Today's guest is a carny out of the New England area, and his family has been involved in the carnival business for over 100 years. I'm excited to learn all about the behind the scenes of the food, the games, the prizes, the debauchery, everything that goes in to the carny universe. Today's guest is Carny Mich Candiano. Shine that light I'll sit and tell you my stories.

Shine on me. And I will find a song I'll be singing.

I'm on the stage. Mitch, the carny, baby. Good to see you.

Thank you, man. Thank you for having me.

So thanks for coming on, dude. So We just want to learn about carnies and carnival employees, fairs, everything like it. Is carny an appropriate term?

Yeah. I was born and raised a carny. Really? My grandparents were carnies. My parents were carnies, my My brother and his kids are carnies. No way. Oh, yeah. It runs deep, man. 1918, he started. And can I say before we really kick that one? I got to thank you for having a poor pedestrian like me on because I don't wear a watch and I don't use a washcloth, so Tom would never have me on.Ceguera?I appreciate.

Yeah, talk to... Yeah, it is. He doesn't like the pores or whatever. He doesn't like the pores.

I don't know why.

Yeah, I don't know, dude.

I think we're great people. Yeah, look, I don't.

I don't have a washcloth. I probably should have one. That's what I use.

He hates washcloths.Oh, he hates them?He hates them. Yeah.

Yeah, I think... I'll use a washcloth to get in here, though.

Yeah, right? How do you get in there? How do you get in there?

I try to use my fingernail and getting it out and then just putting it like that into the drain or whatever. But I don't think that's enough sometimes, especially as you get older.

Yeah.

You know?

But yeah. It's a good old wet willie.

You got it doing a wet willie on somebody? Yeah. Yeah, I remember doing-I'm going to sneak one up on you later. Oh, are you really? Dude, just wear a condom, man. Oh, I will. Okay. That's all I'm asking for. I mean, it's a leash you could do, dude. The Irish hello. For sure, man.

It's our first time hanging, too, so I'll definitely keep it covered. Yeah.

But, dude, thanks. Yeah. I guess I'm just curious. So what is a carny? What is the term?

So a carny, carnival, carnival worker, I guess, is where it came from. That's where we are. I know there's all different versions. I know people sometimes think of somebody that just got out of prison, covering in tattoos, smelling like cabbage, missing a couple of fingers, and they think that's a carny that's working a ride or something like that. Oh, yeah.

That Irish deodorant thing.

Yeah, Yeah, you know. We, carnies, don't call them carnies. We call them 40-milers or Greenhelp or something like that, because a 40-miler, he's just trying to get onto the road and get 40 miles down the street to the next lot so you get out of whatever situation he was in when he joined the carnival.

Okay, so there's different types. You have actual carnies that are like, they've been in there for a while. Yeah.

Their families are out there. They have kids. They raise their kids out there.

And then you got 40-milers? Yeah, we call them 40-milers. And those are guys that are just Maybe just got out of doing some time and they're just trying to-Trying to get a job and get out of town. And get out of town. Just trying to get there, just something. Yeah. And so a lot of times the carnival will hire folks like that just because they need a lot of help.

It's tough to find help out there. People that want to travel and just be out there every day living at the carnival. Yeah. And you're in a different town every week and you don't get much time off. So it's wild.

Yeah, it's interesting. Well, it's interesting. It's similar to comedians because you to a town or a city for a few days, and then you hit the road and you go to somewhere else.

Yeah. I'd say that's like the... Call them like an open mic or like a comic. It's like calling one of those ride guys a carny. It's like the same thing.

Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that makes good sense, man. And your family has been doing, you said, hundreds of years?

Well, since 1918, my grandfather started selling cotton candy in 1918.Wow.Yeah..

And what brought him into that?

I'm really not sure. He came over from Italy. He was born in 1900. And so he was about four or five years old, came over on the boat to Ellis Island and all that. I don't know, he was 18 years old and started selling cotton candy at street fairs and little things like that. And that's just how we started and got into it. I actually still have some cotton candy machines that he built, handmade, like wooden frame and belt-driven, old, old school. They obviously don't work because now they're all sturdy metal, industrial-looking. Oh, yeah, like Whirlpool makes them. Yeah, something like But yeah, we have some old ones.

Yeah, your cotton candy will have a fucking sock in it or whatever. You're like, this is like one of these you're looking at?

Yeah. So we have a couple like that. As an older, those seem like residential ones that you can buy for your house.

So your grandfather came over and he started selling cotton.

He started selling cotton candy, yeah.

He's selling cotton candy, and then what? He just gets a job. He stays like...

He just kept doing it. And then he had kids. And then My father got into it, and my father and mother started their own whole carnival business. They started buying rides and games and food and everything. And we had a whole carnival called Candy Anos Amusement, way back before I was born. And then when I was born, they split up, and my dad started working for bigger carnivals, like the real big ones that did the big county fairs and state fairs and stuff like that. Oh, wow. Yeah. So he started working for a company like that and then went for, ended up working for the biggest one in New England called Fiesta Shows. And so he worked for them up until he died. And so he was a big shot out there. He ran food and games and stuff for him out there. It was a lot, man.

And so did Was one of your first jobs in the carnival? Yeah. What's the difference between a carnival and a fair? Because we had the fair would come a lot, right?

Yeah.

So the fair is just- Is it the same thing?

Yeah, basically, except the fair is they have the animals and everything like that. You have the whole agricultural part of it, and sometimes they'll have demolition derbies and all that, and the races and all the agricultural, like the pigs, the cows, all that stuff. So that's what distinguishes it from a fair to a carnival. And they've been long running. Up where we are, we have the Topfield Fair. It's been around for 150 years or something like that.

Yeah. How does that 4-H element fit in? Because that's also a whole different element than the rides and the games. You would I remember we'd always have to walk over to the livestock shed or whatever. It was like a bomb shelter or whatever. They had a bunch of pigs in it and stuff. And you'd have to go over there.

They have pig races. You ever see those?

Yeah, and they have the kids art. You'd want third place or whatever. It was pretty bad. A lot of it was like, Jesus Christ. They hid it over here behind the goats. It wasn't that great of art, but you'd be able to go over there. They had like, crocheting and a lot of local crafts. But did you guys ever have Was there a lot of beef between carnies and the livestock people?

The beef was in the carnivals between the carnival. During the spring, when we're doing just carnivals, we would split up into three different sections. So you could do three cities at the same time. But then when we got to the fairs, we would all get together, and then the fights would break out. Oh, yeah. Like crazy fights.

So what was a lot of the beef between the people, the workers?

Oh, I'm a first unit. You're just a lonely guy from the third unit. You shouldn't be over here with us or partying with us. They looked down on you. It's just like anything else. The first unit got all the big rides and the nice stuff, and then the second unit was stepped down. Oh, yeah. And then the third unit was like, they got all the shit, all the bad rides, all the bad stuff. So whenever they all teamed up, there was all these beefs going on.Territorial.

Stuff.territorial stuff. Yeah. So what was your first job in it?

My First, I think I was probably selling cotton candy, probably in the Floss. We call it the Floss stand, and it was the one that did cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, and candy apples.Oh, yeah.Yeah, and the caramel apples with sprinkles.

I love that, man.Oh, man.I.

Still make caramel apples. Do you? Oh, they're so good.

They're so good, man. And people don't think about them that much. No. If you ask somebody, What are you thinking about? They never say caramel apples. That's true. It's like something you don't hear as much as you wish you should because they're so good when you get them.

They're so good. They really are.

And what goes into making cotton candy? What is it?

Sugar and coloring.

Oh, okay. That's it. Sugar and coloring.

Yeah. And it's honestly not a lot of sugar.

But How does it get the cotton or whatever?

It heats up. So it heats the sugar up so it gets real stringy and fluffs out like that. It goes in the machine, so that head there in the middle spins really fast and it heats up. Some people get crazy with the cotton candy. Have you seen the people that make the animals and stuff with the cotton candy? Uh-uh. Oh, no? You should check that out. Really? Oh, they get crazy. They make all kinds of animals and stuff with the cotton candy to give to the kids. I don't know how they do it. I got a girl that works for me, one of them, Mitch's Bitches. Yeah? Yeah, and she wants to start figuring out how to do that.

Really? Yeah. And that's why you call them Mitch's Bitches?

I don't call them that. They call themselves that. Oh, yeah. So don't cancel me, guys.

No, it could be a union. Yeah. A lot of these different... There's a lot of different unions. I'll My friend is in the pipe fitters union, and he's always yelling about something.

Yeah, these girls, they call themselves Mitch's Bitches. Yeah, they all made shirts that say Mitch's Bitches on it. It's pretty wild.

And those are your friends?

Yeah, friends. I pretty much hire friends. They become friends real fast once they start working for me, like Sil. Love you, babe.

And so what about this? Bring that back up. Sorry, I'm just trying to learn about this. So Cotton Candy is made by heating and liquefying sugar and spinning it centrifugally through minute holes, minute holes, causing it to rapidly cool and re-solidify in a fine strands. It is often sold at fair circuses carnivals. Wow. So you just put some sugar in the hot-Yeah, and that thing that spins in the middle, you sugar in there.

You pour sugar in there, and you color the sugar ahead of time. Okay.

And it starts spinning, and the next thing you know, it makes cotton candy.

It's coming out crazy. And you got your stick and you're whipping it around. How fast?

How long does it take?

It doesn't take long to fill up a bag. Wow. But I don't know if this guy is going to get crazy. Maybe he does. I don't know. I've seen some. There are some people that really make some intricate stuff with the cotton candy. Yeah, there's a machine. It's just like the one I have, just like that. So that was my first gig. There's a picture of me. I was born in the summer. So as soon as I was born, my mom had me ride out on the road with her. So there's a picture of me sitting in my little car seat, sitting up by the cotton candy machine while she's making cotton candy, a month old. Seriously.

So your family was just out there? Oh, yeah. And so what towns was that, usually?

Oh, man. We did the Topsfield Fair, the Marshfield Fair out on Cape Cod, the Bangor and Skouhegan Fair up in Maine, Rochester Fair in New Hampshire, Hopkins Fair in New Hampshire. But it was a really big one in Connecticut we did. Wow. Yeah. And then in the spring, it was just all... The spring was always... Sometimes you do a lot of the same stuff, but a lot of times it would get switched up because if you didn't do that well the year before or whatever, where they would find you another place to go. Yeah. And towards the end, I don't do carnivals anymore. I'm still in the business of selling food and stuff like that, but I don't do carnivals because towards the end of when I was doing it, they were still like... We were doing these closed down strip centers. You know what I mean? Like, oh, Ames and Kmart parking lots where everything's boarded up and we're in the parking lot trying to make nobody's coming. You got nobody there.

So this is somebody making cotton candy right here? Yeah. Is this the machine you're talking How does that come out?

Mine's similar to that. I don't know if they have a different speed or a heat. It might be the same, but it does seem like a different consistency than the one I use that I make.

And so what is it? The sugar's in there, it's just spraying it out really hot?

Yeah, and it cools off immediately.Oh, wow.

So this isThat's all cotton candy.

So this is a cotton candy machine right here? Yeah. Okay, so the sugar is inside of that.

See that little thing? Yeah, that's spinning super fast right in the middle. It's spinning so fast. You can't even tell it's spinning. Yeah.

It's just blowing hot sugar out of there?

It's just blowing hot sugar, baby.

Now this guy, wow. This is a Korean guy.

He's getting down, huh?

Yeah, look at him. Here we go.

He's going to make it I have an umbrella.

It looks like he's making, yeah, maybe a UFO. Yeah, something. Wow.

Yeah, these guys get creative. I don't know how they do it.

So you guys would never do anything like this at the fairs, huh?

No, I didn't even really leave it on sticks that often because I wasn't that good You get to spin it because you want it to be nice and big and fluffy on a stick when you reach people. That's true. I wasn't even that great at that. I would always put it in a bag and sell the bag cotton candy.

Wow, this is unbelievably creative.

Oh, he's making some stuff. Here we go.

Now, do you get jealous when you see somebody taking it to another level? Yeah, of course. I know. Me, too. It's like when you see somebody that's just that great. They're crushing it on the stage. You're like, God damn. You're like, Oh, damn. I'm just regular cotton candy.

Oh, man. You and Tim were on the same level. Come on, don't say yourself short.

That guy's so funny. He is. He's so funny to be around. Thank you for saying that. It's nice of you to say that. Okay, so you're working the cotton candy. That's how you get started out. What groups are at the carnival?

Yeah, we definitely say separated.

Okay, what groups are at the carnival? Because there's the games, right? There are-The joinies. What is it?

We call them joinies.

Joinies? Yeah. And what is that?

The joints. The trailers, we call them joints. Okay. And so they work the joints.

Okay. So they work the games. Those are the joints. And then there's the food. Yeah, and then the concessions. Concessions. And then there's-And then you got the ride jocks. Ride jocks. And are those groups like they keep to their own a little bit or what?

Yeah, for the most part. The joinies and concessions are mingled. And I mingled with everybody. I knew everybody. But a lot of times, some of the ride guys would mingle with some of the concessions a little bit. They would mingle a little bit. But for the most part, they were with their own crews.

Did you ever work the rides?

Yeah, I did it all because I was just out there. When I was a kid, before I even worked officially, I knew everybody, so I would jump on the ride. Hey, let me run this ride for a little while. Or I would work inside the haunted houses, scaring people when I was 12, 13 years old. They had the walk-in haunted houses, all the ones you ride through. I would go in there and scare the people coming through and stuff like that. That was always fun.

Why is your family so tied in?

Just for doing it for so long, honestly. Even before my father, I had my grandfather around the same time, I guess. Well, yeah, I had a great uncle. He was my father's great uncle, I believe, or cousin, and he was already big in the circus business. He was one of the biggest freaks in the world. He was a most famous three-legged man, Frank Lentini.

Frank Lentini?

Yeah, there he is.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, he had three legs, 4 feet, 2 dicks, 16 toes.

Oh, wow. He had two wieners on him?

Yeah.oh, my gosh.2 PPs.

Dude, I couldn't even... You could serve... Dude, you could serve... Yeah, it's almost like a damn soda found at that point.

Leg, dick, leg, dick, leg.

You could have urine and then Fanta.

It was wild. And they both worked. Really? Yeah.

Oh, Oh, my gosh. How did you all know that? Did they write it down somewhere?

Yeah, well, because he was so... Everybody wanted to know. When he was traveling to the freak shows, then he was really well-spoken. They called him the mayor of the freaks because he would go and speak for everybody. When he'd be like, We want more money or we want better working conditions or whatever. He would be the guy that would go talk to everybody. He worked for Ringlane, Barnum & Bailey. He worked for all the big freak shows and circus.

Wow. Frank Lentini was born in Sicily in 1881. He was the fifth of 12 children.

Yeah, and his parents didn't really like him that much. Gave him to his aunt. Yeah, they were ashamed of him.

Because he had three legs, each of different links. Now, that's a lot, too, because then you're like...

Throw it in your hip. That's going to be crazy.

Yeah, it's got to be tough on your joints. A fourth foot that stuck out of one of his knees, 16 fingers, and an extra set of genitals. Wow, running on that spare genny, dude. Keep the lights on, bro. His condition was the result of a parasitic twin that was attached to his body at the base of his spine. Wow.

It was too... They couldn't take it off, especially back then, I'm sure, but it was too dangerous to try to remove.

He would go on to work with every major circus, including Barnabelle and Bailey. In his act, he would kick a soccer ball, ride a bike, and skate.

He'd kick it out of his third leg, hold the ball over a football and kick it with his third leg.

Oh, bro, that's got to be so incredible.

Imagine running and you just kick somebody with your third leg while you're running.

Dude, imagine you could play footsy with two women under the table.

I'd still have an extra leg.

In different directions, yeah. And one extra foot to tap to the music you're listening to. Dude, what a time, brother. His career spanned more than 40 years, and he came to be known as the King in the circus industry for his hard work and presence. He married and had four children. Wow.

All his children came all fine.

He got a lung failure. Damn. You'd think he got one of his legs caught in something. You know what I'm saying? Just the odds. Because every now and then, I almost get one of my legs caught in something. Wow, look at that. Zoom in on one of these photos, please.

I love the one on the right where he's got the one in the middle, and he's got each other's foot on a stool. It's that's such a trip.

Yeah, it almost looks like... No, let's go to the other one that he was talking about. Yeah, you mean the black and the leather?

Yeah.

Wow, look at those pants. Those pants have to be like, what the fuck are we doing?

He said he would buy two sets of shoes, and he would give his fourth shoe, the extra shoe, to a buddy that lost a leg. So they all went to use.

That's beautiful, man. You just don't see that stuff anymore. That's the toughest part about stuff. Wow, unbelievable. Look at that.

There he is. There's an old man down there.

Can we get one more picture of him? Frank Lentini. I wonder what would it be like? Imagine this had to be such a flex, so you cross your leg and then you cross the other one over. Bro. People must have thought you were Jordan Peterson no matter what, right? That had to be so wild.Unbelievable.What else?

They used a picture of him on the back of an Allison Chains album.Was there?Yeah, they have a three-legged dog on the front, and he's the three-legged man on the back.

I think I remember that.

Yeah, it's actually their best album.

Down in a Hole.

Is that them? Yeah.

I'd like to fly, but my wings are a extraordinary.

You know it.

Dude, that's so incredible. So this is a relative of yours?

Yeah. He was my dad's either great uncle or cousin. I can't remember. I tried to really narrow it down, but it's so long ago. My dad's not with us, so I can't ask him anymore.

I'm sorry to hear that, man. It's all right. 23 and me, though. They might not even have these.

My brother actually started doing that.

Going back to see what was going on.

With the 23 and me. He's got the ancestry going on, so he's trying to put it all together. I tried to find out some more information about him through that. I know he had four kids. They all came out normal. No parasitic twins there.

Wow. Being a parasitic twin, can you bring that up for me? First of all, I've always thought twins should have to fight to see who gets to make the shots, call the shots.

Who gets to stay alive. Yeah, that's got to be tough.

I'm I'm not saying that nobody deserves to be alive, but it's just like... Because it's crazy when you meet one guy and then you meet, and you know they're just each half of a guy or whatever. And you're like, What are we doing here? At least you two get together and decide what you want to say and then come tell us. Exactly. Because it's a lot of extra back and forth. A paracetic twin is a type of conjoint twin where one fetus stops developing but remains attached to its twin. Wow. The other twin continues to develop but is usually born with the limbs organs or other tissue structures from its paracetic twin still attached. It's a very rare condition. Gosh, dude, imagine two to see-What is that?

Sorry. No, that's another child.

That's how does it... It looks like Tila Tequila a little bit. Can you zoom in on it?

I can see that.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah.

But Doja Cat?

I don't know about this Doja Cat, dude. Bro, that's fucking hilarious, dude. I don't even know what Doja Cat looks like. I don't know, dude. No, that kid has longer hair than Doja Cat, I think. Yeah, imagine being a paracet. Imagine knowing that your brother or something was a part of you, and now that they're... It's almost like you got to live. It's like nature. You must feel alive. There must be a lot of responsibility. Then seeing your brother's wiener, if you look at your own wiener and seeing your brother's wiener.

Does that make you gay if you jerk off that wiener?

No, dude. It just makes you a cool I'm your brother, I think.

Touche.

Dude, to not polish your brother off once a year, something on-Yeah, that's rude.day after Christmas or whatever. It's not rude, I think it's just-Well, if you don't ever let him come, that is rude. I bet when you get to heaven, he's going to be like, Hey, come on, guy.

Thirty-six years and not one nut?

Yeah, brother, I left that thing down there for a reason.

Could he have took advantage of that?

Yeah, I'm the one who helped you out and gave you the third I gave you a fucking job. That's wild, man. So people like Frank Lentini, what was that group? That group was called what is it? Freaks. Freaks, okay.

They were The Freak Show.

The Freak Show. And that was popular. Did you ever work with that?

Occasionally, the carnivals would have freak shows join up with us, but they were all corner store freaks. They weren't really great. We had the rip off of the lobster man, and I actually think he was a relative of the original lobster man, but he had fake gloves that he would put on to make himself have fake lobster hands.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That's not real, though.

No, we had a lot of that. Yeah.

It was a lot of... Because they had the freaks were like the bearded lady I remember you would hear about. What? Like the four-titted sister, whatever. They'd always have something, the Lispy Jew. They'd always have something rolling.

The Lizard Man or something like that.

Yeah, Lizard Man.

A real-life mermaid was the one. They'd have a girl in a tank with a fake suit on and act like she was a real merbade.

Oh, yeah. The four-shouldered Italian, they'd have that guy. The smallest horse. I met the world's smallest horse one time.

We used to have that, too.

Tom Thumb is the one that I met.

I don't know the name of the one I had. But yeah, he was at the fairs with the agriculture. He'd be there, pay 50 cents, and get to walk up and walk around and see.

And go in, yeah. They had the dollar. I remember they had one dude at the fair in our town. It was like, if you gave him a dollar, he would tell you if you were fat or not.

Yeah, guess your age or your weight or stuff like that.

But this dude, I remember you give him a dollar and he'd just call you fucking fat.

Oh, really?

And then you just... Yeah, he was like the fat dollar guy.

That's a good kick.

I was like, What the fuck? And he just walked off. You're like, Jesus Christ, dude.

I think he was just out there hustling people.

Yeah, he might not even have worked with the car.

That's a new one.

That guy could have been working different. Here's a couple of them right here. General General Tom Thumb. Charles Sherwood-Straton was actually a relative of P. T. Barnum. When Barnum learned of Straton's dwarfism, he sensed opportunity. Barnum took Straton under his wing and taught him how to sing, dance, and impersonate famous historical figures. Wow.

That was the lobster boy.

Here's lobster boy right here. As shocking as his appearance is, Grady Stiles' real-life story is even more shocking. Stiles' condition was known as Ectrodactyly. Ectrodoctyl. Ectrodactically?

I think you got it.

Ectrodactyly? Which causes his hands and feet to fuse into claws.

Yes.

The condition ran in Stiles' family. In fact, he was the sixth generation in his family to have it. His father was already performing in the circus when Grady was born, so he entered circus life early as the Lobster Boy.Wow.That.

Was his kid, yeah.

Pinching ass and taking names. That guy. Wow, look at him. There's a picture right there of a bearded lady and Lobster Boy. They fell in love.

Oh, that's romantic.

A Valentine's Day love story, huh?Wow.I.

Wonder what their kids would come out like, huh?

Yeah.ear of lobsters.Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, it would probably be something... Yeah, you'd see it like one of those fancy Omikase places or whatever. I don't think Benihana would be running that. Probably not. Get you a cut of freaking hair lobster. It might be. Who else did they have? Let me see a few more of them. These were all the freaks, right? Yeah. Lionel the Lion-Faced Man. Born Stephen Bibrowski in 1891 Poland, Lionel the Lion-Faced Man endured a medical condition known as hypertrichosis, which is commonly associated with werewolf syndrome for obvious reasons. In an odd twist of fate, his mother was convinced the condition was caused by her witnessing his father being mauled by a lion when she was pregnant. Still, that was a coincidence, albeit a crazy coincidence. Wow.

I haven't heard of him.

Unable to handle his appearance any longer, she put him up for adoption when he was four years old. Oh, no. He was adopted by a German entertainer who put him on the circus circuit.

See? He made a life for himself. We need freak shows. It's true, huh? That way, these freaks can make a living.

Yeah, they don't have. I remember, what was that thing they had a dime? I want to think because they almost had one in the... A dime museum?

Can you look that I thought you were talking about somebody that pays a dime. Dime Museum and freak shows.

From the popular Coney Island Amusement Park in New York City, traveling circus and sideshows, exhibits that featured people with physical differences with some the most prevalent attractions in the 19th and early 20th century. Wow. Dime museums often featured humans who were considered different for the public to view and experience. Yeah, because I think they had some places where you could pay a dime, I guess was the name, I'm assuming. From 1840 until 1940, freak shows were at their height. Historians typically marked 1840 as the beginning of the freak show era. The museum contained many exhibits of historic artifacts and gaps. Oh, that was the year P. T. Barnum began the American Museum, a New York City attraction that cost a dime to enter. There it is. The museum also housed many people who were considered to be rarities worthy of exhibition. Wow. So you'd have other people included Tom Tom. Tom Tom. There he is. A person with Dwarfism, the Aztec twins, and many other living curiosities. Wow. Dude, that's almost like a geek fraternity somewhere. It really is. I mean, it's different, but it's probably similar. So you crossed paths with some of these guys, but it wasn't like...

Yeah, not like, like I said, the lobster man, a boy that was with us. I had heard, I didn't really talk to him, that he was a relative of the actual lobster man, but he had fake claws that he would put on. We actually had one of the last living Munchkin, though, that was out there touring with us at the Freak Show. He was one of the Dwarfs. He was one of the original Munchkins smoking bongs with him. He'd have to stand up on a picnic table in order to hit the bong.Widdie?Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, he was like 70 years old, hit in the bong with us.

Seventy? Yeah.

Wow. I think he was that old. I was young, but he was up there.

And he was a little guy?

Yeah, he was in a Munchkin from the original movie, from Wizard of Oz.

He was in Wizard of Oz?

Yeah.

You smoked dope with Wizard of Oz Munchkin?

Munchkin, yeah. No way.

Dude, that's incredible, man.

It was pretty wild.

God, dang. That's lucky. Yeah, that's crazy, man, because just to be able to get to do something like that. Yeah. Wow. I watch that movie a bunch. Jerry Maron, That was the guy. This was one of them, the last surviving adult munchkin.

Okay, when did he die? What's it say that?

2016.

Okay, that 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 put a beard on him.Cop.

A puff.

Somebody put a beard on him.

Look at Jerry Maron right there on Wikipedia. He's huffing. He's got a cigar on him right there. Wow. Oh, yeah. That guy. That's beautiful. So the freaks weren't as much of a part of you guys as universe?

Not as much, no.

And now what about the rides? Because 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 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 to find off. Oh, the Zipper, we'd go in that. Dude, you remember the Zipper?

Zipper This was my favorite ride.

Oh, bro. All my money had to have saved up my allowance. I would go down there because the day before... Because if you went regular day, it was $8 to get in. We were like, Fuck that, dude. I got $2. I'm going in. I got my I had my quarters in my pocket. But the Zipper would shake all your money out of your pocket.

They did that on purpose.

Oh, dude, it was horrible. I'd get out. I had no more money. I had to vomit. I remember it shook a couple of my teeth, my baby teeth out or whatever.

I was like, 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 drop it.

It was unbelievable. It literally felt like you've been put in the garbage, I suppose.

Yeah.

That was a tough ride.

I loved it. Did you? Yeah, it was my favorite one. Really? Yeah. What was cool, though, when I was a kid in school and you would go on field trips to the fair, I don't know if you guys did that at your school, but we would take field trips to the Topfield Fair when we were in grade school. But I would skip that day of school and I would just go to the the carnival, the fair with my father, and the rides weren't open yet. They were only there. They're supposed to be going to the 4-8 stuff and all the agricultural stuff. I would go over and sneak over some of 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.It was pretty cool.

Oh, yeah, because you were dialed in, huh? 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 the drug use out there?

A little bit. Yeah, just a little bit.

And what were the drugs, really? What were some of it? I mean, weed, yeah.

Of course, weed, alcohol. When we were at the fairs, you're open for so long. You close at 11:00 at night, you got to open 11:00 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.

Were people doing drugs, too? What uppers are we talking? Cocaine? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, plenty of cocaine.

Fuck, yeah.

I'll tell you, just to step up, though. They I'm straight. No, these days, they have straightened out these days. They drug test and all that shit now.

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?

The Gravitron was great. We would throw so many parties in that at night.

Bro, one guy, we get in there, right? And I remember that you would get against the thing and it would slowly move you up the walls or spin. And there was a guy in the middle who was like, Are you ready to rock? I'm like, Who the fuck is he talking to? 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, was just showing his weaner to people who rocked. And he was playing a nice day for a wide wedding. And 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 inside to see if anybody else knew what was going on. So you get off and everybody was afraid to say, I think we'd have seen that guy's wiener to November Rain.

That's pretty sweet.

There were some parts of it were nice when they would play some of the ballads in there, but that was harrowing going in there.

Yeah, that ride's pretty crazy. Sometimes the guy would get out. If you got a really wild guy, he would get out and he would come because you know how they had the fence?Yes, and hang on the pool. And hang on the pool. Yeah, dude, and walk 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 walking. I told him he would walk. He could even walk around the thing.

Yeah, you have to hold on to the railing, but he could walk around it.

Oh, my God, I I forgot about that. Yeah, he was the guy at the skating rink that was like the shit, like the dude who would go through and do the backwards skating and skate through your girlfriend's legs or whatever. Who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, it reminded me of that guy. Oh, here he is right here. This is somebody on a gravitron. It's somebody trying to sit up on it.

Yeah, he's trying to push it up on his own or something. We used to flip ourselves upside down and be upside down in there against the Yeah. He's good to move all around.

Oh, wow. We didn't know. We were too small to do some of this. This is like late teens. Oh, that kid looks about our size.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's standing straight out.

Oh, yeah, that's dude vapes.

Oh, yeah, he does. Yeah, it was fun. We used to throw a lot of after parties in the Gravitron. In the Gravitron?

Yeah. Yeah. Take me through some of that. And is it men and women come, too, or no?

Yeah. We had some girls out there working, for sure. Some of the guys were definitely better looking. Yeah. But we had some ratchets up. If you're going to work a ride and travel the carnival-Especially if it was 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah, it was. You got to be a tough check.

You sure do. There was Some of them, I mean, this one girl, they had crazy. This girl had Bust a Nut on me tattooed on her ankle. Oh, yeah. Head Hoe was another one tattooed on her. Oh, wow. These girls, some of them had the lot Lizards tattooed on their feet. Really? Oh, yeah.

So it was women that were probably just doing their best out there that had been through a lot, probably.

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 win. I thought it was sexual harassment every time she walked past me. I was like, She wasn't good-looking.

Oh, yeah. She's not saying, Marry me. But still, that's all. Yeah, that seems to be Bust. Then what What do you even say now that she's married, has a family? What do you even adjust those letters?

What could you change that to?

You could do us, you, me, I think bust. If you put the B and T, bust, A. Take out the A, cover that up. Nut, take out the N and T, just the U. Us, and then it would be a blank. Then it would be you, just the U. Then nut on me. Take the on and just me. Does that make any sense or not?

Not really, but it's probably still better than bust the nut on me.

Yeah, it would just say you. I would say us, you, me.

Yeah. Let me make it work.

I think it'll go over the. If you're at the grocery market, it's going to go way better because if you're walking over by this cab, you get some hella fresh produce on your back.

You're like, Where's that from? Well, you told me.

Dude, That's the freshest produce they got, for a good semen, bro. Yeah, take me through a good party night out there.

Well, the party night's in the Graviton, yeah, because they had the sound system in there already. Oh, yeah. You had the walls, so you can get in there and really be able to party and get loud and not bother too many the bosses because the bosses still stayed out there in their trailers, too. So you didn't want to wake them up in the middle of the night and have them come out. You're like, Where's everybody? Get in here. Bunkhouse, everybody. We open in three hours. So, yeah.

And what was the sleep in quarters like?

To be honest with you, my family didn't care where I slept at that point. I was 13, 14, just sleeping wherever. Mostly in games. I'd sleep in the game at night, one of the games.

No way. Really? Yeah.

Wow.it was pretty wild.That's wild. Yeah, it was. I've even slept wherever sometimes, especially when you're going over the road, everything's torn down, you got no place to go, you're waiting for your ride. 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. 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. That's Kind of romantic, almost.

Yeah, it's wild. I mean, for the most part, when you got a little older-Yeah, were there bunks?

Where did everybody sleep?

They had bunks. The ride guys had bunks.

Okay. So the ride operators had bunks.

Yeah, they would put most of those guys up in bunks.

And were they like a trailer? What type of bunks?

Yeah, it was just a giant trailer. They would buy like... They almost looked like an 18-wheeler trailer, and they would just turn it into bunk rooms. They would just chop it all up.

Okay.

Some of them, they had some that were built professionally as house trailers. They had those ones, too. 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. Yeah. That's where they had the The games and the jointies 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. There was at a point after I stopped staying in the games when I was younger, I ended up bringing a couple of my friends out on the road with me. And so as soon as high school was done for the summer, we'd go out on the road until school started back up. And so I'd bring a couple of friends with me out there, Dugui, Jay, and we'd set up our own tent city away from everybody so we could party and not bother anybody. 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. We set him up.Beautiful. Yeah, and we just drink. We had all our tents, nice fire going, and we'd party out there.

A couple of men in a lizard, bro. It's like the Bible. Whatever the new Bible they'll write will be. Yeah, the Kanye Bible. That's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah, it was fun, man.

Yeah.

A lot of people slept in their games.

So that would be it. You just crashed in there and they would just pop it back open in the morning? Yeah.

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 Sky Master?

Yeah, they call it the Apollo sometimes. It was two... Yeah, 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.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. Sometimes I would run it and you're in the dog house, and it's just a remote control, like a little joystick. You get it going, you rock it back and forth until you get enough energy to get it up and around, and you can hold it up there. 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, and you start shaking the money out of their pocket, so it all falls down. Although one time, there was a bad scene because you're always supposed to wait till the end of the ride to go pick up the money. Well, The kid who ran it all the time was trying to be a daredevil, and he ran through to get the money while the ride was still in... While he was up top, ended up getting hit. Oh, yeah. It was pretty wild.He lived.How? He lived? He did live, but it was a mess. I wasn't there at that carnival or fair when it happened, but I was at the next one.

You lose a limb, they put you just right over in a freak show.

Now you go right to the freak show.

That thing punts you right off the damn free.

Or you could be in a game after that, too, because you can work a game with one arm or in a wheelchair. Wow.

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, We were running that skydive at one time, and you got the shoulder bars that come down. It had let go while the girl was in there. But you caged in still, too. But she was flopping around while it was going around. While she was upside down, the shoulder bars came up, and she fell into the cart.

Just getting just banged around.

Just getting banged around while it was spinning around.

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, 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.

The Freak Out?

Yeah, it's a pretty dope ride now. Now, that's my favorite ride. Really? I'd say out of all of them. Let me see.It's like It's 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, that first drop. There it is. Freak out.

That's pretty cool looking. Yeah, they didn't have the freak out. Oh, so that goes like a pendulum and spins?

And spins, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Dude, I remember, yeah, we would get on that swing. One of them was like a swing set. You just faced out.

Yeah, the swinger?

Yeah. And people would be vomiting. People would be standing watching you, and then literally, you come around and just splash. You just dose them up with that fucking with that tummy skeet, baby, that vomit.

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.

Yeah, that was the name of it, the Puke Barrel. I was like, okay, I 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 55-gallon drums, those metal, like garbage can barrels, but it was huge.

Okay, yeah.

It was massive. It was on its side. You go in, it had a slide in door, and you go in, and then there were two seats that people could sit in, circle seats, and those spun like this while the floor rocked back and forth like this, and the outside barrels spun like this with strobe lights going on inside.Of course.Who's not going to puke?

Yeah.

It was pretty wild. Yeah, it was good stuff. So we actually owned one of those, K & DeAnna. My mom and dad owned a couple of them, actually. They split up when I was a year old, so they ended up... I was too young to help with the business. So my mom sold most of the rides by the time I was a teenager. So we still had some stuff, kiddie rides and stuff, but we had gotten rid of... She had gotten rid of all the major rides that she had had.

Yeah. Bring that video up. You're going to show us. And now what do you do when something... What is this? What is this here?

That looks like the... What ride is that? We call them the 1001 Nights. I'm not sure what this version is called, but that's what it was.

Okay. It looks like the whole thing is shaking. So people are going and jumping on the side to hold it down. A carnival ride in Traverse City, Michigan, suddenly malfunction. What do you do when this thing happens? What do you all do?

Shut it the F down.

But how do you... I mean, people are trying to save this thing from falling over.

Yeah, they're all trying to get some weight on it.

Is that a realistic approach, you think? Is that safe or would you tell the people not?

I mean, it could be.

That was one of the things about the carnival. You always felt like Nobody had your back in a way, which was something exciting about it and deathly alarming. You felt like if you died, they wouldn't tell your parents.

Yeah, we've probably buried some bodies out back. In the haunted house, probably some of those bodies in there are probably kids that just never made it out. I'll be honest with you, though, the carnival rides are a lot safer than probably music parks, amusement parks. Really? Yeah, because they get inspected every week. So you're getting state inspectors every single week. Every time you set up, they have to come in and give it a go ahead.

So what's the worst accident you've ever seen out there?

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 Topfield Fair, I forget the name of the ride, but somebody did come flying out of it, but they didn't die. I wish I could remember the ride.

But they always say those people didn't die, but you never see those people anymore.

Yeah, that's true.

Or they'll be like, Yeah, Janet didn't die. And they'll be like, Well, then why isn't... Where is she?

Yeah. She She went to Florida. She retired.

Yeah, people. She retired. She's 11. Where did she... So that's just the thing I think sometimes about that stuff that seems a little bit tricky, man.

But like I was saying, They do inspect them a lot more than your regular music parks that are just set up year round. They only got one or two inspections a year. Oh, yeah. But the Carnival, they have to get state inspected every week, every time you set up in a new place.

So So okay, wow. I did not expect that because it seems like they're not even...

You know where the shady part comes in is where, say, something breaks or something happens during the week, and then it gets fixed It's 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 foremen have to do a once inspection every day, 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. Yeah. I could be a ride... Yeah, if I was a ride super dude.

You're like, Yeah, okay. You just take it to forms. You're like, Yeah, everything's fine. Yeah.

People ain't going to be... Everybody not going to be living. Because 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.

There was some... You know what we used to do, too? Remember the Super Slide?

Yeah, Super Slide It 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. Really? Oh, yeah. You don't even touch that bottom hill. You just launched off. That's awesome. You got to open up the fence at the bottom of the ride because I've seen people hit that fence so hard. Oh, yeah. Go right under it, hit it hard, just get scalped on their 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 really hit the chain of fence.

After hours, 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.

Yeah, that sounds like fun, dude. Would you guys have some fun like that? Was there some-Oh, yeah.

There was one crazy party. We were all partying. It was like the beginning of the year. It was the second or third carnival. We were all warmed up now. We're like, All right, let's have this one. Because you'd have parties where everybody would party together, like the ride guys, everybody, food joints, even some of the owners, you know what I mean? Some of the parties once in a while. This was like a beginning of the year. Let's have a welcome home party. Everybody's in. We're partying all throughout the carnival. We're on the Sea Dragon, and you can unlock the Sea Dragon and get it swinging manually. You just get a couple of kids on each side swinging one way, and you can get it going.We were partying up on that.Yeah, I love that. We were partying up on the Sea Dragon late one night, and there was a new guy that I guess the ride super didn't like. He had just started. Oh, yeah. He passed out drunk in his car, and he was driving this brand new white escort or something like that, nice and white. Pretty nice, yeah. But it was a small car, a cheap car, but it was new.

And the ride super really didn't like him. And he was passed out drunk in his car, right on the side of the Sea Dragon. And we're up in the top seat, just sitting up there having a couple of drinks, putting them back. And what they do?

They set them on fire?

Well, not quite. All of a sudden, the ride super goes over to his house trailer and he opens up his... He gets a five-gallon bucket and he opens up his shitter drain, his tank, and he fills up the five-gallon bucket with all the shit water. And he goes over and he dumps it on the guy's car. And nothing, the guy doesn't wake up. Nothing. So he keeps doing it over and over again until he dumped his 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 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 just everything. That night, I didn't see him. But the next spot, I remember I'm walking by and he's outside and he's trying to scrub it all off, and it's just got this brown tint, and you could see where it swirled all around. 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 hazing and stuff? Oh, yeah. What about take me into... I feel like that's the ride. I'm trying to think of any more of the rides that the Zipper was just harrowing. 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.

Yeah, you got electrocuted.

Oh, did I got electrocuted? Because that was one of the big things is one time I got off of, I I think it probably was the zipper. I got off and I touched. I've told this story before. I've touched the two metal bars we were getting off of, the stair bars or 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, it was a black gentleman. He called me.

He's like, Get moving.

And I was like, I can't. 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, because I was just part of this. I was just completing the circuit. I was just probably powering a fucking lantern or something down the street. Probably got the lights back on. Yeah, whatever I was doing, dude, it was unhealthy for me because I was conducting electricity. And thank God. But yeah, I just remember it was very... It seemed like there were some safety issues, I would say.

Yeah, it sounds like it. I've definitely run into a few live rides before, especially during the rain.Oh.

Did that happen?Yeah.

It's happened to me.Okay.Yeah.So.

That's a real thing?Yup. Because I know my whole life, I was like, I know this happened, man. How does that happen?

Because there's so much wiring going on in those things, all the lights and everywhere. And back then, too, not 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 was like, God, you seem different.

Hey, Miles, you already grew up my stash from it.

Yeah. I was like, Things are going to change around here. I'm wearing the pants now. But I remember that, dude. We walk over and the rides would just be getting set up in the distance, and we'd come in, and they'd have somebody standing over there for 50 cents. You could get over there and get you a couple of tickets and go get on them. The other kids, people didn't know because the fair wasn't open. But we knew this could be live right there, and so we'd all walk over there.

That's cool. We never did anything like that.

It was pretty cool, man. What about... Take me into some of the games.

Yeah, the games. The games are fun.Let's.

Get into something interesting.They're.

Definitely interesting.

Because you had the boost. You had the game boost.

Yeah, we had game boost. We owned some. My brother still has, I think he still has one or two. They're definitely not as profitable as they used to be. But yeah, I used to have all kinds of games. I mean, a lot of them are illegal now. Maybe I should throw on. Really? Yeah, maybe I should throw on some shades or something if I'm on to spill secrets, like the magician telling us secrets.

About the games? Yeah, if you want to put some on.

No, I'm just kidding. They all know who I am now anyway. It's too late.

Well, yeah, because I know there was videos that came out years ago about exposing all the games or 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. 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 spend. Then if they got a nice crowd and they want to keep that... If the crowd is really like, they've been there a while and they You really want to see that dude win and he spent enough money and you know you could get... Now, if that dude wins, everybody's going to stop playing.

Yeah. So the part of it is some strategy. Yeah.

There's a lot of strategy, too.

What was one of the games that was the toughest game to win, probably, you think?

The toughest to win, legitimately? Well, so there was some that just can't be won.

Okay, so take me like, what is one of them?

So to cover the red spot. Did you guys ever have that one?

Cover the red spot.So.

There would be a big red circle.

Yeah, and you get like little disks.

Yeah. Could not be one 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? Yeah, there it is. Oh, cover the spot.

Okay. So you see how that one's covered all down there with the five disk? 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, and he was trying to win a game, and I knew we didn't have much money. So he kept trying to win. I knew it started to be a little bit thing I got to win this. My brother's watching me, and he fucking didn't win. I could feel it just break his fucking heart.Oh, man.

I have seen so many hearts broken. God, I just remember that. Really? Oh, my God. I've seen families broken up. I mean, they've spent their whole mortgage, lost a car, lost everything. Really? They traded their kid in trying to win. I swear to God. Sometimes you'll see the kid still up there as a prize now. You can win them.

Yeah, you guys You want this stuffed bunny with a clef palate, or you want Ricky. We got a real-life ginger over here. We got to feed Ricky, man. We'll take that. We'll take that. That happy, the clef 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. Then you tell them, Hey, man, if you win, not only will you I'll get the prize, but I'll give you all your money back. Every dollar you spend, I will give it back if you win. Want to play again? Fuck. And now a gambler is not going to say no.

And how hard is it? Have you ever had to run somebody up like that?

I have. By the time those games are, 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.

But were there some people that were good at it?

Oh, man, they were so good. 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. I'd sit down and hang out, but then all of a sudden, a mark would walk by and they'd get them. I would just see them run them up because you pay your bills, right? 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. No. 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 going to enforce it, though?

Well, because they're a gamble. Most gamblers pay their... 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. You haven't been to a casino? Some of these guys, some of these gamblers are like, they lose everything.

I'm amazed at somebody. I have friends that are real successful, and I'm amazed at some of these guys that just go gamble all the time. I'm so thankful I don't get any... I like to play. I'll play some games. Yeah, for fun. I like to do... We play prize picks and stuff like that. But I'm not the guy that's betting. Betting the house.

Yeah. Yeah, no.

I'm so great. Man, I'm thankful to God that I don't have that.

I've seen people eventually, they'll go home and they're like, I just got hustled. And then they'll 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. 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. Henry Gribome says he lost his life savings, 2,600 dollars. Damn.

It's a life savings?

Carnival game, and all he has to show for it is a stuffed banana with dreadlocks. Wow.

You got the dreaded one, though.

Dude, BLM, bro. That's all I'm saying, dude. Yeah, at least you got the dreaded banana, dude. Wow.

Yeah, it was crazy. Those games are illegal now, though, up there.

Well, it says, You're expecting the kids to win a few things. Let the kids have a good time, said 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 Connect at a game called Tubs of Fun.

Yeah, I'll tell you about that one.

Where contestants toss balls into a tub.

Ain't happening.

It isn't? What is it?

The bushel basket, that's what it is, the Tubs of Fun. They take those... Remember those old Apple bushel baskets?

Oh, yes, I remember this.

They'd be up on the side.

Yeah, like at an angle.

Yeah, at It's a triangle kind, and you got to toss the softball in there. Yes. Yes. There it is.

There's some guys getting it right here.

Yeah. There's a trick to it. You Can you see how he's doing it? You got to give it a spin and it's got to hit right on the edge. I see. It'll use its momentum to stay in there. They're using plastic ones, too.

I don't know if there's-Go back to the bushel baskets. Can you find the bushel baskets? They might be just as hard. For referencing the one we're talking about.

It's the same game, but those were made of the wooden ones, like the original apple bushel baskets.

Yeah, so take me through it. So what the problem with those-They were at an angle, right?

Yeah, it's that same thing as that with the plastic ones, except they were wooden. They It 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 really... I mean, if you know a trick 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 the guy sitting in the booth can easily toss the ball in there from his angle. It'll easily go in there and stay in there. 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... Here's a free shot. See how easy it is. Then they throw it in there. Because that other ball is already in the basket, it'll dead in that second ball, and that second ball will stay in. Now people are like, Oh, my God, that was so easy.

But now when you give them the balls, they don't have that first ball in there, and they won't get that ball to stay in there. You're like, No, it's like this. You know what you're doing wrong, bud? You're hitting it in the wrong place. Watch what I do. You You take that ball and you're like, Just like this. Throw it in there, and it goes in. You're like, Here's this ball. Watch, try it now. They do it, and they're like, Oh, I did it. You're right. Then you give them both balls again, and then they can never do it again. You just keep the cycle going.

Dude, I remember the weird There was always the weirdest energy when you were the kid and you were up there at the thing. Once you'd engage in the conversation with the booth guy, if you're a kid, you start to feel like, Man, I got to play now. I already started talking to this guy. I know I only got a couple of bucks here. What am I going to do? 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. I am a loser.

They know you're not going to win, too, and they're just trying to get that two bucks out of you and get you out of their hair.

God, that was hard.

And I'll tell you what, if Eric Adams was there, he would have found out that there wasn't a next box in that box.

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 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 Yeyo that tied in there. What's in here? And Mitch is talking about the episode with Shane Gillis, and we're like, That Eric Adams video. That was so funny, dude. Yeah, that was a crazy video. I can't believe they're doing the drug searches like that. Oh, But sometimes we would win something and it would be a felt Elvis or a felt picture of a something.

I remember those felt pictures.

Remember it was like neon and felt.

Yeah, some of it would be felt, not all of it.

If you had a black light or something, it would look like you'd be able to see it really good.

In the posters, they had those felt posters. That's what it was. Yeah. I remember those. Yeah, it sounds like we would win those. I forgot about those. The Star-Ark games, the ones that you throw the dart at.

Oh, that was fun with the balloons.

Yeah, the balloons are a hostile It is? Oh, yeah. Because they don't always have like...

Because you'd have a dot behind it or something?

They'd have different circles under there. They'd say small, medium, large, like what size prize you win. They would never have an extra large up under there. Or if they did, it would be under a really barely blown up balloon, so the dart wouldn't 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. If it touched any part of the dart was touching the black just a little bit, you didn't win. 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? The person working the game would go up and look. 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. No. Oh, yeah. You just have to do it nice and smooth. 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 Dard. I remember they had the water horse, but that was a competition against other people, so somebody always won.

I mean, there are ones that are slower than others, naturally, like the games. You could hit them both at the same time and one It just rises a lot slower than the other one or blows up the other one.

I remember, yeah, sometimes it didn't even make any sense. I remember one time it was like, Ring the fucking fish, and they had fish swimming, and you just throw the fucking rings in there.

Get a fish.

You didn't get shit. You're like, How do you even know if you got it? I was like, You lost. You're like, Oh, fuck, dude. I'm a loser, man. Twelve more months of winter. It was like Punctetani Phil just seeing your fucking reality. Oh, man. Each year when I went, it was like, God. Seeing the allowance go. I forgot how much. Yeah, I based my who I was off of that, man. Because I would save my money each. I was very particular about saving my money. So when we go down there, I'd plan ahead, and I would get my little... I would keep my money in one of those gym beam, those purple gym beam bags. You remember the-Oh, yeah.

With the draw string? Yeah.

Oh, yeah.I'll keep my money in there.The Crown Royal, too. Yeah, the Crown Royal bag. Sorry, the Crown Royal bag. And I bring it down there, and God, dude. It just felt horrible. 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. That's a legitimate game. Those are still around. Right.

That was a lot of fun, I remember.

Those ones were a hustle. Oh, yeah. The weighted. Yeah, they're weighted. Everybody knows that now.

We're looking at the weighted milk bottles and the softballs. What was so hard about it?

Just they're weighted. They're not going to knock over with the softball because you fill You'd fill them with lead or cement or whatever. The top one would be empty. So if people said, Oh, they're weighted, you would just grab the empty one and hand it to them and be like, Oh, look at it, dude. They're not weighted.

Wow. That's pretty crazy.

The bushel basket, that was another one. That was a hustle.

What was that?

I mean, not the bushel, the bank of ball. You remember the bank of ball? It was like there was a wooden backdrop back, and there was a laundry basket underneath, and you had to throw the ball against the back.It It hit it. It would fall into the basket. Yes, I remember that.

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, right?

So it would never do it. So it never dropped in.

Where How does you 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 ride was like, I never worked a fish game, or we didn't own one, but I knew the girls that ran it. They just had a trailer that was full of five-gallon drums full of fish, 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.

Yeah, you're like, Look at this fish.

Yeah, and your neighbor would be like, We're going to cook them bitches. And your neighbor would go cook six of those goldfish or baby koi, they called them.

Goldfish get pretty big if you just let them go. I've seen some really big ones.

My sister wanted a goldfish once, and they put it in their fish tank or whatever, and it grew into a...

A big fish. Carp or whatever. Yeah, I didn't realize how big they got.

It couldn't even turn around. The tank they got for it was so small, the fish couldn't even fucking turn around. It was just like, it would just always be straight ahead. Look at this dude right there. Crazy. One of the world's biggest goldfish has been caught, weighing in at 60 87 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 to 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 winters. Bro, and if we're not... This right here should tell you, if you don't think there's stuff in the water that is turning your kids trans or multi-armed or whatever, then this is a fucking fair goldfish. This is a parking lot minnow, half of them probably spray-painted gold, that was supposed to die right when you got home. 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 of 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. Dude, that is 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 paid 50 cents to go see that.

Oh, you staple another little cock to that I think it'll do 11 years in a freak bowl. Work over there in Nipsey's Freak Bowl or whatever it's called. You are a damn dreaded banana, son.

Alive, alive, alive.

But some of the... I remember some of the people that worked... One lady, I remember we gave her 50 cents. We were just scratching her back while she was smoking a joint or whatever. Oh, nice. And then she's like, I'm We're 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 secondhand high.

That's what you were paying for.

But I remember we gave that lady a couple of us. It was three of us scratching her back at the same time. We didn't even know her. I was like, Dan, this bitch is wild. It's cool.

Yeah, that sounds like she would work. She'd be good in the Dunk Tank, man. Those Dunk Tank clowns were something else, man.

Yeah, take me on some of the other periphery characters that were part of the carnival.

Yeah, the Dunk Tank clown guy, he was... I mean, you have to have a really special guy to be up there and really be able to go at people all day, get them pissed off enough to spend their life savings trying to knock you into a pool of water.

What stuff is he saying?

He's just saying, I slept with your wife last night.

Your brother's an N-word or whatever.

Sometimes he would have to have cops protect him when he closed to walk him to get him off the lot because people wanted to kick his ass. I've seen people not beat them up, but go after them if he didn't have protection. Because not all the time. 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. They're not even trying to dunk them. They're trying to throw the ball through the fence. They're smashing that fence with the ball. Really? Oh, yeah.

So that guy had to have some real cojones or just be not even mentally that great or whatever? Yeah. Wow.

It was wild. He would get into some serious shit.

A lot of beefs. You don't see them anymore. What would they yell? So they were just like, Yeah.

I was with your sister's mother last night. I was with your daughter last night. You know what I mean?

With your daughter and the guy saying his daughter's 11.

They don't care. That's what I'm saying. These guys were getting mad.

The dude just yelled.

I slept with you and 11-year-old daughter last night. What are you going to do about it?

Jesus. The dude just like, Hey, I'm a pedophile. He thinks he's protected by fucking 40 gallons of water.

This dude's just like, walking by with his kid, doesn't even know. All of a sudden, the guy's like, What? What did you say?

God, it's just heartbroken, dude. It's a sick world, man. Who else was there? They were like, Barkers, I remember. Oh, there was the Guess Your Weight guy.

Yeah, Guess Your Weight. Was that a real thing? That was a real thing. Yeah, he would guess your weight or your birth date. What else would he guess? It was something else. How did they do it? It was really just came down in numbers. They couldn't really do it, but you could tell They just got good at it. You could look at somebody because you had an average, you know what I mean? You could be off by 10 pounds or whatever it was, 5 pounds either way. Or when they guessed your birth date, they could be like, I don't I don't know if it had to be the same month. I know there was 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. I'll spot them 200 yards away. You got a Saggie on the fucking coming over the ridge. Watch out.

We had some characters, man. I remember the guy that worked, the big old guy that worked the diner, the sausage stand when I was a kid. This is when smoking was still allowed. He'd have a big old cigar in his mouth, Italian dude. It's like, What do you fucking kids want? Fucking ashes have fallen 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 the best on gives, too. You were like, 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 win.

You got to be careful on the first day of the carnival, though, maybe sometimes. If they brought... Sometimes they'd bring the leftovers from the last carnival and Really? Yeah, I just sell it. Really? Oh, yeah.

That's a good point, right? Yeah. Because the carnival ends on a Sunday? Yeah. Then it starts back on a Thursday?

Sometimes a Wednesday. Sometimes we do overnighters where you would tear down Sunday night It was set up Sunday night and then open Monday. Yeah, it's like tearing out. 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.

What other periphery people do you all use? Do you guys hire other locals? You said there were like 40-milers, like guys that would come on.

Yes, they're always looking for help. It was set up back then. You had the main carnival owner that owned, say, Fiesta Shows. He owned all the rides, mostly. 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. 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.

Oh, I see.

There was a lot of that. A lot of that's gone by the wayside. Now, 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 having people come in. Rent and everything. Yeah.

So it's some larger conglomerates now, you think? Yeah.

Wow. I know Fiesta definitely bought a bunch out, and that's how they got so big in New England. 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.

That gets him good locations, you know what I mean? And prime spots and stuff.

Was there a lot of camaraderie amongst you guys? Was there a lot of partying? What was that like? What was some of the lifestyle like?

We had some camaraderie to eat. Definitely the ride guys, they would all have their own crews, especially some of the bigger rides had four, five, six guys as a crew. They would be different crews. They'd have the Music Fest and the Sea Dragon crew. They called themselves the Dickhead crew, and you'd have these different crews. They had a really tight knit. Then the ride guys on a whole mostly did. The food guys, too, would. Then the different families, obviously, with the people that worked for that family were pretty tight knit. Then, yeah, at night, whoever you clicked with, you know what I mean? I clicked with everybody. I would party with anybody, from the lowest ride guy to the owners.

Were you a pretty hard partier or no?

Yeah, man, real hard. Really? Pretty hard, yeah. By the time I hit 21, I was already shitting and puking blood from drinking so much.No way.Oh, yeah. Jesus. Yeah, it was pretty wild.

Did that run in your family, alcoholism or drinking that much? Because that's a lot of drinking.

Yeah, it's all I really... My mom and dad got divorced when I was a year old, and so I had one foot in the carnival and another one in the city. I grew up in a pretty inner-city city.In.

New York?No.

It was outside of Boston, called Lawrence.

Lawrence, Massachusetts?

Yeah, Lawrence, Massachusetts.Wow. So it was a lot of gang activity and stuff there.

Oh, yeah, that's fun.

The carnival was my escape in the summer, which isn't much of it. So it's like the Carnival of the hood, which one do you want?

Yeah. Bam.

I drank a lot, partied hard.

And the parties get pretty crazy? Would shit get a little bit weird out there?

Yeah, it would be pretty crazy, especially when you go to these bigger towns, because you go to some of towns, and the girls are, especially the lot of lizards, the ones that they love when the carnival comes to town because they got nobody else, especially up in the sticks of Maine or something like that.

Really? So you're saying there was a lot of hookers almost that would come and service the carnival workers?

Yeah, not hookers. It's like straight up hos, I guess.

Oh, girls that didn't want money? Yeah. Girls that just wanted a party? Yeah. Oh, wow.

You get car fulls of them sometimes. Really? Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow.

I never thought of At a fair, one of some of the big fairs, man, they would show up after you already closed down and everything, and car fulls of chics would show up, looking to party. No.

Why? Did they know you guys had drugs or something?

Yeah, they just were like, Oh, the carnival's in town. Let's go meet the carnies. The only thing that happens every year in their town.

Wow, that's freaking rip, bro.

Then the next night, you got the car fellow, the dude showing up looking to 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.

Pretty wild, yeah. Some of the fights were pretty crazy. I mean, it was no different than being in the city sometimes.

So the dudes would roll up and they'd want to settle the score? Yeah.

And they couldn't because it was just so many car needs. Really? Yeah. You show up with a car full of people, 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 I got arrested for one of them. Yeah, what is that? We were at just a situation where we were in Connecticut and all the carnivals got together. So you got the first unit like, Oh, the third unit's down there. We got to go show them who's boss. You know what I mean? And they go down. I didn't even really know anybody from the third unit at that point. I was friends with a lot of the kids from the first unit. I was on some, I think I was on some dancing condoms maybe that night. Some paper, some acid.

Oh, some LSD? Yeah. Praise God, baby. Yeah.

There was a few of us on it. They came up and they were like, Oh, we just got into a big fight down there, down in Tent City, and blah, blah, blah. I was like, and a couple of kids are like, What? No way. Let's go down there again, and blah, blah, blah, let's go. So I'm tripping, and I'm like, All right, let's see where this goes. I just went to go see the action. So I'm down there and it just all hell breaks loose. People are getting ripped out of their tents. Swords are coming, flying out. It was wild. I'm seeing little droplets of blood fly by my face, laughing at me and stuff. I'm standing in the middle like, What is going on? It was just like 30 people. It was like 30 people. Yeah, it was crazy. Security tried to stop it, and they got beat up. Now they're all standing up against the fence, ripped shirts and holding on for dear life. They're like, We don't want no part of that. The girls are screaming at them like, Stop this. Help. Go stop the fight. Go stop the fight. The cops are on their way.

Don't worry about it. We're not I don't want nothing more to do with it. Stady showed up and I left. 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. I was just like, I'm not too worried about it. I'm going to go walk around and see what's up. As soon as I went out there, a cop's like, Get on your knees. He comes running up to me with a can of Mace. He's trying to get a DJ. I guess. I don't know. He comes running at me. Oh, it may With Mace. With Mace.

Jesus Christ.

What is going on? He's calling me K-Cops now, too. I'm tripping.

I'm like, hey, cops now, too.

And I'm tripping. So I'm like, oh, God. Dude, I'm like, yeah, whatever you want.

Bro, one time, I and what, they take you to jail.

They maced you? 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 standing in the hallway, and a few of my friends got arrested, and a bunch of the kids from the other side that got beat up got arrested. Oh, yeah. And I'm in the hallway, and it was like, I remember there being this textured wall, and I couldn't stare at it. It was going crazy at me. I turned away, and the cops just like, Put your fucking face against the wall, though. You're spitting on me.

Get At a gwar concert or something?

Yeah, I was like, Wow, okay, worse than gwar. I faced the wall, and they brought me into the cell and whatever. I bond out the next day. I had a hitchhike back to the carnival. No. Oh, yeah. As soon as I got back to the car, and they put me in a in the cell with one of the kids that got beat up. And so my friends are in another cell. I'm in the cell with them, and I'm still tripping, and I'm just yelling fresh fish. I'm just being out of my mind.

Were 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. Yeah. Oh, I like that.

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 they And I was already bonded, but they kept me in the cell for an extra couple of 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 wild, man.

It was pretty crazy. But I got back home and my mom was doing an event that weekend, so I just jumped on one of her events and just went right back to work.

Were your parents, were they always in the... Were they working at carnivals as well?

Yeah. So my dad was at... Was he at the one that happened? He might have been there. He might have been at another one.

What was he doing at the carnival?

So my dad was... 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 working, 15, 16, he was already almost pushing 70. Yeah. And he looked like an old Italian Mafia dude. He kept like this with his cane. What are you guys doing over here? Get to work. Hitting his cane, hitting his cane at you. Come on, come on.

Like Colonel Parker?

He was a good dude. Miss you, dad.

What was the What's some of the wildest? Was there some pretty good sex activity going on out there? Because everybody always thinks, I think there's this vibe you think about like, carny's, like the ride shut down and then the party starts. Yeah, the party starts. I think that's what the energy you feel like happens.

Yeah. Like I said, you get those car full of girls show up. One of those girls that showed up, the head hoe tattoo I was telling you about, that was one of the girls that... She wasn't even an employee. She was one of the girls that showed up looking at a party.

That said Bust a nut on me.

No, this one said Head hoe on it.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah.

Just the advertising that they have, that's wild to me. Usually, you don't know. A girl's tattoo will be a secret. Yeah. Love is forever or whatever. You're like, Well, I'm going to have to decipher this. But if somebody just bust a nut on me or whatever, it's like, well, it's just not as much guesswork, I guess.

But yeah. It would be crazy. I The girls like to party just as much as the guys. There would be a lot of crazy stuff going down. Looking a party, looking to get down. I've seen some stuff. I mean, there's a friend... I I've seen some stuff. A friend of mine, 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. 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, the hell, what's going on? He's like, we got a spot now. Let's go. And he brings her in there and right on somebody's bed. I don't know who's bed because they had the couch pulled out. So the door is wide open. He's going to town right there.Wow.Yeah..

Just making love, huh?

I don't know when you call it love, but there was something going on. Yeah.

Making almost love.

Yeah. It was interesting. To 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 turned left, the wheel went right, and if you turned the handlebars right, the wheel went left. Oh, my gosh, no. Yeah. I owned one of those, and I couldn't ride it. I couldn't, but I figured one of my best friends learned how to ride it, so we put it out there. 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. But if you could learn how to ride it, and the kid that worked for me was really good, he'd be able to sit on the handle bars, backwards and ride it. He got really good at it.

Is it a unicycle?

No, it was a regular bicycle, two-wheel bike.

A crazy bike.

We called it a crazy bike.

If you turned it to the left, the wheel went to the right. Yeah.

If you turned to the right, the wheel went left. So hard to try to figure out how to ride that.

Really? Especially if you never had. Oh, my God. I couldn't even imagine this, right?

It's like dyslexia.

It's like dyslexia made up a piece of transportation.

Yeah, my friend could ride it all around the carnival like that. Wow.

Oh, that's a vibe.

Yeah. 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.

Now, was there a lot of ladies to me? Did you guys call regular people civilians? What did you all call them? Marks. Marks? Yeah. God. Everybody that walked through, it was like, How much can we get it? We got to get it out of it?

Yeah, we got to get that mark. If you got one, you'd call it out. We got a fresh one. You got a mark here. 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, so it looked like somebody's name.

Who was Robin Marks?

I was. I was Robin Marks.

I got it. But nobody was really actually Robin Marks, huh? 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, if you get- Robin Marks.

There she is right there.

Sweetie. I could fall in love with her.

With her husband, yeah.

And for the games, because you would either be an agent or a clerk. That's what we call the people that work the games, like the jointies. 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 them.

Give me an example of how those would be at the the game?

A clerk is somebody that doesn't really know how to hustle somebody.

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. Where an agent is going to try to take you for everything you got.

And who were the agents? Was it usually older people? Was it younger? Could it be anybody?

It was anybody. Anybody that was good at hustling, really. That was all ages. Was it Whites?

Was it Native America? Who type? Was it any?

It was Whites. Whites.

It's a white sport carnivaling.

Yeah.

Has it changed? I remember it being like that. It was maybe white and black guys at work or white and black people that work there, I guess. That's all we had in our area.

Yeah, up there and up north. We didn't really have... There's not a lot of blacks up north. I mean, one of my best friend's artist, he was an older guy, and he worked out there my whole life. He was best friends with my brother because all my siblings were much older than me. We had some out there, I guess it's some Puerto Ricans and stuff, 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? How have things changed? Yeah, since the past to now?

Well, it was hard finding, I think, really good ride help. I don't know why it was Mexico and South Africa. I don't know why those two countries were picked, but apparently it sold to them that you're going to go on a work and vacation, you get to see the United States and work and make money while you're at it, which is all bullshit. You're doing this carnival, and you're at that carnival. It doesn't look any different wherever you go. It's the same lot. So not seeing anything different.

Would you ever get some free time?

I did, yeah.

Because you were a kid.

I was a kid.

And your parents were...

They didn't make money. They weren't made of any... I mean, we were poor.

Wow. So it's not a big money maker.

No. And my parents were divorced.

So they were splitting the money?

No, I don't know.

Or when you have two homesteads going, it's like-Yeah, but I didn't see my dad much growing up, really.

Until I started joining the carnival. I mean, I I would once in a while, I would see him on holidays and stuff, and once in a while, I would go stay at his house, I guess. I remember. But yeah, I didn't see him that much until I really was going to the carnival.

You almost had to be at the carnival to see him. Yeah. Oh, man, it's a bummer. It's interesting. It is.

Yeah, I mean, my dad was a hard ass, too. So I guess I'm glad that I didn't see him as much from what my brother said. Oh, yeah. He was great when I was... He was an old man, so he was just like a whatever.

People start to lose their steam.

Yeah, their edge. It was definitely different. My mom trying to hold the carnival together herself when all the kids were already grown and out of the house and not helping anymore. I was still a really young kid. We didn't have much money. I was getting school lunches and shit like that.

Oh, yeah, same, man. Yeah, school lunches is 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 when you signed up and I don't remember.

We had to go get the free ticket each day, so it would be 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.

Yeah.

And if you paid, ticket had a X on it.

Yeah.

And I remember, yeah, we had to get the free ticket. I forgot about that, man. Yeah. I'm not saying I'm ashamed of it or anything, but I remember feeling at the time.

At the time, Yeah, you feel ashamed.

You were trying to just pretend you weren't getting that one. You're like, I don't know why they have me on this list.

That's strange.

Yeah, you're there. Really?

Why it happens every day?

God, that must have make some poor... Whoever's making these lists is just confused. A lot of times people look at the carnival as a sad, I think it got that wrap over the years in a way, that it just was a negative. What is some positive about it? Because I also loved... There was something like, you almost felt like you were in the big city in a way because there were these lights going on and there was people would come that you didn't normally get to see because there were kids that went to different schools and then if they didn't go to your school, then maybe you'd see them there. Those are things that I liked about it. 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.

No, you definitely felt the sense of 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 games that are on a rip off or rides. A lot of the ride guys would feel pride in having 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. All the lights are busted. They got one blanket light going. Yeah, that's it. No music. The ride guy, like I said, he's one of those guys that just got out of prison. Yeah, so he doesn't really care about the ride that much. But for the families that are out there and when you have a good weekend or a really nice fair, you feel good about putting on a good show for everybody and having a good... I had pride in having really the cleanest stands and putting out quality food.

You've been like a family's running. If a family-owned, we do the games or we do the ride.

We do the food and we do the ride games.

So there would be some organization of that.

Yeah, there would be multiple families. There would be sometimes 10, 12 different families out there all owning. I mean, sometimes you would have one guy that just owned his one game, and he would travel everywhere with you just running his one game, and that's what he owned.

Was there another world of carnying 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 What is it that makes people go to a carnival, you think, or go to a fair? What is it?

Fun. They want to go on the rides. They want to have some fun. They want to escape. We need more escapism these days.

Yeah, it was It was fun. I definitely remember it was fun.

Yeah, and that was the thing. It was crazy and stuff, and we have some crazy stories, but we always wanted to make sure we wanted to provide a good time for the people, too. Granted, the rides definitely are... I mean, the games are a hustle, and some agents did take it too far. I agree. Those people that were getting robbed for their life savings, you're taking it too far. But for the most part, 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 Man, one time we let a chicken go.

We stole a chicken or a rooster, and we put it up in the dog house of the music fest. So when the next day they came to work, there was this wild rooster up in the dog house. And the dog house is the control room where you run the ride.

Oh, nice.

And the Music Fest is the one where they go around. It's like you're in a car that swings and it goes around this big, not a track, but it's because it's on an arm. So the cars swing, and they swing around, and they're playing crazy music or whatever. Yeah, I think I remember that one. Then it's like, Are you guys ready to go backwards? Let's go backwards this time. There it is.

Music Fest. Yeah, dude. God, those rides were such a big thing.

We put a chicken in the dog house one time for the to the ride, that's when they showed up the next day.

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 some of the vibe. It was just people that had extra animals or whatever, and they're like, We're going to bring them up here because we knew people be up here. 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 Carnegie has met each other?

Yeah, I met. Back in the day, that's the only place I really met. My friend April, who I was with for almost 10 years or something, we were 16, 17 when we hooked up.

You 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.

She was actually pregnant when we hooked up already, too. Really? Yeah.

Wow, that seems illegal.

That's crazy in the eyes of God, but I don't know. We're still friends. I mean, Raquan, her son, works for me now.

Oh, yeah, really?

Yeah, her son works for me. Really? Yeah.

So, wow, that's love, man. Yeah, that's the thing.

We're still best friends. Oh, really? Yeah, we're not together, obviously, but we're best friends still.

Damn.

So, yeah, we've had some-Love can happen out there. I think my nephew met his wife out there. He just got married a year or two ago. He met her out there.

Yeah.

She was South African. I think she came over from that whole... When they 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. But some of them love it, and some of them end up rising up and getting positions of power, too. It goes both ways. Some of them hated it, some of them didn't mind it, and some of them loved it.

Oh, yeah.

Mexicans, I don't know because they all spoke Mexican. I couldn't figure it out if they liked it or not.

Yeah, I think Mexican people adjust pretty well. Yeah. They just adjust well to most things. I would like to be Mexican.

Probably be fun.

Oh, yeah. I think I would 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.

Well, my girlfriend's half Mexican.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. Does that part of her seem good?

I love it. Yeah.

There you go. Yeah, I would just... We'll see what happens. But anyway, that's a bigger conversation. But what about like, gypsies? Did you 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 the psychic readings and stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of mushes out there.

We didn't see them much. Really? They were gypsies. They were? Travelers. They were travelers. Because normally, if you wanted to do the big fairs, you would have to... If you were a gypsey that just wanted to come in and do it, or 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.

But I don't know how the chipsies got away with it. Maybe just because...

What do you mean he got away with it? They would do what?

They wouldn't have to do the shit spots. Sometimes you would just see a psychic reader or somebody that did the palm reading or the cards, and you would only see them at some of the big fairs, and they wouldn't have to do all the shit spots.

They didn't have to play the smaller ones in this and the ones you didn't love.

Yeah, they were funny, man. You'd walk by because I never went into them, but she would always like, Come on in. They're so perceptive because they would try to get you to think that they were being psychic or they knew something But they're just watching what's going on out in the carnival, and they're like, Oh, there's going to be a blonde in your life. I see it. And it's like, Yeah, because you saw me last night hanging out with her. But they're funny.

Yeah, the gypsies are, yeah, a real I'm interested. My brother's friend, Donnie, is a gypsey, 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 gyp. I don't know much about it. I just wish I knew more about it. I like simple... I like jewelry or whatever. Sometimes. I don't like a lot.

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, never know.

Navy Seals, but of complete bullshit. You don't know what they're thinking, if they're being serious or not, if they're telling you honest.

You don't know. They just say stuff and they have their own language.

Oh, they do. It's pretty fascinating. He's unspecie because he leaves it kizan. I can't even speak it right.

Really? Is that pig latin? Karni.

Oh, that's Karni. Yeah, Karni is tough because you have to-Oh, it's a Karni language? Yes. Really? Yeah.

What do you tell me about this?

Is that Quizan Spizik?

Oh, it's like a pig latin?

Yeah, you put E-E-Z before every vowel.

Oh, my.

So it gets tough. E-e-z. E-e-z, yeah.

Oh, my. E-e-z.

It would be gizad.Oh.

My gizad. Oh, my. Gizad.

So O would be iso, mi, z, z, before every vowel. Oh, my. So O would be iso, mi, z, z, z. Oh, my God. Iso, misa, gizad. Wow.

Biz, bizad. You put ezad above.

E, E, Z before every vowel, so God would be gizad.

Bizust, izon. What did the lady say? Bizust, izah, neizut, izon, gizon, gizon. Busting that out, man. That's a craze. 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 set up?

When you close the night, you wait for the big gondola wheel to close down. That's how you know you're closed.

What is the big gondola wheel?

The big ferris wheel, the giant ferris wheel. You wait for the lights to go off, and that means you close. That's when you know it's time to close. You close down. Depending on what you ran, games were really easy to tear down. The hardest thing was putting on the hitch after they took your game away because the hitches come off. They pull the trailer, then you pull the trailer by. You got to take those off so you can put all the games, butt them up to each other, make the midway.

Wait, hold on. When you say make the midway, what do you mean? And you put them what into the truck?

When you go on to the midway. The midway is 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 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 tearing on a game. Okay. It's taking that on and on.

And how do you all travel it all out? How does it all move out?

So it's up to each family. They usually have trucks that pull their stuff, and somebody that works for them, usually it'll be a driver or two. They might have a couple of drivers. Or you might hire a trucking company to come in and pull your stuff. The carnival 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 50, 60 miles, you can make multiple trips. But if you're going a couple of hundred miles, you might not want to make as many trips. You don't have the time. So you'll hire a trucking company to come in and take it. And I used to tear down rides and stuff, too, for extra money. So I would do 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 I'd make good extra money doing that. It was cash.

Yeah. So what do they pay an extra 50 bucks to help tear down a ride or something? No. So you do four or five a night, make an extra couple of hundred bucks. Yeah, make a couple of hundred bucks. That's great. Yeah.

And so the stand I have now, even back then at the carnival, we had a wooden frame. Towards the end, I was in charge of the food stands for my brother and my father. 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 watch them cook and stuff like that. I don't know if you had them down here or not, but That's what I have now. That's what I use out at the festivals, too. Okay. That's a lot of work because everything has to come out of the truck. The grills, the frylators, the fridges, everything comes out.

How would they move the big rides? How do they get those to the next town or whatever?

Yeah, big truck. You tear it down. And most of them, they fold down pretty small. A lot of them-Do they fold onto a semi or just onto a trailer? On a semi-trailer. On a semi-trailer. It's a trailer. Yeah, it's got wheels under it. Some of them are ground. We call the other ones that aren't on a trailer, ground mounds. So they'll have a trailer for it, but everything has to come off the trailer and set up on the ground. 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 It depends.

I mean, you could move, you can get it done fairly fast. Sometimes you can have everything done in a good six hours or so.

Wow, really? Do they travel at night, usually, or what does it happen?

Because you usually close Sunday nights. And so you're done, depending on how late you close. Sometimes you'll close early. Some Sundays, though, they do the bracelets where you buy a bracelet and you could ride all the rides all day and night. And so when And 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. Yeah. One other game we used to play where you would put the slide, the money, and you pay and get these thing of coins, and you put the coins in, and it would push.

It's called the splash down. It was one of the ones we called it.

Yeah, it would move the coins forward, and sometimes it would push a little like an actual quarter would be on top of them. It would push a quarter off for a dollar. We use quarters in ours.Oh.

You do?Yeah. There was sometimes, depending on the state, Sometimes you got to use coins. Sometimes you can use quarters. In Maine, you can use quarters.

Yeah.

But those are a hustle, too. Are they? Yeah, because there's a couple of different ways they hustle it. Sometimes there would be something under the quarters of the coins. There's this triangle right at the front of the lip. So when they're pushing, they push sideways. And if you want to see on the sides, there's the splash downs. 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.

But if they fall off 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. Damn. Sometimes people would glue that shit down. No. Oh, yeah.

You know what it taught you, though? It taught you about loss, man. It taught I'm not telling you that life is going to fucking... You're probably going to lose. And you're probably going to knock somebody up.

It just taught me that everything is a fucking hustle, man. Everything in life, whether it's your HVAC guy, Whether it's your teacher at high school.

Yeah, whether it's your second fucking wiener.

Yeah, it's a fucking hustle.

Life's a hustle, dude. Yeah, life's a hustle, man. That was another thing.

Speaking of his wiener, that was the way he made money. You were asking how 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, how his hygiene and stuff like that.

The great Lentini, you mean?

Yeah, the great Lentini. 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? Yeah. Wow.

He had an extra nipple right down here.

That's almost It's like a third leg. It's like a third. It's like it seems like it's the same genetics.

Yeah, I was wondering that if it was because of the genes type thing.

Franklin Tini, for as long as I can remember. Sideshow attractions. Let's look at two more of them before we go. Mirindageo, the invulnerable man. Mirindageo was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1912. Miriam 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. Miriam was not affiliated with any one Sajo act or circus, but the idea of being a human pin cushion was one that was popular in that industry. Wow. So he would put pins right through himself. He was the real article.

Wow, that's pretty crazy. I think I remember hearing about him. Really? When I was researching my uncle, I remember seeing. And the elastic man, too. There was a guy that... Maybe that was him that could stretch his skin really crazy.

Mirindage.

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. So we had a message with what he was doing. Interesting. Interesting, man. Mich, man. Nice to meet a carny, bro. Nice to meet a guy that's been through it and able to come here and share a little bit of what the world and the universe is like.

Yes, 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. It got me. It's where I am today. It got me here to meet you.

Yeah, man. It got me here to meet you.

The job I have now selling food out there, they treat me like a rock star out there, and I'm not going to lie. They really do. I have to give a shout out to all my nieces and nephews out there in the world that really support me and take care of me out there. They really love Uncle Mitchell's Munchies, Home of the turtle dick sandwich. Really? Yeah.

And it's real meat?

Yeah. Turtle dick sandwich. There's only two places in the country that could sell it. Oh, wow.

It's got to be endangered or whatever?

Yeah. So we do it. We get the turtle, we snip it, and send it back off in the wild. Are you serious? No. 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.

But you should see all the turtle dicks we have now. People make turtle dick. We have all these turtle dicks, a dancing turtle dick. All this crazy shit out there.

The games continue, man. Oh, man, they don't stop. I love it. Thanks, It's so much for your time, man. Yeah, I appreciate you coming, dude.Thank you. Spending some time with us.

I'm going to see you on the ninth. 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 Frankly at UMass Amherst.Oh.

Yes, Saturday night or something?Saturday night.

Yeah, I think a Friday night, Saturday night. This Friday night? 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 this, right here.

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 going to take.