Velociworld

Gibtown

I've been casting about for something to do for the 4th of July. I thought about running down to Cocoa or Singer Island, but sunbathing is so incredibly taxing, especially during thong season. And the sun melts the ice cubes in my drinks too quickly. Nor do I like sand in my crack of doom. I've done the Insane Palmist thing in Cassadaga, so what's next? Don't forget I have the dual responsibility of scarring the Velocidaughters' psyches for at least three years worth of therapy, and that is a responsibility I do not shoulder lightly.

Then it hit me: Gibtown.

Gibtown is, of course, Gibsonton, Carnie World Headquarters. The Winter Palace of the freakish, the dispossessed, the acutely afflicted, the bizarrely talented. Gibtown is where all the real freaks live when the circuses and fairs are in hibernation. Remember that scene in Dumbo, where the train pulls out of Florida? Gibtown. Only I believe they cast it nearer to Sarasota than Tampa, because they didn't do any research, and we all know Walt's animators were craven drug addicts who whored their talents by day on cartoons, then sought fleshier delights by night in a city absolutely bedecked with the sexually dissipated. Also, Gibtown ain't got no flying elephants. Drug addicts.

Gibtown did have Lobsterboy, though, until his wife murdered him.

That particular affliction is not what you would call a recessive gene, either, as somehow the mutant Stiles family managed to pass on the claws for at least three generations. Some women will do anybody, I swear.

However, ectrodactyly or no, there are sure to be some interesting sights: giants, midgets, bearded women, Magyar trapeze artists, contortionists, sword swallowers, Gypsy pickpockets entrail diviners, hydroencephalytics, tumour bearers, chicken-footed ladies, rodent boys, legless Bucharest enema mistresses, geeks of all stripes, deformities beyond belief.

I think the girls will enjoy it. By God, I'd have killed for a weekend like that as a kid.