E496 A Carny

Theo Von

Today's guest is a Carney 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 into the Carny universe. Today's guest is Carney Mitch Candiano.

I'll sit and tell you my story shine on me and I will find a song I've been singing 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 carneys and carnival employees fairs, everything like it. What? Is Carney an appropriate term? Yeah, I was born and raised at Carney. Really?

Mitch Candiano

My grandparents were carnies, my parents were carnies, 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 Owen.

Theo Von

Yeah. I gotta thank you for having a poor pedestrian like me on. Cause, you know, I don't wear a watch and I don't use a washcloth, so Tom will never have me on. Oh yeah, he doesn't like the pores. He doesn't like pores.

Mitch Candiano

I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know, dude. I think we're great people. Yeah, look, I don't. Yeah, I'm not.

Theo Von

Yeah, I don't have a washcloth. I probably should have one. That's what I use. Yeah, he hates washcloths. Oh, he hates them.

Mitch Candiano

He hates them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think. Well, I'll use a washcloth like to get like in here though. Yeah, right. I mean how do you get it out?

Theo Von

Get in. Really? I try to use my fingernail and getting it out and then just like putting it like that into the drain or whatever, but I don't think that's enough sometimes. Especially as you get older. Yeah, you know, but you got a wet willie.

Yeah, you gotta doing a wet willy on somebody. Yeah, yeah, I remember doing. Oh, I'm gonna sneak one up on you later. Just wear a condom. Oh, I will.

Okay. That's all I'm asking for, you know. I mean it's the least you could do, dude. The irish hell up. For sure, man.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, it's our first time hanging too, so I'll definitely keep it covered. Yeah, but dude, thanks. Yeah, so I guess I'm just curious like so what is a carny? What is the term? So a carny carnival, you know, carnival worker.

Okay, I guess is where it came from. And so that's who we are. And I know there's all different versions. I know people sometimes think of, like, somebody that just got out of prison, covered in tattoos, smelling like cabbage, you know, missing a couple fingers, and they think that's a carny that's working the ride or something like that. Oh, yeah, that iris deodorant.

Theo Von

Yeah. You know, and we don't. We carnies don't call them carnies. We call them, like, 40 milers or green help or something like that. Cause, like, a 40 miles, he's just trying to get onto the road and get 40 miles down the street to the next lot.

Mitch Candiano

So you get out of whatever situation he was in when he joined the carnival. Okay, so there's different types. So you have actual colonies that are, like, they've been in there for a while. Yeah. Like, 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 kind of, like, maybe just got out of doing some time, and they're just trying to try to get a job.

And, you know, get out of town. And get out of town. Yep. Just trying to get there for just something. Yeah.

Theo Von

And so a lot of times, the carnival will hire folks like that just because they need, like, a lot of short. It's tough to find help out there, you know, people that want to travel and just be out there every day, you know, living at the carnival. Yeah. And you're in a different town every week, and, you know, you don't get much time off, so it's wild. Yeah, it's interesting.

Well, it's kind of interesting. It's kind of similar to comedians, because you go to a town or a city for a few days, and then you hit the road and you go to somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. I'd say, like, that's like the calling. Like a open mic or, like a comic is kind of like calling one of those ride guys a carny is kind of like the same thing, you know?

Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes good sense, man. And your family's been doing it, you said, hundreds of years? Well, since 1918.

Mitch Candiano

My grandfather started selling cotton candy in 1918. Wow. Yep. 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, and I don't know, he was 18 years old and started selling cotton candy at, like, street fairs and little things like that. Yeah, it's just kind of how we started and got into it. I actually still have some cotton candy machines that he built.

Handmade, like, wooden frame and, like, you know, belt driven. Like old, old school. They obviously don't work, but. Because then now they're like, all sturdy metal, like, you know, industrial looking. Like whirlpool makes.

Yeah, yeah, something like that. But yeah, we have. 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 they're older. Those are kind of like the. Those kind of seem like residential ones that you can kind of, like, buy for your house. So your grandfather came over and he started selling cotton candy. So he started selling cotton candy.

Theo Von

Yeah, he's selling cotton candy. And then, like, what, he just gets a job? He stays. Like, he just kept doing it. And then, you know, he had kids, and then my father got into it, and my father and mother started their own whole carnival business where they started buying rides and games and food and everything.

Mitch Candiano

And, you know, we had a whole carnival called candy, Indiana's amusements way back before I was born. And then when I was born, they kind of split up, and my dad started working for bigger carnivals, like the real big ones that did the big county fairs and state fairs and stuff like that. 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 kind of, like, big shot out there. He ran, like, food and games and stuff for him out there and was a lot, man. So what. And so did you. Was one of your first jobs in the carnival?

Yeah. Yep. And so what's the difference between a carnival and a fair? Because we had. The fair would come a lot, right?

Yeah. So the fair is just the same thing. Yeah, it's basically. Except the fair is they have, like, the animals and everything like that. Like, you have the whole agricultural part of it, you know, and sometimes they'll have, like, demolition derbies and all that.

And like the races and all the agricultural, like the pigs. Oh, they had definitely, yeah, all that stuff. So that's what kind of distinguishes it from a fair to a carnival. And they kind of been long running, like, up where we are, we have the topsfield fair. It's been around for like, 150 years or something like that.

Theo Von

Yeah. How does that four h element fit in? Because that's also a whole different element than the rides and the games. That's kind of. You would always, like.

I remember we'd always have to walk over to, like, the livestock shed or whatever. It's like a bomb shelter or whatever that had a bunch of pigs in it and stuff, and you'd have to go over there and pig races. You ever see those? Yeah, and they have, like, the kids art. Like, you'd won, like, third place, whatever.

It was pretty bad. A lot. Jesus Christ. Like, they hid it over here behind the goats. It wasn't that great of art, but you'd be able to go over there and, like, they had, like, crocheting and.

Mitch Candiano

A lot of local crafts. But did you guys ever have beef? Was there, like, a lot of, like, beef between cornies and the live streams? Beef was in the carnivals. Between the carnival.

Theo Von

Wow. Like, so during the spring, when we're doing just carnivals, we would split up into, like, three different sections. So you could do three cities at the same time. But then when we got to the fairs, we would all get together, and then the fights would break out. Oh, yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Like, crazy fights. So what was a lot of the beef between the people, the workers? Oh, I'm a first unit. No, you know, you're just a lonely guy from the third unit. Like, you know, you shouldn't be over here, like, with us or partying with us or hanging.

You know, they kind of look down on you like it's just like anything else, you know? The first unit got all the big rides and the nice stuff, and then the second unit was kind of stepped down, and then the third unit was like, they got all the shit, all the bad rides, all the bad stuff. So whenever they all teamed up, there was all these beefs going on, like. You know, territorial stuff. Territorial stuff, yeah.

Theo Von

Yeah. So, like, what was your first job in it? I think my first. I think I was probably selling cotton candy, probably in the floss. We called it a floss stand, and it was the one that did cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, and candy apples.

Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Caramel apples with sprinkles. I love that, man. Caramel apples.

Mitch Candiano

You still make caramel apples, do you? Oh, that's so good. They're so good, man. And people don't think about them that much. No.

Theo Von

If you ask somebody, what are you thinking about? They never say caramel apple, man. That's true. It just, you know, it's like something you don't hear as much as you wish you should. Cause they're so good when you get them.

Mitch Candiano

They're so good. Yeah, they really are. And was that, like, what goes into making cotton candy? Like, what is it? Sugar and coloring.

Theo Von

Oh, okay. That's it. Sugar and coloring? Yeah. And it's honestly not a lot of sugar, but what.

How does it get the cotton or. Whatever, it heats up. So it heats the sugar up so it, like, gets real stringy and, like, fluffs out. Like that. It goes in the machine.

Mitch Candiano

So that's that head there in the middle spins really fast, and it heats up. Some people get crazy with the cotton candy. Have you seen the people that make the animals and stuff out 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 Mitch's bitches. Yeah? Yeah. And she wants to start figuring out how to do that. Really?

Yeah. And that's what you call them? Mitches. Mitches. I don't call them that.

They call himself that. Oh, yeah. So don't cancel me, guys. No. It could be a union.

Theo Von

Yeah. A lot of these different. There's a lot of different unions. I'm studying. Yes.

My friend is in the pipefitters union, and he's always yelling about something, but. Yeah, these girls, they call themselves Mitch's bitches. Oh, yeah. They all made shirts that say Mitch's bitches on it. It's pretty wild.

And those are your friends? Yeah, friends, employees. I pretty much hire friends. Or they become friends real fast once they start working for me. Like Sil.

Mitch Candiano

Love you, babe. And so what about this? Bring that back up. Sorry, I'm just trying to learn about this cotton candy. It is made by heating and liquefying sugar and spinning it centrifugally through minute holes.

Theo Von

Minute holes. Causing it to rapidly cool and resolidify into fine strands. It is often sold at fayer circuses, carnivals. Wow. So you just put some sugar in a hot.

In the hot? Yeah. And that thing that spins in the middle, you pour sugar in there and you color the sugar ahead of time. Okay. And it starts spinning, and next thing you know, it makes cotton candy.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. It's coming out crazy. And you got your stick and you whipping it around. How fast? How long does it take?

It doesn't take long to fill up a bag. Wow. But I don't know if this guy's gonna get crazy. Maybe he does. I don't know.

I've seen some. There are some people that really make some intricate stuff with the cotton candy. Yeah, there's a machine that's kind of like the one I have just like that. So that was, like, my first gig, you know, like, there's a picture of me. I was born in the summer.

So, like, as soon as I was born, my mom had me right 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, you know, a month old. Seriously. So your family was just out there like. Oh, yeah.

Theo Von

And so, like, what towns was that usually? Oh, man. We did, like, the topsfield fair, the Marshfield fair out on Cape Cod, the Bangor and Skowhegan Fair up in Maine, Rochester Fair in New Hampshire, Hopkinton Fair, New Hampshire.

Mitch Candiano

There's 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. Cause, like, if you didn't do that well the year before or whatever, 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, like, selling food and stuff like that, but I don't do carnivals.

Cause towards the end of when I was doing it, they were still, like, we were doing, like, these closed down strip centers. You know what I mean? Like old ames and Kmart parking lots where everything's boarded up and we're in the parking lot trying to make. Nobody's coming. You got, like, you know, nobody there.

Theo Von

So this is somebody making cotton candy right here. Yep. Is this the machine you're talking about? Mine's similar to that. I don't know if it's.

Mitch Candiano

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 sugars in there? Just spraying it out really hot? Yep.

And it cools off immediately. Oh, wow. So this is. That's all cotton candy. So this is a cotton candy machine right here?

Yep. Okay. And so that's. The sugar is inside of that. See that little thing?

Yeah. That's spinning super fast right in the middle. It's spinning so fat, you can't even tell it's spinning. Yeah. And it's just blowing hot sugar.

Hot sugar, maybe. Yeah. And now this. Wow. And this is a korean guy.

Oh, he's getting down, huh? Yeah, look at him.

Make an umbrella. It looks like he's making. Yeah. Like, maybe a UFO. Yeah, something.

Theo Von

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.

Mitch Candiano

Cause I wasn't that good at spinning it. Because you want it to be, like, nice and big and fluffy on a stick when you get it to people. That's true. And so I wasn't even that great at that. I would always put it in a bag and sell the bag.

Cotton candy. Wow. This is unbelievably creative. Yeah, here we go. Now, do you get jealous when you see somebody taking it to another level?

Of course. I know. Me too. It's like when you see somebody that's just that great, they're crushing it on the stage. Like meeting Tim Dillon.

Theo Von

You're like, ah, damn. I'm just regular cotton candy. Oh, man. You and Tim were on the same level. Come on.

Oh, that guy's so funny. He is. Oh, this is so funny to be around. Thank you for saying that. It's nice of you to say that.

Okay, so you're working the cotton candy. That's how you get started out. What kind of, like, groups are at the car, at the carnival? At the. Yeah, we definitely say separated.

Okay, what kind of groups are at the carnival? Like, are there. Because there's the games. Right. There are the jointies.

Mitch Candiano

The. What is it? We call them? Joinies. Joinies, yeah.

Theo Von

And what is that? The joints. The trailers. We call them joints. Okay.

Mitch Candiano

And so they work the joints. Okay, so they work the games. Those are the joints. And then there's the food. Yep.

Concessions. Concessions. And then there's ride jocks. Ride jocks. Yep.

Theo Von

And are those groups kind of, like, they keep to their own a little bit or what? Yeah, for the most part, the joinings and concessions will mingle, and, you know, I mingled with everybody. Just, I knew everybody. But, you know, a lot of times, some of the ride guys would mingle with some of the ride, some of the concessions a little bit, and, you know, they would mingle a little bit, but for the most part, they were with their own crews, you know? Yeah.

Did you ever work the rides? Yeah, yeah, I did it all. Cause, you know, I was just out there, and when I was a kid, before I even, like, worked officially, I would like I knew everybody, so I would jump on the ride. Hey, let me run this ride for a little while. Or I would work inside the haunted houses scaring people when I was like, you know, 1213 years old, you know, and like they had the walk in, you know, haunted houses or the ones you ride through and I would go in there and like scare the people coming through and stuff like that.

Mitch Candiano

And, you know, that was always fun. And why is your family so tied. In just for doing it for so long? Right. Honestly.

And you know, even before my father, you know, I had, I had my grandfather around the same time, I guess. Well, yeah, he was. I had a great uncle. Or was he great? 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 most famous three legged man. Franklin teenie Frank Lantini. Yep.

There he is. Oh, wow. Yeah. He had three legs, 4ft, two dicks, 16 toes. Oh, wow.

Theo Von

He had two wieners on him. Yep. Oh my God. Two peepees, dude. I couldn't even.

You could serve, dude. You could serve. Yeah. It's almost like a damn soda fountain at that point. Leg, dick leg, dick leg.

Oh, you could have urine and infant out of the other. And they both worked. Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh.

And how did y'all know that was it? Did they write it down somewhere? Yeah. Well, because he was so. Everybody wanted to know, you know.

Mitch Candiano

So like when he was traveling the freak shows and he was really well spoken, they called him like the mayor of the freaks. Cause he would go and speak for everybody. Like when he'd be like, you know, we want more money or we want better working conditions or whatever. He would be the guy that would go talk to everybody. He worked for ringling, Barnum and Bailey.

He worked for all the big freak shows and circuses. Wow. Frank Lentini was born in Sicily in 1881. He was the fifth of twelve children. Yeah.

And they didn't. His parents didn't really like him that much. Gave him to his aunt. Yeah. They were kind of ashamed of him.

Theo Von

Cause he had three legs, each of different lengths. Now that I got. That's a lot to, you know, because then you're like throwing your hip like. That's gotta be crazy. Yeah, it's gotta 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 Jenny dude, huh? 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. They couldn't take it off. Cause especially back then, I'm sure. But they definitely. It was too dangerous to try to remove.

He would go on to work with every major circus, including Barnum and Bailey, in his act. He would kick a soccer ball, ride a bike and skate. He'd kick it out of his third leg, like, hold the ball over a football and kick it with his third leg. Oh, bro, that's gotta be so incredible. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Imagine running and you can just kick somebody with your third leg while you're running. Dude. Imagine you could play footsie with two women under the table. You still have an extra leg in different directions. Yeah.

Theo Von

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 energy for his hard work and presence. He married and had four children.

Wow. Yeah, all his children came out fine. He died a long failure. Damn. You'd think he got it.

He got one of his legs caught in something. You know what I'm saying? Just the odds. Cause every now and then, I almost get one of my legs caught in something. Wow, look at that.

Zoom in on one of these photos, please. I love the one on the right where he's got, like, the one in the. And he's got each other foot on a stool. It'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? Yeah. He said he would buy two sets of shoes and he would give his fourth shoe, the extra shoe, to a buddy that lost a leg. Oh. So they all went to use.

Oh, that's beautiful, man. God, you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore. That's the toughest part about stuff. Wow. Unbelievable.

Look at that dude. There he is. Is an old man down there. Yeah. Can we get one more picture of him?

Frank Lentini. Oh, how I wonder. What would it be like? Imagine this had to be such a flex that you cross your leg and then you cross the other one over.

You must have. People must have thought you were Jordan Peterson no matter what. Right. That had to be so wild. Unbelievable.

What else? You used a picture of him on the back of an Alison 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.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, it's actually their best album. Down in a hole. Is that them? Yeah. I'd like to fly.

You know it. Dude, that's so incredible. So this is a relative of yours? Yeah, yeah, he was. He was my dad's either great uncle or cousin.

I can't remember. I tried to, like, really narrow it down, but it's, you know, so long ago, and my dad's not with us, so I can't ask him anymore. I'm sorry to hear that, man. It's all right. 23 and me, though.

Theo Von

They might not even have these kind of. Yeah, my brother actually started doing that. Going back to see with the 23. Andme, and, like, yeah, he's got the ancestry going on, so he's trying to, like, put it all together. Yeah, yeah.

Mitch Candiano

So 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.

Theo Von

So, yeah, being a parasitic twin, can you bring that up for me? First of all, I've always thought twins should have to fight to see who. Gets to make the shots, call the. Shots, who gets to stay alive. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

You know, that's gotta be tough. And I'm not saying that nobody deserves to be alive, but it's just like. Cause it's kind of crazy when you meet one guy and then you meet and, you know, they're kind of just each half of a guy or whatever, and you're like, what are we doing here? Like, at least you two get together and decide what you want to say and then come tell us, you know? Exactly.

Theo Von

Cause it's a lot of extra kind of like back and forth, you know? A parasitic twin is a type of conjoined twin where one fetus stops developing but remains attached to its twin. Wow. The other twin continues to develop, but is usually born with the limbs, organs, or other tissue structures from its parasitic twin still attached. It's a very rare condition.

Gosh, dude, imagine two to seeing. Oh, what is that? Sorry. Oh, no, that's. Oh, that's.

How does it, uh. It looks like Teela tequila a little bit, you know, talking about. Yeah, but Doja cat. I don't know, bro. That's fucking hilarious, dude.

I don't even know what Toja cat looks like.

Oh, I don't know, dude. No, that kid has longer hair than doja cat, I think. Yeah. Imagine being a parasite. Like, imagine knowing that your brother or something was like a part of you.

And now that they're. It's almost like you got to live. It's like nature, like. Yeah, you must feel alive. There must be like a lot of responsibility, you know?

And then seeing your brother's wiener, if you look at your own and seeing. Your brother's wiener, does that make you gay? If you jerk off that wiener? No, dude. It just makes you a cool brother, I think.

Mitch Candiano

Touche, dude. To not polish your brother off once a year or something. On. Yeah, that's kind of day after Christmas or whatever. It's not rude.

Theo Von

I think it's just, well, if you. Don'T ever let him come. Yeah, that is kind of rude. It's. I bet when you get to heaven, he's gonna be like, hey, come on, guy.

Mitch Candiano

36 years and not one nut. Yeah, brother, I left that thing down there for a reason. Could he took advantage of that. Yeah, I'm the one who helped you out and gave you the third leg. I gave you a fucking job.

You know? That's wild, man. So people like Franklin teeny, what was that? That group was called? What is it?

Freaks. Freaks. Okay. They were the freak show. The freak shows.

Theo Von

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. Like, we had the ripoff of the lobster man, and I actually think he was a relative of the original lobster man, but he had fake gloves that he would put on to make himself have fake lobster hands.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That's not real. No, we had a lot of that. Yeah, yeah.

So it was a lot of. Yeah. Cause they had, like, the freaks were like the bearded lady. I remember you would hear about. What, like the four titted sister, whatever.

They'd always have something. You know, the Lispy Jew. They have something rolling. The lizard man or something. Lizard man.

Mitch Candiano

A real life mermaid one. They'd have a girl in a tank with like a fake suit on, acting like she was a real mermaid. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. The four shouldered Italian.

Theo Von

They'd have that guy. Yeah. Oh, the smallest horse. I met the world's smallest horse one time. Oh, we used to have that, too.

Yeah. Tom Thumb is like one that I met. I don't know the name of the one I had. We had. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

But yeah, he was at the fairs with the agriculture. He'd be there. He'd pay fifty cents and get to walk up and walk around and see him and go in. Yeah, they had the dollar they had. I remember they had one dude at the fair in our town.

Theo Von

It was like, if you gave him a dollar, he would tell you if you were fat or not. Yeah. Or guess your age or your weight or like, 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.

Just walk off. You're like, Jesus Christ. I think he was just out there hustling people. Yeah, he might not even have worked. With the carnival, dude, that's a new one.

That guy could have been working different. Here's a couple of them right here. General Tom Thumb. Charles Sherwood Stratton was actually a relative of Pt Barnum. When Barnum learned of Stratton's dwarfism, he sensed opportunity.

Barnum took Stratton under his wing and taught him how to sing, dance, and impersonate famous historical figures. Wow. Oh, that was a lobster boy. Oh, here's lobster boy right here. As shocking as his appearance is, Grady Style's real life story is even more shocking.

Stiles condition was known as.

I think you got it, ectrodactyly, which causes hands and feet to fuse into claws. Yeah, yeah. The condition ran in Styles family. In fact, he was the 6th generation in his family to have it. His father was already performing in the circus when Grady was born, so he entered circus life early as the lobster boy.

Wow. Huh. That was his kid? Yeah. Pinching ass and taking names.

Wow, look at him. And there's a picture right there of bearded lady and lobster boy. They fell in love. Oh, that's. That's romantic.

A Valentine's Day love story, huh? Wow. I wonder what their kids would come out like, huh? Yeah. Lobsters.

Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, it would probably be something. Yeah, you'd see it like one of those fancy omakase places or whatever, you know? I don't think Benihana would be running that. Probably not, you know, get you a cut of frickin hair, lobster.

You know, it might be. Who else did they have? Let me see a few more of them. These were all the freaks, right? 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.

Mitch Candiano

I haven't heard of him. Unable to handle his appearance any longer, she put him up for adoption when he was four years old. He was adopted by a german entertainer who put him onto the circus circuit. See? And he made a life for himself.

We still. We need freak shows. That's true. Huh? That way these freaks can make a living.

Theo Von

Yeah, they don't have and, and they had. I remember. What was that thing? They had? A dime.

I want to think. Cause they almost had one in the ten a dime museum. Can you look that up? I thought you were talking about somebody that pays a dime. Museum and freak shows.

From the popular Coney island amusement park in New York City to traveling circuses and side shows, exhibits that featured people with physical differences with some sort of the most prevalent attractions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Wow. Dime museums often featured humans who were considered different for the public to view and experience. Yeah. Cause I think they had some places where you could pay a dime, I guess was the name, I'm assuming.

From 1840 until 1940, freak shows were at their height. Historians typically marked 1840 as the beginning of the freak show era. The museum contained many exhibits of historic artifacts and gaffes. Oh, that was the year Pt 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. There he is.

A person with dwarfism. The aztec twins, albinos, and many other living curiosities. Wow, dude, that's almost like a Deke fraternity somewhere. You know? It really is.

I mean, it's, yeah, it's different, but it's probably similar. So you, so did you ever cross, so you crossed paths with some of these guys, but it wasn't like, yeah. Not like, like I said, the lobster man or 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 as one of the dwarfs.

Mitch Candiano

And 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 woody. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. He was like 70 years old hitting the bong with us.

Theo Von

70, yeah. Wow. I think he was that old. I was, I was young, but I'm pretty sure he was up there. And he was a little.

Little guy. Yeah. He was in a munchkin from the original movie. Wow. From wizard of Oz.

He was in wizard of Oz? Yeah. You smoked dope with a wizard of Oz Munchkin? 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 Marin. That was the guy. He or this was one of them.

The last surviving adult munchkin. Okay. When did he die? What's it say? That 2016.

Mitch Candiano

Okay. Yeah, it was probably him. Said he was the last one. Bring up a picture of this dude. Wow.

I was at the carnival, so he could have been bullshitting me too. Yeah, he could have been full of shit. It could have just been a little dude trying to fucking get high. Yeah, well, he could have been a. Seven year old with a cane trying to fucking.

Fucking, you know, beard on. Somebody put a beard on him. Look at Jerry Marin right there on wikipedia. He's huffing. He's got a cigar on him right there.

Theo Von

Wow. Oh, yeah, that guy. That's beautiful. So the freaks weren't as much of a part of you guys universe? Not as much, no.

And now what about the rides? Because. Yeah, I want to go through some of the different stuff because by us, they would have. The rides would come, right? Oh, yeah.

The fair would come. We were excited. We lived right down the street from the fairground. So we walk over there, and the day before the fair, you could go, and for $0.50, you could get on a ride. But they were just plugging them bitches in.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, man. And you were the test subjects. Oh, dude, you would. I was going flying off. Oh, the zipper.

Theo Von

We go in that. Dude, you remember the zipper? Zipper's my favorite ride. Oh, bro, I'd get all my money. I'd have saved up my allowance.

I would go down there. Cause the day before. Because if you went regular day, it was $8 to get in. We're like, fuck that, dude. You know, I got $2.

I'm going in. I got my quarters in my pockets. But the zipper would shake all your money out of your pocket. They did that on purpose. Oh, dude, it was horrible.

I'd get out. I had no more money. I had to vomit. It was shake. I remember it shook a couple of my teeth.

Like, my baby teeth out or whatever. I believe it. Yeah, you get out. You had no enamel. You had no money.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. Cause they could really get it going when they want. They know how to run it. So they could like really get you whipping around and drop it. It was unbelievable, dude.

Theo Von

It literally felt like you'd been put in the garbage as pose. That was a tough ride. I loved it. Did you? Yeah, it was my favorite one.

Really? Yeah. What was cool though, when I was a kid in school and, you know, you would go on field trips to the fair. I don't know if you guys did that at your school, but we would take field trips to the Topsfield fair when we were in grade school. But I would skip that day of school and I would just go to the carnival, the fair with my father.

Mitch Candiano

And the rides weren't open yet, they kind of were only there. They're supposed to be going to the four h stuff and all the agricultural stuff. And so I would go over and grab, sneak over some of my, grab my friends from the, from their chaperones and bring them over to the rides and the ride guys would let us all ride the rides while they were. Rest of the school was at the four h section. Oh, that's nice.

So it was pretty cool. Oh, yeah. Cuz you were kind of dialed in, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew everybody, you know, they all looked out for me.

I was like, oh, it's little Mitch. Like I knew it because I was running around as a little kid. So everybody, you know, and then we. Copy a little bit of drugs or something sometimes. Oh, yeah, it was wild.

Theo Von

Was there drug use out there? A little bit, yeah, yeah, just a little bit. And what were the drugs really? What were some of it? I mean, weed.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, of course, weed, alcohol. I mean, especially, I mean when we were at the fairs, you're open for so long, like you close at eleven at night, you gotta open eleven in the morning. So we're crushing beers as fast as we can once we close, to get as drunk and as fucked up as fast as we can to go to. Sleep or just if we could. Yeah, just have fun.

Theo Von

And were people doing drugs too? Like what kind of uppers are we talking? Cocaine. Oh yeah, plenty of cocaine. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

I'll tell you, just to step up though, they have straightened out these days. They drug test and all that shit. Bro, if you drug test the guy who's working the fair ride for me, get. You want a good ride or not? I want a real ride.

Theo Von

A real drug using american. That's what I want. Yes. Okay. Dude, we used to go, we would get on the gravitron, right?

Mitch Candiano

We would throw so many parties in that at night, bro. This one guy, we get in there, right? And I remember, like, that you would get against the thing and it would, like, slowly move you up the wall or spinning. And there was a guy in the. Middle who's like, are you ready to rock?

Theo Von

I'm like, who the fuck is he talking, right? This guy was always just in his own words, and the thing was spinning. And I swear one time this dude got his wiener. Like, was just showing his wiener to people who. And he was playing a nice day for a wide wedding, and you were.

So you couldn't even turn your. So even though you felt like you were visually being molested or whatever, you. Could have turned away in your head. To look and see if anybody else knew what was going on. So you get off, and everybody was afraid to say, I think we'd have seen that guy's wiener, you know, to November rain, you know?

Mitch Candiano

Oh, that's pretty sweet. There was some parts of it were nice when they would play some of the ballads in there, but that was harrowing going in there. Yeah, that ride's pretty crazy. Sometimes the guy would get out. If you got a really wild guy, he would get out and he would come.

Cause you know how they had the fence and hang on the pole 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. Totally. He would walk.

Theo Von

He could even walk around that. You have to hold on to the railing, but he could walk around it. Yeah. Oh, my God, I forgot about that. Yeah, he kind of was like, the guy at the skating rink that kind of was like, would the shat, like, the dude who would go through and do the backwards skating and, like, skate through your girlfriend's legs or whatever?

Like, who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, it, like, kind of reminded me of that guy, you know? Oh, here he is right here. This is somebody on a gravitron. There's somebody trying to sit up on it.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, he's trying to push it up on his own or something.

We used to, like, flip ourselves upside down and be upside down in there against the wall. Yeah. Cause you'd move all around. Oh, wow. Yeah, we didn't know we were too small to do some of this.

Theo Von

This is, like, late teens. Oh, that kid looks about ourselves. Oh, yeah, he's standing straight out. Oh, yeah. This dude vapes.

Mitch Candiano

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.

Theo Von

Take me through some of that. Like. And is it men and women come, too, or. No. Depends.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. I mean, we had some girls out there working for sure. Yeah. Some of the guys were definitely better looking. Yeah.

But, you know, we had. We had some ratchets up. I mean, if you're gonna work a ride and travel the carnival. And especially then, if it was 2030 years ago. Yeah.

Yeah, it was. You gotta be a tough chick. You sure do. And, like, there was some of them. I mean, this one girls, you know, they had crazy.

This girl had busted nut on me tattooed on her ankle. Oh, yeah. You know, head hoe was another one tattooed on her. Wow. Yeah.

These girls, some of them had the lot lizards tattooed on their feet. Really? Oh, yeah. So it was women that were probably just doing their best out there that had been through a lot. Probably, yeah.

I mean, you got good ones, too. I'm not gonna lie. Bust a nut on me is a lot. That was pretty rough. Well, it's all like, when.

Yeah, I thought it was sexual harassment. Every time she walked past me, I was like, this is. She wasn't good looking. Oh, yeah. Well, she's not saying marry me, but.

Theo Von

But still, that's all. Yeah, that seems to be. Yeah. Bust and then. What do you even say?

Now that she's married, has a family, what do you even adjust those letters? Like. Like. Yeah. What could you change that to?

Oh, you could do us. You, me. I think bust. If you put the b and T. Bust a, take out the a, cover that up.

Nut, take out the n and t. Just the u. Yeah, us. And then it would be a blank. And then it would be you.

Just the u and then nut on me. Take out the on and just me. Does that make any sense or not? Not really, but it's probably still better than busting out on me. Yeah, it would be.

It would just say you. I would say us. You, me. Yep. Yeah, make it work.

I think it'll walk in. It'll go. Yeah. If you're at the grocery market, it's gonna go way better. Cause if you're walking everybody's cabbage and you get some hella fresh produce on your back, you know, you're like, where's that from?

Well, you told me, dude, that's the freshest produce they got. Forget semen, bro. Yeah. Take me through, like, a good party night out there. Well, the party nights, like in the gravitron.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, because they had the sound system in there already? Yeah, you know, and you had the walls. So you get in there and, like, you know, really be able to party and get loud and not bother too many of the, you know, the bosses, because, you know, the bosses still stayed out there in their trailers, too. So you didn't always. You didn't want to wake him up in the middle of the night and have him come out.

Why is everybody getting here? Bunk house, everybody. You know, we open in 3 hours. Wow. So.

Yeah. And what was the sleeping quarters like? So be honest with you. My family didn't care where I slept at that point. Like, I was 1314, just sleeping wherever.

Wow. Yeah, mostly in games. I'd sleep in the game at night. One of the games. No way.

Theo Von

Really? Yeah. Wow. It was pretty wild. It was wild.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, it was. I mean, I've even slept, I mean, wherever sometimes. Especially when you're going over the road, like, everything's torn down, you got no place to go. You're waiting for your ride. Like, I passed out in the generator box before.

Just waiting. And what is that? Just the electrical thing? Yeah. The giant generators that run everything.

Theo Von

Yeah. Cause everything's packed up and that thing's always open. You got a nice cozy pile of wires you could crawl up on like a cat and pass out for a little bit. Yeah, man. It's kind of romantic, almost.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, it's wild. I mean, for the most part, when we got a little older, you know. Yeah. Were there bunks? Like, where did everybody sleep?

So they had bunks. The ride guys had bunks. Okay, so the ride bunks. Yeah, they would put most of those guys up in bunks. And were they like a trailer?

Theo Von

Like, what type of bunks? Yeah, it was just a giant trailer. They would buy. Like, they almost looked like one of the. Like an 18 wheeler trailer.

Uh huh. 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.

Mitch Candiano

They had those ones, too. And they were. I mean, those were. It was pretty tough. Cause it was like two bunk beds and, you know, you're in there with.

And it was tiny. It was like a closet with just two beds. Yeah. And, you know, that's where they had the ride, got the games, and the jointies were on their own, unless, you know. What do you mean, on their own?

Theo Von

Like, people would sleep in sleeping bags or people would stay at motels or what? Yeah, wherever you could. Like, if you made enough money to get a motel, you get a motel if you didn't. You didn't. You'd sleep in a tent.

Mitch Candiano

Or, like, there was at a point after I stopped staying in the games when I was younger, I ended up bringing a couple of my friends out on the road with me. And so as soon as high school was done for the summer, we'd go out on the road until school started back up. And so I'd bring a couple of friends with me out there, Doogie Jay, and we'd set up, like, our own tent city, away from everybody so we could party and not bother anybody. Yeah. Yeah.

We'd have a nice campfire. We even brought. We used to travel with a lizard with us, too. We always brought him with us. We had a nice little cage for him, and he was our little buddy.

Yeah. And we just drink. We had our. We had all our tents. Nice fire going, and we'd party out there.

Theo Von

Couple men in a lizard, bro. It's like the Bible, you know, like, whatever the new Bible they'll write will be. Yeah, the carny Bible. Yeah. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

It was fun, man. And, yeah, a lot of people slept. In their games, so that would be it. You just crash in there and they would just pop it back open in the morning. Yep.

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. Or they call it the Apollo.

Sometimes it was, too.

Theo Von

Yeah. And they would, like 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, like, 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, and sometimes I would run it, and you're in the doghouse, and, you know, it's just a kind of. Just a remote control, like a little joystick.

Mitch Candiano

You get it going. You rock it back and forth until you get enough energy to get it up and around. And you could hold it up there, and you'd hold it, and you just shake it a little bit and wiggle it so it'd go back and forth a little bit, and you start shaking the money out of their pockets. So it all falls down. Although one time there was a bad scene.

Cause you're always supposed to wait till the end of the ride to go pick up the money. Well, a kid who ran it all the time was trying to be a daredevil. And he ran through to get the money while it was on, while the ride was still in, while he was up top. Ended up getting hit. Oh, yeah.

It was pretty wild. He lived. He lived. He did live. Wow.

But it was a mess. I wasn't there at that carnival or fair when it happened, but I was at the next one. And you lose a limb, they put you just right over in a freak. Now you go right to the freak show thing. Punch you right away in a game.

After that, too, you know, because you can work a game with one arm. Yeah. Or in a wheelchair. Wow. So.

Theo Von

So a guy got damaged up pretty good. Yeah, he got hit pretty good. Damn. That was pretty crazy. Is that one of the worst accidents you've ever seen out there?

Mitch Candiano

That was probably the worst. Yeah. We were running that skydiver one time, and the. You know how you got the shoulder bars that come down? It had let go while the girl was in there, but you caged in still, too.

But she was flopping around while it was going around. Like, while she was upside down, the shoulder bars came up, and she fell into the cart. And, like, just getting. Just banged around. Just getting banged around while it was spinning around.

Theo Von

And how long if somebody's not doing well on a ride, can you shut it down for them? Does it take a few seconds or not? Yeah, it'll take sometimes some take longer than others to slow down and come to a stop. Wow. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

I mean, there was one, the freakout. I don't know if you've heard of the freakout. It's a freakout. Yeah. It's a pretty dope ride.

Now. Now, that's my favorite ride. I really got all of them. Let me see. Kind of like it's an arm, and it's got these other arms that come down, and those spin while it goes back and forth.

And you get an awesome sense of weightlessness. Almost like a. Like a roller coaster. I'd say, like that first drop. There it is.

Theo Von

Freak out. Oh, that's pretty cool looking. Yeah, they didn't have the freak out. Oh, so that. So that goes like a pendulum.

Mitch Candiano

And spins and spins. Oh, yeah. And, dude, I remember. Yeah. We would get on that swings.

Theo Von

One of them was like a swing set. You just faced out. Yeah, the swinger. Yeah. And it would just then you would, as.

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

Mitch Candiano

That vomit. You gotta wash up a lot of puke on some of those rides. They get a lot of pukers. We had one, I don't even remember the name of the official name of the ride, but we called it the puke barrel. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying, dude.

Theo Von

You guys were making shit up. Yeah, that was the name of it. The puke barrel. I was like, okay, I don't even know the official name. And what ride caused the most vomit, you think?

Mitch Candiano

The puke barrel, really? Probably. It looked like one of those metal 55 gallon drums. You know, those metal, like, garbage can barrels. But it was huge.

Theo Von

Okay. Yeah. And so it was massive. And say it was on its side and you go in, it had a sliding door, and you go in. And then there were two seats that people could sit in, circle seats.

Mitch Candiano

And those spun like this while the floor rocked back and forth like this. And the outside barrels spun like this with strobe lights going on inside. I mean, who's not gonna puke? Yeah, it was pretty wild. Yeah, it was good stuff.

So we actually owned one of those candianos my mom and dad owned. A couple of them, actually would've been. So they split up when I was like a year old, so they ended up. I was too young to kind of help with the business, so my mom sold most of the rides by the time I was, you know, a teenager. So we still had some stuff, kitty rides and stuff, but we had gotten rid of.

She'd gotten rid of all the major rides that she had had. Yeah. Bring that video up. You're gonna show us.

Theo Von

And now, what do you do when something. What is this? What is this here? Oh, that looks like the. We call them the 1001 nights.

Mitch Candiano

I'm not sure what this version is called, but that's what it was. Okay. Yeah, it looks like the whole thing is shaking. So people are going and jumping on the side to, like, hold it down. Yeah.

Theo Von

Yeah. A carnival ride in Traverse City, Michigan, suddenly malfunctioned. What do you do when this kind of thing happens? What do y'all do? Shut it the f down.

But how do you. I mean, people are trying to save this thing from falling over. Yeah. They're all trying to get some weight on it. Is that a realistic approach, you think?

Is that safe, or would you tell the. I mean, it could be. Oh. Because that was one of the things about the carnival. You always felt like nobody had your back in a way.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. Which was something exciting about it and deathly alarming. And you felt like if you died, they wouldn't tell your parents. Yeah. I mean, we've probably buried some bodies out back.

I mean, in the haunted house, probably. Some of those bodies in there are probably kids that just never made it out.

But I'll be honest with you though, the carnival rides are a lot safer than probably music parks. Amusement parks, really? Yeah. Cause they get inspected every week. So you're getting state inspectors every single week.

Every time you set up, they have to come in and like, and, you know, give it a go ahead. So what's the worst accident you've ever seen out there? So that was, I mean, I didn't see the kid get hit by the Skymaster, but that was probably the worst. Although at one fair that I was at a topsfield fair, I forget the name of the ride, but somebody did come flying out of it. But they didn't die.

Or I wish I could remember the. Ride, but they always say those people didn't die, but you never see those people anymore. Yeah, that's true. You know, or like, they'll be like, yeah, yeah, Janet didn't die. And they're like, well, then why isn't.

Theo Von

Yeah. Where is she? Yeah. Oh, she went to Florida. She retired.

Yeah, people. Yeah, she retired. She's eleven. Yeah. Where did she, so that's just the thing, I think sometimes about that kind of stuff.

That seems like a little bit tricky, man. Like I was saying, they, um, like, I did, they uh, they do inspect them a lot more than like your, your regular music, parks music that are just set up year round. They only get like one or two inspections a year. Oh, yeah. And so, but the carnival, like, they have to get state inspected every week, every time you set up in a new place, so.

Okay. Wow. I didn't, I did not expect that. Yeah. Cause it seems like they're not even.

Mitch Candiano

You know, where the shady part comes in is where like say something breaks or something happens during the week and then it gets fixed, not up to par. In between inspections. In between inspections. And you just gotta have the ride, you gotta have it going. You gotta make the money.

Yeah. And then, so you have your main ride, guys. So all the ride foremans have to do a once inspection every day and they have to fill out a form and say they inspected their ride. I mean, but, yeah, and then you have the ride super. Who's in charge of all those guys.

Theo Von

And is he? Yeah. But it's like, how lie? How real, how if they're locked in, cool. If they're not, then it's whatever.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. Yeah. I could be a ride. Yeah. If I was a ride super, dude.

You're like, yeah, okay. You just take the forms. You're like, yep, everything's fine. Yeah. Or, you know.

Theo Von

Yeah, people ain't gonna be. Everybody not gonna be living. Cause 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. There was like, you know what we used to do, too, on the. Remember the super slide?

Yeah. Superslide 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?

Mitch Candiano

Oh, yeah. You don't even touch that bottom hill.

You gotta 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. Yeah, they got that fish net face for the rest of their life. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's nothing like this.

Theo Von

Yeah. Really? After hours, you know, getting drunk, going down. Sometimes we would just wet it on our own. We'd get a hose and soak the slide and grab a trash bag.

Yeah, that sounds like fun, dude. Would you guys have some fun like that? Like, was there. Oh, yeah. I mean, there was one crazy party.

Mitch Candiano

We were. We were all partying. It was like the beginning of the year. It was like the second or third carnival. So we were all, like, warmed up.

Now we're like, all right, let's. This is one. Because you'd have parties where everybody would party together like the ride, guys, everybody. Food, joints, even some of the owners. You know what I mean?

Some of the parties once in a while. And so this was like a beginning of the year. Like, let's get. You know, let's have a welcome home party. Everybody's in.

And so we're partying all throughout the carnival. Like, we're on the sea dragon, and you can unlock the sea dragon and get it swinging manually. You just get a couple of kids on each side swinging it one way and you just really. And you can get it going. So we were partying up on the.

Yeah, we were partying up on the sea dragon lay one night and there was a new guy that I guess the ride super didn't like he had just started. Oh, yeah. And he passed out drunk in his car. And he was driving, like, this brand new white escort or something like that, you know, nice and white. Pretty nice.

Theo Von

Yeah. But it was small car, cheap car, but it was new. And the ridesupa really didn't like him. And he was passed out drunk in this car right on the side of this, on the sea dragon. And we're up in the top seat, just sitting up there, having a couple of drinks, putting them back.

And what'd they do? They set him on fire. Well, not quite. All of a sudden, the ridesuper 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.

Oh. And nothing. The guy doesn't wake up. Nothing. So he keeps doing it over and over again until he dumped his, his whole tank onto this dude's car.

Mitch Candiano

And he just slept through the night like that all day. And we're laughing hysterically about this. But it's outside of the car, right? It's outside of the car. It's on his car, but on the outside.

So it's just COVID now and just everything. And that night, I didn't see him, but the next spot I remember, I'm walking by and he's outside, and he's trying to scrub it all off, and it's just got this brown tint, and you could see where it swirled all around. Like he could not get that thing clean for the life of him. He didn't last another week. He didn't?

No. Was there a lot of stuff like that? There's a lot of, like, hazing and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And what about take me into. So I feel like that's kind of the rides. I'm trying to think of any more of the rides that I. The zipper was just harrowing.

Theo Von

I know I would get on it, and I'd be like, I'm not getting on it this year because last year I got hurt, and I don't have any more money and. Or whatever, and I got electrocuted. Yeah, you got electrocuted. Oh, did I get electrocuted? Cause that was one of the big things, is one time I got off of.

I think it probably was the zipper. I got off, and I touched. I've told this story before. I've touched the two, like, metal bars. You're getting off of, like, the stair bars, 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.

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, like, part of the circuit. I was just completing the circuit. I was just probably powering a fucking lantern or something like that.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, whatever I was doing, dude, it. Was unhealthy for me, you know. Cause I was conducting electricity and. Thank God. But, yeah, I just remember it was very, very.

Theo Von

It seemed like there were some safety issues, I would say. Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah. I've definitely run into a few live rides before. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Especially during. Oh, it happened. Yeah. What's happened to me? Okay.

Yep. So that's a real thing. Yep. Cause I know, my whole life, I was like, I know this happened, man. Well, how does that happen?

Cause there's so much wiring going on in those things. Like, all the lights and everywhere. And back then, too, you know. Now with leds, they don't take as much. But back then, you had those really hot lights, and they took a lot more power.

And so you got bigger currents running through, and something could just get cut or pinched somewhere along the line, and next thing you know, you're making that live. Damn. God. Yeah, that thing really caught me up to speed. Boy, I fucking aged probably eight months.

Theo Von

I went home, my mother's like, God, you seem different, you know? Hey, ma, you already grew a mustache from it. Yeah. I was like, things are gonna change around here. Yeah, I'm wearing the pants now, but.

I remember that, too. We walk over and. Yeah, the rides would just be getting set up in the distance. And we'd come in and they'd. They'd have somebody standing over there.

And for $0.50, you could get over there and get you a couple tickets and go get on them. Yeah. And the other kids, people didn't know. Cause the fair wasn't open. Yeah.

But we knew just, could we live right there? And so we'd all walk over there. That's cool. We never did anything like that. It was pretty cool, man.

What about. So take me to some of the games. Yeah, the games. The games are fun. Let's get into that.

Mitch Candiano

Interesting. Cause you had the booths? You had the game booths? Yeah, we had game booths. We own some.

My brother still has. I think he still has one or two. You know, they're definitely not as profitable as they used to be. Yeah, but, yeah, I used to have all kinds of games. I mean, a lot of them are illegal now, you know, maybe I should throw in.

Yeah, maybe I should throw on some like shades or something if I want to spill secrets. Like the magician telling the secrets of the. About the games. Yeah, if you want to put some on. No, I'm just kidding.

They all know who I am now anyway. Well, I. Yeah, cuz I know there was videos that came out years ago about like exposing all the games or whatever. Really? I didn't like that shit.

Theo Von

I knew that you pretty much weren't gonna win. No, there's some that you are not gonna win unless they want you to win. Oh. If they got enough money out of you and they got a good tip going. There's a big crowd.

If you're in a wheelchair or something. Probably if you're. Maybe it all depends on how much money you spent. Yeah. And then like, if they got a nice crowd and they wanna keep that and a lot of, like, if the crowd is really, like, they've been there a while and they really want to see that dude win and he spent enough money and, you know, you could get.

Mitch Candiano

Now if that dude wins, everybody's going to stop playing. Yeah. You know, so part of it is some strategy. Yeah, there's a lot of strategy to it. What was one of the games that was the toughest game to win?

Theo Von

Probably. You think? The toughest to win, like, legitimately. Well, so there was some that just can't be won. Okay, so, okay, so take me like, what is one of them?

Mitch Candiano

So, like, to cover the red spot. You guys ever have that one? Cover the red. So there would be. Yeah, there'd be a big red circle.

Theo Von

Yeah. You get like little discs. Yeah, yeah. Could not be one legally. Oh, there would be one that could be one on that the guy would show you how to do it on because that one can be one.

Okay. And he would always use that one. And I've worked that game before, so I know how it's done. And then you have all the other ones. The circles are just slightly too big to be completely covered.

Oh, so the base circle. Yep, there it is. Ah. Cover the spot. Okay, so you see how that one's covered all down there with the five discs?

Mitch Candiano

It's completely covered. So sometimes those red circles are just slightly too big, where it's mathematically impossible to cover it all. Dude, the saddest part, I just remembered this. So my brother, he was like, the older brother, you know, and, like, he, like, was trying to win a game. And I knew we didn't have much money, you know, so, like, he kept trying to win.

Theo Von

And, like, I knew it started to be a little bit thing, like, I gotta win this. My brother's watching me, you know, and he fucking didn't win. I could feel it. Just break his fucking heart. Oh, man, I have seen.

Mitch Candiano

God, I just broken. Really. Oh, my God. I've seen families broken up. I mean, they've spent their whole mortgage, lost a car, like, lost everything.

Yeah, they traded their kid in, like, trying to win. I swear to God, sometimes you'll see the kids still up there as a prize. Now you can win them.

Theo Von

Yeah. You guys want. You guys want this stuffed bunny with a cleft palate or you want Ricky? No, no, we got a real life ginger over here. We gotta feed Ricky, man.

We'll take that buggy. We'll take that hoppy the cleft palate fucking Easter hero. If you get a gambler playing, you know, somebody that gambles, they know what's up. No, they lose everything. Cause they want it.

Mitch Candiano

They wanna win. And then you tell em, hey, man, if you win, not only will you get the prize, but I'll give you all your money back. Oh, every dollar you spent, I will give it back if you win. Wanna play again? Fuck.

And now a gambler is not gonna say no. And how hard is it? Have you ever had to run somebody up like that? I kind of have by the time those games are kind of. I mean, I ran the red spot and stuff, but I was a kid.

I was still a teenager then, so I wasn't a real agent, you know? But were there some people they were good at? Oh, man, they were so good. Like when I was a real little kid and before I was working, I would sit on the counters with some of these guys, you know, they're not busy and I'd sit down and hang out, but then all of a sudden a mark would walk by and they'd get them and I would just see him run them up. Cause, like, you pay your bills, right?

Like you pay your bills every month. Yeah. Yeah. So just don't worry about paying me up front. Just keep playing.

I'll tell you how much you owe at the end. Nuh uh. Oh. Yeah. What do you think is the most you ever seen somebody lose on a carnival game.

I've seen somebody lose a car. Like, legit how to give up their car. Nah. Yeah. Who.

Theo Von

Who's gonna enforce it, though? Well. Cause they're gamble. They're gamble. Like, most, most gamblers pay that.

Mitch Candiano

Like, if they have it, they'll pay their debt. So they'll go get. They'll go get the title and sign it over right there to keep playing. Really? Yeah.

I mean, you ever been to a casino? Like, some of these guys, some of these gamblers are like, they lose everything. Amazed at somebody. Yeah, I have friends that are real successful, and I'm amazed at some of these guys that just go gamble all the time. I don't.

Theo Von

I'm so thankful I don't get any. Like, I like to play, you know, I'll play some games I like to do. Yeah, we play prize picks and stuff like that and. But I don't. I'm not the guy that's betting bed in the house.

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm so grateful. I'm thankful to God that, I mean, I have. That I've seen. I've seen people, like, eventually, like, they'll go home and they're like, I just got hustled.

Mitch Candiano

And then they'll end up, like, going to the cops or something like that and coming down the next day and you got to squash the beef, make everybody happy. Like, I've seen that happen. New Hampshire man loses life savings on carnival game. Let's look at it. I probably saw that.

Theo Von

Epsom, New Hampshire, from the salts, I guess. Henry Gribhomme says he lost his life savings, $2600 damn 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. Yeah. At least you got the dreaded banana, dude. Wow.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, it's. 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.

Theo Von

Say, grip home. I just didn't turn. It just didn't turn out that way. Grip home says he attended a Manchester carnival run by New Hampshire based fiesta shows. That's us.

It is. That's who we worked for. Wow. And wanted to win an Xbox Kinect at a game called Tubs of Fun. Yeah, I'll tell you about that one.

Where contestants toss balls into a tube. Ain't happening. It isn't? What is it? So the bushel basket, that's what it is, the tubs of fun.

Mitch Candiano

So they take those. Remember those old apple bushel baskets? Oh, yes, I remember. They'd be up on the side. Yeah.

Theo Von

Like at an angle kind of. Yeah, at an angle kind. And you gotta toss the softball in there. Yes. Yes.

Mitch Candiano

There it is. Oh, there's some guys getting it right here. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's a, there's a trick to it. Do you see how he's doing it? You gotta give it a spin, and it's gotta hit right on the edge. I see.

So it'll kinda, like, use its momentum to stay in there. And they're using plastic ones, too. I don't know. Right. Go back to the bushel baskets.

Theo Von

Can you find the bushel baskets? They might be just in 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 is, they were at, like an angle, right? Yeah, it's that same thing as that with the plastic ones, except they were wooden. They just won't stay in there. The softball's so light and bouncy, and the back of those baskets are just so bouncy as well that they would just bounce out.

Mitch Candiano

You can't get the ball to stay in there. It's really, I mean, if you know a trick and like they were doing, if you could get the right back spin on it and hit it right at the edge, you can get it to stay in there. But how they get people so easily is they'll. The guy sitting in the booth can easily toss the ball in there from his angle. It'll easily go in there and stay in there.

And then you give the other ball to the guy and be like, look at how easy it is. Throw the ball in there. Give him a free shot. Here's a free shot. See how easy it is?

And then they throw it in there. And because that other ball is already in the basket, it'll deaden that second ball, and that second ball will stay in. So now people are like, oh, my God, that was so easy. But now when you give them the balls, they don't have that first ball in there, and they won't get that ball to stay in there. Wow.

And you're like, no, it's like this. You know what you're doing wrong, bud? You're hitting it in the wrong place. Watch what I do. Watch what I do.

And you take that ball, and you're like, just like this. Throw it in there, and it goes in, and you're like, here's this ball. Watch. Try it now. And they do it, and they're like, oh, I did it.

You're right. And then you give them both balls again, and then they can never do it again. And you just keep it going, keep the cycle going. Dude, I remember the weird. There was always the weirdest energy when you were the kid and you were up there at the thing once you'd engage in the conversation with the booth guy, if you're a kid, you're like.

Theo Von

You start to feel like, man, I gotta play now. I already started talking to this guy. You know, I only got a couple of bucks here. What am I gonna do? You know?

And then you would play, and then you would fucking miss the first one, and you'd be like, I am such a fucking loser. Yeah, I am a loser. They know you're not gonna win too, and they're just trying to get that $2 out of you and get you out of the hair. God, that was hard. And I'll tell you what.

Mitch Candiano

If Eric Adams was there, he would have found out that there wasn't a next box in that box. Yeah.

Theo Von

Oh. Oh, so you're saying that if they have the prizes, some of the prizes aren't even in the boxes? No. Wow. Oh, yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Cause they know nobody can win it. So why you're not even gonna put a real prize? They just put PlayStation boxes and x boxes. I mean, damn, dude. In the crazy, Adams will probably find.

The yayo that tied in there.

What's in here? And Mitch is talking about the episode with. Who are we with Shane Gillis? We're like that Eric addict. That was so funny, dude.

Theo Von

Yeah, that was a crazy video. I can't believe they're doing the drug searches like that, but, yeah, but sometimes we would win something, and it would be a felt Elvis or a felt picture of a something. Oh, I remember those felt pictures. Remember, it was, like, neon and felt. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Some of it would be felt like not all of it. Yeah. If you had a black light or something, it would look like you'd be able to see it. Oh, and the posters. They had those felt posters.

Theo Von

That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about those. Yeah, the start art games, like the ones that you throw the dart at. Oh, that was fun with the balloons. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

The balloons are a hustle, though, too. It is. Oh, yeah. Cause they don't always have, like. Cause.

Oh. Cause you'd have a dot behind it or something. You had to have. They'd have different circles under there, and they'd say small, medium, large, like, what size prize you win. And, you know, they would never have an extra large up under there.

Or if they did, it would be under like a really, like, barely blown up balloon so the dark wouldn't. God. Cause I based how I felt about myself for the rest of the year on how well I did on these games. That was the. That was the thing.

Yeah. Even the Star dart game. Like, if you didn't get that dart. Right in the red Star dart. Yeah, that's what we called it, the Star Dart, where it was like, you had to throw a dart, get it in the red, and it couldn't touch the border around it.

It would be a black border around the red star. And if it touched any part of the dart was touching the black just a little bit, you didn't win. And the thing was, if you'd think it would be in there completely, you know, you're on the ground, you hit it, and you're like, oh, did that go in? And the person working the game would go up and look, and if it was all the way in, but it was close, he would just touch it a little bit and push the dart. So it would touch the black?

Theo Von

Nuh uh. Oh. Yeah, yeah. I don't. You just have to do it nice and smooth.

Mitch Candiano

So you just, you know, you just barely push the dart up a little bit so it'll start touching the border and be like, oh, you're so close, bud. Come on up and take a look. You'll see it's touching the black. I don't even remember that one star dart. I remember they had the water horse, but that was a competition against other people, so somebody always won.

Yeah, I mean, there are ones that are slower than others. Yeah, naturally. Like, the games, like, you could hit them both at the same time, and one just rises a lot slower than the other one or blows up the other one. I remember, yeah, sometimes it didn't even make any sense. I remember one time, it was like, ring the fucking.

Theo Von

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?

The guy was like, you lost. You're like, oh, fuck, dude. I'm a loser, man. Twelve more months of winter. It was like, punctatani, Phil.

Just seeing your fucking reality. Oh, man. See here, when I went, it was like, God, seeing you on the. I forgot how much. Yeah, I based my, like, who I was off of that, man.

And just like. Cause I'd. I would save my money each. You know, I was very particular about saving my money. So when we go down there, I'd have it all.

You know, I'd plan ahead, and I would get my little. I would keep my money in, like, one of those Jim beam. Those purple Jim beam bags, you know? You remember that? Oh, yeah.

Mitch Candiano

With the drawstring. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would keep my money. Crown Royal.

Theo Von

Yeah, the crown royal bag. Sorry. The crown royal bag. And I bring it down there, and. God, dude, this felt horrible.

Mitch Candiano

Oh, the ring toss. That was one. Now, that was fun. I will say this. Cause you know why?

Theo Von

Cause you got a bunch of rings. Yeah. And they can't lie to you. You either getting it on the bodily or not. Like, that's a legitimate game that.

Mitch Candiano

Those are still around. Right. That was a lot of fun. I remember those ones were a hustle. Oh, yeah, the weighted.

Yeah, they waited. Everybody knows that now, but. And this is. We're looking at the weighted milk bottles. Yep.

Theo Von

And the softballs. Yeah. What was so hard about it? Just, they weighted. They're not gonna knock over with the softball.

Mitch Candiano

Cause you'd fill them with lead or cement or whatever. And the top one would be empty. So if people said, oh, they're waited, you would just grab the empty one and hand it to them and be like, oh, look at. Dude. They're not waited.

Oh, wow. That's pretty crazy. The bushel basket. That was another one. That was a hustle.

Theo Von

What was that? I mean, not the bushel. The bank of all. The bank a ball. It was like, there was a wooden backdrop back, and there was, like, a laundry basket underneath, and you had to, like, throw the ball against the back and make it hit to the basket.

Yes. I remember that. So some of them were so confusing to me. I didn't play them. You would just push that basket in.

So it would never do it. So it would never do it. So it would never drop in. Where did y'all keep the fish at night? Who was with all the fish?

Mitch Candiano

We had a fish lady. No way. You had a fish lady. No, I didn't. The girl that ran the rides.

Like, I never worked a fish game or, like, we didn't own one, but I knew the girls that ran it, and, yeah, they just had a trailer that was full of five gallon drums full of fish, and they'd bag them up. Wow. Cause that was the craziest part, because you'd fucking get home and you'd have a fish, you know? Yeah. You're like, look at this fish.

Theo Von

Yeah. And your neighbor would be like, we're gonna cook them bitches, you know? And you have. Your neighbor would go cook six of those goldfish. Or baby koi, they called them.

Mitch Candiano

Goldfish get pretty big if you let them. If you just let them go. Yeah, I've seen some really big ones. My sister won a goldfish once, and they put it in their fish tank or whatever, and it grew into, like, a big fish or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

I didn't realize how big they got. It couldn't even turn around. The tank they got for it was so small, the fish couldn't even fucking turn around. It was just like. It would just always be straight ahead.

Theo Von

Look at this dude right there. Crazy. One of the world's biggest goldfish has been caught. Weighing in at 67 pounds 4oz. The enormous specimen was found in a fishery in France by british angler Andy Hackett, who reportedly spent over 25 minutes reeling the fish in.

Can you imagine reeling that in and being like, what in the f. What. Did I just catch? I thought these were two winches, bro. And if we're not this right here, because to 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.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. This is a parking lot minnow. Half of them probably spray painted goldfish that was supposed to die right when you got home. Yep. If you made it that far.

Theo Von

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 golden fish. But here we are, modern day, and this mother, 67 pounds and living in France.

Unbelievable. Probably working at a creperie or something. Chocolate. It's just unfuck. And people are like, the water's safe.

The water ain't fucking safe. No. God. I'm sorry to get crazy, but this shit, dude gets. How much proof do you need it's.

Mitch Candiano

In your face that the water's bad. Yeah. I mean, that thing could work in the freak show. Yeah. I paid fifty cents to go see that.

Theo Von

Oh, you staple another little cock to that thing, I think it'll do. Eleven years in a freak bowl. Work over there and Nipsey's freak bowl or whatever it's called when you dreaded banana son. Alive, alive, alive. But some of the gay.

Yeah, I remember some of the people that worked like, some of the one lady I remember, we gave her $0.50. She. We were just scratching her back while she was smoking a joint or whatever. Oh, nice. And we're.

And then she's like, I'm all done. And we're like, what the fuck is that? Did you get the roach? We didn't get anything. We didn't.

We might have got a little, like, contact. Yeah, that's what you were paying for. But yeah, I remember we gave that lady, like, a couple of us. It was like three of us scratching her back at the same time. We even know her.

I was like, dan, dude, bitch is wild, but it's kind of cool. Yeah, that sounds like she would work. She'd be good in the dunk tank, man. Those dunk tank clowns were something else, man. Yeah.

So, yeah, take me on some of the other periphery characters that were part of the carnival. Yeah, the dunk tank clown guy was. He was. I mean, you have to have a really special guy to be up there and really, like, be able to, like, go at people all day, get him pissed off enough to, like, spend their life savings trying to knock you into a pool. Like, what kind of stuff is he saying?

Mitch Candiano

He's just saying, like, I slept with your wife last night. Like, you know, your brother's an n. Word or whatever, you know. And he would have to get walked sometimes. He would have to have cops protect him when he closed.

Like, to walk him to his, you know, get him off the lot. Cause people wanted to kick his ass. I mean, I've seen people, you know, beat him. Like, not beat him up, but go after him if they're. What if he didn't have protection, you know?

Cause not all the time, you know, at the fairs, you had cops around. But he wouldn't always have cops at the carnivals and stuff. And he would really get people going, like, they're not even trying to dunk them. They're trying to throw the ball through the fence. Like they're smashing that fence with the ball.

Theo Von

Really? Oh, yeah. So that guy had to have some real cojones or just be. Not even mentally that great or whatever. Yeah.

Wow. It was wild. He would. Yeah, they would. He would get into some serious shit.

Yeah, a lot of beefs. You don't see him. What would they yell? Said they were just like, yeah, yeah. I was with your sister's mother last night.

Mitch Candiano

Oh, I was with your daughter last night. You know what I mean? With your daughter and the guy standing. His daughter's eleven or whatever. They don't care.

That's what I'm saying. These guys would get mad. The dude's just yelling, I slept with. Your eleven year old daughter last night. What are you gonna do about it?

Theo Von

Yeah, the dude just like, hey, I'm a pedophile. He thinks he's protected by fucking 40 guys. This dude's just like walking by with his kid, doesn't even know. All of a sudden the guy's like. What did you say?

God, it's just heartbroken, dude. Oh, it's a sick world, man. Yes. Who else was there? They were like barkers.

I remember, like. Oh, there was the guess your weight guy. Yeah, guess your weight. That was a real thing? Yeah, he would guess your weight or your birthday or.

Mitch Candiano

What else would he guess? There was something else. How did they do it? It was just a. It was really just came down in numbers.

Like, they cannot really do it, but it was. You could tell, like they just got good at it. You could tell, look at somebody. Because there was that you had. You had an average, you know what I mean?

You could be off by like ten pounds or whatever it was, you know, five pounds either way. Or when they guessed your birthday, they could be like. I don't know if it had to be like the same month. I know there was like a window where it wasn't the exact date, but I think it might have been if it was in that sign, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah.

Theo Von

If they're sagittariuses, I'll know, dude. Exactly. Or a Leo or something. You could tell one of my ex. Girlfriends was a Sagittarius.

And I'll spot them bitches anywhere now, you know? I'll spot them 200 yards away. You got a saggy on the fucking. Coming over the ridge. Watch out.

Mitch Candiano

We had some characters, man. I remember the guy that worked, the big old guy that worked at the diner, the sausage stand, when I was a kid. I mean, this is when smoking was so loud, he'd have a big old cigar in his mouth. Italian dude. What do you fucking kids want, huh?

Fucking ashes are falling into the pile of onions and peppers right there. Big old cigar just always hanging over his mouth while working the grill. Those were the best onions, too. You were like, you know, I love that. Get them riled up until you get the ash in there.

You know what I mean? You want that ash? Yeah, a little free burnt. Wince, you gotta be careful on the first day of the carnivals, though. Maybe sometimes if they brought, like some.

Sometimes they'd bring the leftovers from the last carnival and try to sell it. Oh, yeah. It's like. That's a good point. Right?

Yeah. So because the carnival ends on a Sunday. Yep. And then it starts back on a. Thursday, sometimes a Wednesday.

Sometimes we do overnighters where you would tear down Sunday night, set up Sunday night, and then open Monday. Yeah, it's like, tear down. So they'd close you a little early, like five or 06:00 on a Sunday night, and then you got to tear down, drive to the next location, start setting up, and then open up that night. So what other periphery people do y'all use? Do you guys hire other locals?

Theo Von

You said there were, like, 40 milers, like, guys that would come on. Yeah. I mean, they're always looking for help. I mean, it was kind of set up back then. You had, like, the main carnival owner that owned, like, say, fiesta shows.

Mitch Candiano

He owned all the rides mostly, and sometimes some of the games and food. But you would have other families that owned, like, you know, they had a whole grip of, you know, games or a whole bunch of food stands. And you would. And with the games, there was a lot of families that owned a bunch of different games, and they would join up with the carnival, and you would tour with that carnival for the year. Okay.

Theo Von

So it was a lot of, like, smaller family businesses would join up under the larger umbrella of the carnival. Yep. Ah, I see. So there was a lot of that, and so a lot of that's gone by the wayside now. Like, they start buying up other carnival businesses, then they start buying their own games and food and hiring people to run them for them instead of, like, you know, having people come in, rent and everything.

Mitch Candiano

Yep. So it's some larger conglomerates now, you think? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I know.

Like, fiesta definitely bought a bunch out, and that's how they got so big in New England. And. Yeah, 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.

Theo Von

Okay. So that gets him, like, good locations, you know what I mean? And time spots. Yeah. Was there a lot of camaraderie amongst you guys?

Was there a lot of partying? What was that like? Like, what was some of the lifestyle like? Yeah, so we had some camaraderie. Like, definitely.

Mitch Candiano

Like, the ride guys. Like, they would all have their own crews, especially, like, some of the bigger rides had, like, four, five, six guys as a crew. If they would. Like, there would be different crews. They'd have the music fest and like the Sea Dragon crew, they called themselves the dickhead crew.

And you'd have these different crews. And so they had a really tight knit. And then, like, the ride guys on a whole, mostly did the food guys too would. And then, you know, the different families, obviously, with the people that worked for that family were pretty tight knit. And then, you know.

Yeah, at night, you know, whoever you clicked with, you know what I mean? And I clicked with everybody. I would party with anybody from, like the lowest ride guy to, like, the owners out, you know. Were you a pretty hard partier or no? Yeah, man, real hard.

Yeah, pretty hard. Yeah. By the time I hit 21, I was already shitting and puking blood for drinking so much. No way. Oh, yeah.

Theo Von

Jesus. Yeah, it was pretty wild. Did that run in your family, alcoholism or drinking that much? Cause that's kind of a lot of drinking. Yeah, it's all I really like.

Mitch Candiano

I didn't grow up. My dad, like, my mom and dad got divorced when I was a year old, and so I had 1ft in the carnival and another one in the city. I grew up in a pretty inner city city in New York? No, outside of Boston called Lawrence. Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Yeah, Lawrence, Massachusetts. So it was like a lot of gang activity and stuff there. Oh, yeah, that's fun. So, and like the. The carnival was like my escape in the summer.

Theo Von

Yeah. Which isn't much of it. So it's like the carnival of the hood. Like, which one do you want? Yeah, and, and so, yeah, I drank a lot, partied hard.

And would the parties get pretty crazy with shit? Get a little bit. Yeah, yeah, it would be pretty crazy. Especially when you go to these bigger towns. Cause, like, you go to some of these towns, you know, and.

Mitch Candiano

And girls are like. Especially the lot lizards, you know, the ones that, like, they love the. When the carnival comes to town. Cause they ain't got nobody else. Like, especially up in the sticks of Maine or something like that.

Theo Von

Really? So you're saying there was a lot of like, hookers almost that would come and service the carnival workers? Yeah. Not hookers, just like straight up hoes, I guess. Oh, girls that didn't want money.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. Girls that just wanted a party. Yep. Oh, wow. You'd get car fulls of them sometimes.

Theo Von

Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I never thought of that at like. A fair, you know, at one of some of the big fairs, man, they would show up after you're already closed down and everything.

Mitch Candiano

Car fulls of chicks would show up looking to party. No. Yeah. Why did they know you guys had drugs or something. Yeah, they just look like all the carnival's in town.

Like, let's go meet the carnies, you know? You know? So the only thing that happens every year in their town. Wow, that's fricking ripping, bro. But then the next night, you got the car fella, the dude showing up, looking at me like, yo, who.

Who fucked my old lady last night? Oh, yeah. You got fights breaking out all the time? Yeah. How wild would some of those parties get?

Theo Von

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

Like, it was so the dudes would roll up and they'd want to settle the score. Yeah. And they couldn't. Cause there's just so many car news. Like, really?

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, you know, you show up with a car full of people, or even two cars. I mean, we have hundreds of people. Would you guys get in fights a lot? Were there a lot of fights out there? Yeah, there were.

I didn't fight a lot. I wasn't much of a fighter. I didn't like to fight. But I've seen some crazy ones. Like, I got arrested for one of them.

Theo Von

Uh uh. So we were at just a situation where we were in Connecticut, and all the carnivals got together, you know? And so you got the first unit, like, oh, the third units down there, like, we gotta go show them who's boss. You know what I mean? And they go down, and I'm.

Mitch Candiano

And I didn't even really know anybody from the third unit at that point. And I was friends with a lot of the kids from the first unit. And I was on some. I was on some. I think I was on some dancing.

Condoms, maybe that night, some paper, some asses. Oh, some lsd. Yeah, praise God, baby. Yeah. And so there was a few of us on it, and so they came up, and they were like, oh, we just got into a big fight down there, like, down in tent city, and blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, and a couple of kids are like, what? No way. Like, let's go down there again. And blah, blah, blah. Let's go.

And so I'm tripping, and I'm like, all right, let's see where this goes. And I just went to go see the action. And so I'm down there, and, like, it just. All hell breaks loose. Like, people are getting ripped out of their tents.

Like, swords are coming flying out. Like, it was wild. Like, I'm seeing, like, little droplets of blood fly by my face, like, laughing at me and stuff. And I'm standing in the middle, like, what is going on? Like, this is, like, there was just, like, 30 people.

Yeah, it was crazy. And, like, security tried to stop it, and they got beat up. And so now they're all standing up against the fence, like, ripped shirts and, like, holding on for dear life. They're like, we don't want no part of that. And the girls are screaming at them, like, stop this.

Help. Go stop the fight. Go stop the fight. And they're like, the cops are on their way. Don't worry about it.

Like, we're not. We don't want nothing more to do with it. So Sadie showed up, and I left. And the cops were out there looking around or whatever, and there was some people, and I didn't really think much of it. Cause I didn't.

I wasn't involved. I was there, but I wasn't involved. I wasn't fighting. Yeah. And so I was just like, I'm not too worried about it.

I'm gonna go walk around and see what's up. As soon as I went out there, cops, like, get on your knees. He comes running up to me with a can of beer. He's trying to get a BJ, I guess. I don't know.

He comes running at me like, mace. With Mace. Jesus Christ. I'm like, what is going on? A cops now, too?

And so. And I'm tripping. So I'm like, oh, God, dude. I'm like, yeah, whatever. You what, bro?

Theo Von

One time I. And whatever. They take you to jail. They maced you? Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

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. Yeah, I was tripping pretty hard. I remember I was, like, standing in the hallway, and a few of my friends got arrested. And a bunch of the kids from the other side that got beat up got arrested. Oh, yeah.

And I'm in the hallway, and it was like. I remember there being, like, this textured wall, and I couldn't stare at it. I was just like. It was going crazy at me. And so I turn away, and the cops just like, put your fucking face against the wall.

He's spitting on me. Yeah, like at a goar concert or something. Yeah. I was like, wow, okay. Worse than gore.

And so 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 get back to the car and they put me in a cell with one of the kids that got beat up. So my friends are at another cell. I'm in the cell with it, and I'm still tripping, and I'm just, like, yelling, fresh fish. And, like, I'm just kind of being out of my mind and. 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. It. Yeah. Oh, I like that. And they decided to keep me in there for a while because I, like, everybody got bonded out.

They let everybody leave, and I'm still in there. And then they went to lunch, the cops. And I'm like, what is going on? They were gone for an hour, hour and a half or so, and then they come back, and I finally had calmed down. Wow.

And I was already bonded, but they kept me in the cell for an extra couple hours. They finally let me out, hitchhiked back to the carnival because of the whole scene. It was on the news. I got fired that day and had to pack up my house trailer and hit the road. Damn, that's wild, man.

It was pretty crazy. So. But I got back home, and my mom was doing an event that weekend, so I just jumped on with one of her events and just went right back to work. Were your parents. Were they always in the.

Theo Von

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.

Mitch Candiano

He might have been at another one. What was he doing at the carnival? So my dad was. He managed food in games. Okay, so you're just running around doing that?

Yeah, he was an old man by then. By the time I was around, he was 50 when he had me. Oh, okay. So by the time I was, like, working 1516, he was already almost pushing 70, you know? Yeah.

And he looked like an old italian mafia, like, dude. Like, he cap like this with his cane. Like, what are you guys doing over here? Get to work. Hitting his cane.

Hitting his cane at you. Like, come on, come on. Like Colonel Parker. He was a good dude. Miss your dad.

Theo Von

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

Mitch Candiano

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

She was one of the girls that showed up looking a party that said. Bust a nut on me. No, this one said head hoe. Head hoe on it. Yeah.

Theo Von

Wow. Yeah. Just the advertising that they have, that's wild to me. Usually you don't know, like a girl's tattoo will be like a secret, you know? Yeah.

Like anything. Like, you know, like love is forever or whatever. You're like, well, I'm gonna have to decipher this, you know. But if somebody's just like bust a nut on me or whatever, it's like, well, it's just like, not as much guesswork, I guess, but. Yeah, and it would be crazy.

Mitch Candiano

I mean, they. The girls like to party just as much as the guys, so, you know, there would be a lot of crazy stuff going down, you know, looking, a party, looking to get down and. Yeah, I've seen some stuff. I mean, there's, you know, a friend. Yeah, I've seen some stuff.

A friend of mine, like this chick really wanted to get down with a couple 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. Goldie locking, huh? Next thing I know, he's kicking the door open.

And the door comes flying open. We're all standing outside and we're like, how 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 whose bed because they had the couch pulled out. So the door's wide open. He's going to town right there. Wow. Yeah.

Theo Von

Just making love, huh? I don't want to call it love, but something going on. Yeah, making almost love. Yeah. So it was, it was interesting to tell you about another crazy game that we had was called the crazy bike.

Mitch Candiano

Have you ever heard of that one? Crazy bike? Yeah. It was a bicycle where if you turn left, the wheel went right, and if you turn the handlebars right, the wheel went left. Oh, my gosh.

Theo Von

No. Yeah, and so I owned one of those and I couldn't ride it. I couldn't. But one of my best friends learned how to ride it, so we put it out there and if you could ride it 10ft, we would give you $50. Wow.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, that thing was a hustle. It was pretty tough to run. I mean, but if you could learn how to ride it. And the kid that worked for me was really good. He'd be able to sit on the handlebars backwards and ride it.

Like, he got really good at it. Is it a unicycle? No, it was a bicycle. Regular bicycle. Two wheel bike.

Theo Von

A crazy bike. And we called it a crazy bike. And so if you turn it to the left, the wheel and to the right. Wow. If you turn to the right, the wheel went left.

Mitch Candiano

So hard to try to figure out how to ride that. Really? Especially if you'd never had. Oh, yes. I couldn't even imagine this.

Theo Von

Right. It's like. Cause you have instincts. Dyslexia. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah. It's like dyslexia made up piece of transportation. But he could. Yeah, he, my friend, could ride it all around the carnival like that. Wow.

Theo Von

Oh, that's a vibe. Yeah. And so we would do it. If you drove it 10ft, we would mark it on the ground. If you drove it 10ft, we'd give you $50.

And now, was there a lot of ladies to me. Did you guys call reggie people? Civilians? What did y'all call them? Marks.

Marks, yeah. God. And everybody that walked through it was like, we. How much can we gotta. We gotta get it out of it.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, we gotta get it. Get that Mark. And if you got one, you'd call it out like, you know, we got. You got a fresh one. You got a mark here.

And a lot of people would wear these pins called I love Robin Marks, but it would be spelt out like Robin, Robin and then Marks underneath it, so it looked like somebody's name. Who was Robin Marx? I was. I was Robin Marx. I got it.

Theo Von

But nobody was really actually Robin Marx. No. Bring up a picture of Robin Marx. 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. Oh, sweetie. I can fall in love with her, with her husband. Yeah. And like, for the games, you would either.

Mitch Candiano

You'd either be an agent or a clerk. That's what we call the people that work the games. Like they're joinies. But an agent is somebody that can rob a mark and clerk is somebody that's just gonna collect his money and not really hustle him. So, like what?

Theo Von

Give me an example of how those would be at the game. Like a clerk is somebody that doesn't really doesn't really know how to hustle somebody. Okay. You know what I mean? He would just be there like, oh, you wanna play?

Mitch Candiano

He'll collect your money and you can play the game, but he's not gonna sit there and try to hustle you out of all money where an agent is gonna try to take you for everything you got. And who were the agents? Was it, like, usually older people? Was it young or could it be anybody? It was anybody.

Anybody that was good at hustling, really? Like, there was all ages. Whites. Was it Native America? Like, who type was that knee?

It was whites. Whites, yeah. It's kind of a white sport, carnivaling. Yeah, yeah. Has it.

Theo Von

Has it changed? Like, or I remember it being like that. It was like kind of maybe white and black guys at work or white and black people that worked there. I guess all we had in our area. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

Up there and up north, we didn't really have. There's not a lot of blacks up north. Yeah. I mean, one of my best friends, artists, he was an older guy and he worked out there my whole life. He was best friends with my brother because all my siblings were much older than me.

And so, yeah, we had some out there and some, you know, some. I guess it's some Puerto Ricans and stuff, like. But not really. I mean, now they have a lot of Mexicans and South Africans. Oh, really?

Yeah, that's pretty much who's running the rides now. Why? What's changed? Like, how have things changed? Yeah, since the past.

Theo Von

And now? Well, it was hard finding, I think, really good ride help. So they. I don't know why it was Mexico and South. South Africa.

Mitch Candiano

I don't know why those two countries were picked, but apparently it sold to them that you're gonna 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 just in the carnival and you're at that carnival, it doesn't look any different. Wherever you go, you just. It's the same lot.

So you're not. You're not seeing anything different. Would you ever get some free time? I did, yeah. Cause you were a kid.

I was a kid. And, like, your parents were. They didn't make money. They weren't made of any. I mean, we were poor.

Yeah. Wow. So it's not a big money maker. No. And my parents were divorced, so, like.

Theo Von

So they were splitting the money? No. I don't know. Or, like, when you have two homesteads going, it's. It's like, yeah, but I didn't see my dad much growing up.

Mitch Candiano

Like, really? Like. Yeah. Until I started joining the carnival. I mean, I would once in a while, like, I would see him on, like, holidays and stuff, and once in a while I would go stay at his house, I guess I remember, but, yeah, it was.

I didn't see him that much until. I almost had to be at the carnival to see him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.

Theo Von

It's kind of a bummer. It's kind of interesting. It is. Yeah. I mean, bummer.

Mitch Candiano

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

Theo Von

Start to lose their steam. Yeah. Their edge, but. So it was definitely different. And my mom, you know, trying to hold the carnival together herself when all the kids were already grown and out of the house are not helping anymore.

Mitch Candiano

And I was still, like, a really young kid, so. Yeah, we didn't. And we lived. We didn't have much money. Like, I was getting school lunches and shit like that.

Theo Von

Oh, yeah, same man. Yeah. School lunch was always so weird. Cause you had to go get the ticket each day in the morning. Did you have to do that?

Mitch Candiano

No, I forgot how they did it. I think it was just like when you signed up and I don't remember. We had to go get the free ticket each day, so it'd be like, kind of embarrassing. I felt like it was embarrassing. I remember that.

Cause I think it was by name or something like that. Or a separate line or. Yeah, separate line. I remember you'd have to go to get the free ticket from the lady and had a y on it. Yeah.

Theo Von

And if you paid ticket had an x on it. Yeah. And I remember, yeah, we had to get the free ticket. I forgot about that, man. Yeah.

I'm not saying like, I'm ashamed of anything, but I remember feeling at the time, like, at the time. Yeah. You feel trying to just like, pretend you weren't getting that one. Yeah. I don't know why they have me on this list.

Mitch Candiano

That's strange. Yeah. You're over there. Yeah. Really?

Theo Von

What happened? Every day. God, they must have make some poor. Whoever's making these lists is just confused. Huh.

A lot of times people look at the carnival as sad that, like, I think it got that rap over the years in a way that it just, like, was a negative. What are some positives about it? Cause I also loved, like, I loved. There was something like, you almost felt like you were in the big city in a way. Cause there was these lights going on and there was, you know, people would come that you didn't normally get to see.

Cause there were kids that went to different schools and that if they didn't go to your school, then maybe you'd see them there. Those are things that I liked about it. There were like, you know, like, yeah, you got to gamble or play games. You didn't get to do that. There was no other world that you got to do that in as a kid.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, no, you definitely felt a sense of, like, when you had a good weekend or a good day and stuff, and you felt like everything went off smooth, especially if you're doing food or, like, games that are on a rip off of rides. Like, you know, a lot of the ride guys would feel pride in having, like, a really nice ride with all the lights working and stuff like that, making sure every bulb is fixed. Cause then you got some rides where the ride suit the ride. Guys didn't really give a fuck. Like, all the lights are busted.

You got one blanket light going and like, yeah, that's it. No music and. Yeah, like I said, he's like one of those guys that just got out of prison and, yeah, so he's done, but he doesn't really care about the ride that much. But when. But for the families that are out there and, like, when you have a good weekend or, like, a really nice fair and you feel good about, like, you know, putting on a good show for everybody and, like, having a good.

You know, I had pride in having really, like, the cleanest stands and putting out quality food, you know? You mean, like, the family's running? Like, if a family owned, like, we do the games or we do the rock, like, we do the food and we do the rock games, be some organization of that. Yeah, there would be multiple families. There would be, like, you know, sometimes 1012 different families out there.

Theo Von

Yeah. All owning. I mean, sometimes you would have one guy that just owned his one game, and he would travel everywhere with you, with you just running his one game, and that's what he owned. Was there another world of carneying where it was like, somebody owned all of it and they would just hire all the people? Yeah, it's becoming that now.

Oh, it is. Yeah, it definitely is. What is it like about that? What is it that makes people go to a carnival, you think, or go to a fair? Like, what is it?

Mitch Candiano

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

Theo Von

Yeah, it was fun. I definitely remember it was fun. Yeah. And that was the thing. Like, it was crazy and stuff.

Mitch Candiano

And we have some crazy stories, but we always wanted to make sure, like, we wanted to provide a good time for the people, too. Granted, the rides definitely, I mean, the games are a hustle, and some agents did take it too far, you know, I agree. Like, those people that were getting robbed of their life savings, like, you're taking it too far, but for the most part, like, you do want the people to have a good time and come back the next day and bring more people. And any animals ever get loose out there when you got. Oh, man.

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

Theo Von

Oh, nice. And the music fest is the one where like, they go around, it's like you're in a car that kind of swings that it goes around like this big, like, not a track, but it's kind of. Cause it's on an arm. So they kind of. The cars swing and they swing around and they're playing like crazy music or whatever.

Yeah, I remember that one. And then it's like, are you guys ready to go backwards? Yeah, let's go backwards this time. There it is. Music fest.

Yeah, dude. God, those rods are such a big thing. Or a kid. Yeah, we put a. We put a chicken in the dog house one time for the ride.

Mitch Candiano

I saw when they showed up the next day. Yeah, yeah. Cuz I remember one time a lady just brought a box of cats and fucking just dumped that bitch out at the fair. That's a good place to get rid of them. Yeah, I think that was like, some of the vibe.

Theo Von

It was just like, people that had extra animals or whatever, and they're like, we're gonna bring em up here. Cause we knew people would be up here and if they want a cat, they got it or whatever. But yeah, there was always some weird shit like that going on. Any love stories over the years? You see where Carniv's met each other and.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, I met. I mean, back in the day, that's the only place I really met. I mean, my friend April, who I was been with. I was with for you know, almost ten years or something. We were 1617 when we hooked up.

Theo Von

Y'all met at a carnival? Yeah, she worked for somebody and I was working out there and she worked for a friend of mine, another family. Let me dart that balloon. Huh? She was actually pregnant when we hooked up already too.

Really? Yeah. Wow, that seems illegal. That's crazy. I love God, but I don't know.

Mitch Candiano

And we're still friends that I still. I mean. Raekwon. Her son works for me now. Yeah?

Theo Von

Yeah. Really? Yeah, her son works for me. Like really? Yeah, so, wow, that's love, man.

Yeah, well, that's still best friends, you know. Oh really? Yeah. We're not together obviously, but yeah, we're best friends still and damn. So yeah, we've had some.

Love can happen out there. I think my nephew met his wife out there. He's met. He just got married a year or two ago. He met her out there.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, but she was South African. I think she came over from that whole. When they brought all. Cause they keep bringing more South Africans over every year. Why?

Just for that work and vacation they sell them. People think that they're gonna 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, they're like. Most of them are.

Theo Von

They are, but they're already here. And they're already here. Some of them pay to go back home like you gotta like, but some of them love it. And some of them end up rising up and getting positions of power too. Yeah, so it goes both ways.

Mitch Candiano

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.

Theo Von

Yeah, they just adjust well to most things. You know? 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. I don't know.

Mitch Candiano

Well, my girlfriend's half mexican. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Does she seem.

Theo Von

Does that part of her seem good? I love it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I would just. We'll see what happens.

But I. Anyway, that's like a bigger conversation. But what about like gypsies? Did y'all ever run across those types of. Oh yeah, we had some gypsies talking about.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, man, we had some that did like the psychic readings and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of mush is out there. We didn't see them much really. They were gypsies, so they were travelers.

They were travelers like, cuz normally, like if you wanted to do the big fairs, you would have to like, as a, like, if you were a gypsy that just wanted to come in and do it. Like in us family or different families that were out there, they would make you do the spring season with them and you had to do all the shit spots if you wanted to get the good spots, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, it's just like comedy. Yeah, so. But I don't know how the gypsies got away with it.

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

Theo Von

Oh, they didn't have to play the smaller ones in this and the ones you didn't love. Yeah, they were funny, man. And you'd walk by like. Cause I never went into them, but she would always like, come on in, I don't want. And they're so perceptive because they would try to get you to think that they were being psychic or they knew something, but they're just watching what's going on out in the carnival and they're like, oh, there's gonna be a blonde in your life.

Mitch Candiano

I see it and it's like, yeah, cuz you saw me last night hanging out with her, right? Like. But they're. Yeah, the gypsies are, yeah, real interesting. My brother's friend Donnie is a gypsy.

Theo Von

I think he won't. I mean, he might not admit it, but I think he is. But I don't know if he is. But he is. He is.

But I wouldn't mind being a j. I don't know much about it. I don't. I just wish I knew more about it. I like kind of simple, you know, I like kind of like jewelry or whatever.

And sometimes I don't like a lot. I mean, I'm so secretive. They're like, gypsies are unique. They're very. Yeah, they're like, co.

Yeah, you don't know what's going on. No. You don't have Navy Seals, but of like complete bullshit. You don't know what they're thinking, what they did. Like, if they're being.

Mitch Candiano

If they're being serious or not. If, like, they're telling you. Yeah. You don't know. They just say stuff and they have their own language.

Yeah, they do. Yeah. It's pretty keys on species because the lizard keys, Arnie, I can't even speak it right. Really? Is that pig Latin?

Carny. Oh, that's carny. Yeah. Carny is tough because you have. Oh, there's a carny language?

Yes. Really? Yeah. Like, what do you. What do you.

He's like, he's in spysique. Oh, it's like a pig Latin. Yeah. You put eez before every vowel. Oh, my.

So it gets tough. Eez. Yeah. Oh, my. Gi z.

It would be giza. Oh, my. Gizad. So o would be easel mizagizad. Oh, my God.

Easel mizagizod. Wow. Breeze bizad. You put ez od above eez before every vowel. So God would be Gizod.

Theo Von

Bezos izan. What was. What did the lady say? Beezus easa. Oh, yeah.

Naezut beezust eason mizies. Mizi. Busting at. Oh, man, that's a crap. So how do you shut the carnival down and move it to the next place?

What's that like? What's the breakdown, like in the setup? When you close at night, you wait for the big gondola wheel to close down. That's how you know you're closed. What is the big gondola wheel?

Mitch Candiano

The big Ferris wheel. The giant Ferris wheel. You wait for the lights to go off, and that means you close. That's when you know it's time to close and you close down. And depending on what you ran, games were really easy to tear down.

You know, the hardest thing was putting on the hitch after they took your game away. Cause the hitches come off that pull the trailer that you pull the trailer by. You gotta take those off so you can put all the games, butt em up to each other. Make the midway. Wait, hold on.

Theo Von

When you say make the midway, what do you mean? And you put them into the truck. When you put. You know, when you go onto the midway, the midway is like, where all the games and the food are. They're all able to butt up against each other flat because you take the hitch off that goes onto the.

Mitch Candiano

That you hook the truck up to. You back the truck up to the hitch. Oh, yeah. And so that comes off, and that's probably the hardest part of, like, tearing down a game, okay. Just taking that on and off.

Theo Von

And how do you all travel it all out there? How does it all move out? So it's up to each family. They usually have trucks that pull their stuff, and somebody that works for them usually will be a driver or two. They might have a couple drivers, or you might hire a trucking company to come in and pull your stuff.

Mitch Candiano

The carnival, like the carnival itself, they own big trucks that pull their stuff. And they also hire people out, too, depending on how fast you got to get the stuff over the road, how far it is, if you can make multiple trips or not. Cause sometimes if you're only going, you know, 50, 60 miles, you can make multiple trips. But if you're going a couple hundred miles, you might not want to make as many trips. You know, you don't have the time.

Theo Von

Yeah. So you'll hire a trucking company to come in and take it. And I used to tear down rides and stuff, too, for extra money. So I would do, like, sometimes up to five rides a night. I tear down and set up.

Mitch Candiano

I would tear down five rides, go set up five rides. And, you know, I'd make good extra money doing that. Yeah, it was cash. Yeah. So what do they pay an extra $50 to help turn around or something?

Theo Von

Wow. So you do four or five a night? Maybe a couple hundred bucks. That's great. Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

And so, like, the stand I have now, like, some of the. Even back then at the carnival, we had a wooden frame. Like, I ran towards the end, I ran. I was in charge of the food stands for my brother and my father. And we had the wood frame sausage stands that had the counters that came along the side that you could sit at and sit at the counters and, like, watch them cook and stuff like that.

I don't know if you had them down here or not, but that. So that's what I have now. That's what I use out at the festivals, too. Okay. And that's a lot of work.

Cause everything has to come out of the truck. You know, the grills, the fry laters, the fridges, like, everything comes out. How would they move the big rides? How do they get those to the next town or whatever? Yeah, big, big truck you tear down.

And most of them, they fold down pretty small. Like, a lot of them do. They fold onto a semi or just onto a trailer? Onto a semi trailer. On a seat trailer.

Yeah. It's got wheels under it. Right, right. Some of them are ground. We call the other ones that aren't on a trailer.

Ground mounts. Okay. So they'll have a trailer for it, but everything has to come off the trailer and set up on the ground. Okay. But then some are on the trailer itself, and the trailer just unfolds like a, you know, like a transformer.

Theo Von

How hard is it to break down a whole carnival? Does this take a whole day or they get it done in a matter of it? Depends. I mean, you could move. You can get it done fairly fast.

Mitch Candiano

You know, sometimes you can be have everything done in like a good 6 hours or so. Wow. Really? Do they travel at night usually, or where does it happen? Yeah, yeah.

Because usually close Sunday nights and so you're done, depending on how late you close. Sometimes you'll close early. Some Sundays though, they do the bracelets where you buy a bracelet. You could ride all the rides all day and night. Yeah.

And so when they do that, and if you're making money, stay open later. Cause you don't want to close on people is what we call it. Oh, yeah. If there's people still there, huh? Yeah.

Theo Von

Well, there's one other game we used to play where you would like, put the slide, the money, and it would. You pay and get these thing of coins. And you put the coins in and. It would push the splash down is one of the wins, we called it. Yeah.

We'd 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 or a dollar. We use quarters in ours. Oh, you do? Yeah.

Mitch Candiano

There was sometimes, depending on the state, sometimes you gotta use coins. Sometimes you can use quarters. In Maine, you can use quarters. Yeah. And so.

But those are a hustle too, are they? Yeah. Cause there's a couple different ways they hustled it. Sometimes there would be something under the quarters of the coins. There's like this triangle right at the.

Theo Von

Front of the lip. So when they're pushing, they push sideways. And if you want. See on the sides, there's the splashdowns on the sides. Did you notice before that there's an out of bounds?

Mitch Candiano

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. Cause they could fall off to the sides.

Theo Von

And if they fell off in the middle, you got it. You got it. Right. But if they fall to the sides, the house gets it. Yeah, that was it right there.

Mitch Candiano

And so the more weight you put in the front, the more it's gonna push to the sides. Damn. Sometimes people would glue that shit down. Nuh uh. Oh.

Yeah. Oh, God. You know what it taught you, though? It taught you about loss, man. It taught you that life is gonna fucking.

Theo Von

You're probably gonna lose. Yeah. You know, and you're probably gonna knock somebody off. Yeah. It just taught me that everything is a fucking hustle, man.

Mitch Candiano

Everything in life. Whether it's your h vac 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. Because. Yeah, life's a hustle, man. That was another thing.

Speaking of his wiener. That was the way he made money. You asking how, like, 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 he, like his, like, hygiene and stuff like that. The great Lentini, you mean?

Yeah, the great Lentini. So I'd love to get ahold of one of those. Wow, that'd be fascinating if you had that pamphlet. Bring up that. Bring that up one more time.

Theo Von

I want to look at him as we close out here. My dad had three nipples. Did he really? Yeah. Wow.

Mitch Candiano

An extra nipple right down here. Hmm. That's almost. That's like a third let. It's kind of like a third.

Theo Von

It's like. It seems like it's the same genetics, you know? Yeah. I was kind of wondering that if it was because of the genes type thing. Franklin teeny for as long as I can remember.

Sideshow attractions. Let's look at two more of these before we go. Mirandajo the invulnerable man. Mirandajo was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1912. Mirren was famous for piercing his body with sharp objects and suffering no pain or even bleeding as a result.

He also had boiling water hurled at him and survived being shot in the head multiple times. Miriam was not affiliated with any one sideshow 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.

Mitch Candiano

Wow. That's pretty crazy. I think I remember hearing about him, really? When I was researching my uncle that I remember seeing. And the elastic man, too.

There was a guy that maybe that was him that could, like, stretch his skin. Really crazy. Mirandajo. 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.

Theo Von

While he preached, he would also condemn the idea of materialism. Huh. So he kind of had a message with what he was doing. Interesting. Interesting man.

Mitch, man. Nice to meet a carny, bro. Nice to meet a guy that's. That's been through it and able to come here and share a little bit of what the world and universe is like. Yeah, it's.

Mitch Candiano

It's been quite a ride, man. It's definitely been interesting, and I want to change it for the world. It's taught me a lot, and it got me. Yeah, it got me. I mean, it's where I am today.

It got me here to meet you. And it got me here to meet you. And the job I have now selling food out there is. They treat me like a rock star out there, and I'm not gonna lie like they really do. And I have to give a shout out to all those.

All my nieces and nephews out there in the world that really support me and take care of me and out there, like, they really love Uncle Mitch's munchies. Home of the turtle dick sandwich. Really? Yep. And it's real meat.

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

Theo Von

It's in Dane. It's got to be endangered or whatever. Yeah. So we do it. We do it, you know, now we go get.

Mitch Candiano

We get the turtle. We snip it and send it back off in the wild. You serious? No. Oh, but we do sell a turtle dick sandwich.

Theo Von

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. Well, that's just one of the things. It's like you just can't even get real turtle dick anymore. No, but you should see all the turtle dicks we have now.

Mitch Candiano

People make turtle dick. Like we have all these turtle dicks, a dancing turtle dick, this crazy shit out there. The games continue, man. Oh, man. They don't stop.

I love it. Thanks, Mitch, so much for your time, man. Yeah. I appreciate you coming, dude, and spending time with us. And I'm gonna see you on the 9th?

Theo Von

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 Saturday night.

Mitch Candiano

Yeah, I think a Friday night. Saturday night. Friday night. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna be working it.

Theo Von

That's crazy. Yeah. I'll see you soon. Yeah, it's crazy. Mitch, thank you so much, man.

Nice to meet you, bro. Nice to meet you. Sorry for this all good.

Stone but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life out I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take a little.

E496 A Carny

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Life as a Carney

3: Misconceptions and Realities

4: Cultural Impact of Carnivals

5: Challenges and Rewards

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

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Transcript