a couple of bucks here what am i gonna 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 and they know you're not gonna win too and they're just trying to get that two bucks out of you and get you out of the get you out of the 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 yeah oh 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 because they know nobody can win it so why you're not even going to put a real prize they just put PlayStation boxes and Xboxes I mean damn dude in the craziest Eric Adams will probably find the yayo that's hiding in there but what's in here and mitch is talking about the episode with um who are we with 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's 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.

1:06:39Oh, and the posters. They had those felt posters. That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah, sometimes we would win those. I forgot about those. Yeah. The StarDark games, like the ones that you throw the dart at. Oh, that was fun with the balloons? Yeah. The balloons are a hostile, though, too. It is? Oh, yeah. Because they don't always have, like, because. Oh, because you'd 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 they would never have an extra large under there.

1:07:06Or if they did, it would be under a really 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 Stardart game, if you didn't get that dart right in the red. Stardart? Yeah, that's what we called it, the Stardart, 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.

1:07:41And the thing was, if you'd think it would be in there completely, 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. Nuh-uh. Oh, yeah. 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.

1:08:10I 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, 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.

1:08:39You're like, oh, 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 like, God. I forgot how much, yeah, I based my like, who I was off of that, man. And it just like, because 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 gym beam, those purple gym beam bags, you know? You remember the - Oh yeah, with the drawstring? Yeah. Oh yeah.

1:09:13I would keep my money in there. The crown royal gym? 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 because 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. Like 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.

1:09:43Yep. And the softballs. Yep. What was so hard about it? Just the weighted. They're not going to knock over with the 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 dude they're not weighted 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 bankaball you remember the bankaball it was like there was a wooden backdrop back and there was like a laundry basket underneath and you had to like throw the ball against the back and it would fall into the basket Yes.

1:10:23Yep. 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 and they'd bag them up. Wow. Because that was the craziest part because you'd fucking get home and you'd have a fish, you know?

1:10:58Yeah, you're like, look at this fish. Yeah, and your neighbor would be like, we're going to cook them bitches, you know? And you just have, your neighbor would go cook six, six of those goldfish or baby koi, 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 went to goldfish once and they put it in their fish tank or whatever and it grew into like a... A big fish. A carp or whatever, yeah. 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 fucking turn around.

1:11:27It was just like, it would just always be straight ahead. Look at this dude right there. Whoa. 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 long. Bro, and if we're not, this right here, because 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.

1:12:18This is a parking lot minnow, half of them probably spray painted gold, 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***ing 67 pounds. and living in France. Unbelievable. Probably working at a creperie or something. Chocolat. It's just unfuck. And people are like, the water's safe. The water ain't fucking safe, bro. God. I'm sorry to get crazy, but this shit.

1:13:05Dude, get us crazy. It's like, how much proof do you need? It's in your face. That the water's bad. Yeah. I mean, 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 it'll do 11 years in a freak bowl work over there and and nipsy's freak bowl or whatever it's called when you were the dreaded banana son um 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 for she we gave her 50 cents We were just scratching her back while she was smoking a joint or whatever.

1:13:49Oh, 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 have got a little contact high or 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, dude, this bitch is wild. It's kind of cool. Yeah, dude, that sounds like she would work. She'd be good in the dunk tank, man. those dunk tank clowns were something else man yeah what 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 like what kind of stuff is he saying he's just saying like i slept with your wife last night like you You know, your brother's an N-word or whatever.

1:14:43Yeah, 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 him, like not beat him up, but go after him 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 him. They're trying to throw the ball through the fence. Like they're smashing that fence with the ball.

1:15:09Oh, 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 uh yeah they would he would get into some serious shit yeah a lot of beefs you don't see him anymore what were they yeah so they were 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 that's what i'm saying these guys were getting mad the dude's just yelling like i slept with your 11 year old daughter last night what are you gonna do about it yeah the dude's just like hey i'm a pedophologist he thinks he's protected by fucking 40 gallons 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 oh it's a sick world man yeah who else was there they were like barkers i remember like oh there was the guess your weight guy yeah i guess you're waiting for a real thing that was a real thing yeah he would guess your weight or your birth date or um what else would he guess there was something else how did they do it it was just a it was really just came down to numbers like they couldn't really do it but it was you could tell like they just got good at it you could tell look at somebody because there was that you had 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 guess your birth date they could be like i 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 have been if it was in that sign you know what i mean oh yeah if they're sagittarius's 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 saggy on the fucking coming over the ridge watch out um we had some characters man i remember the guy that worked the uh the big old guy that worked the diner the sausage stand when i was a kid i mean this is when smoking was still loud he'd have a big old cigar in his mouth italian dude it's like what what do you fucking kids want 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 wince gotta be careful on the first day of the carnival 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 yep 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.

1:17:54Yeah, it's like tearing out. So they'd close you a little early, like five or six o 'clock on a Sunday night. 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 y 'all use? Do you guys hire other locals? You said there were like 40 milers, 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 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, they had a whole grip of games or a whole bunch of food stands.

1:18:32And 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 smaller family businesses would join up under the larger umbrella of the carnival. Yeah. 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 other 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 um yeah i 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 yeah was there a lot of camaraderie 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 camaraderie like definitely like the ride guys like they would all have their own crews especially like some of the bigger rides had like four or five six guys as a crew if they were like there would be different crews you'd have the music fest 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 whoever 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 the owners oh 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 it was pretty wild well did that run in your family alcoholism or drinking that much um because that's kind of a lot of drinking yeah it's all i really like i didn't grow up my dad like my dad 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 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 the carnival was like my escape in the summer.

1:21:04Yeah. Which isn't much of it. So it's like the carnival or the hood. Like which one do you want? Yeah. And I. Damn. And so yeah, I drank a lot, partied hard. And would the parties get pretty crazy? Would shit get a little bit weird out there? Yeah. Yeah. It would be pretty crazy, especially when you go to these bigger towns. Because like you go to some of these towns, you know, and the girls are like, especially like the lot lizards, you know, the ones that like, they love the carnival, when the carnival comes to town. Because they ain't got nobody else. like especially up in the sticks of Maine or something like that.

1:21:33Really? So you're saying there was a lot of like hookers almost that would come to service the carnival workers? Yeah. Not hookers. Just like straight up hoes, I guess. Oh, girls that didn't want money. Yeah. Girls that just wanted to party. Yeah. Oh, wow. You'd get car fulls 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. And car fulls of chicks would show up looking to party. No. Yeah. Why, did they know you guys had drugs or something? Yeah, they just were like, oh, the carnival's in town.

1:22:05Like, 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 freaking ripping, bro. But then the next night, you got the car fellow, the dude, showing up looking at me like, yo, who fucked my old lady last night? Oh, really? Yeah, you got fights breaking out all the time. Yeah, 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 being in the city sometimes. like it was so the dudes would roll up and they'd want to settle the score yeah and they couldn't because there's just so many carnies like really yeah you know you show up with a car full of people or even two cars I mean we have hundreds of people 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 got arrested for one of them uh uh take me to do that 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 down 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 uh i was on some uh i was on some i think i was on some dancing condoms maybe that night some paper some acid oh some lst yeah praise god baby yeah and so there 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 what 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 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 it's 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 the cops are on their way don't worry about it like We don't want nothing more to do with it.

1:24:23So Stady showed up, and I left. And the cops were out there looking around or whatever, and there were some people. And I didn't really think much of it because I wasn't involved. I was there, but I wasn't involved. I wasn't fighting. Yeah. 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, the cop's like, get on your knees. He comes running up to me with a can of mace. Really like trying to get a BJ, huh? I guess. I don't know. he comes running at me with mace I'm like what is going on and I'm tripping so I'm like oh god dude I'm like yeah whatever you want bro one time I and whatever they take you to jail they maced you?

1:25:07yeah 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? oh 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 uh 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 he's spitting on me and like yeah like at a guar concert yeah i was like wow okay worse than guar oh and so faced the wall and they brought me into the cell and whatever we i bond out the next day.

1:25:47I had a hitchhike back to the carnival. No. Oh, yeah. As soon as I get back to the carnival. 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 it 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. Because, 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.

1:26:14Yeah. Oh, I like that. and they decided to keep me in there for a while because 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? 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 I was already bonded, 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 trailer and hit the road damn that's wow 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 in the were they working at carnivals as well yeah so my dad was at was he at the one that that happened he might have been there he might have been at another one was he doing at the carnival so my dad was uh he managed food and games okay so you're 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 Like he'd cap like this with his cane.

1:27:39Like, 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, like, was there some pretty good, like, sex activity going on out there? Because everybody always thinks, I think there's this vibe you think about, like, Carnies, like the rides shut down and then the party starts. Yeah, yeah, the party starts. I think that's what the energy you feel like happens, you know? Yeah. Like I said, you get those car full of girls show up. Oh, yeah. 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.

1:28:17She was one of the girls that showed up looking to party. That said bust a nut on me? No, and this one said head hoe. Head hoe on it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Just the advertising that they have, that's wild to me. Usually you don't know. Like a girl's tattoo would be like a secret, you know? Yeah. Like any, like, you know, like love is forever or whatever. You're like, well, I'm going to have to decipher this, you know? But if somebody 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.

1:28:55So, you know, there would be a lot of crazy stuff going down, you know, 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. Goldilocks, huh? 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.

1:29:26Let's go. 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. and he's going to town right there. Wow. Yeah. Just making love, huh? I don't know when you call it love, but there was something going on. Yeah. Making almost love. God. Yeah.

1:29:45So it was interesting. I'll tell you about another crazy game that we had. 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 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 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.

1:30:20He'd be able to sit on the handlebars backwards and ride it. Like he got really good at it. Is it a unicycle? No, it was a bicycle, regular bicycle, two wheel bike. A crazy bike. And we called it a crazy bike. and so the if you turn it to the left the wheel went to the right yep wow 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 never oh my god I couldn't even imagine this it's like it's like dyslexia yeah it's like dyslexia made up piece of transportation but he could yeah my friend could ride it all around the carnival like that wow

1:30:54oh 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. So everybody that walked through, it was like, we got to get it out of them. Yeah, we got to get that mark. And if you got one, you'd call it out. Like, you know, 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 spelt out like Robin, R-O-B-I-N, and then marks underneath it.

1:31:27So 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 for Robin Marks. Let's just find someone. There's got to be somebody. There we go. Robin Marks. Oh, wow. There is one. And so, yeah. 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 what give me an example of how those would be at the game like a clerk is somebody that doesn't really 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 more money okay where an agent is going to try to take you for everything you got and who were the ages were Was it usually older people?

1:32:26Was it younger? Could it be anybody? It was anybody. Anybody that was good at hustling, really. It was all ages. Was it whites? Was it Native America? Who type of people? Was it any? It was whites. Whites. Yeah. It's kind of a white sport, carnivaling. Yeah. Yeah. Has it changed? Or I remember it being like that. It was 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.

1:33:00He 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 that, 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 and 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.

1:33:38You get to see the United States and work and make money while you're at it, which is all bullshit. You're just in 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 of anything i 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 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 what it was i didn't see him that much until i 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 bummer my dad was a hard ass too so i guess i'm glad that i didn't see this much from what my brother said oh yeah he was great when i was i mean he was an old man so he was just like a whatever people yeah start to lose their steam yeah their edge but so it was definitely different 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 lived we didn't have much money like i was getting school lunches and shit like that.

1:35:09Oh, yeah. Same, man. Yeah, school lunch was always so weird because you had to go get the ticket each day in the morning. Did 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 would 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. Yeah, a separate line. I remember you'd have to go to get the free ticket from the lady and had a Y on it. and if you paid ticket it had an X on it 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 it or anything but I remember feeling at the time at the time yeah you were trying to just like pretend you weren't getting that one you're like I don't know why they had me on this list that's strange really what happens every day sure god they want to make some poor whoever's making these lists is just confused huh um a lot of times people look at the carnival as a sad that like i think it got that rap over the years in a way that it just like was a negative what are some positives about it because i also loved like 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 that if they didn't go to your school, then maybe you'd see them there.

1:36:40Those are things that I liked about it. There were like, 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 when 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 ripoff or 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 got some rides where the ride guys didn't really give a fuck like all the lights are busted they got one blinking light going and like yeah that's it no music and yeah yeah guys you know like i said he's like one of those guys that just got out of prison and yeah so he's not 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 mean like a family's running like a if 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 of 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 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 fun they want to go on the rides yeah they want to have some fun they want to 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 I mean, the games are a hustle.

1:38:50And 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 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. Any animals ever get loose out there when you guys are doing it? Oh, man. Well, one time we let a chicken go. We stole a chicken or a rooster, and we put it up in the doghouse of the music fest. So when the next day they came to work, there was this wild rooster up in the doghouse. And the doghouse is the control room where you run the ride.

1:39:21Oh, nice. And the music fest is the one where like 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 because 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 rides are such a big thing. or a kid yeah we put a we put a chicken in the doghouse one time for the right guy so when they showed up the next day yeah yeah because 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 gonna 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 carnivies met each other and yeah i met i'm 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 and 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.

1:40:45Really? Yeah. Wow, that seems illegal. That's crazy in the eyes of God, but I don't know. And we're still friends that I still, I mean, Raekwon, her son, works for me now. Oh, yeah, yeah, really? Wow. 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, you know? Oh, really? Yeah, we're not together, obviously, but yeah, we're best friends still. Damn. So, yeah, we've had some. Love can happen out there, huh? I think my nephew met his wife out there. He just got married a year or two ago. He met her out there. Yeah. But she was South African.

1:41:18I think she came over from that whole, when they brought all, because 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.

1:41:47Some 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'd 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. Yeah. Does that part of her seem good? I love it. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

1:42:22Yeah. 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. You know what I'm talking about? 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 mushers out there. Yeah. We didn't see them much. Really? were gypsies so they were travelers they were travelers like because 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 yeah 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 they got away with it they would do what They wouldn't have to do the shit spots.

1:43:08Sometimes you would just see a gypsy, like a psychic reader or somebody that did like the palm reading or the, or the cards. And you would only see them at like some of the, 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 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.

1:43:39And they're like, oh, there's going to be a blonde in your life. I see it. And it's like, yeah, because you saw me last night hanging out with her. Right. But they're funny. Yeah, the gypsies are, yeah, real interesting. My brother's friend Donnie is a gypsy, I think. 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 they're so secretive they're like gypsies are unique they're unique yeah they're like yeah you don't know what's going on no you don't have a navy seals but of like complete bullshit you don't know what they're thinking what they do like if they're being if they're being serious or not if like they're telling you yeah Yeah, you don't know.

1:44:30They just say stuff and they have their own language. Oh, they do. Yeah. It's pretty fast. Ezeke zenzpeziq is the lezitlkezani. I can't even speak it right. Really? Is that pig Latin? Kearney. Oh, that's Kearney. Yeah, Kearney is tough because you have to. Oh, there's a Kearney language. Yes. Really? Yeah. Like, what do you tell me about this? Ezeke zenzpeziq. 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-Z. E-E-Z, yeah. Oh my G-E-Z-O It would be G-E-Z-O Oh my G-E-Z-O So O would be E-Z-O-M-E-Z-O-G-E-Z-O Oh my God E-Z-O-M-E-Z-O-G-E-Z-O Wow Breeze B-E-Z-O-D You put E-Z-O-D E-E-Z before every vowel So God would be G-E-Z-O-D B-E-Z-O-S-T E-Z-O-N What was this?

1:45:27What did the lady say? Bezost. Eezo. Oh, yeah. Neezot. Bezost. Eezon. Mezies. Mezies. Bussin' that out, man. That's a crazy. 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're closed. 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 because the hitches come off the pull the trailer that you pull the trailer by you got to take those off so you can put all the games bottom up to each other make the midway wait hold on when you say make the midway what do you mean and you put them right 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 with that that goes on to 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 it's taking that on 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 that pull their stuff and somebody that works for them usually will be a driver or two they might have a couple drivers um or you might hire a trucking company to come in and pull your stuff um 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 because 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 yeah you don't have the time yeah 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 it was cash yeah so what do they pay an extra 50 bucks to help turn around or something wow so you do four or five a night maybe a 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 all i was in charge of the food stands for my brother and my father and um 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 so 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 it later the fridges like everything comes out you said how would they move the big rides how How do they get those to the next town or whatever?

1:48:21Yeah, big truck. You tear it down. And most of them, they fold down pretty small. Like a lot of them, you fold down. Do they fold onto a semi or just onto a trailer? Onto a semi-trailer. Onto a semi-trailer. It's a trailer, yeah. It's got wheels under it. Right, right. 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, 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 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 can move you can get it done fairly fast you know sometimes you can be have everything done in like a good six hours or so wow really 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.

1:49:13Sometimes you'll close early. Some Sundays, though, they do the bracelets where you buy a bracelet and you can ride all the rides all day and night. And so when they do that, and if you're making money, stay open later because you don't want to close on people is what we call it. Oh, yeah, if there's people still there. There was one other game we used to play where you'd put the slide, the money, and it would pay and get these thing of coins and you'd put the coins in. It's called the splashdown is one of the wins we called it yeah we'd move the coins forward and sometimes it would push a little like a an actual quarter would be on top of them we 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 uh something under the quarters of the coins there's like this triangle right at the front of the lip.

1:50:08So 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 push into the out of bounds. So you would put a lot of weight in the middle. So instead of pushing forward, it would push to the side. Yeah, because they could fall off to the side. And if they fell off in the middle, you got it. 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 going to push to the sides.

1:50:39Damn. 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 going to fucking, you're probably going to lose. Yeah. You know? And you're probably going to knock somebody up. Yeah. It just taught me that everything is a fucking hustle, man. Yeah. 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. Yeah, life's a hustle, man. That was another thing. Speaking of his wiener, that was the way he made money.

1:51:21You were asking how I knew he used it. He used to make these pamphlets, and he'd sell those things to everybody because he was tired of answering all those questions, if his penis worked or not. Really? like his 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 that up one more time I want to look at him as we close out here my dad had three nipples did he really? wow

1:51:50that's almost that's like a third layer it's kind of like a third it seems like it's the same genetics yeah I was kind of wondering that if it was because of the jeans type thing. Franklin Tini, for as long as I can remember, sideshow attractions. Let's look at two more of them before we go. Mirren Dajo, the invulnerable man. Mirren Dajo was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1912. Mirren 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. Mirren was not affiliated with any one sideshow act or circus, but the idea of being a human pincushion was one that was popular in that industry.

1:52:28Wow, so he would put pens 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. 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 he kind of had a message with what he was doing interesting interesting man um mitch man nice to meet a carny bro nice to meet a guy that's uh that's been through it and able to come here and share a little bit of what the world and universe is like yeah it's it's been quite a ride man it's definitely been interesting and i want to change it for the world it's taught me a lot and uh it got me yeah it got me 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 gonna 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 and out there like they really love Uncle Mitch's Munchies, home of the turtle dick sandwich.

1:53:52Really? 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 got to be endangered or whatever? Yeah, so we do it, we do it, you know, we go get, we get the turtle, we snip it and send it back off in the wild. You serious? No. Oh. But we do sell a turtle dick sandwich. But it's not real. But it's not 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.

1:54:25But you should see all the turtle dicks we have. Now people make turtle dick. Like we have all these turtle dicks, a dancing turtle dick. All this crazy shit out there. The games continue, man. Oh, man. 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 going to 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 Franklin at UMass Amherst. Oh, yes. Saturday night or something? Saturday night. Yeah. I think a Friday night. Saturday night.

1:54:53This Friday night? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be working it. That's crazy. I'll see you soon, then. Yeah, it's crazy. Mitch, thank you so much, man. Nice to meet you, bro. Nice to meet you. Sorry for the sweaty hands. All good. I'm nervous still. Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be. Cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it In my bones But it's gonna take