1
00:00:01,639 --> 00:00:10,120
Speaker 1: Cho was the dictator of Romania. What I'm Robert Evans.

2
00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:13,640
Speaker 1: This is a podcast bad people. Sometimes I shout the

3
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:15,280
Speaker 1: name of a dictator. Well, I didn't want to just

4
00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:20,200
Speaker 1: do Hitler again, a lot of episodes of shouting Hitler.

5
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:27,040
Speaker 1: There's so many things that you could have done that.

6
00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:30,000
Speaker 1: I mean, it was really going to be that or

7
00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:37,440
Speaker 1: a tonal screeching to go with the high effort version. Alright, alright, fine, fine,

8
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:39,800
Speaker 1: you know what if it takes giving you a little

9
00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:52,320
Speaker 1: path on the head for that together the yeah loft Loftus.

10
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: There's there circling around a really popular nickname, I am Jamie.

11
00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:03,360
Speaker 1: Today we're doing a special REVERSEO episode Behind the Bastards,

12
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:07,640
Speaker 1: where you join the rarefied air of people who get

13
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:11,480
Speaker 1: to read episodes to me. Um, because there's some motherfucker

14
00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: called Joey Chestnut and he eats hot dogs and you're

15
00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:17,680
Speaker 1: angry about him. Right, that's basically the pitch. That's not

16
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,200
Speaker 1: the pitch at all. Well, first, I don't know what

17
00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:23,399
Speaker 1: the pitch is. There's a motherfucker named Joey Chestnut and

18
00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:26,680
Speaker 1: I'm in love with him, but that has very little

19
00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:30,880
Speaker 1: to do with what I'm going to be talking about today. Um,

20
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,200
Speaker 1: so you've actually gotten the story wrong. Joey Chestnut is

21
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:42,160
Speaker 1: um someone that I love now, the bastard that we're

22
00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,840
Speaker 1: talking about Joey Chestnut for weeks and I still have

23
00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:47,000
Speaker 1: no idea who he actually is. You just say we

24
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:50,080
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm offending this has been a year

25
00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:55,760
Speaker 1: of my life. Weeks is all I ever remember? That

26
00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:59,600
Speaker 1: that's true. So Joey, okay, this is We're off to

27
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,920
Speaker 1: a terrible will start. Is it Jess Joseph Chestnut If

28
00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:07,680
Speaker 1: you're being formal, it's Joseph Chesnut If you're nasty. Uh,

29
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:11,480
Speaker 1: his dad's name. The best thing about Joey Chestnut is

30
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:16,280
Speaker 1: that his dad's name is Merlin. And that's um. So

31
00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 1: there's a motherfucker walking around named Merlin Chestnut. If you

32
00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:23,800
Speaker 1: tell me his job as anything foraging from mushrooms in

33
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:26,400
Speaker 1: the woods, I'm going to call you a liar. It's

34
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:29,440
Speaker 1: a close second. He's a public school music teacher, which

35
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:34,480
Speaker 1: I feel like fits Merlin Chestnut the profile Merlin Chestnut

36
00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: nutt music teacher. So Joey Chessnunt is not the bastard

37
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: we're discussing today, Although he is intimately involved in the

38
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 1: events that I will be describing Joey Chestnut is for

39
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:49,840
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, the hot dog eating champion,

40
00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,800
Speaker 1: and just in general, I believe the eating champion of

41
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:56,560
Speaker 1: the world at this time, most recently, like the Joe

42
00:02:56,639 --> 00:02:58,840
Speaker 1: Frasier of putting a lot of things in his mouth

43
00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:02,639
Speaker 1: and then not puking. Okay, that sounds a little dismissive

44
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:08,440
Speaker 1: of my husband's accomplishments, but go off the Joey. I

45
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:15,320
Speaker 1: saw Joseph this last year on he he competes. He

46
00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:19,640
Speaker 1: competes in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney

47
00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:22,080
Speaker 1: Island on the fourth of July every single year going

48
00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:24,640
Speaker 1: back to two thousand and seven. He's won fourteen times.

49
00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:26,679
Speaker 1: He's lost once. I will tell you why. It's a

50
00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:32,200
Speaker 1: very funny reason. Um. But at this point he's basically

51
00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 1: just competing with himself. Um. He wins by a good

52
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:40,040
Speaker 1: twenty thirty hot dogs every year. Um. And so that's

53
00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:42,640
Speaker 1: that's more hot dogs than a person should be able

54
00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:45,000
Speaker 1: to eat, right there. Just the margin he won by

55
00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:48,240
Speaker 1: is too many hot dogs? Were you just toss out

56
00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:51,160
Speaker 1: a number? How many hot dogs do you think? I

57
00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:56,160
Speaker 1: saw Joseph Elizabeth Chestnut eight on the fourth of July

58
00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:00,760
Speaker 1: in ten minutes, ten minutes. This last year, I'm gonna

59
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: guess sixty. It was seventy six. Christ it was seventy,

60
00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:12,480
Speaker 1: narrowly beating his own his former record of seventy five

61
00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:19,440
Speaker 1: the previous year. Too many hot dogs? He is, well, okay, yes,

62
00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:23,880
Speaker 1: but what land Joey Chestnut so far from God's light?

63
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 1: First of all, that is my husband you're talking about.

64
00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:33,120
Speaker 1: But I I do, I do see where you're coming from.

65
00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:35,760
Speaker 1: There is um there's so much to talk about when

66
00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:38,480
Speaker 1: it comes to competitive eating. I can't possibly cover it all.

67
00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 1: So I'm narrowing it to American hot dog eating from

68
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:47,120
Speaker 1: the past forty years. And the main bastard to discuss

69
00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:52,839
Speaker 1: is a man named George say Uh, closely matched by

70
00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:57,360
Speaker 1: his younger brother Richard say So. That is the topic, Dick,

71
00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:02,800
Speaker 1: the old Dick chees uh. So, that's the topic of

72
00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:07,119
Speaker 1: today's episode. I've I've titled it George say hot dog Villain.

73
00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 1: I couldn't do better than that. I'm sure that that

74
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,039
Speaker 1: is a good title. That's probably what we'll just put

75
00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:15,760
Speaker 1: out as the title of the episode. That in short,

76
00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:19,080
Speaker 1: who he is? Explain to me quickly? When did we

77
00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:21,640
Speaker 1: start doing this as a species, when did we start

78
00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,680
Speaker 1: like having contests to see how many hot dogs a

79
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 1: motherfucker could eat? It goes way, way, way back. There's

80
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:33,000
Speaker 1: so much, Um, there's so much to discuss in terms

81
00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:38,080
Speaker 1: of hot dogs in general, how they relate to American culture. UM.

82
00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:40,920
Speaker 1: And I'll just say right at the top, I'm writing

83
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:42,560
Speaker 1: a book about it, which is why I know so

84
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:44,680
Speaker 1: much about it. This is youve been deep in hot

85
00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:47,679
Speaker 1: dog culture for a while now. Oh, I've been as

86
00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:50,880
Speaker 1: deep in hot dog culture for the last eight months. Um.

87
00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,839
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy this episode, please buy my book

88
00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:56,520
Speaker 1: that comes out next year. This is a very tiny

89
00:05:56,560 --> 00:05:59,760
Speaker 1: part of it. Um. It's a good question. There's no

90
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:07,240
Speaker 1: exact um moment where eating contests became mainstream. They definitely, Um,

91
00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:09,840
Speaker 1: George Shay would have you believe they became popular at

92
00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:13,800
Speaker 1: first in America, but they didn't. America very very very

93
00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:18,120
Speaker 1: much ripped off the current competitive eating craze and kind

94
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:23,360
Speaker 1: of style and broadcasting tendencies from Japan, uh, where it

95
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:28,200
Speaker 1: got very popular starting in the nineties. So it's gone.

96
00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:31,200
Speaker 1: It goes back hundreds of years, as does hot dog culture.

97
00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 1: In gen I mean sausages and ground up meat goes

98
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:39,880
Speaker 1: back to fucking BC. Yes, um, but but yes, as

99
00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:46,200
Speaker 1: far as formally um broadcast eating events. Um, they're they're newer,

100
00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:49,800
Speaker 1: newer than sausage at least, and America's very much ripped

101
00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:53,080
Speaker 1: off Japan in terms of how we do it. That's

102
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:57,479
Speaker 1: not an uncommon story. So alright, okay, okay, I'm ready.

103
00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:01,120
Speaker 1: I'm ready to learn, Jamie. I'm ready to learn about

104
00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,560
Speaker 1: this wonderful new subculture. I'm very excited to tell you

105
00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:07,359
Speaker 1: about it. Please ask any questions at any time, because

106
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. Um. Yeah, I mean my first

107
00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: question which I would ask, that what what What about

108
00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:17,080
Speaker 1: the poops? That's got to be a problem for these guys, right,

109
00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:20,120
Speaker 1: they are very cagy about the poops, Robert. I've been

110
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: trying to find that out as well. They're very cagy

111
00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:25,280
Speaker 1: about the poops. What I can say is that there

112
00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:28,440
Speaker 1: is there's so much like any athletic event, which I

113
00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,920
Speaker 1: do believe this is. Um, there's a lot of showmanship involved.

114
00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:36,600
Speaker 1: And so for example, what Joey Chestnut will do after

115
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:39,320
Speaker 1: eating seventy six hot dogs, which I have to repeat

116
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:44,480
Speaker 1: he did, I wasn't a significant fraction of of of

117
00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:47,320
Speaker 1: like a cow. Yeah, it's a that's a good chunk,

118
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,800
Speaker 1: good chunk and um and I I was in the

119
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:55,040
Speaker 1: press pit for that event and then at the end, um,

120
00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:57,240
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut. I can't tell if this is something he's

121
00:07:57,240 --> 00:07:59,520
Speaker 1: made to do or something he does by of his

122
00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:02,400
Speaker 1: own full ship, but he does not leave the stage

123
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:04,680
Speaker 1: right away. All the other hot dog eaters who lose

124
00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:08,080
Speaker 1: the contest are allowed to leave, presumably to throw up

125
00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:11,400
Speaker 1: and ship. They will never admit to this, but I'm

126
00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:14,920
Speaker 1: assuming that that's what they do. Um. Joey Chestnut does

127
00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:17,160
Speaker 1: not leave the stage. He stays on the stage for

128
00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:21,080
Speaker 1: upwards of an hour right after eating seventy six hot dogs,

129
00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:25,680
Speaker 1: smiles and answers questions for the press. So yeah, so

130
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:29,720
Speaker 1: he He's said in interviews that he doesn't throw up

131
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:33,959
Speaker 1: piston ship right away. I am bullshit a little skeptical

132
00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 1: of these claims, but I you know, it's his body

133
00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,120
Speaker 1: and his choice, and I respect his bodily autonomy to

134
00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:44,600
Speaker 1: hold in however much process meat he wants for as

135
00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:49,560
Speaker 1: long as he physically can. Um. And that is true love.

136
00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:55,720
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut's real girlfriend gave an incredible quote. I think

137
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:58,240
Speaker 1: like in the last couple of years where she was

138
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:03,599
Speaker 1: just like, Joey smells different after like his poor but

139
00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,840
Speaker 1: not even just like sweat, but like just like there's meat.

140
00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:13,880
Speaker 1: It's radiating off of him. It's incredible. It's incredible. I

141
00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:17,760
Speaker 1: mean because he's holding an entire refrigerator worth of meat

142
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:21,600
Speaker 1: inside his body. I joke about being married to Joey

143
00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:25,840
Speaker 1: Chestnut because I am, but I God bless that woman.

144
00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,320
Speaker 1: I don't how do you how? I don't know sounds

145
00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:31,760
Speaker 1: you have to have a number of plumbers on speed

146
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,720
Speaker 1: dial because you can't take somebody being busy right like,

147
00:09:34,760 --> 00:09:36,640
Speaker 1: They've got to get out there right away if there's

148
00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:43,320
Speaker 1: a problem. Look, Merlin's son gets the job done. Um,

149
00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:48,240
Speaker 1: we're talking about George Say, George Shay UM, which will

150
00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:52,559
Speaker 1: be getting very deep into, is the m C and

151
00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:57,840
Speaker 1: the kind of the person who made who effectively publicized

152
00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:01,719
Speaker 1: the Nathan hot dog eating contest and UM, by extension

153
00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:05,680
Speaker 1: kind of hand selected Joey Chestnut to be the face

154
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:10,640
Speaker 1: of UM of that kind of endeavor. So here are

155
00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:14,880
Speaker 1: some things that George Say has said. Incapacity of the

156
00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,559
Speaker 1: m C of the hot dog contest on stage, I'm

157
00:10:17,559 --> 00:10:20,120
Speaker 1: just gonna throw three out He says this on stage

158
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:26,440
Speaker 1: on Coney Island quote while introducing a hot dog eating contestant. Quote,

159
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:29,200
Speaker 1: His mother held him close and whispered in his ear.

160
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:32,240
Speaker 1: She said, you are of mine flesh, but you are

161
00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:35,520
Speaker 1: not mine own. Fate is your father, and you belong

162
00:10:35,640 --> 00:10:37,600
Speaker 1: to the people. And then he'll bring out a hot

163
00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:42,200
Speaker 1: dog eating contest Uh contestant. Here's another one. He was

164
00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:45,360
Speaker 1: buried alive under sixty cubic feet of popcorn, and he

165
00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:48,120
Speaker 1: ate his way out to survival. That David Blaine of

166
00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:51,280
Speaker 1: the Bowel, the Evil kin Evil of the Elementary Canal,

167
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:56,400
Speaker 1: the Houdini of Cuisini. Please welcome Crazy Legs conti. And then,

168
00:10:56,440 --> 00:10:59,880
Speaker 1: of course an older man who is white and has dreads.

169
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:03,840
Speaker 1: I'm on stage and he's forty hot dogs? Right? Are

170
00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:08,280
Speaker 1: you getting kind of decayed into Here's a Here's another one.

171
00:11:08,920 --> 00:11:12,160
Speaker 1: He will do whatever it takes to win. Three days ago,

172
00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:14,920
Speaker 1: he broke up with his girlfriend and euthanized his dog

173
00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:17,840
Speaker 1: to leave a void of emptiness inside of him so

174
00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:21,240
Speaker 1: he can do today with hot dogs and buns. And

175
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:23,760
Speaker 1: then he brings out some other guy. And this has

176
00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:26,560
Speaker 1: been going on for George. She has been doing this

177
00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:29,559
Speaker 1: for thirty years. He has said a lot of things

178
00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:33,240
Speaker 1: over the years what I and and it does take

179
00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 1: a turn, but he said a lot of things taken

180
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:39,800
Speaker 1: a couple so far, broke up with his girlfriend and

181
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:43,160
Speaker 1: euthanize his dog. Uh. George, She has said a lot

182
00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:46,000
Speaker 1: of things, some of them about what makes someone a champion,

183
00:11:46,280 --> 00:11:49,160
Speaker 1: some of them about what makes someone an American, and

184
00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:52,160
Speaker 1: a lot of them about hot dogs, because that is

185
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,920
Speaker 1: what his job is. Most of what George Say will

186
00:11:54,920 --> 00:11:58,080
Speaker 1: tell you is complete bullshit, and he will be the

187
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,000
Speaker 1: first to tell you that. Here are two quotes from

188
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,480
Speaker 1: him that I think are the closest to the truth

189
00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,640
Speaker 1: as he's ever told. The first is something he said

190
00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:08,920
Speaker 1: to mel magazine last year. He said, you could argue

191
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:11,600
Speaker 1: that people are so inured to everything that there's very

192
00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:15,280
Speaker 1: little downside to causing controversy. The second thing he said

193
00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:19,079
Speaker 1: was in en Uh in twenty nine. There was a

194
00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:22,480
Speaker 1: thirty for thirty about hot this hot dog eating contest,

195
00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:25,920
Speaker 1: and George Say is very much the villain. He says this,

196
00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:29,640
Speaker 1: A lot of what I say literally isn't true in

197
00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:34,360
Speaker 1: terms of words, but emotionally it is true. Um, and

198
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,600
Speaker 1: that is sort of the entire ethos of what George

199
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:44,520
Speaker 1: Say does. He has said some similar things He's I mean,

200
00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:48,800
Speaker 1: is there an episode in the works? Um no, because

201
00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:53,520
Speaker 1: he's a perfect man who lived the ideal human life. Well,

202
00:12:53,559 --> 00:13:00,280
Speaker 1: George Say, he simply hasn't he He's He's a very

203
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:03,640
Speaker 1: funked up man. George Shea and his brother Richard Say

204
00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:09,400
Speaker 1: are a large part of why the Nathans are a

205
00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:12,000
Speaker 1: large part of why the Nathan's famous hot dog eating

206
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,720
Speaker 1: contest is one of America's most disgusting traditions, right up

207
00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:20,040
Speaker 1: there with drone strikes. They're not the entire reason which

208
00:13:20,040 --> 00:13:24,160
Speaker 1: would be a bad place for a drone strike. First

209
00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:27,720
Speaker 1: of all, don't say that because I go there. Um, look,

210
00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to sacrifice some good people in order

211
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:33,520
Speaker 1: to deal with the problem, please me and Joey and

212
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:36,480
Speaker 1: bad Lands Booker? Have you ever seen bad Lands Booker

213
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:40,040
Speaker 1: or Matt Stoney. I'm talking about because his champions in

214
00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:43,560
Speaker 1: our culture, Robert, Yeah, I have no idea who those

215
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:46,080
Speaker 1: people are because they do eating contests and that's not

216
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:48,680
Speaker 1: a thing most people know about. You're sick in the head.

217
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:55,040
Speaker 1: You're so alived, Okay, so uh George and Dick Shay Uh,

218
00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:58,520
Speaker 1: made this a very popular cultural thing in the US

219
00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:03,920
Speaker 1: by channel energy, excess and showmanship. Uh. They are the

220
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:09,280
Speaker 1: founders of Major League Eating, which was founded in and

221
00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:13,040
Speaker 1: they're also the perpetrators of a bunch of deception, racism,

222
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:17,960
Speaker 1: and misogyny that exists in service of America's great dish,

223
00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:21,520
Speaker 1: the hot dog. Now, Robert, we've discussed hot dogs before,

224
00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:28,560
Speaker 1: and I am curious if you have um updated improved

225
00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:30,080
Speaker 1: your views on the hot dog at dog because last

226
00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:31,800
Speaker 1: time we talked about it, you said octopus was a

227
00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: hot dog, which was just so common. It's delicious. I mean,

228
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:38,120
Speaker 1: it's octopus. It's an octopus on bread, and I'm sure

229
00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:44,560
Speaker 1: it's delicious. Hot Um. I think hot dogs are defined

230
00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,160
Speaker 1: by the fact that you can't possibly limit them to

231
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:50,120
Speaker 1: a specific sort of meat. Anything on a hot dog

232
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,520
Speaker 1: bun is a hot dog, Well, that's a that's a

233
00:14:53,680 --> 00:14:57,360
Speaker 1: that's a gorgeous assumption. I would say that it tends

234
00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:01,280
Speaker 1: to be a meaty paste. It can only be created

235
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,640
Speaker 1: under the least ethical circumstances possible. So if we have

236
00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:07,960
Speaker 1: the octopi in your hot dogs, are are are dying

237
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 1: in the most unsavory ways. I will guarantee you they are.

238
00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:13,920
Speaker 1: I mean, as a general rule, if we're getting it

239
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,840
Speaker 1: from the sea, where we're destroying the ocean's ability to

240
00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:20,160
Speaker 1: support life in order to do it, well, no, I

241
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:23,040
Speaker 1: understand that. But I just have you ever seen video

242
00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:26,000
Speaker 1: footage of a hot dog factory? Because it's it's unique,

243
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:29,120
Speaker 1: it's uniquely bad. Yeah, I mean what I love. I

244
00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:32,160
Speaker 1: will say I prefer hot dogs that are mixes of

245
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:37,000
Speaker 1: unspeakable nightmare meats, of course, because I want when I'm

246
00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:40,200
Speaker 1: eating a hot dog, I want to feel bad about myself.

247
00:15:41,160 --> 00:15:44,880
Speaker 1: Well you should, you should, um, and I have, and uh,

248
00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:47,800
Speaker 1: my life is really I've taken years off of my

249
00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:51,480
Speaker 1: own life, uh not out of not out of eating

250
00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 1: hot dogs, which people will say, they'll cite this study

251
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:56,160
Speaker 1: being like, oh, every hot dog you eat takes thirty

252
00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:58,040
Speaker 1: six minutes off of your life, when it's like, well,

253
00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:01,760
Speaker 1: serotonin adds to your life, so it's pretty much evens out.

254
00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:05,920
Speaker 1: But the but the psychic guilt of eating this many

255
00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:08,560
Speaker 1: hot dogs is what's removing time from my life. The

256
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 1: Shade brothers uh created so they created major league eating

257
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:18,320
Speaker 1: into a marketable sport in the US, drawing heavily from

258
00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:22,320
Speaker 1: the sports early success in Japan. So today there's over

259
00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,120
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty eaters who are registered with Major

260
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 1: League Eating, and they've expanded to competing outside of hot dogs.

261
00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 1: They started with the Nathan's Contest, but now they compete

262
00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 1: sucking everything. There are wings contest, there's pie eating contest,

263
00:16:35,160 --> 00:16:38,480
Speaker 1: there's Joey Chestnut. Started with asparagus eating. That was his

264
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:43,880
Speaker 1: that poor woman, that was his breakout, his breakout moment.

265
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:47,520
Speaker 1: Robert he ate asparagus in San Diego and ascended to

266
00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: a great man. Uh. There's calamari, there's raman, there's everything.

267
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,800
Speaker 1: There's like hundreds of categories. Um. And now the Joey

268
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,120
Speaker 1: Chestnut is currently the face of Major League Eating. But

269
00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:03,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't always that way. The Shay brothers grew up

270
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:07,199
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. George Say was born in nineteen

271
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:10,680
Speaker 1: sixty four or five in Boston. Richard Shay is four

272
00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:14,640
Speaker 1: years younger. They grew up in Maine, with no particular

273
00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:20,440
Speaker 1: interest in UH sports or competitive eating whatsoever. Richards Shay

274
00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 1: describes them as being very introverted teens who did amateur

275
00:17:25,840 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 1: magic and listen to the Smiths and r e m together. Well,

276
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,040
Speaker 1: that does make sense because the state sport of Maine

277
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:36,480
Speaker 1: is slowly waiting for death. I was about to say,

278
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that as far as teenagers in Maine,

279
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,439
Speaker 1: that's not that bad amateur magic. There's a lot of

280
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:46,120
Speaker 1: worse ways to go. You stare into the gray skyline

281
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:48,199
Speaker 1: and wait for your life to end. That's that's what

282
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: what all the kids get up to in Maine. I

283
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:52,920
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in Maine as a kid,

284
00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:56,879
Speaker 1: and um I never made a single friend. No, nobody

285
00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,800
Speaker 1: has friends in Maine. It's not allowed. Your only friend

286
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:02,920
Speaker 1: is the echoing emptiness of the woods. But I will

287
00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:06,240
Speaker 1: say the streets are paved with signed Stephen king Bucks

288
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:11,199
Speaker 1: and I do love that. Um so they grew up

289
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,960
Speaker 1: in Maine. George later in rolls in Columbia University in

290
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,240
Speaker 1: New York. He wants to be a fiction writer. This

291
00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:22,080
Speaker 1: is a big part of the George. He's a fucking

292
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:27,280
Speaker 1: do weve. He's walking around and listening to the Smiths

293
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:30,000
Speaker 1: and R. E. M on his little cassette player. He's

294
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,600
Speaker 1: a huge fan of James Joyce and Flannery O'Connor uh

295
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:36,439
Speaker 1: who he claims to these to this day are his

296
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:41,520
Speaker 1: biggest writing influences. When he's writing the introduction to hotdog contests,

297
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:47,240
Speaker 1: which are, to his credit, sometimes very literary. Um. So

298
00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,440
Speaker 1: he wants to be a fiction writer, but he graduates

299
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:55,800
Speaker 1: in and has to get an adult job while he's

300
00:18:55,840 --> 00:18:58,840
Speaker 1: working on a series of failed plays and novels that

301
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:02,440
Speaker 1: never get off the ground ewhere, but he starts um

302
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:06,119
Speaker 1: living in New York and working for a series of

303
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 1: pretty high profile ad men. And so the guy who

304
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:15,439
Speaker 1: gives him his big start and gets him into, um,

305
00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:18,920
Speaker 1: the Nathan's Famous hot Dog Eating Contest is this guy

306
00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:24,800
Speaker 1: named Morty Matt's who is extremely fascinating in his own right.

307
00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,800
Speaker 1: He also it's like the most admin name I've ever heard.

308
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:33,560
Speaker 1: Um So Morty Matt's uh invented the Nathan's Famous hot

309
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:38,880
Speaker 1: Dog Eating Contest, although he denied this for years and years. Um. Meanwhile,

310
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:41,480
Speaker 1: Dick Shay, who kind of fades in and out of

311
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:44,920
Speaker 1: this story. He went to Villanova and uh later kind

312
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: of just he's kind of like writing Georgia's coattails throughout

313
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:53,119
Speaker 1: this experience. Um, this this whole story. Um, Oh, no,

314
00:19:53,359 --> 00:20:03,320
Speaker 1: Sophie's Internet. Well, everyone back at home, we lost Sophie. Sophie.

315
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:08,520
Speaker 1: You know we're gonna go to ads. Now might as well,

316
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:12,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, do you want a product or a service? Maybe? Yeah,

317
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,800
Speaker 1: let's go check out ads while we see if those

318
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 1: fucking assholes at Spectrum UH can get Sophie back on

319
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,359
Speaker 1: the internet. They dropped corn cob TV and then they

320
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:30,560
Speaker 1: dropped Sophie motherfucker's We're a bunch of dumb Hicks, Jamie.

321
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:34,879
Speaker 1: That was a very professional pivot. I loved every second

322
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:44,399
Speaker 1: of it. Oh my god, those ads were great. And

323
00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 1: what's even greater is that Sophie's back. Hi, Sophie's back.

324
00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: The Spectrum gods have taken Um, I don't know of

325
00:20:54,119 --> 00:21:00,440
Speaker 1: my happiness. Yeah, they still haven't brought back Corn TV.

326
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 1: They still haven't, and I have a bad feeling that

327
00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:07,399
Speaker 1: they won't, even though I've really enjoyed the programming, including

328
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,680
Speaker 1: iconically coffin Flop of course, of course, I mean one

329
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:14,920
Speaker 1: of the greatest shows on television or was, and they didn't.

330
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:18,480
Speaker 1: I don't care what people say, No they didn't. I've

331
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,879
Speaker 1: been there, I've seen it. I wrote, Yeah, you know

332
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 1: what it was. Its great television. We're talking about George say, okay, um, George,

333
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 1: So George say he graduates from Columbia in starts working

334
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:37,359
Speaker 1: for this ad man named Morty Matts. Morty Matts is

335
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,639
Speaker 1: an absolute legend in the field. He's still alive. I

336
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: think he's like nineties seven years old. Um, I'm gonna

337
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:51,080
Speaker 1: just kind of skip down to, uh what Morty Matts

338
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:56,119
Speaker 1: has done, because his resume is just extremely wild. Morty

339
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: Matts says when he takes over the Nathan's hot Dog

340
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: eating account and begins this contest, he gives a series

341
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:07,120
Speaker 1: of made up legends as to how long this contest

342
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 1: has existed, all of which are lies. He first says

343
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: that there has been a contest since nineteen sixteen, when

344
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,480
Speaker 1: Nathan's opened. He says that four immigrants held a hot

345
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: dog eating contest on the pier on the fourth of

346
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 1: July to determine who was the most patriotic. That was

347
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 1: a lie. He then pivoted to say that the contest

348
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: began in nineteen forty one as a protest to World

349
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: War One, and that was a lot. World War one

350
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen one, right, World War two? Okay? And uh

351
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,920
Speaker 1: then okay, in nineteen forty one. If you're protesting World

352
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,680
Speaker 1: War two, you're probably not someone you would want to

353
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: associate your sport with either, but look to be fair,

354
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: he's lying, and then yeah, of course, of course. And

355
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,880
Speaker 1: then Morty pivots this again and says in nineteen seventy

356
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: one that it was begun as a protest to the

357
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. He makes up all of these weird lies, Jamie,

358
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 1: what is your lion as to win lying is good

359
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 1: or not? Because I have a thing that I've been

360
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 1: doing for a while now where whenever I have a

361
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: close friend or loved one, I tell them one lie,

362
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: and it's it's always it's always something very so. The

363
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 1: first example of this is I I convinced the person

364
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,880
Speaker 1: I was with for a number of years, just as

365
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: the result of a casual conversation once that the band

366
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: Hanson had died in a terrible bus crash. You told

367
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 1: me I was literally last week, And like, I know, well,

368
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,120
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, what is the line? Because sometimes

369
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 1: it can be fun to do that sort of stuff,

370
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: And then someone brings up a lie, the lie you

371
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: told me? And what I never tell anyone? What the

372
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 1: lie I've told? I know the lie? You? I know

373
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: the lie Robert told me he didn't tell me when

374
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:49,119
Speaker 1: someone was named Daddy, But that was for an altruistic reason.

375
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: I had to say, Christ told me I never I

376
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: never lied to you. That's great. The point is that

377
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 1: you should never trust anybody, and that's why everyone it's

378
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: one lie. I trust you there, I know. That's what

379
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: makes it so dangerous. I wanted I only lie. It's

380
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: the opposite of gas lighting. I want a god dammit,

381
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: so sad. I don't think that these are bad lies.

382
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: I think that these are very marketing lies. And Morty

383
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: Matt's because he's still alive and he's literally almost a

384
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: hundred years old, he admits in two it's it's too

385
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: old and he's still working, which I'll get. He's currently

386
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: he's currently working on rehabilitating the reputations of some mega

387
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 1: church pastors. That's what he's working on in his twilight years,

388
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 1: meaning he's seven. But he admits in that all of

389
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 1: these origin stories are lies and that it was Morty

390
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,159
Speaker 1: Mattss idea in this early seventies to start whole ding

391
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 1: this contest to drum up some publicity for um, for

392
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: Nathan's hot Dogs, UM. Other things about Morty Matts that

393
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: I would just like you to know is that he's

394
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,880
Speaker 1: almost a hundred He fought in World War Two. He's

395
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: currently still the press agent for the Durst family, so

396
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: he's been a busy man lately. He's at work. Uh

397
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 1: there is just like his career is equally fascinating to me.

398
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: He so he is the reason George Say exists. George

399
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: Shay came up working for this guy who did, like

400
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,959
Speaker 1: George Say, I think a combination of very funny and

401
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: very evil things. Um, some things that are attributed to

402
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: Morty Matt's as sort of innovations for better or worse

403
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: in American pr He's said to have popularized, uh, the

404
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: idea of a purp walk, So like marching a suspect

405
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 1: into police headquarters for people to take pictures of. I

406
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: guess that that was something that he kind of innovated,

407
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: and he would never want any You should not want

408
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: people to know if that's the thing you helped invent.

409
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 1: Well that's the thing about these guys though, they don't care,

410
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: like it's all about impressions. It doesn't matter what the

411
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: impression is as long as it's getting attention. So he

412
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: fully claims, you know, whether it's true or not, that yeah,

413
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: I'm the guy who invented the purp walk. Um, he

414
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: worked with the New York Mob in the sixties. He's

415
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: he invented that Big Nat worked with the Mob. I

416
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: don't have any more information than that. That's just what

417
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: he said. He's worked with he worked a lot. He

418
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: think he's self described Gotti adjacent mob. Is what was said. Um,

419
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: he invented the big National Debt clock. That was I

420
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:54,439
Speaker 1: don't know if it's still there, but it was in

421
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: Times Square for a very long time. He invented that

422
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: with the Durst family. Um. He invented the current route

423
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: of the New York City Marathon so that it would

424
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: go through more areas and get more press. Um. He's

425
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: working with mega church pastors now. Uh. And he created

426
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: the Nathan's Hot Dog Contest. He's done a lot of stuff,

427
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 1: and his legacy is is very all over the place.

428
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 1: And I really am just like, should he still be alive?

429
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. Definitely not. I'm going to answer that one.

430
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, maybe, you know, he should have

431
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: hung up his little hat a long time ago. Uh.

432
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: But but all that to say, he creates this myth

433
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: around Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, and already there's a

434
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: lot of uh. Mythic qualities to the hot dog eating

435
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: or too hot the hot dog industry in general. Um there,

436
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't really fall under the purview of this story.

437
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 1: You'll just have to buy my book next year to

438
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: find out, Robert. But it, I mean, it's very very

439
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: well known that like, the meat packing industry is a

440
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: fucking disaster, um, and that the hot dog isn't an

441
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: American dish. It was brought here by German, Polish and

442
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,120
Speaker 1: Austrian immigrants um as sausages and kind of innovative over

443
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: time by independent carts. The real American quality to hot

444
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: dogs is the industrial era. And the most American thing

445
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: about hot dogs is uh the worker and animal abuse

446
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: that comes with their production. So like, whether it's the

447
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: like I mean to this day, it's like, you know,

448
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: you've got Upton Sinclair reporting on meat packing in the jungle, right,

449
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: and then you've also got uh as recently as last year,

450
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:41,479
Speaker 1: there were um those meat packing scandals after Trump and

451
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: you know sent out that executive order that to say

452
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: that the meat factories must remain open. And so there

453
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: were these huge coronavirus outbreaks at meat packing industries, and

454
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: there were like executives and managers taking bets on how

455
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 1: many workers were going to get coronavirus because of this

456
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: executive order and their own incompetence to protect their own workers.

457
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: Like it's just an absolutely the story of hot Dogs

458
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: is truly the stuff of nightmares. But George Shay's job

459
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: is to make it very American and very appealing and

460
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: very watchable. Right, So George Say starts working under this

461
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: guy Morty Matt's Mr Purp Walk himself, Mr Robert Durst

462
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: best friend um in the nineteen eighties. Okay, so ah,

463
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: George Shape prior to this had been sort of like

464
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: working his way up in this company. He was slowly

465
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: I feel like, I mean, it's we hear this story

466
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: all the time. He was just slowly giving up on

467
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: his dream of becoming an artist in pursuit of becoming

468
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: a very evil person, you know, um, so much like Hitler, right,

469
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: and then the reverse Hitler George W. Bush, Like, there's

470
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: all these failed artists, um who end up doing the

471
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: most funded up thing you could think of, George Say. Fortunately,

472
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: there's been like multiple people who were like, thank god, George,

473
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: she only is interested in hot dogs. Or he really

474
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: could have done some damage because he's truly like a

475
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: very fucked up person. Um. But in the eighties he

476
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: would do all these sorts of things for Morty mats.

477
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: There was one account of him, um, convincing an attractive

478
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: woman to sit on an egg for two weeks and

479
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: claim that she was trying to hatch it. That was

480
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: some pr he did. What was what is that pr for?

481
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: What is that, Robert? I don't know. You gotta know

482
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: who it was for? Right? Was it like an egg

483
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: selling company? What is this? My source there? And I

484
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in learning more, to be perfectly honest, my

485
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: source there is. It's in the thirty for thirty documentary

486
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: where George Say is showing the documentary in around his

487
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: office and says, hey, this is one of my early successes.

488
00:30:57,600 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: And he points to a newspaper clipping that I could

489
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: not find online fucking anywhere of a woman sitting on

490
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: an egg, saying woman sits on an egg for two weeks,

491
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: and he's like, this is one of my early successes.

492
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: Who I assull think he was advertising eggs, but I

493
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: don't know. It was baffling. Okay, great, and that's that's

494
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: that's wonderful. I love this mystery listeners at home find

495
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: out what he was. So another thing he does is

496
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: this is to promote Palisades Park. He puts an elephant

497
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: on water skis. These are the things that he's doing

498
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: to prove himself to Morty Mats, right, and it works.

499
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: And Morty Mats by the late eighties early nineties says, Hey,

500
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: I want to bring you in on the Nathan's hot

501
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: dog eating account. You know, start coming to these contests

502
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: that I've been holding since the nineteen seventies. So this

503
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: is the story that George She tells about how he

504
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: came to take over this contest beginning in nineteen Again, George,

505
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: she is saying it, so it very well could be

506
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: a lie, but this is what he says. Um. He

507
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: says that he first became more intimately interested in after

508
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: noticing that a hot dog eating competitor was cheating during

509
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: the contest. So he went up to his boss, Morty Mats,

510
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: and said, hey, someone is cheating. We should do something

511
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: about this. And then quote big Morty told me to

512
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: go over and get a cop to arrest the guy,

513
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: which I thought was crazy unquote uh. But basically what

514
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: this taught him was it doesn't matter who wins, It

515
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: just matters how much attention it gets the company. And

516
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: it's with this mentality that George Say takes over the

517
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: Nathan's hot Dog Eating account in the first one he

518
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: runs is And by this time Richard Say was slowly

519
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: starting to become involved as well. Uh some things that

520
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: he did throughout the nineties before establishing Major League Eating

521
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: and after Uh, there was this huge scam he did,

522
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: uh where he wrote a scholarly article that he submitted

523
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: to the New England Journal of Medicine called the Belt

524
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: of Fat Theory. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard of

525
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: this from the King of the Hill episode about competitive eating. Yes,

526
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: so that was a real thing. He basically made up

527
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: this complete bullshit lie, submitted it to the New England

528
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine and then, upon being rejected, got a

529
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: ton of press for saying, I can't believe the New

530
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: England Journal of Medicine doesn't think that the belt of

531
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: Fat fat theory is any good to get more people

532
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: to come to the contest, and it worked it like

533
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: it always works. That was fascinating, I mean, and also

534
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: I think I kind of want to lie to the

535
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: New England General in medicine now too, seems like a

536
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: worthwhile thing. What's your lie of choice? I mean you

537
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: said one lie? Does that also to the New England

538
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine, Robert, Yeah, I think I might try

539
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: to get them to believe that Hansen died in a

540
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: bus crash. I think a gout of critical interest. The

541
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: other major thing that he does before founding Major League eating.

542
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 1: The Belt of fact thing came came after, but before that.

543
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 1: The critical innovation that he makes to this contest is

544
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: that he invents a prize, which there wasn't previously. There

545
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: was just a winner and then it's over. There weren't champions,

546
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,800
Speaker 1: it wasn't viewed as a sport. It wasn't people weren't

547
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: supposed to be invested in a year round. It was

548
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 1: just kind of a yearly stunt. Yeah. It sounded like

549
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: a lot more reasonable than what it's become. Yeah, But

550
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: George Shay decided, you know what, I think this is

551
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: going to be a sport. So he invented something called

552
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: the Mustard Belt, which he made with an old belt,

553
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: a bunch of paint from an art store and rhinestones.

554
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: He like made it on the floor of his friend's

555
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: apartment and just brought it to a contest in the

556
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: nineties and said, this is you know, a symbol that

557
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: you're now competing for, which very very quickly, uh, increased

558
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: interest in competing. There's kind of the idea of this

559
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: w w E style belt that you could win for

560
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: UM for for winning the contest. And I would say

561
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:25,399
Speaker 1: that the current Nathan's Contest is equally built on UM

562
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: Japanese competitive eating TV shows and the w w E.

563
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: Because George Shea's wife is a writer for the w

564
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: w E. UM, which is also endlessly interesting to me.

565
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: She produces soap operas and writes for the w w E.

566
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: This is just like the most pageant style family of

567
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: all time. Very fun. Uh. And it's also in the

568
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: nineties that George Say becomes the the m C of

569
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: these events. So, Robert, I made you look at a

570
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: picture of this I listeners, if you haven't seen a

571
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: picture of him, I would google the term George Shay

572
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: hot dog. People lose a bunch of George Says in

573
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: the world. Uh, Robert, how would you just how did

574
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 1: you describe this man Roger Stone dressed as the Riddler?

575
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: If the Riddler came from the Antebellum South, and that's

576
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: also kind of the vibe of his performance as well.

577
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: So his his job of em C, it's all energy,

578
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: it's all very mythic overstatement, and his job is to

579
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: to basically bring on the most normal looking people in

580
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: the entire world and make them sound like they're w

581
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: W E wrestlers, which he's been doing for thirty years now,

582
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: for better or worse, very effectively. But this is how

583
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: George Say describes what he does in he said, uh quote,

584
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: a guy eating a bunch of hot dogs is one thing,

585
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: but a guy in a straw hat pounding the tables

586
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: like an apocalyptic preacher is such a contrast that it

587
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: really drew people in unquote. Um. So he developed this

588
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 1: style of introducing competitors and attributing these very mythic qualities

589
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: to him. So this is from The New Yorker in um,

590
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: he's it says Matt Stoney represents youth. George Say says,

591
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: youth is feral and it is vicious. Joey Chestnut is

592
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: a hero. Uh George Shay says he has God's user

593
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: name and password, which I think is awesome. He's I

594
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: mean some of them are pretty good. UH and Sonya Thomas,

595
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: who calls herself the Black Widow, is a villain. George

596
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: Say says, she is the darkness, driven ever westward by

597
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 1: the rising sun. So it's just look this very dramatic

598
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: performative style. UM so okay. By the late ninety nineties, UH,

599
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: George and Shay Uh founded Major League Eating, which still

600
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: exists to this day. UH Dick kind of stays in

601
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 1: the background, although later on he will begin to work

602
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: as a color commentator on ESPN when they start to

603
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: broadcast them nationally. But we're not there yet. The nineties

604
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: for this, shas are is very kind of scrappy. They

605
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: are starting to start UH contests around the country. Nothing

606
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: really bad has happened yet. They're just trying to get

607
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,959
Speaker 1: this made up sport that they invented to take off,

608
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: and it's sort of working sort of. And I'm not

609
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: sure why, but it does feel like competitive eating is

610
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: one of those things that couldn't really take off until

611
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: we had nine eleven happen. I'm not sure why, but

612
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: I think nine eleven was critical for competitive eating. You're

613
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: almost right, You're almost right. Much like the movie Shrek,

614
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: Competitive eating really takes off about two months before nine

615
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: eleven happened, but it's very very close. It takes off

616
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: in I think that this is actually I think the

617
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: Shrek came out in July two thou one, maybe June,

618
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: and uh competitive eating major League getting really starts to

619
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: take off in two thousand and one for the reason

620
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: I'm about to tell you. Um, but yeah, like the

621
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: Major League Eating, it was like a very scrappy, like

622
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 1: slowly slowly building momentum throughout the nineties and early two thousand's.

623
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: They've got this big goofy logo that has Latin on it,

624
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: and the Latin translates to engrging truth. Um, so it's

625
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: just all like ridiculous. So what they're missing essentially and

626
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,319
Speaker 1: getting this sport that they've inmitted to take off, is

627
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: any sort of champion or person worth rooting for. That

628
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,760
Speaker 1: is like very much what is missing. And so they

629
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: find their first major champion who becomes I think kind

630
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: of huge casualty of George Shay's um villainous tendencies, and

631
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: that is Japanese eating champion to Kara Kobyashi. Do you

632
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: know of to Kara Kobyashi? Robert uh is he who

633
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 1: they named the Kobyashi Maru for I don't know, I

634
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: think we're I don't know what you're talking about. What

635
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: that's fine, that's fine. No, I don't need to explain things.

636
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: Please continue. I very much so. Kobe as he was,

637
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: he was a very very popular figure in America for

638
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: a span of like five to seven years. But um,

639
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: he was. He's a Japanese eating champion who first begins

640
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 1: to compete in America in two thousand and one, and

641
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: so he was invited by Major League Eating to come

642
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,320
Speaker 1: from Japan to compete in America at the Nathan Tatta

643
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: Eating Contest because um, there was already, you know, cultural

644
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: infrastructure for competitive eating on TV and in pop culture

645
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: in Japan, and so there were all of these kind

646
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: of like uh, low budget competitive shows that Kobyashi became

647
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: a minor celebrity in because he was this very um,

648
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: I don't know, he was just really fun to watch.

649
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: He was like twenty three years old, he was really skinny,

650
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: he had a six pack, he had like a signature

651
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: move called the kobe Ashi wiggle. He was just like

652
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: this like sexy heartthrob who girls loved, and he could

653
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: eat so much meat in one sitting, and that was

654
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: his whole thing. Um. But what kind of sent him

655
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: apart in terms of uh, what impressed people about him

656
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: in America was that he trained as if he were

657
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: an athlete, like he had an actual training regimen and

658
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: stayed very lean. Um, And wasn't you know what Americans

659
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: associated competitive eating with, which was just like people gorging themselves,

660
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: like there was strategy involved. So Obooshi comes in two

661
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: thousand and one, uh, and the shaise are very they

662
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: they are always emphasizing his other nous since he gets

663
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: to America, Um, they're emphasizing, oh look at this skinny kid.

664
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: He says he can eat fifty hot dogs. What a liar?

665
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: You know, all this stuff. But Kobyashi comes to America

666
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: and in a single event on the fourth of July

667
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: doubles the record for a number of hot dogs that

668
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: you can eat in at that time twelve minutes. So

669
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: he eats fifty hot dogs in twelve minutes, does a lap,

670
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: a full lap around the closest American and people lose

671
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: their ship and he immediately becomes this kind of huge

672
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: um viral in early two thousand's terms figure in America.

673
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,879
Speaker 1: So the Shades are very quick to say, oh, we've

674
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: got to keep this guy, you know around. This is

675
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 1: the most attention our competition has ever gotten. And they

676
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: encourage Kobo Ashi to keep coming back, which he does

677
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: because now he's becoming an American celebrity, there's access to money,

678
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: he's in like a MasterCard commercial. He becomes, you know,

679
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: a minor American celebrity now, um and what is like

680
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: interesting And this is all laid out in the thirty

681
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 1: thirty documentary which I would highly recommend, called The Good,

682
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 1: The Bad, the Hungry UM is that from the very

683
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: very beginning, the Shades were always rooting for and against

684
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: Kobe Ashi. They were saying, well, this guy can eat

685
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: more hot dogs than anyone else, but what if an

686
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: American could do that? And they were always kind of

687
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:47,720
Speaker 1: trying to um stoke the very American tendency to dislike

688
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: people who are not American UM. And so Kobe Ashi

689
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 1: was not really hyper aware of this at the time

690
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: because he became and American celebrities so quickly that he

691
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to be you know, in

692
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: New York for a weekend in two thousand and one,

693
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: not you know, not in September, but he was just

694
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: going to go, you know, to America for a couple

695
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: of days, so he didn't speak English fluently, and he

696
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,439
Speaker 1: didn't really understand for a while how he was being

697
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: talked about right in front of him, even though I

698
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of footage of it, and it's

699
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: um pretty unsettling, and over time he starts to realize

700
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: kind of, um, what is going on. But he becomes

701
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: a celebrity and he wins the contest in the US

702
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: for the next six years. He wins every single year

703
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one to two thousand and six.

704
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: There's no real American competitor that can touch him, and uh,

705
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 1: the Shase kind of continue this process of building him

706
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: up so that they can keep their operation, you know, popular,

707
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: but also constantly saying, let's get an American in here.

708
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: They were very very much seeking out an American champion.

709
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: Which brings us to two thousand and seven, Uh, where

710
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: Major League Eatings first viable rivalry comes out and the

711
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: Shaise are fucking all over it. And guess who comes

712
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: into the picture at this point, Robert, guess who it is.

713
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: It's Joseph Chestnut. Baby. Uh, he is and he's exactly

714
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,399
Speaker 1: who they're looking for. He is a random white guy

715
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: from San Diego whose dad's name is Merlin. He is

716
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: like the champion that they're looking for him. And so

717
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: this is extremely bad news for for Kobe Ashi, who

718
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: at this point has a lot of American cultural clout.

719
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: But the second that there's an American rival for him,

720
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: the Shades are very very clearly switching their allegiance, and

721
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 1: they're doing this through promotional materials. They're doing this through

722
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: the press, and all of a sudden, Kobe Ashi is

723
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: being villainized in the press instead of lifted up as

724
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: kind of the only hero of this sport. Um. What

725
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:06,240
Speaker 1: is especially frustrating about that is that Joseph Chestnut only

726
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 1: became a competitive eater because he was a huge fan

727
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: of Kobe Ashi. Like literally every UH current American eating

728
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:20,399
Speaker 1: champion started because they watched Kobe Ashi on TV when

729
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 1: they were kids. Because he was this just huge figure. Um.

730
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: He could do things that no one else could do.

731
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: He trained, you know, he was very artful in the

732
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: way he ate. And so Joey says that he saw

733
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 1: Kobi Ashi on Terrible UH Spiked TV broadcast, which again

734
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 1: the Shades are getting all sorts of money off of

735
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 1: this because they signed koby Ashi two major league eating

736
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: he's not allowed to work for anyone else, and they

737
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: start to kind of like license his appearances out, so

738
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: they're making a ton of money off of his success.

739
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: And when Joey is a teenager, he sees koby Ashi

740
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: on American TV losing a hot dog eating contest to

741
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: a grizzly air. What what what this is on TV? Robert?

742
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: He watch there is on Spike TV. Kobyash, I mean

743
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: the list of a TV how to do that to

744
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear. That can't be good for them. Look,

745
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: I don't know that means it shouldn't be legal to

746
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: do to to Karrol kobe Ashi, I mean they but

747
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 1: it's and it's interesting to listen to. Kobe Ashi talked

748
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: about his views on American culture and how that changed

749
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: over time, because he, I mean, it was just the

750
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: chaise were very much escalating the second there was interest

751
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: in the sport. They were like, Okay, Kobyashi can eat

752
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: fifty hot ducks. Okay, what can we get him to

753
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,320
Speaker 1: do on TV? We're gonna get him to compete against

754
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 1: a Grizzly Bear. We're gonna have him eat cow brands

755
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: against a bunch of American weirdos, Like they had him

756
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: doing all of this stuff, and he's in a contract

757
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 1: that is mutually beneficial, like he's making a lot of money,

758
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,839
Speaker 1: but he can only do what they say he can do,

759
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: which becomes a big problem later on. But Joey seems

760
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: kind like it started as a big problem. I would

761
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 1: argue everything you've described as a problem, it is. It's

762
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,359
Speaker 1: a huge problem, and it's and it's one of those things.

763
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the podcasting industry in that there's

764
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: just no that. I have no notes, and I'm so

765
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: grateful that it exists, but there's no there's no precedent

766
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: for it, you know, like there there was never a

767
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: major league eating contract. Uh. People, you know, they're they're

768
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: marketing it as a sport, but people who are in

769
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: sports don't think it's a sport. So it just kind

770
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: of becomes this weird novelty thing that if you are

771
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: the person in power and making these contracts and there's

772
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: a significant language barrier between you and your champion, you

773
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: can fux someone over pretty heavily, which is what they

774
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: do over time to Kara Koby Ashi. Um So Joey.

775
00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: Joey sees Kobe ashily lose to a grizzly bear and says,

776
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: I want to be a bear baby. He said, all right, Merlin,

777
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 1: get in the car. We're gonna start eating asparagus. And

778
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: that's what Joey does. I mean, Joey like is so

779
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 1: inspired that he decides he wants to be an eating champion.

780
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: And while he's in college in San Diego, he starts

781
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: training with his mom and he wins a local asparagus

782
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 1: eating contest, and slowly it becomes clear, as he's competing

783
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 1: in more and more, you know, increasingly prestigious eating events,

784
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 1: that he might be an actual threat to Kobe Ashi.

785
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: So when the Chaise get wind of this, they see

786
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut, who is really the most whatever guy. I mean,

787
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: I I love him dearly, but he's just some guy, right,

788
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: and they but he can eat a lot of hot dogs,

789
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, this is the American champion that

790
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: we want. Let's push this rivalry as much as we

791
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: possibly can. And so by two thousand and seven, Um,

792
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: there is an established rivalry between Joey and kobe Ashi,

793
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: and they're pushing it. And at this point, beginning in

794
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,760
Speaker 1: two thousand three, off of kobe Ashi's popularity in the US,

795
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 1: ESPN begins broadcasting this event every year. It's been on

796
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 1: ESPN every single year since two thousand and three. Um,

797
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 1: they split it by gender, in which I'll get to

798
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: because there's no reason to do it and it's fucked up.

799
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: But they broadcast the men's competition on ESPN and they

800
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: broadcast the women's competition on ESPN three because um, well

801
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: you know. But anyways, it as of two thousand seven,

802
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: all genders compete in the same contest. So the big

803
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: three competitors in this contest that the Shades are pushing

804
00:50:54,920 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: or Kobe Ashi, Joey Chestnut, and Uh Sonja Black Widow

805
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: Thomas and uh Joey beats Kobe Ashi. And this is

806
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 1: a huge turning point in the sport, but only because

807
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: it very much changes the way that the Shas approach

808
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: UM marketing. There now two champions, so kobe Ashi um

809
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: doesn't quite understand this at first. He was at first

810
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 1: like kind of excited to have someone to compete against

811
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: because it was I guess kind of like bor like

812
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 1: they had to keep pitting him against animals because no

813
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:37,320
Speaker 1: one could compete with him. But now all of a sudden,

814
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: well there's this guy he can actually compete with, and

815
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:41,720
Speaker 1: he was kind of excited about it, only to find

816
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:47,320
Speaker 1: that very very quickly, the tide changed at the Shais,

817
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,720
Speaker 1: you know, encouragement to being as racist to Koby Ashi

818
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: as you could possibly be in service of Joey Chestnut

819
00:51:55,600 --> 00:52:00,920
Speaker 1: becoming the American champion. Um So Joey win ends in

820
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: oh seven uh, and immediately the crowd turns on Kobe

821
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 1: Ashi and the Shades are encouraging it. They're saying all

822
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: sorts of um. I don't want to say what they

823
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: were saying. It was very racist and immediate. And they're

824
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 1: draped in American flags, shouting USA, USA to Joey Chestnut

825
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: and kind of in and right, and it's like, in

826
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: a single moment, you know, Joey is like changed from

827
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 1: some guy from San Diego into a symbol that is

828
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: very much not within his own control, and the Shades

829
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: are in control of that symbol. And so you know,

830
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: after two thousand seven, Kobe Ashi is the other, the

831
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 1: extremely other non American enemy, and Joey is the American champion.

832
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: Right UM's thoughts. Yeah, I mean it's it makes it

833
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: makes sense. But like they would abandon the guy who

834
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: had made them all of this money as soon as

835
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 1: there was a chance at having an American and and

836
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 1: like use him cruelly because it seems like that's exactly

837
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: the kind of people they are. M. I don't know,

838
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: it's it's it's wild. The competitive eating sounds more or

839
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: less exactly like the w W E. M. Yeah, sure,

840
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: there we go. But you know what isn't unethical to

841
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: its workers? Oh no, the podcasting industry, uh huh, for sure.

842
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: And you know what that's supported by. Oh okay, I

843
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: was like, where is this going? These these products and

844
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:56,879
Speaker 1: services exactly? God bless product USA. USA. We're back. And look,

845
00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:59,320
Speaker 1: I lied a little bit. There's a lot of unethical

846
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 1: stuff in the pod casting industry. For example, sometimes Sophie

847
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,200
Speaker 1: ASTs me to get up as early as eleven thirty. Okay,

848
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: that's first of all, violence against Roberts. And second of all,

849
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: we just found out a few minutes ago that you

850
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 1: are a liar. So what's what is an example of

851
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: a lie that you've told me? No one lie. Everybody

852
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,719
Speaker 1: gets who was my lie of the daddy thing or

853
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 1: is it a different lie? No? No, that was for

854
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 1: a utilitarian purpose. I had to do that for everyone's say,

855
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: categorizing your lives like that. That's bullshit. It's called categorizing

856
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:38,959
Speaker 1: and I do it all the time. Does my lie

857
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: have anything to do with Anderson? I can't say so.

858
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,239
Speaker 1: I think I know what it is, and I'm furious.

859
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 1: I can't say, Wow, what, okay? Do I want to know?

860
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 1: Everyone gets one, including the listeners of this show. You know,

861
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 1: everybody gets one? What's the lie? Robert Low's one of

862
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: you lie? I know, but that's the lie he loves.

863
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:14,400
Speaker 1: Statistically speaking, but that's the lie. That's okay, So curious.

864
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:18,800
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and seven, you guys. Joey is the

865
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:22,799
Speaker 1: champion now and everyone is. The Tide is very much

866
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:28,399
Speaker 1: turned on Kobe Ashi and George Say being himself, being

867
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:33,960
Speaker 1: his straw hat and villain. UH is very um upfront

868
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: about what he was trying to do here. He says

869
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: this in the documentary. In Uh, he says, I have

870
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: always used pro American rhetoric, and the belt is a

871
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: national prize from the day the belt was made. Reminder,

872
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: the belt was made by him in a living room

873
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 1: out of cardboard. Uh, he says, quote, you think I

874
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 1: want Kobe Ashi to win six years in a row?

875
00:55:56,719 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: Necessarily if he wins, he wins. But that's not grey

876
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: for the narrative. You need to understand that there's an

877
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 1: American hero, and you can be a hero in the

878
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,319
Speaker 1: same exact way, but you can't be an American hero

879
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:13,760
Speaker 1: because you weren't American. Unquote. So that he's very very clear. Okay,

880
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: He's like, hello, I am racist about my weird cardboard

881
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: belt that I made. Um, and this is where I

882
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: mean it genuinely like it. It's uh, it's difficult to

883
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: watch and learn about because this like for sometime, I

884
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: mean he's fine now, but like this like really destroyed

885
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 1: Kobyage's life for some time. Where um, you know, he

886
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: describes being completely shocked and scared at how the American

887
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: public very rapidly turned on him once Joey Chestnut became

888
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:53,720
Speaker 1: the champion. Um, he said, quote, I didn't understand American culture,

889
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:57,800
Speaker 1: so it's scared me and George say, you know, this

890
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 1: guy who is contracting him and is in complete control

891
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 1: of his finances, is going on live television and mocking

892
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:10,560
Speaker 1: him to his face, you know. After immediately after Kobyashi loses,

893
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 1: George Say gets on stage and his little outfit and says,

894
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:17,040
Speaker 1: the dark days of the last six years are behind

895
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: us of his own champion, and you know, raises Joey

896
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: Chestnuts fist in the air. And Joey's role in this

897
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: is um insidious and passive, where in all of the interviews,

898
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:34,959
Speaker 1: Joey is very aware of what's going on. He knows

899
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: that he's being you know, raised as this champion, and

900
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:40,440
Speaker 1: he knows that Kobyashi is being mistreated, but he doesn't

901
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 1: stand to benefit from saying anything, and so he doesn't. UM.

902
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:48,000
Speaker 1: And it's clear and kind of clips that you can

903
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:51,440
Speaker 1: find that, UM, the Say brothers and and George in

904
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: particular are very much trying to control uh Joey Chestnuts behavior.

905
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 1: You can see in a series of promotional clips that

906
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 1: UM they'll ask Joey a simple question of like, well,

907
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 1: how does it feel to beat kobey Ashi? You know,

908
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: and Joey is, UM, he's a simple man. You know,

909
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 1: He'll he'll say things like it felt good, you know,

910
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: like and then you know, George she will be off

911
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:23,000
Speaker 1: camera offering him mythic punch up um to to what

912
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:25,680
Speaker 1: Joey said, to make it sound meaner and to make

913
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 1: it sound more you know, jingoistic and all of this stuff. Um,

914
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 1: there's this incredibly funked up clip uh where George say,

915
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he's filming uh promotional clip uh talking

916
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 1: about the day that Joey Chesnut defeated Kobe Ashi and

917
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: he says, um, in this very I don't know, He's like,

918
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: you know, the bullshit is at eleven and he says,

919
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 1: after that event, I went back to my room and

920
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 1: I wept. I silently wept because something was lost. We

921
00:58:57,440 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 1: had a hero and our hero was no longer invulnar

922
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: double and I wept. And then there you are. These

923
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 1: people are eating too much food, Like stop it, stop

924
00:59:08,280 --> 00:59:11,439
Speaker 1: taking it so seriously, stop being like this. Well he's

925
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: lying though, because it's like right after you know, he

926
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: says and I wept, there's a pause. He thinks the

927
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: camera has cut, and then he starts laughing because he's

928
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 1: making it all up. He's doing it to humiliate Kobayashi

929
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 1: and elevate Joey Chestnut because he doesn't give a ship

930
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: and he just wants people to to watch the fucking

931
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: broadcast like he does it. It is like a level

932
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:39,080
Speaker 1: of I'm I'm certain that he's a jingoistic, racist person,

933
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 1: but there's there's like a level of lawlessness here that really,

934
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: um uniquely unsettles me, where it's like it's kind of

935
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 1: hard to know what he thinks about anything because he'll

936
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: just say whatever he needs to say to get attention.

937
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 1: Like it's his views could be anything. It's UM, I

938
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: don't love it so UM. After this, Kobayashi becomes understandably

939
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: frustrated with Major League eating. UM. He loses his mother, um,

940
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: which also kind of makes him want to be closer

941
01:00:17,080 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: to home. He doesn't want to be in the US

942
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 1: so much anymore. Uh. He's also being actively mistreated by

943
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: people in the US. People are like cornering him on

944
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: the streets of New York and screaming USA in his space,

945
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 1: and he's saying, like I felt unwelcome. I was shocked.

946
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: They used to cheer for me, and I started to

947
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 1: feel like I wasn't welcome in America anymore. UM. So

948
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: he wants out, you know, he's he's not being treated

949
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: well in this contract. There's been this w W E

950
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 1: style he'll turn that he has not consented to and

951
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 1: people are treating him like shit. And so uh, he

952
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: competes against Joey for a couple more years. Uh. It's

953
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 1: on and off. I believe, I've that Joey is edging

954
01:01:01,400 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: him out most of the time. I do believe that

955
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: koby Ashi wins against him at least once in that

956
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: stretch of years. Um. But by he's done and Kobe

957
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 1: Ashi tells George say, I'm not competing in the competition

958
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: this year. I'm I'm I'm done. Uh. And this was

959
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 1: partially because George she would not release him from his

960
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:26,320
Speaker 1: contract because all of Major League eating was so dependent

961
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: on this rivalry. Specifically, he didn't want to let koby

962
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:32,960
Speaker 1: Ashi out. He just wanted to keep calling him a

963
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: piece of ship on live television and saying racist things

964
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: and having that be how Kobyashi made his living. So

965
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 1: he says, I'm not going to do it anymore. And

966
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: at contest there is a big dramatic event uh where

967
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:53,200
Speaker 1: koby Ashi refuses to compete but does go to the

968
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 1: contest uh wearing a T shirt that says free Kobe

969
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: and basically start to this chant in the crowd among

970
01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: Kobe y Ashi supporters, and this is all on ESPN,

971
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 1: like you can watch the whole thing. Joey is in

972
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:12,920
Speaker 1: the middle of competing against no real viable competitor at

973
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 1: this time except for the Black Widow, and Um, Kobe

974
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 1: is in the crowd wearing a free Kobe shirt. I

975
01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: really want a free Kobe shirt. Um. I think our

976
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 1: listeners can find that for you. There's somebody who here

977
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: listening who is deep into eater culture, and it's going

978
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: to be now yelling at me that eaters are what

979
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,320
Speaker 1: you call people who are part of the weird fetish

980
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: community and not appropriate as a term for these athletes.

981
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: And they're very angry right now. They're shrieking at me

982
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:45,800
Speaker 1: through their headphones in the middle of a trader. Joe's

983
01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 1: I hope I'm getting this right to whoever that listener is,

984
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 1: because it's it's a lot to take in. What's fun

985
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 1: about stuff like this, Jamie's, no matter how much research

986
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: you do, we're wrong in a specific enough way that

987
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 1: somebody is literally shifting on the floor of a trader.

988
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 1: Joe's having a stroke in fury because you've gotten a

989
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: fact wrong about Kobe Yashi's early practicing career, some ship.

990
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 1: It's going to be for this going to be great

991
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: insight into your life. My listeners are very nice. Okay,

992
01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: um he's wearing so he's wearing a shirt. This is

993
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 1: free Kobe. He starts a chancing let him eat, Let

994
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: him eat, and Kobe Ashi is like, I mean, he

995
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 1: is a showman at heart. He can eat a lot

996
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 1: of fucking hot dogs. But he's again no offense to

997
01:03:32,520 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 1: my husband Joey, but he's got the showman personality and

998
01:03:35,960 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 1: the technique that Joey Chestnut has never had. Joey Chestnut

999
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:41,680
Speaker 1: is an awkward guy who could eat seventy six hot dogs.

1000
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 1: That's basically what he can do. Kobe Ashi has like

1001
01:03:45,880 --> 01:03:48,080
Speaker 1: an air about him. He's very exciting to watch. And

1002
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 1: so what he does is storm the stage after the

1003
01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 1: contest ends, saying I want to shake Joey's hand. That's

1004
01:03:56,760 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 1: all he says. What George Shay identifies is an opportunity

1005
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: that goes back to him being at that contest saying

1006
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. What the right thing to do is

1007
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: have him arrested and people will watch that, and so

1008
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: George say it is said, there's no proof that George

1009
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: say ordered this, but it stands to reason, George Say,

1010
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 1: tell security arrest Kobe Ashi on live television, and that's

1011
01:04:23,400 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 1: what happened. He was dragged off the stage, he was

1012
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:30,880
Speaker 1: slammed into and he was arrested on live television, and

1013
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Yeah, the chanch. Couldn't people just watch

1014
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 1: fucking people other dudes eat too much? Like why does

1015
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 1: all of this nonsense have to happen? It was, It

1016
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 1: wouldn't be on ESPN if it was just guys eating too.

1017
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:50,720
Speaker 1: I mean it it is absurd, like how far they're

1018
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: willing to go, and it is also absurd how effective

1019
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:56,880
Speaker 1: it is because this was a huge story, like when

1020
01:04:57,040 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 1: Kobe Ashi was arrested at the contest that he won

1021
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 1: six previous times at the contest that he had popularized

1022
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:08,200
Speaker 1: in the first place, and they fucking arrested him like

1023
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 1: it was just it was It's I'm very deep into this,

1024
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:16,400
Speaker 1: but it is very compelling footage to watch. And again,

1025
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: George Say, years later, is very upfront about what he

1026
01:05:20,880 --> 01:05:23,920
Speaker 1: was trying to do. He says this last year, he says, uh,

1027
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:27,920
Speaker 1: when Kobyashi stormed the stage, it was phenomenal, unfortunate in

1028
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:31,280
Speaker 1: so many ways, but phenomenal for press. That's how it

1029
01:05:31,400 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 1: grew and grew. It was always about the free media.

1030
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:37,240
Speaker 1: This year we had something like forty billion consumer impressions,

1031
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:41,680
Speaker 1: just a massive number and huge value. And so again

1032
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 1: it's just he doesn't care, Like it's whatever the thing

1033
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 1: is that's going to get attention is the thing he

1034
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:52,560
Speaker 1: will do. And in this moment, it was arrest Kobe Yashi,

1035
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: which is you know it, Yeah, how do you feel

1036
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: about that? I I think they've overcomplicated watching people kill

1037
01:06:07,400 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 1: their hearts through processed meat. And I'm I'm livid, Jamie.

1038
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 1: I'm the angriest I've ever been. Good good. I was

1039
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:16,680
Speaker 1: hoping that this story I would get you there because

1040
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:19,439
Speaker 1: it is a very it's so I mean, and it's

1041
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:24,280
Speaker 1: so like specifically American in the ways that it's infuriating

1042
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 1: because it's all just like weird pr and eating things

1043
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: that are bad for you, Like it's so ridiculous. Um,

1044
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 1: it's already it was never going to be a good

1045
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:40,360
Speaker 1: thing because it's it's bad to eat seventies six hot dogs,

1046
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:42,360
Speaker 1: like it's not a good thing to do. Watch for

1047
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:45,320
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. Be careful, be careful. But but

1048
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: they've just made it so unpleasant for no reason, and

1049
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 1: I am I'm livid. Do you understand now, though, why

1050
01:06:53,240 --> 01:06:55,960
Speaker 1: people say that it's good that George Shay only applies

1051
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:58,560
Speaker 1: this skill of evil to hot dogs, because imagine this

1052
01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 1: somewhere else it was. Yes, I am glad that he

1053
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:07,000
Speaker 1: stayed out of politics. Um. I guess people like him

1054
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:09,920
Speaker 1: are going to do damage somewhere, and maybe siloing off

1055
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:13,360
Speaker 1: to them to the competitive eating community is better than

1056
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:17,600
Speaker 1: some things. But I mean, the main person who's screwed

1057
01:07:17,640 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 1: here is Kobe Ashi, who I just I love Kobe

1058
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:29,400
Speaker 1: Free Kobe Uh. He's devastated by this happening, obviously, he says,

1059
01:07:30,320 --> 01:07:32,040
Speaker 1: I thought the U S was a place where people

1060
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:35,160
Speaker 1: would be recognized as an American hero because of their achievements.

1061
01:07:35,640 --> 01:07:37,800
Speaker 1: And I thought that where you came from and what

1062
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:40,960
Speaker 1: race you are had nothing to do with it. Um.

1063
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 1: And Joey Chestnut said in response to this entire event,

1064
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:50,280
Speaker 1: maybe I lack a little empathy because Joey chest I

1065
01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:54,240
Speaker 1: mean this, he's not the bastard on the chopping block here,

1066
01:07:54,320 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: but he you know, he doesn't say anything. He doesn't

1067
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 1: say anything in Kobe Ashi's defense, and in spite of

1068
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:02,640
Speaker 1: the fact that kobe Ash she's the only reason that

1069
01:08:02,720 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: he's even doing what he's doing. He very much goes

1070
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 1: with the flow with the Shade Brothers um every single time.

1071
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: So okay um. So that's kind of the extent of

1072
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:19,639
Speaker 1: the men's contest to this day. I mean, ever since

1073
01:08:19,720 --> 01:08:23,200
Speaker 1: kobe As she left the sport, Joey has lost one time,

1074
01:08:23,280 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 1: and I will tell you why now. It's very funny. Uh.

1075
01:08:27,640 --> 01:08:31,639
Speaker 1: After Kobyash, she's gone. Joey Chestnut like to this day

1076
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:34,120
Speaker 1: is the face of the company. The chaise love him.

1077
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:37,360
Speaker 1: He plays ball with fucking whatever. He makes you know,

1078
01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 1: like two to three thousand dollars a year. Competitive eating.

1079
01:08:42,040 --> 01:08:47,160
Speaker 1: He's got a vanity mustard line. He loses once, and

1080
01:08:47,280 --> 01:08:51,760
Speaker 1: it is very funny. He proposed to his then girlfriend

1081
01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:55,599
Speaker 1: on stage immediately before eating seventy hot dogs. She says yes,

1082
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:58,680
Speaker 1: it's all and we're all like woo, who you know?

1083
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:04,200
Speaker 1: And George facilitates the proposal. It's all very weird in

1084
01:09:04,280 --> 01:09:09,560
Speaker 1: corporate joy that shows up to the event and you

1085
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 1: find out through a series of very funny ESPN color

1086
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 1: commentary that the wedding was called off and she dumped him. Uh,

1087
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 1: it's good for you, honey. She was. She was said

1088
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:31,040
Speaker 1: to have been his trainer. You gotta wash that man

1089
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:35,719
Speaker 1: right out of your hair. And Joey is so upset

1090
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 1: that he was dumped that he loses to my other

1091
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:42,679
Speaker 1: hot dog eating crash, Matt Stoney, who's a very popular

1092
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:47,519
Speaker 1: YouTuber who's objectively just a very good looking person. Um.

1093
01:09:47,720 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 1: But he loses to Matt Stoney and then does that

1094
01:09:54,560 --> 01:09:59,040
Speaker 1: thing that scary people do sometimes, that he was so

1095
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:03,960
Speaker 1: upset that he lost to Matt Stoney, you know, the

1096
01:10:04,080 --> 01:10:08,960
Speaker 1: competitor associated with youth, that he spends the next year

1097
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 1: getting absurdly good at eating hot dogs, and then comes

1098
01:10:13,400 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 1: back the next year and has been undefeated since. And

1099
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:20,880
Speaker 1: he has a new girlfriend now, um, which I'm assuming

1100
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,320
Speaker 1: he balanced, you know, he balances in his marriage with me.

1101
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:25,640
Speaker 1: She says, he smells like too much meat, but they

1102
01:10:25,680 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 1: seem to love each other. I don't know. I ordered

1103
01:10:29,000 --> 01:10:33,679
Speaker 1: some of his mustard. It's not my business. Quick word,

1104
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,439
Speaker 1: Why are you enabling this? Is what I is what

1105
01:10:36,560 --> 01:10:37,920
Speaker 1: I want to know, because you may be a kind

1106
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:40,519
Speaker 1: of the bastard here yourself. Why why are you enabling this?

1107
01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:45,240
Speaker 1: This marble industry? Why am I enabling the hot dog industry. Well,

1108
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 1: uh no, no, not the hot dog industry, the competitive

1109
01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:50,840
Speaker 1: eating industry. I'm fine with the hot dog industry. Well,

1110
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:54,280
Speaker 1: there's there's so much about the competitive eating industry I

1111
01:10:54,400 --> 01:10:56,760
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to cover here because it doesn't pertain to George. Say,

1112
01:10:56,840 --> 01:10:59,559
Speaker 1: for example, so many people in the hot dog eating

1113
01:10:59,760 --> 01:11:03,640
Speaker 1: can unity are fucking each other. It's fascinating. I mean,

1114
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:08,240
Speaker 1: you would have to you would have to just suck

1115
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:11,040
Speaker 1: other hot dog people because the mead smell is going

1116
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:13,600
Speaker 1: to be a problem for anyone else. Robert literally, So

1117
01:11:13,720 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 1: I went to the contest this year. The current women's

1118
01:11:17,080 --> 01:11:20,200
Speaker 1: champion could not compete because she was eight months pregnant

1119
01:11:20,360 --> 01:11:23,880
Speaker 1: with another hot dog eaters baby. Like it, This ship

1120
01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 1: goes deep. It is a fascinating subculture, and I can't

1121
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 1: let it go. They're just very folks doing the worst

1122
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 1: thing they can think of a lot of money. The

1123
01:11:35,400 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 1: worst things I can think of, yourself is this entire sports.

1124
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:41,559
Speaker 1: It takes a lot for me to be like, well,

1125
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:46,080
Speaker 1: I guess football doesn't sound so bad anymore, but a

1126
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 1: cte here and there, I still think. I mean, if

1127
01:11:50,479 --> 01:11:52,600
Speaker 1: you watch clips, which I know you're not going to

1128
01:11:52,960 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 1: Kobe she really uh it peaked with the kobe Ashi

1129
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,680
Speaker 1: Um chest Uh competitions like take the Shase out of It.

1130
01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: Their competitions were very exciting when they were pure and

1131
01:12:07,479 --> 01:12:09,760
Speaker 1: it was just like two guys trying to see who

1132
01:12:09,800 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 1: can eat the most meat. It's very fun to watch.

1133
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:16,519
Speaker 1: Their techniques are very different there whatever, Okay, I have

1134
01:12:16,640 --> 01:12:18,920
Speaker 1: to tell you one more thing about George say and

1135
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:22,760
Speaker 1: it uh it pertains to how he doesn't like women either.

1136
01:12:23,280 --> 01:12:29,040
Speaker 1: So uh, there is a champion who is a woman

1137
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:33,280
Speaker 1: for some time in this same era of Kobe Ashi

1138
01:12:33,360 --> 01:12:38,639
Speaker 1: and Joey Chestnut. Uh. She her name is Sonya Thomas Um.

1139
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:44,800
Speaker 1: She's she's really cool. I'll uh. She basically they She

1140
01:12:45,040 --> 01:12:47,840
Speaker 1: also came into the sport after seeing kobey Ashi on

1141
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:51,519
Speaker 1: tv UM. She's a naturalized US citizen. She came from

1142
01:12:51,560 --> 01:12:55,160
Speaker 1: South Korea. She managed a Burger King at Andrews Air

1143
01:12:55,240 --> 01:12:57,680
Speaker 1: Force Base in Maryland and was like, I can eat

1144
01:12:57,680 --> 01:12:59,519
Speaker 1: a lot of burger king. Let me see if I

1145
01:12:59,560 --> 01:13:01,479
Speaker 1: can eat a lot of hot dogs. And she got

1146
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:04,360
Speaker 1: really fucking good edd eating a lot of hot dogs.

1147
01:13:04,439 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 1: And she was consistently the second and third place in

1148
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:12,800
Speaker 1: an all genders competition for years, but in the Chaise

1149
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:16,880
Speaker 1: decided that they wanted to separate the contest by gender.

1150
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:20,080
Speaker 1: There was no reason given for why this was um

1151
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:24,320
Speaker 1: other than just misogyny, because every other competitive eating contest

1152
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:26,719
Speaker 1: in the country at that time was not separated by gender,

1153
01:13:26,800 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: because there was no reason to do that. Yeah, there's

1154
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:32,519
Speaker 1: why would why would you ever think that's necessary. Stomachs

1155
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:36,080
Speaker 1: is stomachs. And Sonya Thomas, I mean there was a

1156
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,679
Speaker 1: huge like she had this real kind of like run

1157
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:41,880
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands of like she was beating

1158
01:13:41,960 --> 01:13:44,920
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut all the time, and she was beating Kobayashi

1159
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:48,879
Speaker 1: and like it she's kind of erased from the main narrative,

1160
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,760
Speaker 1: but she was a huge competitor who was just like

1161
01:13:53,080 --> 01:13:57,960
Speaker 1: very fun and like she loved the backstreet boys and

1162
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 1: the carpenters and she worked at Burger King. Like she

1163
01:14:02,160 --> 01:14:04,360
Speaker 1: was just America is not ready for a woman who

1164
01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 1: can eat a lot of hot dogs. We're twenty years

1165
01:14:07,080 --> 01:14:10,040
Speaker 1: away from being able to accept that fully. Clearly not.

1166
01:14:10,240 --> 01:14:12,320
Speaker 1: Because it was like all the press around her was

1167
01:14:13,080 --> 01:14:16,680
Speaker 1: very misogynist, Like in every piece written about her she

1168
01:14:17,040 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 1: was it was written about like she had an eating disorder,

1169
01:14:20,160 --> 01:14:24,799
Speaker 1: as if every hot dog conson. Literally the entire sport

1170
01:14:24,920 --> 01:14:28,840
Speaker 1: is an eating disorder. People like all of them have one. Yeah,

1171
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:34,080
Speaker 1: it is a professional eating disorder. Seventies six hot dogs.

1172
01:14:34,360 --> 01:14:39,479
Speaker 1: That isn't eating disorder. This I mean she's she's still around.

1173
01:14:39,520 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: She stopped competing after a while, but she's I mean,

1174
01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 1: she is very petite. She the first time she won,

1175
01:14:46,640 --> 01:14:50,200
Speaker 1: she weighed ninety nine pounds and eight thirty seven hot dogs.

1176
01:14:50,240 --> 01:14:53,559
Speaker 1: Like she's, she's very petite. That is a significant amount

1177
01:14:53,600 --> 01:14:58,599
Speaker 1: of her body weight. It is quite like, I think

1178
01:14:58,640 --> 01:15:01,000
Speaker 1: it's more impressive that she than she can do that

1179
01:15:01,240 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 1: than Joey or kobe A. She can do fucking anything,

1180
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:09,280
Speaker 1: but whatever. Like So, beginning in the Shaise decide, actually

1181
01:15:10,160 --> 01:15:13,080
Speaker 1: we you know, and this is after Kobya's departure from

1182
01:15:13,080 --> 01:15:16,400
Speaker 1: the sport, we want to separate men and women. They

1183
01:15:16,439 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: give no reason, um, and they immediately move the women's

1184
01:15:21,240 --> 01:15:24,800
Speaker 1: competition to ESPN three, where no one will ever see it.

1185
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:28,680
Speaker 1: They change the belt from a mustard belt to like

1186
01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:33,599
Speaker 1: this pink pussy shaped thing, and they cut the prize

1187
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:39,080
Speaker 1: money by seventy So that you are a woman who

1188
01:15:39,240 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 1: can eat the most hot dogs, which Sonya Thomas always was,

1189
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:46,840
Speaker 1: you would only get two thousand, five hundred dollars as

1190
01:15:46,880 --> 01:15:48,920
Speaker 1: opposed to the ten thousand you get if you win

1191
01:15:49,080 --> 01:15:53,080
Speaker 1: the main contest on ESPN U. The Shas put a

1192
01:15:53,120 --> 01:15:56,360
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on Sonya Thomas to endorse this decision

1193
01:15:56,920 --> 01:15:59,640
Speaker 1: um and sort of posited as a good thing. And

1194
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:02,640
Speaker 1: she made the point at the time saying, you know,

1195
01:16:02,760 --> 01:16:04,640
Speaker 1: maybe this will be good, maybe more women will get

1196
01:16:04,680 --> 01:16:07,719
Speaker 1: involved in the sport. This is fine. I don't feel

1197
01:16:07,760 --> 01:16:13,120
Speaker 1: the need to ask for more money. Um. And but

1198
01:16:13,479 --> 01:16:17,160
Speaker 1: you know it, it blows up in her face. You know.

1199
01:16:17,240 --> 01:16:20,160
Speaker 1: The women's contest to this day is still broadcast on

1200
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:25,599
Speaker 1: ESPN three. The the amount of money is um still.

1201
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:27,679
Speaker 1: I mean there's still a lot of disparity in terms

1202
01:16:27,760 --> 01:16:30,760
Speaker 1: of Joey Chestnut makes a hell of a lot more

1203
01:16:30,800 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 1: money than the current women's champion, Mickey Pseudo, who was

1204
01:16:35,320 --> 01:16:38,479
Speaker 1: pregnant with I can't emphasize it enough another hot dog

1205
01:16:38,560 --> 01:16:44,479
Speaker 1: years baby. Um. And they still give women a pink

1206
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:47,760
Speaker 1: pepto bismol belt instead of the mustard belt. And this

1207
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:51,960
Speaker 1: year build the Blasio gave the women's belt away. So

1208
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:59,200
Speaker 1: it was insulted all around. So that is the story

1209
01:17:00,320 --> 01:17:05,439
Speaker 1: of George Say. He is still m seeing the contest.

1210
01:17:05,520 --> 01:17:08,280
Speaker 1: To this day, he's still uplifting Joey Chestnut as the

1211
01:17:08,360 --> 01:17:14,160
Speaker 1: one true champion. Uh. Fortunately, with time, there are you know,

1212
01:17:14,280 --> 01:17:18,640
Speaker 1: competitive eaters that are now less financially dependent on the

1213
01:17:18,760 --> 01:17:22,680
Speaker 1: Shay Brothers specifically then they were when Kobe Ashi was

1214
01:17:22,800 --> 01:17:25,959
Speaker 1: kind of at his peak in the US. Because Internet,

1215
01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:31,160
Speaker 1: so there are competitors like bad Land Booker and Matt

1216
01:17:31,280 --> 01:17:35,719
Speaker 1: Stoney who have millions and millions of subscribers on YouTube

1217
01:17:35,800 --> 01:17:39,479
Speaker 1: and TikTok, and there are more ways to be able

1218
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:44,000
Speaker 1: to eat or chug a lot of food and uh

1219
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:46,840
Speaker 1: make money from it that are not inherently connected to

1220
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:50,479
Speaker 1: these two fucking weirdos. But for the most part, they

1221
01:17:50,560 --> 01:17:56,200
Speaker 1: still have the market very much cornered. Um. It's here

1222
01:17:56,280 --> 01:18:00,719
Speaker 1: that I will include George Say recently started went cameo.

1223
01:18:02,040 --> 01:18:06,759
Speaker 1: Uh if you Robert described cameo, because you described cameo

1224
01:18:07,200 --> 01:18:12,760
Speaker 1: to where people who are technically famous get paid what

1225
01:18:12,880 --> 01:18:15,800
Speaker 1: are actually kind of embarrassingly small amounts of money in

1226
01:18:16,080 --> 01:18:19,759
Speaker 1: order to make random videos for strangers on the Internet.

1227
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:22,280
Speaker 1: All right, Well, for me, it was not an embarrassingly

1228
01:18:22,320 --> 01:18:25,840
Speaker 1: small amount of money because I pay So I've been

1229
01:18:25,880 --> 01:18:30,120
Speaker 1: withholding this fact, but I wrote a whole show about

1230
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:33,599
Speaker 1: being Joey Chestnut's fictional wife. I've been work shopping it here.

1231
01:18:33,680 --> 01:18:38,400
Speaker 1: It's called Mrs Joseph Chestnut America, USA, and it's all

1232
01:18:38,439 --> 01:18:42,519
Speaker 1: about my tortured marriage to Joey Chestnut. And so for

1233
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:45,800
Speaker 1: this show, I wanted to get a cameo from George, say,

1234
01:18:46,200 --> 01:18:50,240
Speaker 1: encouraging Joey Chestnut to break up with me was the

1235
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:56,040
Speaker 1: point of this. I paid one and twenty US American

1236
01:18:56,160 --> 01:19:02,719
Speaker 1: dollars for this, Robert, and he sent me, whatever this is, okay, Sophie,

1237
01:19:02,760 --> 01:19:05,920
Speaker 1: can we can we watch it? Dred and twenty dollars

1238
01:19:06,080 --> 01:19:08,920
Speaker 1: is good for Joey Chestnut. It's very funny when someone

1239
01:19:08,960 --> 01:19:11,280
Speaker 1: like Rudy Giuliani is in there and making videos for

1240
01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:14,960
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty bucks, because it's like you, you

1241
01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:23,920
Speaker 1: shouldn't be that cheap, Rudy Giuliani, like Robert's gonna it's

1242
01:19:24,040 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 1: not a good video. And it's the thing is, even

1243
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:29,960
Speaker 1: though it makes no sense, there's no option on cameo

1244
01:19:30,120 --> 01:19:33,680
Speaker 1: to respond to someone and say, hey, that's about what

1245
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:36,320
Speaker 1: I asked for. That's not what cameos for. You don't

1246
01:19:36,400 --> 01:19:38,920
Speaker 1: You don't get to cameo to have an equal relationship

1247
01:19:39,040 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 1: with these people. Jay, Here's what he's said me you ready, Robert,

1248
01:19:45,080 --> 01:19:49,960
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen of America, citizens of the world, we

1249
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:55,040
Speaker 1: now address Joey. A man of incredible strength, a warrior

1250
01:19:55,240 --> 01:19:59,120
Speaker 1: king who stands with the land meets the horizon, steadfast

1251
01:19:59,760 --> 01:20:04,000
Speaker 1: and unshakable, upon whose shoulders God has arranged the flesh

1252
01:20:04,479 --> 01:20:09,799
Speaker 1: of an archangel, a man of immense wisdom, who, while

1253
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:14,160
Speaker 1: he is faced by abundant challenges, will stand on the

1254
01:20:14,400 --> 01:20:19,439
Speaker 1: ramparts of victory, overlooking a sea of truth. Because he

1255
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:22,680
Speaker 1: will never stop, and he will never stand down, and

1256
01:20:22,800 --> 01:20:26,080
Speaker 1: he will never submit, and he will never surrender until

1257
01:20:26,240 --> 01:20:29,439
Speaker 1: his bones are cracked and splintered and scraped like chuck

1258
01:20:29,560 --> 01:20:33,640
Speaker 1: on pavement, until the very dome of Heaven collapses and

1259
01:20:33,720 --> 01:20:37,080
Speaker 1: the black avalanche of space pours down around us. He

1260
01:20:37,200 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 1: will fight on why Because the rock on which he

1261
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:44,679
Speaker 1: stands is not a rock. It is the United States

1262
01:20:45,000 --> 01:20:50,080
Speaker 1: of America. And now it is go time. It is

1263
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:52,640
Speaker 1: go time. Time, it is go no go, Lock and

1264
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:54,200
Speaker 1: Lord and love him and leave him smoking. If he

1265
01:20:54,200 --> 01:20:55,439
Speaker 1: gotn't see you want to see a seing on the

1266
01:20:55,520 --> 01:21:00,400
Speaker 1: other side. Time time it's condition read all hands on deck,

1267
01:21:00,439 --> 01:21:02,080
Speaker 1: batt and down the hatches, belly up to the bar,

1268
01:21:02,200 --> 01:21:03,720
Speaker 1: do it to would feel the burn fire and the

1269
01:21:03,760 --> 01:21:05,840
Speaker 1: whole hold the phone could be gold. Go home game

1270
01:21:05,880 --> 01:21:07,920
Speaker 1: on game day. Game face, never say never, never said,

1271
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:09,479
Speaker 1: I never give up. Put up a shut up, shape

1272
01:21:09,520 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 1: up a ship out, show me the money, make my day.

1273
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:13,840
Speaker 1: Good night, Irene. Wake me when it's over. It's go time.

1274
01:21:14,520 --> 01:21:20,560
Speaker 1: A word from Jamie. Do you like the end? I

1275
01:21:20,680 --> 01:21:24,519
Speaker 1: like at the end where he goes from Jamie, I'm

1276
01:21:24,560 --> 01:21:27,160
Speaker 1: not happy that you gave this person add twenty dollars.

1277
01:21:27,960 --> 01:21:33,799
Speaker 1: Feel good about it? Advocate that was worth every penny.

1278
01:21:34,520 --> 01:21:37,800
Speaker 1: You know it wasn't it was bad. I feel I

1279
01:21:37,960 --> 01:21:40,680
Speaker 1: really thought that I was. Look, I've used cameos in

1280
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:45,000
Speaker 1: my shows before. I used a Heidi Montag cameo in

1281
01:21:45,120 --> 01:21:49,160
Speaker 1: my lash a Girl. I remember it was wonderful to

1282
01:21:49,320 --> 01:21:55,639
Speaker 1: great effect. George Shape, what was that that we just heard?

1283
01:21:55,760 --> 01:21:58,320
Speaker 1: We just heard someone have a knockdown? Yeah, I know that.

1284
01:21:59,080 --> 01:22:02,639
Speaker 1: I mean it's I guess an element of it's it's

1285
01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:06,280
Speaker 1: competent showmanship, but also it's the kind of showmanship you

1286
01:22:06,400 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 1: have when your sport is incredibly boring and you feel

1287
01:22:09,200 --> 01:22:11,120
Speaker 1: like you have to throw a bunch of nonsense in there,

1288
01:22:11,160 --> 01:22:13,280
Speaker 1: because all it actually is is watching people eat fucking

1289
01:22:13,360 --> 01:22:17,519
Speaker 1: hot dogs. Okay, first of all, again, I feel they

1290
01:22:17,560 --> 01:22:21,160
Speaker 1: need your fucking mouth. Yeah, this is gonna be a

1291
01:22:21,240 --> 01:22:23,559
Speaker 1: lot of there's gonna be a lot of people messaging

1292
01:22:23,640 --> 01:22:25,679
Speaker 1: me after this, being like Robert, I love your show,

1293
01:22:26,040 --> 01:22:27,920
Speaker 1: but I also have been a fan of Competitive Eating

1294
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:29,840
Speaker 1: for years and I need you to know why you're wrong.

1295
01:22:29,880 --> 01:22:31,200
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna let you know now, not going

1296
01:22:31,280 --> 01:22:33,880
Speaker 1: to read those emails people. I do feel like there

1297
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:37,080
Speaker 1: is significant crossover between your audience and people that like

1298
01:22:37,200 --> 01:22:39,760
Speaker 1: competitive eating. And that's not an insult because I am

1299
01:22:39,840 --> 01:22:43,680
Speaker 1: that audience. I The thing is, it's I I do

1300
01:22:43,880 --> 01:22:46,200
Speaker 1: believe that it is a sport, and I believe that

1301
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:49,479
Speaker 1: it is a sport that is run by two fucking

1302
01:22:49,640 --> 01:22:53,320
Speaker 1: weirdos that shouldn't be in charge of the sport. And

1303
01:22:53,400 --> 01:22:58,120
Speaker 1: I believe that Joey Chestnut is a complicit you know,

1304
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:03,639
Speaker 1: he's he's half complicity it and have trapped and free

1305
01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:06,360
Speaker 1: Kobe is how I feel. I want to share one

1306
01:23:06,400 --> 01:23:09,280
Speaker 1: more quote from George say uh and then I'm gonna

1307
01:23:09,960 --> 01:23:18,040
Speaker 1: absolutely die. Um So again, this boils down to one

1308
01:23:18,160 --> 01:23:25,360
Speaker 1: man and his younger brothers desire UM two. You know,

1309
01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:28,000
Speaker 1: just create a bunch of bullshit where it doesn't need

1310
01:23:28,080 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 1: to be and have it be extremely successful. So last year,

1311
01:23:32,920 --> 01:23:35,600
Speaker 1: George Say says in an interview to Mail magazine, he

1312
01:23:35,680 --> 01:23:40,240
Speaker 1: says this, humans can't understand something without a narrative, so

1313
01:23:40,360 --> 01:23:43,000
Speaker 1: we'll make one up in the absence. And that's a

1314
01:23:43,200 --> 01:23:46,519
Speaker 1: very powerful thing. And ultimately, I think that's what he does.

1315
01:23:46,720 --> 01:23:48,960
Speaker 1: He creates a narrative where one doesn't need to be

1316
01:23:49,640 --> 01:23:53,599
Speaker 1: to get people excited and upset, and he's very good

1317
01:23:53,680 --> 01:23:57,360
Speaker 1: at it, and he'll weaponize the worst of people in

1318
01:23:57,520 --> 01:24:02,160
Speaker 1: order to do it. And that's just ory of George Say. Well,

1319
01:24:02,640 --> 01:24:07,400
Speaker 1: I hated this, Jamie. I it actually feels great to

1320
01:24:07,520 --> 01:24:08,960
Speaker 1: hear you say that. I feel like that means I

1321
01:24:09,000 --> 01:24:11,360
Speaker 1: did an okay job. Yeah, you did a wonderful job.

1322
01:24:11,479 --> 01:24:14,920
Speaker 1: I I don't like these people and I don't like

1323
01:24:15,040 --> 01:24:20,559
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They're bad. I maybe have food. Maybe

1324
01:24:20,600 --> 01:24:22,640
Speaker 1: that's not a thing we get to have anymore. You

1325
01:24:22,680 --> 01:24:26,880
Speaker 1: know what's cool, though, is that um Kobe still competes,

1326
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:29,560
Speaker 1: but he com he competes in a different area of

1327
01:24:29,640 --> 01:24:32,720
Speaker 1: New York against nobody. He just eat a ton of

1328
01:24:32,760 --> 01:24:36,439
Speaker 1: hot dogs with his like friends and community just and

1329
01:24:37,040 --> 01:24:41,840
Speaker 1: regularly quietly has an eating disorder. No, no, he didn't know.

1330
01:24:41,960 --> 01:24:46,080
Speaker 1: It's community. It's exciting, like it's community eating. He didn't

1331
01:24:46,479 --> 01:24:50,160
Speaker 1: the the exciting that you were giving the negative twist

1332
01:24:50,240 --> 01:24:53,920
Speaker 1: to that story. I'm going to give the positive to

1333
01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 1: watch him eat. No, it's a it's a community. No,

1334
01:24:59,240 --> 01:25:01,160
Speaker 1: it's just like a unity event that he and his

1335
01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:04,360
Speaker 1: wife put together of like it's uh, it's free food

1336
01:25:04,720 --> 01:25:06,960
Speaker 1: for everyone who shows up. And then Kobe eats a

1337
01:25:07,000 --> 01:25:08,720
Speaker 1: ton of hot dogs because that's what he's famous for

1338
01:25:08,840 --> 01:25:10,680
Speaker 1: and that's what he's really really good at. And so

1339
01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:16,280
Speaker 1: I thought it was very cool to see him, you know, like,

1340
01:25:16,479 --> 01:25:20,240
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't make him quit. He still does

1341
01:25:20,320 --> 01:25:23,240
Speaker 1: it and now he does it for himself. I'm happy

1342
01:25:23,360 --> 01:25:26,559
Speaker 1: for him. They didn't take the thing he loved the most.

1343
01:25:27,120 --> 01:25:29,479
Speaker 1: I would. I would eating a lot of meat. Yeah,

1344
01:25:29,760 --> 01:25:32,240
Speaker 1: I mean I I do think. Yeah, people have, people

1345
01:25:32,320 --> 01:25:34,519
Speaker 1: have the right to I want to eat a lot

1346
01:25:34,560 --> 01:25:37,400
Speaker 1: of meat. Um. I just find all of this deeply

1347
01:25:37,439 --> 01:25:42,280
Speaker 1: off putting. Jamie Free Kobe. I'm glad that Kobe is

1348
01:25:42,320 --> 01:25:46,360
Speaker 1: doing better, though. Um. Not a fan of Joey Chestnuts though, look,

1349
01:25:46,439 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut is you know, yeah, look, absolutely has the

1350
01:25:53,000 --> 01:25:54,719
Speaker 1: name of a character. And then I think you should

1351
01:25:54,760 --> 01:25:58,880
Speaker 1: leave sketch it is and that is just his name.

1352
01:25:59,080 --> 01:26:01,400
Speaker 1: And then the further you go up the family tree,

1353
01:26:01,479 --> 01:26:05,679
Speaker 1: the scarier the names get. Merlin Chestnut. Come on, there's

1354
01:26:05,880 --> 01:26:07,800
Speaker 1: if you want to see something really fucked up, which

1355
01:26:07,840 --> 01:26:10,879
Speaker 1: I know you don't, but the videos of Joey Chestnut,

1356
01:26:11,040 --> 01:26:14,240
Speaker 1: because there's like no protocol for how you should train

1357
01:26:14,640 --> 01:26:17,080
Speaker 1: to eat seventy six hot dogs. So Joey Chesnut is

1358
01:26:17,200 --> 01:26:19,599
Speaker 1: just doing like free form jazz on how you would

1359
01:26:19,600 --> 01:26:23,360
Speaker 1: prepare for something like this, And there's these horrifying video

1360
01:26:23,400 --> 01:26:28,160
Speaker 1: clips of him, um gas like he does sit ups,

1361
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:31,040
Speaker 1: but he does sit ups where he's gulping air like

1362
01:26:31,160 --> 01:26:33,320
Speaker 1: he's trying. And then he choose on a little plastic

1363
01:26:33,439 --> 01:26:35,880
Speaker 1: ball for twenty minutes a day to get his jaw

1364
01:26:35,960 --> 01:26:39,120
Speaker 1: all limber, and like he just he does all these

1365
01:26:40,200 --> 01:26:43,439
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it works, but to what end

1366
01:26:43,600 --> 01:26:47,400
Speaker 1: he's I do think that ultimately Joey Chestnut is not

1367
01:26:47,680 --> 01:26:51,400
Speaker 1: an ethically good person. But on the other hand, I

1368
01:26:51,520 --> 01:26:55,000
Speaker 1: think he is being forced to kill himself for our entertainment,

1369
01:26:55,160 --> 01:26:57,360
Speaker 1: and I think that that is very sad in it

1370
01:26:57,479 --> 01:27:01,439
Speaker 1: in its own way. I get, yeah, yeah, that's sad.

1371
01:27:01,680 --> 01:27:04,760
Speaker 1: All of this is bad. That said, I will be

1372
01:27:04,840 --> 01:27:07,599
Speaker 1: there at contest and I might actually train and see

1373
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:09,960
Speaker 1: if I could maybe get on stage on the women's contest,

1374
01:27:10,000 --> 01:27:12,519
Speaker 1: because I think you only have to eat like eleven

1375
01:27:12,600 --> 01:27:14,800
Speaker 1: hot dogs in ten minutes. I could do that. Yeah,

1376
01:27:14,840 --> 01:27:19,640
Speaker 1: I could do that too. Um but no, no, I

1377
01:27:19,680 --> 01:27:25,599
Speaker 1: don't support this, but I together eating all those hot dogs. Oh,

1378
01:27:25,760 --> 01:27:30,960
Speaker 1: you're no fun. I couldn't be less supportive of this

1379
01:27:31,840 --> 01:27:34,840
Speaker 1: for you, Jamie, maybe that's the one. Maybe that's the

1380
01:27:34,920 --> 01:27:37,920
Speaker 1: one lie he's telling you, Jamie, we don't know. That's yeah.

1381
01:27:38,479 --> 01:27:41,320
Speaker 1: I got to eat. When I was leaving the contest,

1382
01:27:41,600 --> 01:27:44,599
Speaker 1: they put like a plate of a pyramid of two

1383
01:27:44,680 --> 01:27:47,160
Speaker 1: hundred hot dogs in front of Joey, just again for

1384
01:27:47,280 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 1: the showmanship of it all. He only ate se and

1385
01:27:50,960 --> 01:27:53,439
Speaker 1: so for the rest of the five they just give

1386
01:27:53,520 --> 01:27:55,080
Speaker 1: them out to the audience. And so I got to

1387
01:27:55,120 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 1: eat one of Joey's leftovers and it did feel really special. Well,

1388
01:28:00,160 --> 01:28:03,120
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I don't like. I'm not gonna

1389
01:28:03,160 --> 01:28:05,840
Speaker 1: say I'm happy for you, but I'm glad you had

1390
01:28:05,880 --> 01:28:10,000
Speaker 1: an experience that he was happy for me because I

1391
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:13,000
Speaker 1: thought it was very fun to eat Joey's soggy little leftover.

1392
01:28:13,160 --> 01:28:15,719
Speaker 1: Felt good, I said, oh, in the middle of a pandemic,

1393
01:28:15,840 --> 01:28:19,599
Speaker 1: felt safe. Yeah, I mean I wasn't going to bring

1394
01:28:19,720 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 1: that part of but yep, ye. Well, Jamie, you got

1395
01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:27,600
Speaker 1: any plugables if you possibly want to interact with me

1396
01:28:27,760 --> 01:28:31,800
Speaker 1: after what you just heard, Um, yeah you can. You

1397
01:28:31,880 --> 01:28:36,320
Speaker 1: can go on Twitter, Instagram. You can find me there.

1398
01:28:37,400 --> 01:28:40,520
Speaker 1: Jamie loft is help on Twitter, Jamie christ superstar on Instagram,

1399
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:43,840
Speaker 1: and just set a reminder in your phone for a

1400
01:28:43,960 --> 01:28:47,559
Speaker 1: year from today saying hey, did I preorder Jamie's book

1401
01:28:47,720 --> 01:28:50,960
Speaker 1: Raw Dog that comes out in April? I sure, hope

1402
01:28:51,000 --> 01:28:53,720
Speaker 1: I did, And then you can buy that book that

1403
01:28:53,800 --> 01:28:58,280
Speaker 1: will come out next year that I'm currently absolutely torturing

1404
01:28:58,360 --> 01:29:03,280
Speaker 1: myself trying to complete. So I hope you read it

1405
01:29:03,360 --> 01:29:06,960
Speaker 1: when it comes out. It's about um this, I mean

1406
01:29:07,040 --> 01:29:10,000
Speaker 1: truly this, George She stuff takes up a couple of pages.

1407
01:29:10,120 --> 01:29:13,799
Speaker 1: There's just so much about hot dogs and their history,

1408
01:29:14,439 --> 01:29:18,120
Speaker 1: um and uh and there's just a lot. So I

1409
01:29:18,200 --> 01:29:22,000
Speaker 1: hope to tread out Raw Dog. Incredible title. Very excited for.

1410
01:29:22,160 --> 01:29:26,200
Speaker 1: Thank you. I really pushed for raw Dog and satisfied

1411
01:29:26,439 --> 01:29:28,439
Speaker 1: with the outcome. And you can listen to any of

1412
01:29:28,520 --> 01:29:32,479
Speaker 1: my podcasts, uh my YearIn Mental Lolita podcast, spectel Cast

1413
01:29:32,560 --> 01:29:36,280
Speaker 1: or act cast about the Kathy Comics. Follow your Heart.

1414
01:29:36,840 --> 01:29:38,479
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me do this, Robert. I had to.

1415
01:29:38,600 --> 01:29:40,560
Speaker 1: I hadn't know if I'm putting this together. Thank you

1416
01:29:40,760 --> 01:29:46,599
Speaker 1: for telling me this how it doesn't it feel exciting

1417
01:29:46,680 --> 01:29:49,160
Speaker 1: to be on the other side and you feel absolutely

1418
01:29:49,240 --> 01:29:52,599
Speaker 1: deflated and like dying at the end. I feel great.

1419
01:29:52,920 --> 01:29:55,000
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit alone in a dark room for

1420
01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:56,840
Speaker 1: the rest of tonight. Yeah, what do you think I

1421
01:29:56,920 --> 01:29:59,639
Speaker 1: do every fucking time I'm on this show? And that's fair?

1422
01:30:00,040 --> 01:30:02,320
Speaker 1: This is this is very I mean comment. I may

1423
01:30:02,360 --> 01:30:05,080
Speaker 1: have to go just open one of my old Hitler

1424
01:30:05,160 --> 01:30:12,240
Speaker 1: books to cheer myself back up. There, you books. They

1425
01:30:12,280 --> 01:30:16,679
Speaker 1: can pre order your book after the Revolution. Yeah, google

1426
01:30:16,800 --> 01:30:19,439
Speaker 1: a k Press after the Revolution and you can pre

1427
01:30:19,680 --> 01:30:21,920
Speaker 1: order my book. And if you preorder it, it comes

1428
01:30:21,960 --> 01:30:24,120
Speaker 1: with a special signed book plate in it, which is

1429
01:30:24,160 --> 01:30:27,400
Speaker 1: a nice little art sticker thing inside the book that

1430
01:30:27,479 --> 01:30:30,080
Speaker 1: has my signature on it. So preorder it a k

1431
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:34,840
Speaker 1: Press after the Revolution. Uh, please buy my novel um

1432
01:30:34,920 --> 01:30:36,720
Speaker 1: It will be out in May. You can have it

1433
01:30:36,840 --> 01:30:39,680
Speaker 1: in hardcover. I'm still working on the sequel. I just

1434
01:30:39,960 --> 01:30:42,559
Speaker 1: finished chapter four and started chapter five, so it's it's

1435
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:46,760
Speaker 1: humming right along. And now you signed mine, absolutely, and

1436
01:30:46,920 --> 01:30:48,720
Speaker 1: if you order a pre order it, you'll get a

1437
01:30:48,760 --> 01:30:51,519
Speaker 1: signed one. Fuck you. And we got a behind the

1438
01:30:51,560 --> 01:30:59,120
Speaker 1: Bassard's live stream show on February one of those dates. Uh,

1439
01:30:59,360 --> 01:31:03,040
Speaker 1: it's a moment, how stuck on slash Phine the Bastards. Yep,

1440
01:31:04,040 --> 01:31:10,840
Speaker 1: we that's over. Mm hmm.