Champion hot dog eater arrested in Fourth of July controversy
via theage.com.au
I don’t know where to begin, there’s so much bizarre in this story.
So there was a hot dog eating contest (the fact that this is NOT the bizarre part is a bit of a sad indictment of western “culture”, but let’s pass this one by for the moment).
Some guy won. Hurrah.
Then this other guy shows up, apparently some kind of competitive eating celebrity person. So. There’s a kind of competition called competitive eating. Really? People do this? People do this enough to become celebrities at doing it? People do this enough to become celebrities who fly all the way from Japan just to crash a party?
Anyway, yes, he tries to crash the party. The crows wants him to eat, but because he didn’t sign an exclusive contract with “Major League Eating”, he wasn’t allowed to eat.
At what point is it appropriate to say “this has gone too far”? I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve passed it.
Full disclosure: I participated in, and was disqualified from, a mussel-eating contest. It was not sanctioned by “Major League Eating”, nor was it a media circus. I just wanted to eat some free mussels.