Erotic Hot Dog Contest - 2008

Several years ago America lost the Little League World series to Taiwan, Japan, and the Dominican Republic. NBA All-Stars were second-rate in the World Championships, however the USA was shocked by Takeru Kobayashi beating scores of heavyweight Yanks at Coney Island’s fabled hot dog eating contest and the diminutive Asian clung to his title like Michael Jordan and the Bulls, culminating with his 2006 feat, 53 3/4 frankfurters in 12 minutes.

Thankfully in 2008 an equally thin Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California regained the title with a record downing of 59 1/2 hot dogs and the world. This year the competition was open to all-comers and on the 4th of July I was sitting at Pattaya's Pigpen A Go-Go with Jamie Parker.

The New Yorker expat hadn't seen Ort in a long time and he had gained back a little weight since his Ice episode with the lithe go-go dancer. Neither of us mentioned her name, but she was still on his mind, even when he said, “This morning on TV I saw that Jap hot dog eater win his another title at Nathan's. All these fat American contestants upchucked hot dogs, while the damned foreigner calmly sucked down weiners like he was from Dusseldorf. Even weirder, his stomach showed no sign of expansion and the audience had no idea where they were going.”

“Very impressive.” I had watched the same TV show and attempted to imitate the Jap's style, only managing three in a minute. My stomach had yet to recover from the effort and I asked the bar owner, "Who here do you think would win?"

Jamie looked around the bar. His skinny farang clientele liked the fat dancers wobbling around the steel poles. I didn't understand the attraction.

"Ei-Yet." He pointed to the the ancient forty-kilo cashier. "I've seen her eat non-stop for hours."

"It's a Thai genetic trait. They eat as if there's not tomorrow." My wife was a very healthy eater. Mam could eat with the best of them.

More than me any day.

“Who in Pattaya wants to watch skinny farangs eat hot dogs?”

“Fat farangs looking for a free meal.”

Bars offering free food floated balloons and Pattaya's free food crowd were called balloon chasers.

“There’s enough of them here.”

"No, but there would be more if you held an erotic hot dog eating contest including bar girls. Remember how Kenny at Living Dolls had the girls fellate banana.”

“And how they carved them into penises with their teeth.” The British manager had revitalized showtime on Walking Street with his gift for the perverse.

“Sheer artistry.” Jamie also had a fine aesthetic for the erotic arts. “But I’ve always thought nothing was sexier than a girl eating a hot dog at a baseball game. Struggling to keep the relish and mustard from falling down her chest.”

“You do?” My extensive research into porno websites had never turned up this fetish.

“A lot of men do, but don’t realize it.”

“Really? I thought they were more burger fans.” Pattaya women don’t like sloppy.

“Doesn’t matter what they are. We can host a combined erotic hot dog eating contest with a hot dog championship. We could pack the bar with guys and also video the event for sale on the Internet.”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll hold it at 12 noon Eastern Standard Time for the stockbrokers getting ready for lunch. Once a week. Different girls and you can vote online.” Jamie was breathing fast. "We make tee-shirts of the winner and then hold contests between different bars. Then it's on to TV. I'll be the Chuck Barris of Hot Dog Eating contests."

Jamie weaved on his stool.

“Are you all right?”

"No."

I signaled Ei-Yet for a glass of water. The forty year-old ex-stripper and I went back years. We had both seen countless farangs keel over at bars. The water came in seconds and Jamie sucked it down

“Fine, I just got a glimpse of the future.” He envisioned the money rolling into his PayPal account.

“And?”

“Better I leave erotic hot dog eating in my head, because the idea would become ruined by commercialism. All dreams are.” He settled down and drank his beer. “Maybe next year the world will be ready for it.”

Jamie was right.

We will be waiting, because eating hot dogs are sexy.

With mustard.

"Never ketchup, for as my grandfather said, "Never trust a man who puts ketchup on his hot dog."

Diversity

My father's side of the family came over on the Mayflower. My Irish Nana sailed across the Atlantic on a cow boat from Ireland. My older sister's husband is Jewish. My younger sister is married to an African American with Indian blood. My next-door neighbors in my old hometown were Neapolitans who emigrated from Argentina. I have friends from every race, religion, and nation.

"Whence came all these people?" wrote J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer.

We came from everywhere and we still come from everywhere, because that is the American way.

Happy July 4th

Happy Fourth Of July

The Fourth Of July has always been all about Bouffants.

July 2, 1776 - Declaration of Independence

After the completion of the Declaration of Independence on June 28, 1776, the writers submitted the hand-written statement to Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House and Lee's Resolution for Independence was passed without a dissenting vote. John Adams of Massachusetts wrote his wife that "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America."

The New Englander might have been one of the smartest men in the Colonies, however Adams was no seer, for July 2nd was overlooked in favor of July 4, which was when the Congress announced the official adoption of the Declaration of Independence from England to the public.

The second sentence foretold a promise.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

News of the Declaration spread from Philadelphia north, south, and west.

On July 9, 1776 General Washington had the words read to his troops in New York City. The British fleet rode at anchor in the harbor. The people of that city tore down King George III's equestrian statue and melted the lead into bullets. America has been independent since July 2, 1776, although the second sentence has yet to fulfill the challenge of equality and justice for all.

Maybe one day and maybe not.

Freedom doesn't mean the same to everyone.

Especially not these days.

But I believe.

E pluribus unum.

THE UMPTEENTH COMING by Peter Nolan Smith

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"

Those words were sung by the cast of HAIR in 1969 and millions of hippies dropped acid to touch the Aquarian sky.

Nirvana was attainable via LSD and on the Fourth of July 1970 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, Mark McLaughlin and I scored a couple of hundred hits of LSD from a French-Canadian dealer in Montreal.

"C'est tres forte," warned Yves, who lived next to the Forum.

"Pas de problem." We were all hockey players and had taken hard hits against the boards.

"Don't drive on this 'shit'. Si non you will exit the highway into the scenery."

"Thanks for the warning."

After leaving Montreal the four of us argued about the size of the dose.

"One-quarter?" John was a forward for a junior college.

"Too small." Mark played in the Quincy scrapper league. He was my co-pilot.

"A full one?" Tommy was a goalie. He was scared of nothing.

"Half." I believed in compromise. "We can dropped the second half later. If necessary."

"It's always necessary," Tommie added, as he fine-tuned the VW's AM radio reception to a Berlin NH station .

THE LETTER by Joe Cocker, HITCHING A RIDE by Vanity Fare, and AMERICAN WOMAN / NO SUGAR TONIGHT by The Guess Who accompanied us to the border crossing at Canaan, New Hampshire. The immigration officers ignored our longhair and waved us and the ten pounds of hash into the USA.

Three miles farther the four of us each downed a half a hit. The backroads were lightly traveled on that holiday weekend and I drove my VW Beetle at a meandering speed down Route 3 toward the White Mountains.

The acid hit hard at the T-intersection of 110 and 3 at Groveton.

We didn't have a map and Mark asked an old farmer sitting on a lawn chair, which was the best way to Mount Washington.

"Are you in a hurry?" His accent was non-rhotic Granite State.

"We have all the time in the world." I was 18.

"That's what all young men say." He took off his straw hat and looked at the intersection. "Most travelers take 3 down to Lancaster and east on 2, but a few head over to Berlin."

Berlin was a logging town. Loggers hated hippies. "Which one you take?" My voice shimmered with color, mostly green.

"Depends on where I'm going, but I like driving along the Upper Ammonoosuc River. It's twisted."

"Thanks for the information."

Mark and I looked at each other.

"Go left," said John in the back.

"And why?" Being from Northern New England I trusted locals.

"Because we always take the road less traveled." John loved Robert Frost.

It was the hippie way and I beeped the horn before heading down 110.

An AM radio station from Burlington played War's SPILL THE WINE, Free's ALL RIGHT NOW, Mungo Jerry's IN THE SUMMERTIME before fading into static behind the airwave shadow of Mt. Cabot.

The LSD took effect.

Our passage through Berlin blurred under the blue sky and the pines swung with the breeze. I drove slowly up 16. Snow gleamed atop Mount Washington.

A rapid river ran to our right.

"Quiet."

"Why?" John had been grooving on the static.

"Listen." I shut off the engine and coasted down a dirt road to the bank of the Peabody River.

"I don't hear anything."

"Not the river? I hear it speaking."

"Me too," replied the three friends.

We existed on the same plane.

The four of us got out of the Bug and stood on the banks of the mountain stream rushing over glacial rocks to create a primordial language unknown to modern man. Our teenage ears listened to its teachings and we obeyed the command to submerge our bodies in the torrent's lecture. Our communion with LSD immuned our flesh from the frigid winter melt. Time melted faster than butter in the sun.

"Speak, river, speak." John was all ears.

Our skin turned blue, as I strained to decipher the river's message.

A young boy in shorts appeared from the trees. He was wearing an Andre the Giant tee-shirt.

John Gilmour elbowed me.

"It's him."

"Him who?"

"Him."

"I don't who him is, but we don't need him to bring us down. What you want, kid?" Tommie was a stickler for keeping crowds small while on LSD.

"Why are you were sitting in the water?

"To hear it speak," Tommie answered without hesitation. He was a high school hockey star. On ice his skating was almost holy and Tommie was the was the most spiritual of us.

The eleven year-old stuck a finger in the river.

"I don't near nothing, but the water."

We cocked our ears to the current.

The boy in the shorts was right.

"We hear the water too."

We were on an ancient quest.

"And it's cold."

"Yes, it is cold."

We stood up with goose-bumped skin. The release from the river was a rush.

"Come out of the river." The young boy ordered with biblical authority.

"Whatever you say." Tommie Jordan chattered through this teeth.

Mark's skin was death white and I shivered like I had been pulled from the Atlantic after the sinking of the Titanic. This boy had saved us from hypothermia. His coming here had been no accident.

"Who are you?" I asked, blowing into my hands.

"Bobby."

"No, you're not."

"Am too."

"You're someone else." Someone famous and John's retinas opened to the max, as he whispered, "It's Jesus."

"Jesus?" I might have been a non-believer, but I flashed on the 12 year-old Messiah in the Temple. Bobby was about his age. "What are you talking about?"

"He's the Second Coming." John's pupils' saucered to plates.

"I've been here before." The boy picked up a rock and threw it into the river.

"Here before?" I asked with time repeating over and over again like a reshuffled deck of cards.

"Yes." Bobby liked simple answers, but before we pose another question, a teenage girl in a tube top hurried from the underbrush. Red hot pants hung off her skinny ass.

"Bobby, you get over here." Bobby was a member of her family. The redhead was about 15. Her skin was milk white from sun neglect.

"We weren't doing nothing."

"I'm not speaking to you." She grabbed her brother. Her tube top provided no protection from our eyes. She had the breasts of Mary Magdalene. "What I tell you about speaking to strangers."

"I wanted to know why they were sitting in the river." Our prophet attempted to escape her clutches.

"Why? I'll tell you why. Because they're stupid hippies." She was teenage trouble to men and boys.

"We're not stupid hippies." I was enlightened by LSD.

His sister was blind to her brother's existence as Jesus.

"You're hippies and I know stupid when I see it. You're fucked up on LSD too." The sister seized Bobby by the ear and dragged our 'Jesus' away from the river.

"Don't take him away." John scrambled over the glacial rocks.

"Let him go." Mark slipped on a mossy rock into the river.

"But he's____"

"Look." John pointed through the trees.

Bobby's family was setting up a barbecue. His father regarded us with a command to keep our distance. This was their holiday destination.

Bobby had been here before, but only in this lifetime.

"So he's no Jesus."

"He was for a minute." John laughed with the LSD.

"He's just a kid we thought was Jesus. Listen." Mark was lying in the water.

The river had resumed its musical repertoire. The songs were never played on the radio and we sang the lyrics until our throats were parched dry as late summer grass. Drinking the river was a sacrament, giving us strength to sing more than psalms.

After an hour we clambered from the water and sat on the rocks, shivering from the cold.

We had been in the river for hours and shivered under the pine trees, as the night rose from the east. The LSD was losing its power over us.

"Looks like Bobby's gone." John glanced to the road.

There were no cars.

Everyone was where they wanted to be for the night.

"To be messiah for someone else."

"You know they're lighting off fireworks on the Charles." John loved the Boston Pops playing the 1812 OVERTURE and the cannon finale, which was a wonder of pyrotechnics.

"We missed it this year."

"But not our trip." John smiled in the darkness.

The moon floated across a universe of nova stars.

"It was something else."

We spread our sleeping bags and lit a fire.

"You know there is no God." I had to say it.

"And there is no Jesus." Mark had been quiet for hours.

"But there is a Bobby." Tommie lit a joint. It was good Acapulco Gold.

"And he has a hot sister."

Our heads bobbed in agreement, because even an atheist on LSD can believe a small boy with a sister in a tube top is Jesus.

After all acid is only a drug and everyday is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.

Bangkok's Most Elegant Hotel

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 2025 - READ IT

Two-Hundred and Fifty years ago the The delegates to the Second Continental Congress represented the Thirteen Colonies, twelve of the colonies voted to approve the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Another ninety years passed before the African slaves were freed by a horrible civil war. The North versus the South.

Onward

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" opens the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and is followed by "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The other mentions of a deity are "Laws of Nature, Nature's God, Creator," No in God we trust. Freedom of religion guaranteed as well as freedom from religion. Reading further to the sins of King George III there is an uncanny connection to 47. "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." Sadly 1775 is a mirror of 2025. Read it today. Stop looking at Cat Memes. Resist. Slow down in front of police cars. Obey the laws of the land. Spent cash. Deconsume. Change who you are or surrender or stand with the enemy. There are choices.

The Declaration of Independence.

All we have to do is change He to Trump.

Independence.

Now more than ever.

If you can't change the world, change yourself. If you can't change yourself, change the world - LONELY PLANET THE THE.