Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson does a photo shoot in Coney Island, there are no landmarks in the photo, just Simpson in a dress holding balloons, posing with soldiers. Apparently this warrants an international story- click here for the London coverage.

Captain Bob gets a shout out in the Dallas Morning News

"I was properly introduced to Coney Island on a walking tour, too. Although I grew up in New York City, Coney Island was derelict and dangerous through my childhood, so all I knew of it was through my grandmother's stories. Finally, in 2004, I took one of Captain Bob's Historic Coney Island Tours (www.captainbob .8k.com). Though much of historic Coney Island is gone (and now Astroland is imperiled by planned development), Capt. Bob imparts firsthand memories of Luna Park and summer fun on the beach with word pictures and real postcards."

Read the entire article here.

Sideshow School - Class 3 - Blade-Box, Snake Charming, and Animal Traps

I came into class and saw what I thought was our substitute instructor cleaning up the stage wearing blackface. Really, I thought, isn’t blackface in poor taste even for a sideshow?

But he wasn’t wearing blackface; he had hair growing all over his face. He was a “dog-faced boy” and he was just there hanging out.

The class started with Dick Zigun the mayor explaining the finer points of snake-charming.

“Don’t wrap the constrictor around your neck like a scarf because that’s how people die.”

The key to snake charming, by the way, is to pick out a song you like to dance to and build up your shoulder muscles because 13-foot-long Burmese albino pythons way 70 pounds.

Also, always wash your hands after handling a snake because they’re covered in salmonella and never handle any constrictor over 9-feet-long when no one else is around, it might strangle you to death out of instinct.

Next Donny V. taught us how to use animal traps on our hands and how to set off mousetraps with our tongues. The animal trap is one of those annoying tricks were there is no trick. The performer sticks his real hand in a real animal trap and it really hurts. Unfortunately, the audience won’t necessarily believe you.

While Donny V. was instructing the “assistant” on how to successfully avoid being pierced by the steel blades in the Blade-Box, one of my classmates, Johnny Sullivan the Stuntman, was offering a B movie role to another student if she taught him how to weld.

“Can I be in a B movie?” I asked

“Sure. What do you want to do?”

“I want to be a zombie.”

“What are you doing June 2^nd and 3^rd?”

Looks like I’m going to be a zombie extra in The Skeleton Key 2.

To see me swallow fire for the first time, click here.

N.Y. EMT, co-worker resign over X-rated video

Look out Coney Island, if you've been drunk and made yourself into a Coney Island Amusement, these EMT workers might have filmed you for their own mischievous purposes- BC

Staten Island Advance (New York)
Copyright 2007 Advance Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Two FDNY emergency medical technicians, one of them a Staten Islander, have resigned under threat of firings after officials learned they made an X-rated videotape of several of their patients while on-duty. Read more here.

Sideshow School - 2nd Class - Fire Transfers and Nails up the Nose

Well, the New York Times showed up at our second class, not that I’m bitter (Get your own fucking story you dirty vultures! This one is still alive!)

ANYWAY, Times aside, it was a fascinating and productive class. We shifted from q-tips to ten-penny six-inch nails and I was able to wiggle all six inches of steel up my nostril on the first go. It feels a little strange and doesn’t hurt too much as long as I steady it with one hand. Unfortunately after my first success my nostril started to swell, preventing from placing the nail more than two or three inches deep.

We also learned a neat trick to add onto the fire eating called a transfer. A transfer basically involves lighting one torch on fire and the lighting either your hand or tongue on fire and using your burning body part to set fire to a second torch. For some reason this is more psychologically intimidating to me than eating fire. I think this is because when you eat fire, you can’t really see the flames; when you light your hand on fire you’re watching it the entire time and it’s hard not to flip out.

It has occurred to me that a good way to simulate an allergy attack is to attend sideshow school. My nostrils are tender from nails, my throat sore from swallowing a straightened out coat-hanger and there’s a general funk in my face from all the lighter fluid off the fire I’ve been eating.

America's Last Sideshow

Check out this wonderful coverage by the Associated Press of the World Record Breaking event hosted at Coney Island during the International Congress of Curious People.

XCrawl: Coney Island Crawl

There's a new Role Playing Game called Coney Island Crawl which involves super athletes trying to escape some kind of Coney Island dungeon death trap, oh those kids!

From drivethrustuff.com- "This insane dungeon crawl is the work of the legendary DJ Faces, a judge famous for being sociopathic, vain, domineering, angry and just plain twisted."