Last weekend I went to the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island with my buddy Dan from work. I’ve been wanting to go to Coney Island since before I even arrived in NYC so I was pretty excited to get out there and see what all the hype was about.

Wow. Coney Island sure is a sight to see. The diversity of people that lined the boardwalk and crowded the lines at Nathan’s Famous really were quite the sight. Fans of people-watching can rejoice, for I have found their Mecca.

The amusement rides and attractions themselves are a mix of dilapidated structures and relics from Coney Island past. The people running them were all local scam artists literally offering “Big Ass Prizes” to all who dared enter:

I saw so many people get ripped off by rigged games and broken machines, it was unbelievable. I even paid to use the restroom! Who knew they charged for restrooms outside of Europe?

As Dan and I were walking down the boardwalk admiring all the pretty people, we could hear someone on a loud speaker yelling “Live human target! We have a freak right here, he runs around and you shoot him! Shoot him in the face, shoot him in the eye, shoot him in the nuts!”. Obviously we had to check it out. After we pushed through the crowd we were able to see the source of the commotion: a seemingly very popular ‘game’ called “Shoot the Freak”. The premise was simple, you pay $3 and you get 5 shots with a paintball gun to shoot some poor sap running around in an alley. Sure he had enough protective gear on that he wouldn’t feel anything, but seriously? Shoot the Freak?

I can see the thought process now: ‘Well, we have this open lot next to the shop right on the boardwalk. Too expensive to build something… and I do have a can of paint, some plywood, and an old paintball gun. I know! We’ll hire some kid to run around and charge people to shoot at him!”

I also managed to have 3 Nathan’s chili-cheese dogs at over 500 calories a pop. Delicious.