Hot Dog, That's American!!

This weekend I awoke to something I'm not very familiar with hearing...crowds of cheering people.  This isn't one of those Rodney Dangerfield moments where "I get no respect."  I just don't generally keep a crowd of cheering people in my room.  At least not since that house fire a few years back.  I lost a lot of good men that Presidents' Day.

So the cheering that woke me was obviously not for me.  Instead it was the crowd preparing for the Nathan's Famous Annual Hot Dog Eating Championship in Coney Island, New York. These roaring masses were shouting in preparation for one of the most American pastimes ever created.  It's right up there with apple pie, baseball, and...hey now...

Think about it.  We are easily the fattest country in the world.  What is a bigger celebration of that fact than a stage full of people violently shoving as many hot dogs with buns as possible into their mouths?  After all, we are the country that brought you the Double Down.

However, when it comes down to it, this contest is one of the more disgusting events you'll ever see.  No hot dog bun goes down the hatch without being saturated in some sort of liquid.  I thought it was just water, but an aerial view of the stage gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the variety of beverages provided to the contestants.

Granted, some of the competitors did try to stay healthy by using plain ol' water to lubricate their food enough to be forced down their throat without being chewed.  But apparently some of them bucked that trend and embraced the fact that each of them are cramming at least 20 hot dogs (the weakest of the competitors) down their throats in ten minutes, so why try to be healthy?  Let's soak 'em in soft drinks and Kool-Aid.  The only thing unhealthier than eating that many hot dogs is...well any other competition this "league" hosts.

Take Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas (above) for example.  The 98-pound Virginian has eaten her way out of many a pickle, downing 65 hard-boiled eggs in just under seven minutes, defeating four-time hot dog champ Joey Chestnut in a Krystal "Square-Off" (Thomas put down 57 fresh, hot, small squares), setting a world record by eating nearly eight pounds of turducken, and eating just over one-tenth of her body weight (11 pounds) in cheesecake.

I looked into the competitions and realized that the healthiest thing these competitors eat is oysters (I don't know if oysters are actually healthy or not, but they're at least the closest thing).  There is an asparagus competition...but they deep fry all of it first.  They eat beef brisket by the pound(s), sushi by the hundreds of pieces, pizza by the...well...pizza I guess...just not by the slice.  It's ridiculous.

It's not like this is unhealthy at all.  Just take a look at Eric Booker (above), the world record holder in chocolate candy bars (two pounds in six minutes), burritos (15 in eight minutes), corned beef hash (four pounds in under two minutes), glazed doughnuts (49 in eight minutes), Purim (a Jewish holiday) cookies (50 in  six minutes), matzo balls (21 baseball-sized balls in five-and-a-half minutes), and pumpkin pies (four-and-a-half in 12 minutes).

How the hell do you even practice these things?  I guess he just walks into Krispy Kreme and asks for five dozen and an egg timer.  However, these feats of disgusting are no match for Don Lerman (below), who set a world record by downing a stomach-wrenching 1 3/4 pounds of pure ol' butter in five minutes.

In an unrelated story, I believe he's dead now.

You want to make this competitive eating really enjoyable?  You want some viewers?  Your answer lies in the garden.

That's right, tomatoes.  And don't dice them up, use cherry or Roma tomatoes, or have a tomato sauce competition.  The competitors have to place a whole large tomato in their mouth and bite down.  If competitors take a bite out of the tomato without shoving the whole thing in his or her mouth, he/she is disqualified.  You may ask, "Why try tomatoes Tim?"

First, I'll respond by complimenting you on your alliteration.  Then I'll tell you what to do if you can't get someone else to eat a whole tomato while you watch.

Go stand in front of a mirror.  Place a whole tomato in your mouth.  You watching?  Now bite down.

(Disclaimer: This will cause a mess, and no, I will not clean it up.)

I don't know what it is, but watching someone attempt to eat a whole tomato is amazing.  It's one of the few things I can think of that is kind of gross, but it's just so damn entertaining.  Maybe it's the way no matter what you do, half the tomato will end up hanging out of your mouth.  Maybe it's the red geyser that erupts from your mouth and flows over your chin like when a drunk guy pulls a "Hey guys look at this!!" and tries to pour a whole beer in his mouth.

All I know is the pageantry of such an entertaining phenomenon will be increased when the competitive eaters try to shove the tomatoes in there as quickly as possible, hopefully via punching the fruit further in there.  Just picture it: the tomato gets put in there, and right as the eater is about to close his or her mouth around it, BOOM!!  He or she punches him/herself in the mouth to force it down further, creating a fountain of tomato juice that just goes EVERYWHERE!!!

Screw a ten minute competition.  I'd watch that for hours.  That's how you get people to watch.  You don't try to stir up some sort of a controversy.

In case you didn't hear, the big name in competitive eating, Kobayashi (a name so familiar that this program didn't try to auto-correct it), pulled out of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship yesterday due to contract disagreements with Major League Eating (which, apparently, is real).  Kobayashi wants to compete in events not sanctioned by the league, but according to his contract, he is not allowed to do so.

So here's the deal.  If you sign a contract to join a certain league, you can't participate in events for other leagues.  You don't hear Derek Jeter saying, "Sorry Skipper.  I know this is a big week of practice, but there's a softball beer league championship...so I'm gonna go."

It's called a contract.  You can't just get out of it.  You're basically owned.  It's how the business world works.  Even the big-time stars have to honor it.  You think Stephen Strasburg wants to pitch for the Nationals?  No.  But he is contractually obligated to do so.

And what's worse, you're acting like you're one of the biggest stars in the world.  If I saw you on the street, I wouldn't know it's you.  You called yourself one of the most dominant athletes ever.

YOU ARE NOT AN ATHLETE.  COMPETITIVE EATING IS NOT A SPORT.  ASK THIS KID:

Can anybody say "BOOM-bah-bah-BOOM-bah-bah-BOOM?"

That's right, if you're an athlete, then so is Lard-Ass from Stand By Me (arguably the greatest scene ever).  And you're calling yourself Kobi now.  Granted, it's with an "i" instead of an "e," but you are completely ripping off the brand name he's built for years.  There is only one Kobe or Kobi or whatever, and you, sir, are not it.  You calling yourself a professional athlete is like Kristen Stewart calling herself a good actress.

CAN ANYBODY SAY SEGUE?  It's "seg-way" in case you haven't ever had to spell it.

That's right, another event that took place over the holiday weekend is the premiere of Eclipse, the third installment in the Twilight series.  Honestly, I have no problem with the movies.  They aren't necessarily my cup of tea, but hey, I don't even like tea.  I don't have a problem with Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner.  They embrace the Twilight craze and their part in all of it.  They're along for the ride.

But not Kristen Stewart (above).  Apparently somebody somewhere told her that she is God's gift to the filmmaking industry.  And she acts the part too.  If you look up the word "pretentious" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Kristen Stewart wiping her ass (I don't entirely know what that means, but it sounds right).

Let me be unendingly clear with you, Miss Stewart (because I'm sure you're reading this...):  You're awful.  You are almost the worst actress ever (you can thank Anna Nicole for the "almost").  You play every single role with the same discontented look on your not-that-great face.  The only way you'd ever be able to successfully pull off a role is if you're playing someone who always wishes she was somewhere else...BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THAT. 

I took the time to see Adventureland.  If I had the chance to go back in time, I'd go skip that pile of shit and get those 90 minutes of my life back.  But somehow I'd fuck time travel up and end up in the middle of watching the damn movie.

In which case I'd kill myself.

But I recently realized that this awful, awful woman is not the most pretentious person in the world.  She probably is the worst person in this fine nation of ours, but the most pretentious person in the world is Uruguay's Luis Suarez (below)

Suarez made the news for his game-saving save in the final seconds of the World Cup quarterfinal match between Uruguay and Ghana.  There's only one problem...he's not a keeper.  Ghana's shot had Suarez's keeper beat and should have locked up the match for the local favorite, until this pompous striker just reached on up and knocked the ball away.  He was ejected, leaving his team with the disadvantage of playing the rest of the match with only ten men.  The problem with that...the match was over...or at least the part where being a man down would be disadvantageous.

And the rest was history.  Ghana missed the penalty shot, and then they lost the shootout to Uruguay.  There's no questioning that Suarez's move was a cheap shot at the very least.  It's almost as dirty a move as kicking a man square in the balls.  But that's not the worst part.

Suarez was carried off the field following the match and treated like a hero.  In an interview, he described himself as "the hand of God."  The thought of that is more ridiculous than watching two porcupines have sex (think about it).  And the Uruguayan team is bashing media outlets around the world for calling them cheaters. That's like the Jersey Shore crew getting pissed off over being called guidos.

I one of the few that believes the goal still should have been awarded to Ghana.  Think about a similar scenario in baseball: It's a tie game in the bottom of the ninth.  There's a man on third with one out.  There's a deep fly ball.  The runner tags and heads for the plate.  The pitcher tackles the runner.

That's the same level of offense incurred by Suarez.  Guess what...they award the runner the base, which would be home, and thus a run.  They don't have a re-do and send the runner back to third to run it again.

Oh well, if you've kept up with my blog, you know how much poetic justice I find in England's exit from the World Cup, as it somehow turns out they didn't tie the match in their round-of-sixteen game against Germany.  Take that, Tony Heyward and the rest of your oil-soaked yachting croonies.  I know how much more this sport truly means to every one of you, and while a couple of calls screwed us in the first three games, you truly got screwed out of the tournament, AND YOU DESERVED IT!