For the last 11 days, I have been in Key West playing pirate. It’s a hard life, I know.
It was there that I was surrounded by some of the most debased individuals on earth. Unreliable, uncouth, foul-smelling folks who would steal everything from you if they could and kill you if they had half a chance.
Yes, I’m talking about carnies. They make pirates look like pillars of the community.
As Austin Powers once put it, “Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.”
If you’ve ever been to a state fair or a carnival set up in a supermarket parking lot then you’ve seen carnies. You’ve handed them your tickets as you’ve boarded a ride. You’ve entrusted your children to them. And perhaps, you’ve even witnessed with amazement how a carnival suddenly appears in the dead of night, rising seemingly out of nowhere, huge rides assembled in the dark, by people who you can hope know what they are doing.I have never trusted a ride assembled by a carnie.
My oldest brother Jon gave me the following advice when I was about 12. “Robb, never get on anything assembled by a carnie.”
That turned out to be good advice.
If you ever want to be cured of your desire to ride carnival rides again, go to this site. Yes, Ride Accidents. A quick count shows 58 accidents this year, 54 last year. One carnie was arrested for operating a ride drunk and for pissing in public. Another ride simply broke apart, sending debris and riders sprawling into the crowd. At the State Fair in Louisiana, a four year old was injured because the carnie left the key in the ride’s ignition, leaving it powered on. A child next in line pressed the start button as the ride was being unloaded.
And you thought I was just having a hard time with carnies because of my own experiences. Hah!
Carnies live a gypsy life. It’s an underworld. If you ever want to really get the crap scared out of you and never look at a carnie the same way, watch Disney’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” which is about a carnival that comes to town and residents start disappearing at the hands of Mr. Dark, who has a tattoo on his body for every victim he has lured into his macabre world.
I am still haunted by that movie, which I didn’t see until a few years ago. It’s not a movie that Disney really wants anyone to see because it’s the most un-Disneylike film since Bambi, when Walt offed Bambi’s mom at the hands of a hunter. It is a very dark, sinister movie. And it should be, given that Ray Bradbury, the author of the book, also wrote the screenplay.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I do love the idea of a carnival. As I wrote a few months back, I mainlined the Puyallup Fair, with its endless sights, sounds and lights to delight a guy who loves a good state fair. However, I never went on a single ride.
It’s not just because of the carnies. If you think about it, these rides are scary. They are complex pieces of machinery that when packed up, fit on a semi truck flatbed. That means there are a lot of bolts, nuts, cotter pins and assorted pieces that need to be assembled exactly the same every time. And if you’ve ever tried to assemble a piece of furniture from IKEA, you can only imagine what it’s like to assemble the Octopus or Scrambler.
How do carnies know how to do this?
Well, first, there is a professional association for carnies. Go to carnytown.com and you won’t sleep for a week. Here, carnies can exchange all sorts of information about the fairs they work. They even have a carnie dating database to find the carnie girl or guy of your dreams.
In the interest of doing solid journalism, I did some research on the site. It was there that I came across the Ride Manual link. Yes, there is a site for carnies to download the ride manuals so they know how to assemble the ride your child is about to get on.
The manual for the Zipper is 148 pages long. Now, even if we assume a carnie can read, this is a daunting document, which includes several safety updates due to failures of certain parts that I assume are important to its safe operation, such as, oh, I don’t know, the SEAT HANGERS, which were known to have cracked at one time and had to have a Safety Alert issued.
Pretty important stuff, these manuals. We’re talking about hundreds of parts, complex hydraulics, pulleys, pistons and gears, all left in the hands of a guy who probably has more fingers than teeth.
So rides are out these days for me. I guess ignorance can be bliss because I saw tons of doting parents over the weekend gladly put their children on these rides, which, when the carnival closed, were packed up and gone within hours.
This is not to say I won’t ride rides. I love to go to the Magic Kingdom and get on a ride there. I know these are permanent installations and I also know that Disney doesn’t hire carnies or even relatives of carnies.
Speaking of relatives, I had my own run in with a carnie kid this weekend. An engaging fellow – he was very amicable and charming. He was also a bit of a thief. I only know this because he stole something from me and now I see others are reporting items missing. I got mine back, but it was still stealing. Thankfully, I know that I’m not a real pirate. Otherwise they would have found his body floating in the harbor once it got dark. I don’t take to kindly to thieves, especially when it’s a carnie.
If I am so anti-carnival, why do I step voluntarily into their realm? Simple. Corn dogs. They are my Kryptonite. And even though I must walk into the valley of the shadow of the carnies, I will fear no evil, for a mustard laden corn dog awaits me on the other side, waiting to comfort me again and again.
Out on the Treasure Coast, pulling out the deep fryer as we speak,
— Robb