2008: Tangents and Wing Bowl 16

Though I don't write on my blog everyday, I think about competitive eating every damn day; and night for that matter. The longer I am involved in this alter reality, the more it is becoming a habit I believe. I say a habit because I wouldn't consider it a hobby; hobbies are things you do in your garage, things that don't cost oodles of money to undertake, and things that don't get televised on cable.

I would love to be able to call competitive eating my career; my perpetual consumption of anything and everything competitive eating could certainly be justified if it were my career. But so far, I can't live on 5th place money. So, I have determined it is a habit; sometimes healthy, sometimes not healthy. I have undertaken a lifetime of habits, trust me I know what they feel like. One thing has been consistent in my habits, I am comfortable with trying not to break them until it is evident they start to really hold me back and bring me down. Because as Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke once demonstrated on the big screen, Reality Bites. Ironically I was just watching that movie and despite the many life quotables in the movie the best one by far comes from Lalaina (Winona Ryder's character) while waxing poetic with Ben Stiller staring at the stars and drinking 7-11 Big Gulps out of a stationary convertible..."The most profound beautiful creation of my life...the Big Gulp." Amen.

But as long as I can stave off reality, have a blast, compete and improve, I believe my habit will not develop into something negative. The truth of the matter is I am not used to losing as much as I have in competitive eating. I have usually been able to find a way to win at everything I have put serious time in to. Once I start winning big contests I guess I won’t have to relegate myself to feel like this is only a habit.

Speaking of big contests, I am looking forward to a new year of eating. This three month layoff has sucked. It has sucked so bad that for lack of anything better to do, I got the gumption to fly out to Philly to see if I could qualify for Wing Bowl. Not because I wouldn't have done that anyway, I really want to compete in Wing Bowl on that stage but the risk/reward ratio is not that great for me flying from Seattle twice on my own dime. As fate would have it, my proposed stunt of drinking two 12 oz bottles of Tabasco and eating 10 habaneros in 2 minutes was at first approved and then discarded because they said it was too late, no more in studio stunts were being accepted.

As a last gasp effort I called in to the live WIP 610 radio show on Friday morning to try and get in to the halftime hot dog eating contest on Saturday to qualify. To my amazement, they answered the phone and poof I was in – trust me that was all luck, they did me no favors. Eating hot dogs in front of the 76ers crowd at halftime was a unique experience, an honor really. There was a long period of my life where I had dreamed I would be performing on a basketball court in front of thousands of fans; so what if I was eating bunless hot dogs instead of shooting three pointers? The contest was supposed to be two minutes but because it took so long to get us on the court and start the contest, they hit the buzzer about 1:40 in to the contest. I won to qualify for Wing Bowl 16 eating 14 bunless hot dogs; I think Pete Miernicki came in second with 8 or 9 eaten.

As the weekend in Philly was wearing on I noticed a change in my feelings toward society, a shift in my desires and thoughts. I noticed a primal need for blood, a need to dominate, a need to kill. I am of course afraid of this manifestation in my own thoughts but I feel it would not be healthy to hold back my dark inner emotions, ala the Incredible Hulk. Therefore, I am and will compete in Wing Bowl not as Erik the Red but as Ted Bundy. Hopefully playing out these emotions in front of thousands of people will somehow satisfy my need for carnage and nothing more will become of it. But I am finding myself very drawn to this evil. I am not sure how this will end. I will see you on Friday in Philly world.