Do not read this if you get queasy easy.
Do not read this if grown men behaving like juveniles angers you.
Do not read this if your taste in food runs on the sophisticated side.
Do not read this if your opinion of me already runs toward the negative (as this entry will do nothing to improve this outlook).
Do not read this if you find something inherently wrong with using dogs as cleaning utensils.
The rest of you: let's rock.
=======================
It is not at all important that you know the following information about me.
There are three (3) things on this Earth I love more than rock'n'roll, and I will list them for you in decending order of importance:
3) Sports. I'm fairly certain I coulda played in the Major Leagues if I applied myself. I was an awsome fielder and I could bunt cleaner than a scotch-guarded patio. Alas... I fell in with the theater clique in high school and that was the end of "Sporty me".
2) Bear. Bear is my old English sheepdog. He is dumb as a bag of biscuits (the bulk of why I love him). He is so passive, in fact, that I once held onto his hindlegs and Swiffered my entire kitchen floor by dragging him around while his fur collected all the dust.
Bear did nothing but lay there licking his jowls.*
1) Food. I'm gonna be a great big fat man when my matabolism decides it's time to pay the piper. But until that time comes, I love food more than I love my own mother.**
I suppose it is poor taste not to have included God or my sister or my parents or any of my inspirational teachers throughout the years or Abraham Lincoln or some damn thing, but let's face it.. .you woulda seen that coming. You were expecting it, but you weren't expecting me to list food, now were you? HaHA.
Eat it suckers.
Quick Recap: There is nothing I love in this world more than rock'n'roll. Except for food. And I love eatng contest more than food. And I hafta assume I love my mother more than all of it.
I am a putrid prioritizer.
Now where was I? God what was I talking about? I really need to work on my editing. Oh yeah... I remember now.
=======================
I recently attended a gathering in Brighton, Massachusetts this past Saturday commemorating National Corn Dog Day. I wasn't aware that Corn Dogs had their own day, but they do and I commemorated it. I won't go into much detail as to the history and origin of NCDD, but I will refer y'all to the National Corndog Day website: http://www.corndogday.com/
When I arrived with friends to a non-descript house in a borough outside of Boston, I was a little put-off. I expected blocked-off streets, flashing lights, perhaps a giraffe. Nothing. It was in some dude's house. A dude, older than me; married. It was in that moment that I saw a vision of myself in 5 years. This vision met me first with horror, and soon dissippated in amusement.
These guys weren't so damn bad. They were into the NCAA tournament and liked eatin' junk just like I do. I was happy to meet a few blokes not confined to dancin' for the man. I dug it. It reminded me of, well... me.
Anyway everything was normal and fine until I struck up a conversation with a man wearing a tool belt filled with mustard and barbeque sauce instead of hammer and nails. My inquisitive side taking over, I asked the guy what the belt was for.
He told me it was because he was going for the triple double. I prodded further...
"Good sir. What is this Triple-Double you bespeak?"
"I am touched you would pr'offer such a query, my fine lad." (alright, we didn't speak like this, but wouldn't it be kinda quirky if we had?)
He went on to tell me that a "Triple-Double" - in honor of the athletic feat found in basketball - is an accomplishment of drinking ten (10) beers (Pabsts specifically), eating ten (10) corndogs, and ten (10) handfuls of tater tots, which must equal 100 total tots. The timeframe: from tipoff of the first game of the 2nd round in the NCAA basketball tournament to the final buzzer of the last game of that day; roughly ten hours.
From a long, deep, unfulfilled slumber, I awoke. My stomach leapt. My mouth salivated. My eyes widened. My enjoyment of corndoggery hastened and heightened; grew afresh. I was no longer drinking a beer, muching a handful of tots and ingesting a cornbread-wrapped hotdog on a teeny pike. I was competing. I was standing upon the threshold of legend.
I was 1/10 of the way to obliterating my body with poisoned deliciousness.
I hadn't made it far before I gave up. I hadn't trained; mentally or gastrually. I carried no condiment belt, set up no one to drive my enebriated ass home. I finished after only 4 corndogs and 30 tots. It took me 1.5 hours to accomplish this feat. Like the ancient Roman gladiators before me, I will build myself, strengthen my weaknesses and survive the next coliseum bout.
And while we're speaking of Pantheons, I'd like to offer up my very own, as mused by last weekend's incendiary corn dog festivities.
TOP 8 (because I cannot think of any more than 8) EATING CONTESTS
8) The Triple-Double Like any good song to arrive on the charts, only time will tell where it belongs in the history books. It took Maroon 5 three years for their album to become overplayed, overblown, overrated and exposed as the piece of junk it turned out to be. So, I am enamoured with the Trip'Doub, but I cannot usurp the rightful spot of it's predecessors just yet.
7) The Ruins Of Ancient Ramen. If you are in college or were once in college, you've no doubt had Ramen noodles. You've probably had a lot of Ramen noodles. But have you had five dry, unseasoned packets in 10 minutes? No. This one is painful. It hurts my jaw more than eating a whole package of Skittles in one sitting. Don't try this contest unless money is involved.
6) The Belly Bundle (a.k.a. The Stomach Squisher, The Tummy Tumbler). This hellish battle is the most scientific of all the contests. It is said that an hour must pass in order for the small and large intestines to process whatever is ingested. Following with this fun little factoid is another one suggesting that even the most stretched of stomachs cannot hold a gallon of anything all at once.***
It is rumored that the Belly Bundle has been accomplished several times before. Many people have claimed to have seen "their friend" drink a gallon of milk in under an hour. I will not pass judgement upon those people, but I will add that I have never seen it done first hand and when I attepted the feat myself (with a harmless gallon of water) not only did I fail to finish the water, but I felt loagy for several days afterward.
5) The Chubby Bunny. This is the only contest in my Top 8 that is technically a competition against others. It's simple: stuff as many full-sized marshmallows into your mouth as possible - do not swallow - and after each marshmallow, you must annunciate the words "Chubby Bunny". The first one to choke or spit gooey 'mallow all over their friend or loved one loses and either a) dies from asphyxiation or b) no longer has a friend or a loved one.
I have never engaged in this one personally, as it has long been my belief that the marshmallow is a sugary treat meant to be savored and enjoyed - not stuffed en masse as part of some slimy amalgm. That being said, it's funnier than hell to be in a room with a bunch of idiots screaming "Chubby Bunny" in repeated muffled voices.
4) The Perfect Game. Nine (9) hotdogs in nine (9) innings of baseball.
Interesting strategy involved on this one. Do you eat three hotdogs quickly while your original hunger rages and then take a break? Do you keep a steady one-dog-per-inning pace? Mustard? No mustard? And what is the drink-to-dog-ratio?
I always thought my group of friends invented this contest in college. But everytime I talk about it, someone else in the room claims to have done it as well. It kinda frustrates me. Like a cute girl at summer camp who always flirted with you. She'd puff you up, make you feel like the cock of the walk. You'd head back to your boys' bunk and brag about how awesome she thought you were, only to find out she'd already kissed your two best friends.
3) The Cycle. It is my long standing belief that the old mantra: "Beer Before Liquor, Never Sicker" is a myth. The order in which the liquids enter your body has nothing to do with the style of hangover infesting you the following morning. It's got more to do with judgement. If you house a half-dozen beers only to move onto tequila shots, not only will you be unable to taste it, but you will also be unable to gauge what the fuck you're doing. However, if you slam five shots and move onto beer, you far from being "in the clear", my friend.
I already hate myself for discussing "drinking" as much as I already have and it'll be a long time before you hear me discuss the ribaldry that is gettin' hammered. Nevertheless, The Cycle was invented as a thumb in the eye of the "Beer Before Liquor" myth.
You are to split The Cycle into three (3) seperate rounds. Each round consists of a shot, a beer and a mixed drink of your choice (Rum'n'Coke, L.I. Ice Tea, SeaBreeze, whatever) . You choose the order in which you drink these three drinks. The next round, you order the same three drinks but change the order and then change the order again for the third and final round.
Surefire barf every time. You "win" if you hold your barf until after your ninth and final drink. My preferred Cycle order is: shot-mixed-beer; beer-shot-mixed; mixed-beer-shot.
2) The Saltine Towers. I consider this one the granpappy of all the eating contests. The gist is ten (10) regular Saltine crackers eaten and swallowed in one minute. Each cracker is 2.5 inches x 2.5 inches and when stacked atop one another (The Saltine Tower, if you will) it stands a mere 2 inches.
It seems startlingly easy. Everyone thinks they can do this. But you will fall to the Tower just as thousands before you have fallen to it. You won't even make it to eight crackers.
1) The Mighty 5-3-5. By all accounts I should be dead. I don't know how I survived The Mighty 5-3-5 several Mardi Gras ago.
In New Orleans there is a specialty beverage called the Hand Grenade. It looks like a Slurpee, tastes like Hawaiian Punch and leaves you breathless and barfing like nine shots of Jack Daniels. An equally foolish friend of mine suggested we, over the course of one night, drink five (5!) of these bad bastards, follow them with three (3) beers and chase all of that with five more (+5) Hand Grenades.
I should be dead. I don't know why I'm not.
But as Dave Chappelle noted: white people just love talking about what alcohol they were able to consume the night before and I promise you, no bragging rights supercede the bragging rights of he who completes The Mighty 5-3-5.
I'm not sure what the rules of MySpace.com are, but legally I may be obligated to warn minors that binge drinking is both dangerous and illegal. So don't do it...
...unless you're sure you won't get caught. If that be the case, have at it and wear clean underwear.
I love food. I love games. I love making food into games. Don't judge too harshly. I'll write an "intellectual" blog next, okay? Will that appease you?
We'll wax artistic on Literary pop bands like Camera Obscura and Belle & Sabastian. Hopefully that will make up for typing the word "barf" three times?
Next time, I'll share my thoughts on Plato and Heidiegger and Kant. We can roll over the abhorrent mistreatment of American's after the first World War during Hoover's presidency. We'll cry like Oprah, okay?
For now, I just wanna giggle at the term "Chubby Bunny".
Now leave me alone to feed marshmallows into my mouth until I go walleyed.
========================
* For all you animal cruelty activists out there, fear not - I immediately told him he was a good boy and fed him a doggie treat after I pulled the dust from his belly.
** This statement is probably false. If my little league baseball glove, my mom, a handful of peanuts, and a copy of Springsteen's Born To Run were all hanging off the edge of a cliff and I could only save one of them... I suppose the nuts would plummet to their eternal cracking and my little league glove doesn't really fit anymore so...
...Mom versus Bruce. I dare not inquire further.
*** What you will soon learn from these tasks is that everything listed works under the assumption that those who attempt them are expected to fail. It is understood that if you complete any of these contests, you may have won the battle, but you have also lost an inherently larger war. Those of you cringing at the thought of these "games" will inevitably ask "why". Those amongst us who engage in such activites can only reply, "to see if we can."
There are extreme sports and then there are extremely gluttonous sports.
Do not read this if grown men behaving like juveniles angers you.
Do not read this if your taste in food runs on the sophisticated side.
Do not read this if your opinion of me already runs toward the negative (as this entry will do nothing to improve this outlook).
Do not read this if you find something inherently wrong with using dogs as cleaning utensils.
The rest of you: let's rock.
=======================
It is not at all important that you know the following information about me.
There are three (3) things on this Earth I love more than rock'n'roll, and I will list them for you in decending order of importance:
3) Sports. I'm fairly certain I coulda played in the Major Leagues if I applied myself. I was an awsome fielder and I could bunt cleaner than a scotch-guarded patio. Alas... I fell in with the theater clique in high school and that was the end of "Sporty me".
2) Bear. Bear is my old English sheepdog. He is dumb as a bag of biscuits (the bulk of why I love him). He is so passive, in fact, that I once held onto his hindlegs and Swiffered my entire kitchen floor by dragging him around while his fur collected all the dust.
Bear did nothing but lay there licking his jowls.*
1) Food. I'm gonna be a great big fat man when my matabolism decides it's time to pay the piper. But until that time comes, I love food more than I love my own mother.**
I suppose it is poor taste not to have included God or my sister or my parents or any of my inspirational teachers throughout the years or Abraham Lincoln or some damn thing, but let's face it.. .you woulda seen that coming. You were expecting it, but you weren't expecting me to list food, now were you? HaHA.
Eat it suckers.
Quick Recap: There is nothing I love in this world more than rock'n'roll. Except for food. And I love eatng contest more than food. And I hafta assume I love my mother more than all of it.
I am a putrid prioritizer.
Now where was I? God what was I talking about? I really need to work on my editing. Oh yeah... I remember now.
=======================
I recently attended a gathering in Brighton, Massachusetts this past Saturday commemorating National Corn Dog Day. I wasn't aware that Corn Dogs had their own day, but they do and I commemorated it. I won't go into much detail as to the history and origin of NCDD, but I will refer y'all to the National Corndog Day website: http://www.corndogday.com/
When I arrived with friends to a non-descript house in a borough outside of Boston, I was a little put-off. I expected blocked-off streets, flashing lights, perhaps a giraffe. Nothing. It was in some dude's house. A dude, older than me; married. It was in that moment that I saw a vision of myself in 5 years. This vision met me first with horror, and soon dissippated in amusement.
These guys weren't so damn bad. They were into the NCAA tournament and liked eatin' junk just like I do. I was happy to meet a few blokes not confined to dancin' for the man. I dug it. It reminded me of, well... me.
Anyway everything was normal and fine until I struck up a conversation with a man wearing a tool belt filled with mustard and barbeque sauce instead of hammer and nails. My inquisitive side taking over, I asked the guy what the belt was for.
He told me it was because he was going for the triple double. I prodded further...
"Good sir. What is this Triple-Double you bespeak?"
"I am touched you would pr'offer such a query, my fine lad." (alright, we didn't speak like this, but wouldn't it be kinda quirky if we had?)
He went on to tell me that a "Triple-Double" - in honor of the athletic feat found in basketball - is an accomplishment of drinking ten (10) beers (Pabsts specifically), eating ten (10) corndogs, and ten (10) handfuls of tater tots, which must equal 100 total tots. The timeframe: from tipoff of the first game of the 2nd round in the NCAA basketball tournament to the final buzzer of the last game of that day; roughly ten hours.
From a long, deep, unfulfilled slumber, I awoke. My stomach leapt. My mouth salivated. My eyes widened. My enjoyment of corndoggery hastened and heightened; grew afresh. I was no longer drinking a beer, muching a handful of tots and ingesting a cornbread-wrapped hotdog on a teeny pike. I was competing. I was standing upon the threshold of legend.
I was 1/10 of the way to obliterating my body with poisoned deliciousness.
I hadn't made it far before I gave up. I hadn't trained; mentally or gastrually. I carried no condiment belt, set up no one to drive my enebriated ass home. I finished after only 4 corndogs and 30 tots. It took me 1.5 hours to accomplish this feat. Like the ancient Roman gladiators before me, I will build myself, strengthen my weaknesses and survive the next coliseum bout.
And while we're speaking of Pantheons, I'd like to offer up my very own, as mused by last weekend's incendiary corn dog festivities.
TOP 8 (because I cannot think of any more than 8) EATING CONTESTS
8) The Triple-Double Like any good song to arrive on the charts, only time will tell where it belongs in the history books. It took Maroon 5 three years for their album to become overplayed, overblown, overrated and exposed as the piece of junk it turned out to be. So, I am enamoured with the Trip'Doub, but I cannot usurp the rightful spot of it's predecessors just yet.
7) The Ruins Of Ancient Ramen. If you are in college or were once in college, you've no doubt had Ramen noodles. You've probably had a lot of Ramen noodles. But have you had five dry, unseasoned packets in 10 minutes? No. This one is painful. It hurts my jaw more than eating a whole package of Skittles in one sitting. Don't try this contest unless money is involved.
6) The Belly Bundle (a.k.a. The Stomach Squisher, The Tummy Tumbler). This hellish battle is the most scientific of all the contests. It is said that an hour must pass in order for the small and large intestines to process whatever is ingested. Following with this fun little factoid is another one suggesting that even the most stretched of stomachs cannot hold a gallon of anything all at once.***
It is rumored that the Belly Bundle has been accomplished several times before. Many people have claimed to have seen "their friend" drink a gallon of milk in under an hour. I will not pass judgement upon those people, but I will add that I have never seen it done first hand and when I attepted the feat myself (with a harmless gallon of water) not only did I fail to finish the water, but I felt loagy for several days afterward.
5) The Chubby Bunny. This is the only contest in my Top 8 that is technically a competition against others. It's simple: stuff as many full-sized marshmallows into your mouth as possible - do not swallow - and after each marshmallow, you must annunciate the words "Chubby Bunny". The first one to choke or spit gooey 'mallow all over their friend or loved one loses and either a) dies from asphyxiation or b) no longer has a friend or a loved one.
I have never engaged in this one personally, as it has long been my belief that the marshmallow is a sugary treat meant to be savored and enjoyed - not stuffed en masse as part of some slimy amalgm. That being said, it's funnier than hell to be in a room with a bunch of idiots screaming "Chubby Bunny" in repeated muffled voices.
4) The Perfect Game. Nine (9) hotdogs in nine (9) innings of baseball.
Interesting strategy involved on this one. Do you eat three hotdogs quickly while your original hunger rages and then take a break? Do you keep a steady one-dog-per-inning pace? Mustard? No mustard? And what is the drink-to-dog-ratio?
I always thought my group of friends invented this contest in college. But everytime I talk about it, someone else in the room claims to have done it as well. It kinda frustrates me. Like a cute girl at summer camp who always flirted with you. She'd puff you up, make you feel like the cock of the walk. You'd head back to your boys' bunk and brag about how awesome she thought you were, only to find out she'd already kissed your two best friends.
3) The Cycle. It is my long standing belief that the old mantra: "Beer Before Liquor, Never Sicker" is a myth. The order in which the liquids enter your body has nothing to do with the style of hangover infesting you the following morning. It's got more to do with judgement. If you house a half-dozen beers only to move onto tequila shots, not only will you be unable to taste it, but you will also be unable to gauge what the fuck you're doing. However, if you slam five shots and move onto beer, you far from being "in the clear", my friend.
I already hate myself for discussing "drinking" as much as I already have and it'll be a long time before you hear me discuss the ribaldry that is gettin' hammered. Nevertheless, The Cycle was invented as a thumb in the eye of the "Beer Before Liquor" myth.
You are to split The Cycle into three (3) seperate rounds. Each round consists of a shot, a beer and a mixed drink of your choice (Rum'n'Coke, L.I. Ice Tea, SeaBreeze, whatever) . You choose the order in which you drink these three drinks. The next round, you order the same three drinks but change the order and then change the order again for the third and final round.
Surefire barf every time. You "win" if you hold your barf until after your ninth and final drink. My preferred Cycle order is: shot-mixed-beer; beer-shot-mixed; mixed-beer-shot.
2) The Saltine Towers. I consider this one the granpappy of all the eating contests. The gist is ten (10) regular Saltine crackers eaten and swallowed in one minute. Each cracker is 2.5 inches x 2.5 inches and when stacked atop one another (The Saltine Tower, if you will) it stands a mere 2 inches.
It seems startlingly easy. Everyone thinks they can do this. But you will fall to the Tower just as thousands before you have fallen to it. You won't even make it to eight crackers.
1) The Mighty 5-3-5. By all accounts I should be dead. I don't know how I survived The Mighty 5-3-5 several Mardi Gras ago.
In New Orleans there is a specialty beverage called the Hand Grenade. It looks like a Slurpee, tastes like Hawaiian Punch and leaves you breathless and barfing like nine shots of Jack Daniels. An equally foolish friend of mine suggested we, over the course of one night, drink five (5!) of these bad bastards, follow them with three (3) beers and chase all of that with five more (+5) Hand Grenades.
I should be dead. I don't know why I'm not.
But as Dave Chappelle noted: white people just love talking about what alcohol they were able to consume the night before and I promise you, no bragging rights supercede the bragging rights of he who completes The Mighty 5-3-5.
I'm not sure what the rules of MySpace.com are, but legally I may be obligated to warn minors that binge drinking is both dangerous and illegal. So don't do it...
...unless you're sure you won't get caught. If that be the case, have at it and wear clean underwear.
I love food. I love games. I love making food into games. Don't judge too harshly. I'll write an "intellectual" blog next, okay? Will that appease you?
We'll wax artistic on Literary pop bands like Camera Obscura and Belle & Sabastian. Hopefully that will make up for typing the word "barf" three times?
Next time, I'll share my thoughts on Plato and Heidiegger and Kant. We can roll over the abhorrent mistreatment of American's after the first World War during Hoover's presidency. We'll cry like Oprah, okay?
For now, I just wanna giggle at the term "Chubby Bunny".
Now leave me alone to feed marshmallows into my mouth until I go walleyed.
========================
* For all you animal cruelty activists out there, fear not - I immediately told him he was a good boy and fed him a doggie treat after I pulled the dust from his belly.
** This statement is probably false. If my little league baseball glove, my mom, a handful of peanuts, and a copy of Springsteen's Born To Run were all hanging off the edge of a cliff and I could only save one of them... I suppose the nuts would plummet to their eternal cracking and my little league glove doesn't really fit anymore so...
...Mom versus Bruce. I dare not inquire further.
*** What you will soon learn from these tasks is that everything listed works under the assumption that those who attempt them are expected to fail. It is understood that if you complete any of these contests, you may have won the battle, but you have also lost an inherently larger war. Those of you cringing at the thought of these "games" will inevitably ask "why". Those amongst us who engage in such activites can only reply, "to see if we can."
There are extreme sports and then there are extremely gluttonous sports.
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