shoot the freak

the freak
Seven days a week, six hours a day, Behan is the star attraction of Shoot The Freak, the in-the-making cult classic of an amusement park game that has - along with a new baseball park and other improvements - helped defibrillate the heart of Coney Island. Shoot The Freak was invented last July by Anthony Berlingieri, a 39- year-old former hot dog vendor with a thick, hold-the-relish Brooklyn accent and an uncanny resemblance to Andrew 'Dice' Clay. Players pay to shoot paintball bullets with air-rifles at a live human target or "freak" who wears protective gear and insults the crowd while attempting to dodge the bullets.

"It felt good to blow him away," said Lane Miccio, all of 10 years old. "He was really annoying me."
Perhaps only in America could something so base, so wantonly violent and so unapologetically enjoyable even exist. In years to come, French philosophers may cite "Shoot the Freak" as evidence of American perversity and -- how you say? -- vulgarity, but Brooklyn novelist Ned Vizzini saw a powerful metaphor for our times.

"When you aim at the freak in that simulated living room, you're really aiming at your own sloth," said Vizzini. "And why doesn't the freak have a cordless phone? It's because he's a failure. You are shooting at that part of yourself."

Intellectual onanism aside, there's also the simple thrill of shooting a freak.

Another great Shoot the Freak picture.