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Kobayashi takes a fall
Jul. 4th, 2007 01:51 pmthe Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island was won by newcomer Joey Chestnut, who beat longtime champion Takeru Kobayashi 66-63.
That would be hotdogs with rolls eaten in twelve minutes. I love New York.
This is a tremendous upset. Kobayashi actually has eating-competition conspiracy theories* built up around the juggernaut that is his seemingly-unstoppable eating lots of stuff really quickly career.
After last year's win
The rest of it? Well, right now it's a bit dispiriting on the birth of a new freedom front and it's hard to resist the temptation to throw your hands up rhetorically at times like this.
Something my uncle said to me once, though, when we were talking about how things looked to them during World War 2 that made me see things from a different angle: we didn't know at the time, he said, that we were going to win.
Our history is full of stuff that sucked. A remarkable amount of it is gone (although some of it has been replaced by new stuff that sucks, and some of it never left). A lot of people who waited for the bad stuff to end or tried to make it go away didn't last long enough to see a world without it. Some of them didn't last long enough because they died of trying to make it happen. Which is why if you're an american who thinks this country isn't what it should be (which, you know, duh) you don't get righteousness points for giving up in disgust because the process is frequently disgusting. Because people who would have given whatever they had for an upgrade to tired and disgusted and burnt out didn't give up, and eventually some of them won, and for all that it's been hijacked, the country you live in is also the country they made.
Also on the subject of the country they made, I think circumstances justify my revisiting what I had to say about immigration a few fourths ago.
OK. Done ranting. Patrick has some good quotes. Off to eat barbecue. Watch the pretty fireworks (the green bee is totally the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Happy fourth.
*Curtis "what part of ME! ME! ME! don't you understand?" Sliwa says they're both "voracious superenzyme" dopers. Can't make this stuff up.,
That would be hotdogs with rolls eaten in twelve minutes. I love New York.
This is a tremendous upset. Kobayashi actually has eating-competition conspiracy theories* built up around the juggernaut that is his seemingly-unstoppable eating lots of stuff really quickly career.
In 2001, David O'Karma ate 17 hot dogs in the first half of the contest, but when he heard that Kobayashi had already finished 27, he put down his franks and just watched.
"Ever since that day, I've been trying to figure out how he does it," said O'Karma, a 47-year-old painting contractor from Akron, Ohio, who owns the world doughnut eating title (30 donuts in 5:28). "I've researched and researched on the Internet, but I still can't understand it. Kobayashi gets stronger and stronger as he goes."
O'Karma, who retired from competitive eating two weeks ago, says he can't prove it, but he thinks there is a chance Kobayashi has an artificial advantage. O'Karma says Kobayashi has a scar on his back.
"Maybe he had some of his intestines removed," O'Karma speculated. "I mean, I was at least in the 95th percentile on the competitive eating landscape ... well, what's Kobayashi then? He's not even on the chart."
After last year's win
The rest of it? Well, right now it's a bit dispiriting on the birth of a new freedom front and it's hard to resist the temptation to throw your hands up rhetorically at times like this.
Something my uncle said to me once, though, when we were talking about how things looked to them during World War 2 that made me see things from a different angle: we didn't know at the time, he said, that we were going to win.
Our history is full of stuff that sucked. A remarkable amount of it is gone (although some of it has been replaced by new stuff that sucks, and some of it never left). A lot of people who waited for the bad stuff to end or tried to make it go away didn't last long enough to see a world without it. Some of them didn't last long enough because they died of trying to make it happen. Which is why if you're an american who thinks this country isn't what it should be (which, you know, duh) you don't get righteousness points for giving up in disgust because the process is frequently disgusting. Because people who would have given whatever they had for an upgrade to tired and disgusted and burnt out didn't give up, and eventually some of them won, and for all that it's been hijacked, the country you live in is also the country they made.
Also on the subject of the country they made, I think circumstances justify my revisiting what I had to say about immigration a few fourths ago.
OK. Done ranting. Patrick has some good quotes. Off to eat barbecue. Watch the pretty fireworks (the green bee is totally the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Happy fourth.
*Curtis "what part of ME! ME! ME! don't you understand?" Sliwa says they're both "voracious superenzyme" dopers. Can't make this stuff up.,
