Short Stuff: Gibtown: Sideshow Central

I'll make it twenty seconds. I got out of the shower today and I almost went and put on a suit just to walk into the kitchen and make Emily laugh. But it wasn't worth the effort. So I was like, I told her the joke and said to just imagine I did that, right, that's good enough. Uh, so give Town. Yeah, we did a show, an episode on Circus Side Shows, uh way back, and it's a really good one. And I know that we'll talk about this a little bit

in this episode. But um, these things can very much seem like exploitation of people with disabilities, and on one hand, they certainly were. But on the other hand, we found out through research. A lot of these people it was the only way they could make money. A lot of them found love and community, and so it is very much something that is is in the Gray area, uh as far as you know when this was going on.

So I just wanted to throw that out there. I think that was really good, Chuck, because I remember our um what do we call him? Sideshow performers or did we? Was freaks used in the title of that episode. I don't remember. I don't think we did, but it was a really good one. And I remember I just saw Freaks the movie the other day and apparently, um a lot of people from GiB Town who hadn't settled there quite yet but soon would. We're in that movie as well,

Yeah for sure. So, um, we're talking about Gibsonton, Florida, which is near Tampa, and it is on the Alphia I'm sorry, the Alafia or the Alafia River? Do you know which one it is? No? I no, I hang out on the east side when I'm down there, that's west side. We don't. We don't get along very well. Well,

I see flashing your west side sign. Yeah, you couldn't even see me, and you you knew that I did that when I said west Side, and it was all jumbled to like it's just basically all fingers were splayed on each hand, and then I put it up against my chest as if I've been recording a lot of these skype things now with movie Crush, and I always do video and they're always surprised when they ask about us, and I'm like, we don't do video, mainly because my

notes get in the way. But I was like, after this long, all I need is that guy in my ear holes. Sure a little bit of this right up in your ear Yeah, So give Gibson toon. If you went to that town in the nineteen fifties and walked around a bit, you would think, what is going on here? There are lions and tigers in that backyard. There is a restaurant run by an eight foot tall man and his wife, a woman with no legs, And there's Lobster Boy,

and there is uh monkey girl. And these are all sort of the unfortunate names given to them on their side show tours, yes, sometimes by their adopted parents, who would be the promoters a side shower circus promoters who basically literally had legally adopted them and in some cases that was actually a step up for you know, some of the kids. But um, yes, if you did walk around what came to be called GiB Town, um it

did seem a little different. I mean just the fact that people had like monkeys and elephants and lions and tigers in their backyard. That's a pretty that's a that's a different than most other towns. The side show rides parked and people's driveways, it's a little different too. And apparently this town was that way because it was first settled by um, the the Giant and the half woman they called themselves, but their names were Alan Genie Tomaini,

which is great Genie Tomaini. It just rolls off the tongue. Yeah that's great. But they first showed up there in the thirties, and I guess they just basically said, hey, everybody, this this place is kind of cool. We're not judged, we're not treated differently in the town's actually kind of neat. And eventually the town or the county, Hillsboro County, passed an ordinance that said you can have things like carnival rides in your driveway or elephants in your backyard. Um,

be if you are a carnival or circus performer. Yeah, I think they got the notion that it was a pretty sleepy little town, and in the nineteen sixties they had about a hundred actual sideshow performers and about a thousand carnies that would live there. When you know, it just became a friendly place for them all to live and they were all kind of like a big family. So they congregated there, and I think the town was like, you know what, these are great residents. They pay their

uh state taxes. Wait a minute, it's Florida, all right, that's why they're living here. There are no state taxes, although I don't know if that was the deal back then, but or has it always been the deal. I don't even know. I don't know. I know there's no state income tax, but there's like the property taxes are much higher. Like they make it up in other ways. For sure, right they get they get you one away of the other that elephant taxes really steep. But they realized, hey,

we could use these residents. And they're only here part time, if you know what I'm saying, So that's kind of great too. And so they made like you said, these business ordinances that made it kind of a friendly place for Carney's. So I say we take a break and come back and talk a little more about give Town. Let's do it. What's the famous quote, Chuck, don't don't

try it, Jake, this is GiB Town. That's it. I don't even think I got the first part, right, No you didn't, Jake, Jake, stop stop, this is gid Town. Don't do it. I think it's uh a GiB town. I'm walking here, that's it. That's from Midnight Cowboy, right, Midnight Cowboy. Yes, that is Dustin Hoffman. Right, nice work. So back to GiB Town. This town by, like we said, by the nineteen sixties was booming with carnival folk. Uh. They loved living there. It was a kind of a

lovely community for them. And we mentioned earlier that they sometimes found love. Uh. We we mentioned the tall man and the short lady who traveled as the world's strangest married couple. It's actually a very sweet story. Yeah. Like, he was over eight feet tall, Chuck, and she, not having any legs, was about two and a half feet tall, and it am at the knees. Yeah, yeah, I guess so, um, maybe like mid Shin. Actually who knows it was a knee.

I saw a picture. Okay, where there you go? So um, the Tomaini's they toured as the world's strangest married couple and they actually they had kids too, and their their daughter remembered that they would, you know, leave for the summer and go make some money and come back to to Give Town and and run the Fish Camp Giants Fish Camp, which is one of the places that that they owned, which was very legendary but apparently isn't there anymore. No,

there's a memorial there. Now. I watched a couple of short YouTube videos about Give Town, and you know, there are still remnants of uh and there are still some performers. About two hundred carnival people still live there, but they're little remnants of that past world. Every now and then you'll see some broken down, old rusted rides in like a vacant lot, or maybe a themed restaurant that's closed down.

So Get Towns about forty five miles from Sara Sota, which is where the Wringling Brothers Barnman Bailey Circus winters. So I think it was, and we've talked about Florida in general, having sort of circus stuff in general. So I think it all just sort of made sense, right, Um, and I I don't know why GiB Town. I think it was just that the Tomainis happened to set up shop there and found that the people were tallerant and friendly,

and it just kind of spread from there. So it had the Heyday from I'd say the thirties till maybe the eighties or so. And um. This article from how Stuff Works points out that there were side shows in operation pre Lallapalooza, side shows like the Real Deal um into the eighties and um, though they really kind of started to decline by like the thirties and forties. People were like, this seems exploitive, and people say, well, it probably is, um, but let's not ask the performers. Let's

just decide for them. But finally, in Americans with Disabilities Act was past, and all of a sudden, you know, working in a sideshow is not the only place you could get a job if you had some sort of um, what's the word I'm looking for. I don't know, physical malady, abnormality. Maybe, Yeah, I'm not sure the right way to say that. These days, I'm not either, But if you were a sideshow performer, you could now get a job anywhere thanks to the A D A. That's right, which is great. Um. The

lobster boys, he was known greaty styles. He was known as the lobster Boy because and here's the deal, and we talked about this in the Side Show Performer podcast episode, is that you got into these things because you were born with a condition almost invariably, and they would view a name like lobster boy, when in fact you had a real life condition, which which one was that ectrodactically right where it appears like you have two fingers only that sort of looked like claws. It looks a lot

like lobster clause. Actually, yeah, and Justin Bieber's wife actually has a form of this because she has a pinky that is um sort of misshapen, and she has just come out and said, all right, let's look and talk look at it and talk about it, because here it is. But he actually was a terrible person, so that he was murdered. He was an abusive alcoholic. He killed his first wife and was sentenced to home incarceration because there was no prison that could care for him. Wait he

killed us? No, I think he killed Yeah that's right. Yeah yeah, daughter's fiance home incarcerated, quit drinking, got married again, started drinking again, and allegedly he was either knocked off by Carney for bucks paid for by current wife or uh, the neighbor just came over and took care of business because they knew what a bad guy he was. Yeah, I think like he he was paid from what I saw like that that amount of money. I didn't see any other alternate theories. But he shot him twice in

the head and he died like sitting in his chair. Um. Yeah, he wasn't a very good guy from what I saw either. No, so not to you know, not to trash his name, but you know, but that was like the big scandal in give Town. For the most part, it was like a really peaceful, happy place where if you were a side show performer, like you could go feel at home and be yourself. And one of the cutest things that

I saw was that another couple that found love. Um Priscilla the monkey girl who had hypertrichosis, which was um. She had like a full head of hair, like a hair do as an infant, and it just kept going from there. She had a beard. Um, she was like, just had tons of hair. Um. She married Emit the alligator skin Man, who had a healthy case of ichthyosis,

which is thick, scaly skin all over your body. And they were married for so long that they had their fiftieth wedding anniversary at a local club, the Showman's Club. They're fact that the cutest thing it is. And I love the idea of GiB Town that these people came together, um on the outskirts of society, and now hipsters are moving there apparently. Yeah, that's the least surprising part of this entire episode. That's right. One other thing, if you want to see something very cute, go look up a

baby photo of Priscilla the monkey Girl. She was adorable. Agreed. Um, Well that's it for short Stuff, everybody. Short Stuff is out. Stuff you should know is production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.