0:04

Hey, you welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh.

0:06

There's Chuck. It's just the two of us

0:08

again. We uh can

0:11

let it all hang out.

0:14

Jerry's not around. Um,

0:16

we're just a couple of dudes hanging out in our

0:18

bathrobes talking about

0:21

GiB Town, the town in Florida

0:24

near Sarasota and Tampa where

0:26

the people who lived in the circus

0:29

where the Carnivals went to live

0:32

when they weren't working. Let's go

0:35

quick story. Since we've on a

0:37

short stuff, I'll make it twenty seconds. I

0:40

got out of the shower today and I almost went

0:42

and put on a suit just to walk into

0:44

the kitchen and make Emily laugh. But

0:47

it wasn't worth the effort. So I was like, I told her

0:49

the joke and said to just imagine I did that, right,

0:52

that's good enough. Uh,

0:55

so give Town. Yeah, we did a show, an

0:58

episode on Circus Side Shows, uh

1:01

way back, and it's a really good one. And I

1:04

know that we'll talk about this a little bit in this episode.

1:06

But um, these things can

1:09

very much seem like exploitation of

1:11

people with disabilities, and on one

1:13

hand, they certainly were. But

1:15

on the other hand, we found out through research.

1:18

A lot of these people it was the only way they could

1:20

make money. A lot of them found love and community,

1:23

and so it is very much something that is

1:26

is in the Gray area, uh

1:29

as far as you know when this was going on.

1:31

So I just wanted to throw that out there. I think that was

1:33

really good, Chuck, because I remember our um

1:36

what do we call him? Sideshow performers or did we?

1:38

Was freaks used in the title of that episode.

1:41

I don't remember. I don't think we did, but it

1:43

was a really good one. And I remember

1:45

I just saw Freaks the movie

1:48

the other day and apparently, um a lot of

1:50

people from GiB Town who

1:52

hadn't settled there quite yet but soon would.

1:54

We're in that movie as well, Yeah

1:57

for sure. So, um, we're talking about

1:59

Gibsonton, Florida, which

2:02

is near Tampa, and

2:05

it is on the Alphia

2:08

I'm sorry, the Alafia or the Alafia

2:11

River? Do you know which one it is? No? I

2:13

no, I hang out on the east side when I'm

2:15

down there, that's west side. We

2:18

don't. We don't get along very well. Well,

2:20

I see flashing your west side sign.

2:23

Yeah, you couldn't even see me, and you you

2:25

knew that I did that when I said west Side,

2:27

and it was all jumbled to like it's just basically

2:30

all fingers were splayed on each

2:32

hand, and then I put it up against my chest as

2:35

if I've been recording

2:38

a lot of these skype things now with movie

2:40

Crush, and I always do video and they're always

2:42

surprised when they ask about us, and I'm like, we don't

2:44

do video, mainly because my notes

2:46

get in the way. But I was like, after

2:48

this long, all I need is that guy in my ear holes. Sure

2:51

a little bit of this right

2:53

up in your ear Yeah,

2:57

So give Gibson toon. If

3:00

you went to that town in the nineteen fifties and walked

3:02

around a bit, you would think, what is

3:04

going on here? There are lions and tigers

3:06

in that backyard. There is a

3:09

restaurant run by an eight foot

3:11

tall man and his wife, a woman

3:13

with no legs, And

3:16

there's Lobster Boy, and there

3:19

is uh monkey girl. And

3:22

these are all sort of the unfortunate names given

3:24

to them on their side show tours,

3:27

yes, sometimes by their adopted parents,

3:29

who would be the promoters a

3:31

side shower circus promoters who basically

3:35

literally had legally adopted them

3:37

and in some cases that was actually a step up

3:39

for you know, some of the kids.

3:41

But um, yes, if you did

3:43

walk around what came to be called

3:46

GiB Town, um it

3:49

did seem a little different. I mean just the fact

3:51

that people had like monkeys and elephants

3:53

and lions and tigers in their backyard. That's

3:55

a pretty that's a that's a different

3:58

than most other towns.

3:59

The side show rides

4:02

parked and people's driveways, it's a little different

4:04

too. And apparently this town

4:06

was that way because it was first

4:08

settled by um,

4:10

the the Giant and the half

4:13

woman they called themselves, but their names

4:15

were Alan Genie Tomaini,

4:18

which is great Genie Tomaini. It

4:20

just rolls off the tongue. Yeah that's great.

4:22

But they first showed up there in the thirties, and

4:24

I guess they just basically said, hey, everybody,

4:26

this this place is kind of cool. We're not judged,

4:29

we're not treated differently in the town's actually kind

4:31

of neat. And eventually the town or

4:33

the county, Hillsboro County, passed an ordinance

4:35

that said you can have things like carnival

4:38

rides in your driveway or elephants in your backyard.

4:41

Um, be if you are a carnival or

4:43

circus performer. Yeah, I

4:45

think they got the notion that it was a pretty sleepy

4:48

little town, and in the nineteen

4:50

sixties they had about a hundred

4:53

actual sideshow performers and about

4:55

a thousand carnies that

4:57

would live there. When you know, it just became

4:59

a friendly place for them all to live and they were

5:02

all kind of like a big family. So they congregated there,

5:04

and I think the town was like, you know what, these

5:07

are great residents. They pay their uh

5:09

state taxes. Wait a minute, it's Florida,

5:12

all right, that's why they're living here. There

5:14

are no state taxes, although

5:16

I don't know if that was the deal back then, but or

5:19

has it always been the deal. I don't even know. I don't know.

5:21

I know there's no state income tax, but there's

5:23

like the property taxes are much higher.

5:25

Like they make it up in other ways. For sure, right

5:27

they get they get you one away of the other that elephant

5:30

taxes really steep. But

5:33

they realized, hey, we could use these residents.

5:35

And they're only here part time, if you know

5:38

what I'm saying, So that's kind of great too. And

5:40

so they made like you said, these business ordinances

5:43

that made it kind of a friendly place

5:45

for Carney's. So I say we take

5:47

a break and come back and talk a little more about

5:49

give Town. Let's do it. What's

6:16

the famous quote, Chuck, don't don't

6:18

try it, Jake, this is GiB Town. That's

6:21

it. I don't even

6:23

think I got the first part, right, No you

6:25

didn't, Jake, Jake, stop stop,

6:28

this is gid Town. Don't do it. I

6:30

think it's uh a GiB town. I'm walking

6:32

here, that's

6:35

it. That's from Midnight Cowboy, right,

6:38

Midnight Cowboy. Yes, that is Dustin Hoffman.

6:42

Right, nice work. So

6:45

back to GiB Town. This town by, like

6:47

we said, by the nineteen sixties was booming with

6:50

carnival folk. Uh. They loved

6:52

living there. It was a kind of a lovely community

6:54

for them. And we mentioned

6:56

earlier that they sometimes found love. Uh.

7:00

We we mentioned the tall man and

7:02

the short lady who traveled as the

7:04

world's strangest married couple. It's

7:07

actually a very sweet story. Yeah. Like,

7:09

he was over eight feet tall, Chuck,

7:11

and she, not having any legs,

7:13

was about two and a half feet tall, and

7:16

it am at the knees. Yeah, yeah,

7:18

I guess so, um, maybe like mid

7:21

Shin. Actually who knows it was a knee.

7:23

I saw a picture. Okay, where there you go? So

7:26

um, the Tomaini's they toured

7:28

as the world's strangest married couple and

7:30

they actually they had kids too,

7:32

and their their daughter remembered

7:34

that they would, you know, leave for the summer and go

7:37

make some money and come back to to Give Town

7:39

and and run the Fish Camp

7:41

Giants Fish Camp, which is one of

7:43

the places that that they owned, which

7:45

was very legendary but apparently isn't there anymore.

7:48

No, there's a memorial there. Now. I watched

7:50

a couple of short YouTube videos about Give

7:53

Town, and you know, there are still remnants

7:55

of uh and there are still some performers.

7:57

About two hundred carnival people still live there,

8:00

but they're little remnants of that

8:02

past world. Every now and then you'll

8:04

see some broken down, old rusted rides

8:07

in like a vacant lot, or maybe

8:10

a themed restaurant that's closed down.

8:12

So Get Towns about forty five miles

8:14

from Sara Sota, which is where the

8:17

Wringling Brothers Barnman Bailey Circus winters.

8:20

So I think it was, and we've talked

8:22

about Florida in general, having sort of circus

8:24

stuff in

8:26

general. So I think it all just sort of made sense, right,

8:29

Um, and I I don't know why

8:32

GiB Town. I think it was just that the Tomainis

8:34

happened to set up shop

8:36

there and found that the people were tallerant

8:39

and friendly, and it just kind

8:41

of spread from there. So it had the Heyday from

8:44

I'd say the thirties till maybe

8:46

the eighties or so. And um.

8:48

This article from how Stuff Works points out

8:50

that there were side shows in operation

8:53

pre Lallapalooza, side shows

8:55

like the Real Deal um into

8:57

the eighties and um, though

9:00

they really kind of started to decline

9:02

by like the thirties and forties. People were like,

9:04

this seems exploitive, and people

9:06

say, well, it probably is, um,

9:09

but let's not ask the performers. Let's just decide

9:11

for them. But finally,

9:13

in Americans with Disabilities

9:16

Act was past, and

9:18

all of a sudden, you know, working in a sideshow

9:20

is not the only place you could get a job if you had some

9:22

sort of um,

9:25

what's the word I'm looking for. I don't

9:27

know, physical malady, abnormality.

9:29

Maybe, Yeah, I'm not sure

9:31

the right way to say that. These days, I'm not either, But

9:34

if you were a sideshow performer, you

9:36

could now get a job anywhere thanks to the A D

9:38

A. That's right, which is great. Um.

9:41

The lobster boys, he was known greaty

9:43

styles. He was known

9:46

as the lobster Boy because and here's

9:48

the deal, and we talked about this in the Side Show Performer

9:51

podcast episode, is that you

9:53

got into these things because you were

9:55

born with a condition almost invariably,

9:59

and they would view a name like lobster

10:01

boy, when in fact you had a real life condition, which

10:03

which one was that ectrodactically right

10:07

where it appears like you have two

10:09

fingers only that sort of looked like claws.

10:11

It looks a lot like lobster clause. Actually,

10:14

yeah, and Justin Bieber's

10:16

wife actually has a form of this because she has

10:18

a pinky that is um

10:20

sort of misshapen, and she has just come

10:22

out and said, all right, let's look and talk look at

10:24

it and talk about it, because here it

10:27

is. But he actually

10:29

was a terrible person, so that he

10:32

was murdered. He was an abusive alcoholic.

10:34

He killed his first wife and

10:37

was sentenced to home incarceration because

10:39

there was no prison that could care for him. Wait

10:41

he killed us? No, I think he killed

10:46

Yeah that's right. Yeah yeah,

10:48

daughter's fiance home incarcerated,

10:51

quit drinking, got married again, started

10:53

drinking again, and allegedly

10:55

he was either knocked off by Carney

10:57

for bucks paid for by

11:00

current wife or uh,

11:02

the neighbor just came over and took care of business because

11:04

they knew what a bad guy he was. Yeah, I

11:07

think like he he was paid

11:09

from what I saw like that that amount of

11:11

money. I didn't see any other alternate theories.

11:13

But he shot him twice in the head and he

11:15

died like sitting in his chair. Um.

11:19

Yeah, he wasn't a very good guy from what I saw

11:21

either. No, so

11:24

not to you know, not to trash his name, but

11:26

you know, but that was like the big

11:28

scandal in give Town. For the most part, it was

11:30

like a really peaceful, happy place where if you were

11:32

a side show performer, like you could go feel

11:35

at home and be yourself. And one

11:37

of the cutest things that I saw was that

11:40

another couple that found love. Um

11:42

Priscilla the monkey girl who had hypertrichosis,

11:45

which was um. She had like a full

11:48

head of hair, like a hair do as

11:51

an infant, and it just kept going from

11:53

there. She had a beard. Um, she

11:55

was like, just had tons of

11:57

hair. Um. She married Emit

12:00

the alligator skin Man, who had

12:02

a healthy case of ichthyosis, which is

12:04

thick, scaly skin all over your body.

12:07

And they were married for so long

12:09

that they had their fiftieth wedding anniversary

12:12

at a local club, the Showman's Club. They're

12:14

fact that the cutest

12:16

thing it is. And I love the idea

12:18

of GiB Town that these people came together, um

12:21

on the outskirts of society, and now

12:24

hipsters are moving there apparently. Yeah,

12:27

that's the least surprising part of

12:29

this entire episode. That's right.

12:31

One other thing, if you want to see something very cute,

12:33

go look up a baby photo of Priscilla

12:35

the monkey Girl. She was adorable. Agreed.

12:39

Um, Well that's it for short Stuff, everybody.

12:42

Short Stuff is out. Stuff

12:46

you should know is production of iHeart Radios. How

12:48

Stuff works. For more podcasts for my

12:51

Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple

12:53

Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite

12:55

shows.