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Coney Island Freak Matthew Behan
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 1, 2003
Modified Mar 6, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 1, 2003
Modified Mar 6, 2008
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In a brilliant stroke of marketing and insanity, Brooklynite Anthony Berlingieri created painball target game "Shoot the Freak" at Coney Island and a star was born. The masochistic Freak is Matthew Behan, whom Newsday profiles today, an aspiring actor who left his job as a telemarketer to run around a run down lot on Stillwell Avenue, wearing "combination football-hockey-soccer- motocross" gear (it's very post-apocalyptic science-fiction fashion) and dodging paint bullets. Newsday writer Jeff Pearlman offers this estimation of Behan's work:
Behind the black mask, his jiggles and gyrations can best be called Spider- Man-esque. When a bullet whizzes by, Behan shrugs off the shooter with disdain. When he's hit, Behan staggers backward, as if a real slug had done the damage. There is a pride, a deliberateness in his performance - almost as if he expects a casting agent to walk by at any time and notice.
Another great Shoot the Freak picture
Tagged
coney island
fashion
football
hockey
News: NYC
science
soccer
stillwell avenue
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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