Hot Dogs 2007

So, this is my first post-college column. I now have absolutely no requirements, since I’m not actually working for a newspaper in any way anymore, which means I can randomly type things like “pooooop” for no reason at all. Anyway, I would have put this online earlier, as I wrote it 10 days ago, but due to an apartment-hunting trip on the west coast, I just didn’t have the chance until now.

Anyway, for those of you who didn’t know/watch – a group also known as “the people I am no longer friends with because they can’t appreciate events of true greatness” – the annual Nathan’s hot dog eating contest occurred on the 4^th of July. I was on the scene to report, except by “the scene” I mean “my couch.” And yes, I’m still pissed that they haven’t started showing eating contests in HDTV yet… if being able to watch the crumbs dribble down a fat guy’s chin as he shoves gross amounts of food into his face isn’t a good reason for a broadcast to be in HD, I don’t know what is. Although, on a related note, a Hooters Girl special was recently shown in HD, so it’s not a complete loss. Anyway, thoughts on the contest:

After watching the end of Venus Williams vs. Maria Sharapova beforehand, I’ve realized why I like watching competitive eating: with all that food being shoved in their mouths, the competitors (no, I won’t call them “athletes”, no matter how hard ESPN tries) aren’t able to groan as if they’re dying every time they do something.

Only in competitive eating do you hear phrases like “Can the Great American Hope bring the Mustard Belt back to the U.S.?”

Poooooooooooooooooooooooop.

ESPN has just informed us that over a 12 minute time period, eating 59.5 hot dogs would mean consuming over 11,000 calories, having to run on a treadmill for 18 straight hours to burn it off, and lining the hot dogs up end to end would be the same length as a school bus.

The first commercial during the hot dog contest is for… Heinz Ketchup. Fitting. I wonder if this means the first commercial after the contest is for a drug that makes you stop puking?

I know, I know, I say it every year, but I still can’t get the thought out of my head… what’s it like to shit out 50+ hot dogs? I mean, if you eat them all within 12 minutes, they’re all gonna come out in the same shit, aren’t they? Maybe the last commercial should be for Drain-O instead.

50+ of these things... hope you have a good book and a lot of TP.

Only in competitive eating… is a wisdom tooth problem a dynasty-ending injury. You know what’s funny? Imagine Michael Jordan circa 1995, holding a press conference to say that he may have to retire after having wisdom tooth complications.

Now, I’m as big a fan of competitive eating as anyone I’ve met… but why do people want to watch from what appears to be about a quarter-mile away from the stage? Can you even see what’s happening from there?

Patrick Bertoletti wears headphones during the competition, which begs the question… what’s he listening to? Eye of the Tiger? Heart of a Champion? These are both good choices, but during the hot dog contest, I think there’s really only one option: “Do You Like Meat?”, by William Janiak.

After observing Sonya Thomas, I’ve made an important life decision: if I ever meet a 100 pound chick who can eat 30+ hot dogs, I’m marrying her on the spot. End of discussion.

USA vs. Japan contests listed: Olympic Medals… World Baseball Classic… World Cup… Nathan’s Hot Dog Contest… are these really the biggest battles the US and Japan have had? Aren’t they missing a teeeeeeeny tiny conflict from 60-70 years ago…?

Only in competitive eating… do they advertise that the Rock Paper Scissors national championship is coming up this Saturday. And yes, if I wasn’t in California this weekend, I would definitely both watch and gamble on this event (assuming I could find someone to make bets with.)

UPDATE: I actually ended up taking a break from my apartment-search to watch it in my hotel room in California.

Ah, the Introductions… here we go! These should be fun. Descriptions of the competitors include: “zucchini specialist”, “he has unnaturally long incisors”, “The world’s fried bread eating champion”, “he specializes in eating-meat-on-the-bone competitions”, “the chili, spam, and birthday cake eating champion of the world”, “has eaten 10% of her body weight in cheesecake”, and last but definitely not least, “the #1 ranked eater in the world”… if I ever own any of these titles, I’ll consider my life an amazing success. Well, except for the incisor one. That just means I got bitten by a vampire.

Some guy named Bob is a vegetarian who only eats meat during competitions. I’ve heard a lot of weird shit in my life, but that’s gotta crack the top three, right up there with “a rapper who spells his name with a dollar sign and raps about killing people is taking a break to be a priest for a while” and the plot of any episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The announcer, on Patrick Bertoletti: “He ate 46 hot dogs, that’s 2 for every day Paris Hilton spent in jail”… classic.

Text message from my friend Rachel, just a few seconds before the start: “It’s kind of awkward that they have to sit next to each other. Then again, you can’t heckle with a mouth full of hot dog.”

HERE WE GO! Holy crap they’re fast… Joey Chestnut ate 11 hot dogs in the first minute. The difference between watching Chestnut and Kobayashi is wild: Chestnut appears to be wildly out of control and about to seizure, vomit, spontaneously combust, and smack everybody around him in the face all at the same time, while Kobayashi looks completely in control. At the same time, Cheestnut’s insane-moth-near-a-lightbulb strategy seems to be working well, as he’s eaten an absurd 28 hot dogs in the first 3 minutes, while Kobayashi was only at 23.

4 minutes in… Chestnut: 35, Kobayashi: 29. Meanwhile, Bertoletti quietly has 26.

5 minutes in… Chesnut: 39, Kobayashi: 35, Bertoletti: 30, Simpson/Janus: 22, America: approximately 12 million people sick to their stomach.

Kobayashi coming back! At the halfway 6-minute mark, it’s Chestnut: 43, Kobayashi: 41.

Sorry for the lack of jokes in here… I’m absolutely fascinated and speechless as the competition moves on.

More Hilton comments: Pat Bertoletti dedicated this contest to Nikki Hilton, saying she lives in the shadow of Paris, just like he lives in the shadow of Chestnut. It’s clear Bertoletti has spent more time practicing his eating than his pick-up lines.

2 minutes left!!!!... Chesnut: 57, Kobayashi: 57! They’ve both already broken the Nathan’s record.

Kobayashi makes the pass with just under a minute left! But then Chesnut makes another pass! I can’t type, I have to watch.

OK, that was… wow. Kobayashi appears to have maybe puked in the final seconds of the competition and caught it in his hands… or maybe he didn’t. The judges are reviewing the tape, because unlike the idiots in baseball, a real sport like competitive eating understands the value of instant replay. Either way, I still have no idea who ate more hot dogs, although I just got a phone call from my friend John shouting “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

Joey Chestnut: A True American Hero

Unofficial results… Joey Chesnut: 66, Takeru Kobayashi: 63, Patrick Bertoimnotrelevant: 49… but Judges are still reviewing.

Aaaaand now it’s official. Joey Chesnut: 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes… or a pace of about one hot dog every nine seconds. Final official tally… Chesnut: 66, Kobayashi: 63, America: Fuck Yeah!

On a random side note... I'm gonna start writing these things again - not really sure how often, and probably not on a weekly basis like before, but just whenever I have something to write about, cause I enjoy it. As always, comments and feedback are welcome, as are suggestions on topics to write about - either leave them in the comments here or email meyercolumn@gmail.com. Who knows, maybe I'll even finally put 2nd semester's columns online. Hope you're all having a good summer.

And the State of the Union is... Connecticut!

Just kidding, of course. It was actually Nebraska.

The first newspaper of the semester isn’t until next week, but thought I’d start up a week early and share some random thoughts from this year’s State of the Union address. Looking back, I should have claimed my vacation was a retirement – I could be retiring and unretiring four times a year, leaving me just three short of calling myself Jay-Z. Anyway, on to the speech (but before that, I should probably mention: all the quotes in this are real, although there's a chance I screwed up a word here or there, since I was writing it to the live broadcast, not a tape I could go back and check. I knew I should have gotten TiVo Anyway...)

I haven’t seen this much clapping given out since the STD-infested guy jumped in on an orgy.

Congress would be more exciting if it had a sports audience. Specifically, it needs the two or three random shirtless drunk guys to yell sarcastic comments and start random chants in the middle of the speech. For example: “I’ve been told by our secretary of defense that…” “DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!” And you know there would be no shortage of clapping between those de-fense chants.

“Ladies and gentlemen… blah blah blah… I have the high honor of being able to begin this speech with these words: Madam Speaker…” That’s great and all, George, except that by saying those couple sentences BEFORE you said Madam Speaker, you didn’t actually begin with those words.

“I congratulate the democratic majority… and I would like to reward them with this gift: a free hunting trip with Dick Cheney. Thank you.” (Cheney begins shooting applauders) Ok, so maybe he didn’t say that last part, but you know he was thinking it.

We have a shortage of gas. We also have an immigration problem. Why not embrace the immigrants, and make them all bring food as they cross the border? After all, very few things increase gas production like Mexican food.

“Our citizens don’t much care what side of the aisle we sit on”… as long as the aisle is walked by a man and a woman. IT’S SACRED, DAMN IT.

“Unemployment is low… inflation is low…” my ratings are low… hmmm… maybe I should try increasing unemployment and inflation?

“Everyone in this chamber knows this to be true… yet somehow, we have not found it within ourselves to act.” Wait… back up a second… did you just say Congress failed to act? Congress, the body of government that is always being so proactive and never gridlocked over meaningless arguments? Are you sure?

“We need to encourage price transparency…” but then how will I be able to see the prices? I prefer the opaque ones, preferably in black font, at least 12 point, Times New Roman.

Imagine if you got this kind of applause in class? “Andrew, do you have an answer?” “Well… (applause)… I think…. (more applause)… Hobbes was wrong…. (standing ovation)... and I eat babies, making their life that much more solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. (thunderous applauding so loud the roof collapses)

Everybody was just standing except for one person in the front of the screen. I wonder how it feels to be that guy, called out on national television? I hope he at least had a good reason to not stand, preferably something I could relate to, such as “eh, I’m lazy.”

“We need to expand the use of hybrid vehicles… we need to continue to expand our research in new methods of producing ethanol…” wait, what’s that rumbling noise? Oh, that’s just Exxon-Mobil’s new squadron of tanks heading straight for the building in response.

“The enemy knows that the days of comfortable sanction….. are long over.” That’s right, terrorists! We’re taking away your couches and replacing them with UNCOMFORTABLE woody benches of sanction! What do you think of THAT!

Bush just told us that we pushed the terrorists out of their safe haven in Afghanistan, only to allow them to enter a new safe haven somewhere else, which is clearly bullshit. I’ve been to New Haven plenty of times, and some of those areas sure don’t seem safe to me.

Now I’m just confused… something about the Shitty people vs. the Sunny people in the Middle East? I don’t follow…

My favorite people to watch are the ones who clearly don’t want to stand up during standing ovations: first they just sit there, then their head starts looking around quickly when a few people stand, and you can tell they’re thinking “SIT SIT SIT SIT”, then more people stand, their face changes to one of hopelessness as they realize they’ll have to stand, and they finally reluctantly stand up. And speaking of standing up, I think Ludacris should be yelling “STAND UP!” every time he thinks an ovation is appropriate. And speaking of rappers, can you believe Bush didn’t invite Kanye West to his speech? And speaking of starting too many sentences in a row with “and speaking of”, grammar rules do not apply to this column, in the same way that pronunciation rules do not apply to Bush.

Nancy Pelosi blinks more than everybody I know… combined.

NATO has deployed troops in Afghanistan, the first time it has deployed forces in an area outside of the North Atlantic… meaning its new name is essentially TO. In a related story, the artist/organization formerly known as NATO randomly started yelling utter nonsense and complaining about everything, from his coach to his former quarterbacks to the fact that Wendy’s didn’t give him as many ketchup packets as he would have liked last night.

I don’t really have a conclusion, so instead, I’m gonna share a couple random thoughts from other people. The newspaper will begin publishing again next week.

Laura, on standing ovations and applause:

“This is like a squatting exercise for these people. The ridiculousness of this does not go unseen by me. This is absolutely stupid. A 49 minute speech interrupted 62 times by applause. That’s more than once per minute.”

Mallory, on the subway guy:

“The subway guy was my favorite part… probably the only man to give a thumbs up in the State of the Union. Ever.”