My Experience Traveling with a Freak Show

Well before 1843, the year PT Barnum began carting General Tom Thumb around the United States and Europe, teaching the 26 inch tall oddity to do impressions and smoke cigars for added amusement, people have been drawn to the more bizarre and unsettling representatives of our species.

In darker times, freaks were thought to be the spawn of the devil, something to be hidden away, feared, and oftentimes killed at birth. As we moved into the scientific era and superstitions eroded, physically anomalous humans began to attract the attention of the masses.

Strongmen, tattooed ladies, lobster boys, and a thousand other permutations of the human ideal became a source of entertainment, and the freak show was born. The golden era of the freak show in America lasted from between 1840 and 1940, as intrepid businessmen like Barnum, lined their pockets by parading these unfortunate deformed souls around the country in traveling circuses and boardwalk sideshows.

Then, somewhere along the line it became impolite to gawk at the freaks, and exploitative for the promoters to collect money from the gawkers. Freak shows were the first casualties of what would come to be known as political correctness. Legislators from Michigan to Germany outlawed the display of people with physical abnormalities for profit.

On paper it looks like the nice thing to do—no one likes to be pointed at in disgust. But let’s face it, in their attempt to homogenize modern society; all the lawmakers did was to take away the freaks’ livelihoods. Of course a few freaks rose above their conditions (most notably Los Angeles news anchorwoman Bree Walker), but, for the most part, the deformed lost their most lucrative career path.

Enter Howard Stern. Howard was able to bring the freak show back into the mainstream by re-labeling the freaks as radio personalities. He assembled a motley cast of side show characters to populate his bizarro radio world—Crackhead Bob, Eric the Midget, Gary the Retard, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf (you get the picture). The show is a mishmash of obnoxious misfits and modern day freaks. This is the world I found myself immersed in this past weekend.

My friend was working as a promoter for the Killers of Comedy tour, a group of touring Howard Stern Show comedians and personalities, and I was hired for the weekend to help drive. As I carted the group around Southern California, stopping at hotels, gas stations, and In-N-Out Burgers, I relished the looks of curiosity and astonishment that followed our every move.

Freak number one was Beetlejuice, a four foot black man with a head the size of a grapefruit and a mouth short on teeth. Wherever we stopped someone would shout his name and try to get a picture with him. No one stood a chance. Beet (as his friends call him) is a nasty little bugger. His bad attitude and limited grasp on reality is Beet’s main draw for Howard and his fans. When he would inevitably refuse the photo and ignore the attempted handshake, the frustrated fan would turn to me and ask for help. “Sorry man, Beet makes his own decisions”

The second biggest attraction in our van was former World Wrestling Federation superstar, the Iron Sheik. I like to think that the Sheik and I grew quite close as I listened to stories of his past as the bodyguard of the Shah of Iran and an amateur Greco-Roman Wrestling gold medalist (the AAU not the Olympics, although he is only too eager to let that distinction go unnoticed). At the age of 65, his body broken by years of wrestling, steroids, and drug abuse, he shuffled around on a cane, needing me to buckle him into his car seat.

Despite his feeble physical condition, the Sheik is still capable of short bursts of invective, during which he curses his various enemies at the top of his lungs. These diatribes would typically end with his bread and butter: “First I break your back; then I fuck you in the ass!” The Sheik would do this bit on stage for a few minutes, momentarily rejuvenated, and then stride off and collapse into a chair backstage, his whole wad of adrenaline blown for the day.

But the real Iron Sheik is a soft-spoken, kind, and respectful man. My friend warned me that, at some point, he would get angry and I better be prepared. But I couldn’t see it happening; he was too old, too thoughtful, too considerate. It was all an act, his stage persona.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. In the lobby of a swanky hotel in downtown San Diego, I was charged with watching Beet and the Sheik until it was time to go to the show. No problem. The only real challenge was to keep Beet from getting drunk, and after a quick aside to the bartender that was taken care of. The little guy never suspected the beer was non-alcoholic, and the shot of vodka was water. “That shit is smooth” he said of the latter.

I was sitting next to the Sheik, gladly listening to his Persian tales, when Beetlejuice came walking up with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“No way I’m in a room with that guy tonight”, he said gesturing to the Sheik. “He damn near killed me last night.”

“What you mean?” demanded the Sheik.

“You killed me man.”

“What you talking about?”

“You smell so bad,” said Beetlejuice, looking at me for support.

This set the Sheik off, and what I believed to be only his onstage character exploded in the quiet-but-not empty lobby of the hotel. “I pay my dues and no one fuck with me.” Employees and patrons alike started to glance over, as the Sheik’s voice grew louder. “I snap your little head off. You show me fuckin’ respect!”

Beetlejuice looked at me to step in. “It’s alright Sheik, he was just kidding,” was the best I could do.

“I don’t need to take crap from little nig**r!” A black employee at the front desk looked up.

In a weird twist, Beetlejuice became the voice of reason. “You can’t swear like that man. You got to keep it down.”

As the Sheik’s tirade continued, I talked calmly to him, and watched for his cane to rise to a striking height. Just as it seemed there was no chance of peace, the situation was diffused when Beet wisely shuffled back into the bar shaking his tiny head.

By this point everyone in the lobby was looking at us, equal parts shock and amusement on their faces. It was then that I realized that, try as the politicians and do-gooders might, the good old traveling freak show would never die.