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“This is the year when the jokers are wild
When a fag [sic] can’t hack it and try to bite the style…
…But for now, since everything’s calm
Relate to the matter as I drop the bomb.”
- EPMD, “I’m Housin’”

Once again, the time has come. I’ve ingested a trio of Oscar Mayers and a quart of nonspecific energy drink. I’ve undertaken appropriate musical preparation. Bring on the gurgitation.

Last year, after Joey Chestnut triumphed in the first-ever case of extra-innings eating, George Shea pronounced that “Gas is near $5 a gallon, tomatoes are unsafe to eat, [but] the Mustard Yellow Belt is on American soil. Joey Chestnut is an agent of change.” Understatements like that are a large part of the appeal for this event, the 94th Annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition.

According to ESPN, the weather conditions are as follows: 75 degrees Farenheit; 49% humidity; “You Never Sausage a Nice Day.” Announcers report that “the winner today will eat over 19,000 calories.” What other sport provides such outlandish statistics.

Rob Stone is tracking the history of Nathan’s championship tallies. With some awareness of the scale of escalation, it’s difficult not to think of this story as analogous to real estate prices. In 1916, the winner ate only 13 weiners. By 1991, that number had inflated roughly 62% to 21. Nine years later, the 20th Century peaked with the consumption of 25 hot dogs. The next year, the new millennium was rung in with a bang; Kobayashi entered the fray, violating all previous conceptions of gustatory godhood by swallowing 50 hot dogs and buns. Thenceforth, the arms race to engineer a perfect human locust has been pursued with all due vigor.

This year sees a slight rule change, with bun dunks limited to 5 seconds, and excessively messy eaters receiving one yellow card before being disqualified. Last year saw the competition diminished from 12 to 10 minutes, and I didn’t like that change, either. Whatever happened to freestyle eating? Where is the room for innovation? Just let the kids play!

Combined prize money is only $20,000. Perhaps I chose the wrong warm-up song.

As contestants de-board their “high-security” bus to the venue, it’s clear that Eric “Badlands” Booker is having a disagreement with the door about what might constitute proper girth. Golden boy Joey Chestnut is pulled aside for a peremptory sound bite; when the reporters allows him to proceed, Chestunt is escorted by a member of the NYPD. I hope no one in Manhattan is getting robbed right now.

Keep in mind that Chestnut is the odds-on favorite, with Kobayashi a slight underdog and the rest of the field a discarded afterthought. After 364 days, the Cold War of consumption will once again get hot.

Commentators report that Tim “Eater X” Janus ate 50 hot dogs to qualify for the Nathan’s championship this year. Perhaps he shouldn’t be counted out. Then again, he’d have to add an entire dog-bun set per minute just to reach the 5 dozen that might make this a race. They also report that President Obama watched last year’s competition from Butte, MT, where he was campaigning at the time, and he’s allegedly watching on the HD TVs installed at Camp David. Maybe this kind of event helps put Kim Jong Il’s insanity into perspective.

Joey Chestnut more than doubled his hot dog capacity from 32 in 2005 to 66 in 2007. I would imply that such extraordinary progress was evidence of potential performance-enhancing drug use, but his eyes never look bloodshot. By contrast, Kobayashi has been diagnosed with a rare Lance Amstrong-like medical condition that involves his stomach being located below his digestive tract, allowing maximal room for expansion.

Recently, Kobayashi beat Chestnut head-to-head in the Pizza Hut P’Zone-eating championship. Henceforth, the phrase “comparing apples to oranges” will be replaced with “comparing hot dogs to P’Zones.”

During the segment on women in competitve eating, the explanatory text box beneath Juliet Lee reads: “Former chemistry professor in China now owns a salon in Maryland.” This may not be quite what Richard Bernstein had in mind, but hey, this is the land of freedom and opportunity.

This year, Patrick Bertoletti has decided to eschew his mohawk — as well as the obligatory Nathan’s t-shirt — in favor of a curly wig and ruffled violet tuxedo that appears to have reached the competition via a train from 1974. Maybe he’s watched the “Sabotage” video a few too many times. Based on the hair, one might guess he was impersonating Nathan Wind’s portrayal of Cochese.

Sure, maybe Rob Stone referred to a blender full of hot dogs, buns, condiments, and lemonade as “The Stoner Shake” as a play on his own name, but the entendre still makes one wonder how marijuana remains criminalized. It’s part of the popular culture, people!

Competitors are being announced. Wing Kong ate 84 oz. of pork and beans in 58 seconds. Pretty Boy has donned a blue and white striped sport coat, and it actually is kind of pretty. Crazy Legs Conti wears a single silver glove, assumedly in remembrance of Michael Jackson; he’s announced as both the “David Blaine of the bowel” and the “Evel Kinevel of the alimentary canal.” Yes, this is an excellent opportunity to expand your vocabulary. After recounting Juliet Lee’s progression as an eater, George Shea announces that “I have done the math, and if she keeps up at this pace, she will be able to eat her own body weight on Sept. 29, 2014.” Let’s not even get into the implications thereof. Hall “Hoover” Hunt, MLE’s only faith-based eater “understands why they call it couscous and not just cous.” Allegedly, that qualifies him as a genius. Sonya Thomas is “the absence of beauty…the shadow under the lotus petal…the breath drawn at 2a.m. before a revelation…the widow who goes on after another. Some believe that she is the leader of the four horsemen of the esophagus.” People wonder why I love this event, but it’s a spectacle like no other, some extra-terrestrial half-breed of physical obscenity and literary jubilee. The Shea men do not limit themselves to adjectives. Humble Bob was allegedly born without adnoids, epiglotus, or tonsils, “and eaters celebrate his nude esophagus.” Despite resounding cheers, the favorites enter with some measure of dignity. Rank Eater X alongside Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut as one of the world’s gourmand statesmen.

At the end of the first minute, Kobayashi leads by 1 with 11. Eater X is maintaining what anywhere else would be considered a breakneck pace — more than 8 dogs/minute. By the end of the second minute, Chestnut has taken the lead by 2 with 22, but by the end of the third, even the leaders risk falling below a 10 dog/minute pace. The leaders appear to have hit a wall in the fourth minute, with Chestnut maintaining his lead while advancing only to 36. Word on the street is that Chestnut emboldens later in the race, like a true champion. Halfway through, his 2-dog lead remains. If I’d gone downstairs to watch this in HD, then I could tell you how far back Eater X is in third place. I’m guessing he finishes just North of 50. As the sixth minute fades into oblivion, Joey Chestnut continues to average over 8 dogs/minute, with Kobayashi and Eater X averaging 7.56 and 6.01, respectively. One wonders what Janus’ (Eater X) colleagues in the financial services sector think of all this. It’s a better hobby than cocaine…probably. After 7 minutes, those 2 dogs appear to be insurmountable. Bertoletti has passed Eater X. As Mean Jean Oakerland used to say, “This is pandaemonium!” Somehow, I doubt he was a scholar of Paradise Lost. At the eight-minute hash, Chestnut’s lead is 3, but Kobayashi quickly remedies that situation. Eater X won’t have a prayer of unseating Bertoletti’s number 2 ranking without requisitioning a fresh can of whoop-ass. With a minute left, both Chestnut and Kobayashi have already surpassed the 10-minute record they set last year. First a black president, and then a new hot dog-eating record. 2009 is an historic year; don’t forget to breathe. Not to extend ethnic generalities, but Kobayashi appears to be attacking the final minute with the resignation of a fallen samurai. He must continue forward, but his spirit has lapsed.

That’s it, people. The magic number was 68. Joey Chestnut 3-peated on the world’s greatest stage, keeping the Mustard Yellow Belt on American soil. The top two losers were Kobayashi with 64.5 and Bertoletti with 55. Look for such f*#ktards as the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute to point to the progress being made in gurgitation as an example of the free market at work. Joey Chestnut would never have become an ubermensch had he not been chasing Kobayashi, and now the rest of the top tier has risen to compete. Keep in mind that this may be a less applicable analog to, say, health care, then might be Mozilla’s non-profit mission to prevent its industry’s stagnation.

On the subject of 3-peating, Joey Chestnut has already been described as “the Bill Belichek of the belly.” That line was slightly less spontaneous than “Axis of Evil.”

There you have it. Carry on with your holiday, content in the knowledge that, no matter what you eat, it could be worse.