"Only two things scare me and one of them is nuclear war."

They are as mysterious as they are beautiful.

The world of the carny.

I've only won two carnival games in my entire 24 years on planet earth. And only one was legitimate.

I was about 9, and it was a "Flipper The Dolphin" themed booth where the goal is take a small mallet and launch rubber dolphins toward a group of lily-pads arranged in circle that slowly rotated that sat in a pool about 7 or 8 feet away. (I've also seen variations of this booth where you launch rubber frogs)

For a brief moment that mallet was an extension of young Alex Popkin's chubby arm.

It was a proud moment of boyish disbelief when i saw flipper land on that lilypad.

I won a sweet stuffed Shamu whale, nay, EARNED a sweet stuffed shamu whale. I didnt know at the time, but that'd be the last time i'd ever legitimiately win a carnival game. One time I was 10 points away from getting 300 in skee ball ---in a carny variation that allowed only 8 BALLS. just an utterly impossible feat to attain because there is NO margin for error. anyway, upon seeing the 290 the Carny at the booth, sensing an opportunity to draw in more traffic to her nigh-unbeatable booth---grabbed a speaker and megaphone from some secret carny nook inside the booth and proclaimed me a winner (clearly 10 points shy) I picked out a faux-supersoaker watter cannon that came with a bigass backpack for optimum ammunation. I recall it being "heavy as fuck."

The point of all this? check out this link which details all the tricks to beating carnies at their own sick games.

Today the days of not being able to underhand toss a softball into wooden barrell or climb the wobbly rope ladder to ring the bell are OVER. we will no longer be the victims.

today is the day we take back the carnival. booth by booth. theme park by theme park.