Speaker 1: Cho was the dictator of Romania. What I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast bad people. Sometimes I shout the
Speaker 1: name of a dictator. Well, I didn't want to just
Speaker 1: do Hitler again, a lot of episodes of shouting Hitler.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that you could have done that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was really going to be that or
Speaker 1: a tonal screeching to go with the high effort version. Alright, alright, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: you know what if it takes giving you a little
Speaker 1: path on the head for that together the yeah loft Loftus.
Speaker 1: There's there circling around a really popular nickname, I am Jamie.
Speaker 1: Today we're doing a special REVERSEO episode Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: where you join the rarefied air of people who get
Speaker 1: to read episodes to me. Um, because there's some motherfucker
Speaker 1: called Joey Chestnut and he eats hot dogs and you're
Speaker 1: angry about him. Right, that's basically the pitch. That's not
Speaker 1: the pitch at all. Well, first, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the pitch is. There's a motherfucker named Joey Chestnut and
Speaker 1: I'm in love with him, but that has very little
Speaker 1: to do with what I'm going to be talking about today. Um,
Speaker 1: so you've actually gotten the story wrong. Joey Chestnut is
Speaker 1: um someone that I love now, the bastard that we're
Speaker 1: talking about Joey Chestnut for weeks and I still have
Speaker 1: no idea who he actually is. You just say we
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm offending this has been a year
Speaker 1: of my life. Weeks is all I ever remember? That
Speaker 1: that's true. So Joey, okay, this is We're off to
Speaker 1: a terrible will start. Is it Jess Joseph Chestnut If
Speaker 1: you're being formal, it's Joseph Chesnut If you're nasty. Uh,
Speaker 1: his dad's name. The best thing about Joey Chestnut is
Speaker 1: that his dad's name is Merlin. And that's um. So
Speaker 1: there's a motherfucker walking around named Merlin Chestnut. If you
Speaker 1: tell me his job as anything foraging from mushrooms in
Speaker 1: the woods, I'm going to call you a liar. It's
Speaker 1: a close second. He's a public school music teacher, which
Speaker 1: I feel like fits Merlin Chestnut the profile Merlin Chestnut
Speaker 1: nutt music teacher. So Joey Chessnunt is not the bastard
Speaker 1: we're discussing today, Although he is intimately involved in the
Speaker 1: events that I will be describing Joey Chestnut is for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, the hot dog eating champion,
Speaker 1: and just in general, I believe the eating champion of
Speaker 1: the world at this time, most recently, like the Joe
Speaker 1: Frasier of putting a lot of things in his mouth
Speaker 1: and then not puking. Okay, that sounds a little dismissive
Speaker 1: of my husband's accomplishments, but go off the Joey. I
Speaker 1: saw Joseph this last year on he he competes. He
Speaker 1: competes in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney
Speaker 1: Island on the fourth of July every single year going
Speaker 1: back to two thousand and seven. He's won fourteen times.
Speaker 1: He's lost once. I will tell you why. It's a
Speaker 1: very funny reason. Um. But at this point he's basically
Speaker 1: just competing with himself. Um. He wins by a good
Speaker 1: twenty thirty hot dogs every year. Um. And so that's
Speaker 1: that's more hot dogs than a person should be able
Speaker 1: to eat, right there. Just the margin he won by
Speaker 1: is too many hot dogs? Were you just toss out
Speaker 1: a number? How many hot dogs do you think? I
Speaker 1: saw Joseph Elizabeth Chestnut eight on the fourth of July
Speaker 1: in ten minutes, ten minutes. This last year, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: guess sixty. It was seventy six. Christ it was seventy,
Speaker 1: narrowly beating his own his former record of seventy five
Speaker 1: the previous year. Too many hot dogs? He is, well, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: but what land Joey Chestnut so far from God's light?
Speaker 1: First of all, that is my husband you're talking about.
Speaker 1: But I I do, I do see where you're coming from.
Speaker 1: There is um there's so much to talk about when
Speaker 1: it comes to competitive eating. I can't possibly cover it all.
Speaker 1: So I'm narrowing it to American hot dog eating from
Speaker 1: the past forty years. And the main bastard to discuss
Speaker 1: is a man named George say Uh, closely matched by
Speaker 1: his younger brother Richard say So. That is the topic, Dick,
Speaker 1: the old Dick chees uh. So, that's the topic of
Speaker 1: today's episode. I've I've titled it George say hot dog Villain.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do better than that. I'm sure that that
Speaker 1: is a good title. That's probably what we'll just put
Speaker 1: out as the title of the episode. That in short,
Speaker 1: who he is? Explain to me quickly? When did we
Speaker 1: start doing this as a species, when did we start
Speaker 1: like having contests to see how many hot dogs a
Speaker 1: motherfucker could eat? It goes way, way, way back. There's
Speaker 1: so much, Um, there's so much to discuss in terms
Speaker 1: of hot dogs in general, how they relate to American culture. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'll just say right at the top, I'm writing
Speaker 1: a book about it, which is why I know so
Speaker 1: much about it. This is youve been deep in hot
Speaker 1: dog culture for a while now. Oh, I've been as
Speaker 1: deep in hot dog culture for the last eight months. Um.
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy this episode, please buy my book
Speaker 1: that comes out next year. This is a very tiny
Speaker 1: part of it. Um. It's a good question. There's no
Speaker 1: exact um moment where eating contests became mainstream. They definitely, Um,
Speaker 1: George Shay would have you believe they became popular at
Speaker 1: first in America, but they didn't. America very very very
Speaker 1: much ripped off the current competitive eating craze and kind
Speaker 1: of style and broadcasting tendencies from Japan, uh, where it
Speaker 1: got very popular starting in the nineties. So it's gone.
Speaker 1: It goes back hundreds of years, as does hot dog culture.
Speaker 1: In gen I mean sausages and ground up meat goes
Speaker 1: back to fucking BC. Yes, um, but but yes, as
Speaker 1: far as formally um broadcast eating events. Um, they're they're newer,
Speaker 1: newer than sausage at least, and America's very much ripped
Speaker 1: off Japan in terms of how we do it. That's
Speaker 1: not an uncommon story. So alright, okay, okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to learn, Jamie. I'm ready to learn about
Speaker 1: this wonderful new subculture. I'm very excited to tell you
Speaker 1: about it. Please ask any questions at any time, because
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. Um. Yeah, I mean my first
Speaker 1: question which I would ask, that what what What about
Speaker 1: the poops? That's got to be a problem for these guys, right,
Speaker 1: they are very cagy about the poops, Robert. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to find that out as well. They're very cagy
Speaker 1: about the poops. What I can say is that there
Speaker 1: is there's so much like any athletic event, which I
Speaker 1: do believe this is. Um, there's a lot of showmanship involved.
Speaker 1: And so for example, what Joey Chestnut will do after
Speaker 1: eating seventy six hot dogs, which I have to repeat
Speaker 1: he did, I wasn't a significant fraction of of of
Speaker 1: like a cow. Yeah, it's a that's a good chunk,
Speaker 1: good chunk and um and I I was in the
Speaker 1: press pit for that event and then at the end, um,
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut. I can't tell if this is something he's
Speaker 1: made to do or something he does by of his
Speaker 1: own full ship, but he does not leave the stage
Speaker 1: right away. All the other hot dog eaters who lose
Speaker 1: the contest are allowed to leave, presumably to throw up
Speaker 1: and ship. They will never admit to this, but I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that that's what they do. Um. Joey Chestnut does
Speaker 1: not leave the stage. He stays on the stage for
Speaker 1: upwards of an hour right after eating seventy six hot dogs,
Speaker 1: smiles and answers questions for the press. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: he He's said in interviews that he doesn't throw up
Speaker 1: piston ship right away. I am bullshit a little skeptical
Speaker 1: of these claims, but I you know, it's his body
Speaker 1: and his choice, and I respect his bodily autonomy to
Speaker 1: hold in however much process meat he wants for as
Speaker 1: long as he physically can. Um. And that is true love.
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut's real girlfriend gave an incredible quote. I think
Speaker 1: like in the last couple of years where she was
Speaker 1: just like, Joey smells different after like his poor but
Speaker 1: not even just like sweat, but like just like there's meat.
Speaker 1: It's radiating off of him. It's incredible. It's incredible. I
Speaker 1: mean because he's holding an entire refrigerator worth of meat
Speaker 1: inside his body. I joke about being married to Joey
Speaker 1: Chestnut because I am, but I God bless that woman.
Speaker 1: I don't how do you how? I don't know sounds
Speaker 1: you have to have a number of plumbers on speed
Speaker 1: dial because you can't take somebody being busy right like,
Speaker 1: They've got to get out there right away if there's
Speaker 1: a problem. Look, Merlin's son gets the job done. Um,
Speaker 1: we're talking about George Say, George Shay UM, which will
Speaker 1: be getting very deep into, is the m C and
Speaker 1: the kind of the person who made who effectively publicized
Speaker 1: the Nathan hot dog eating contest and UM, by extension
Speaker 1: kind of hand selected Joey Chestnut to be the face
Speaker 1: of UM of that kind of endeavor. So here are
Speaker 1: some things that George Say has said. Incapacity of the
Speaker 1: m C of the hot dog contest on stage, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna throw three out He says this on stage
Speaker 1: on Coney Island quote while introducing a hot dog eating contestant. Quote,
Speaker 1: His mother held him close and whispered in his ear.
Speaker 1: She said, you are of mine flesh, but you are
Speaker 1: not mine own. Fate is your father, and you belong
Speaker 1: to the people. And then he'll bring out a hot
Speaker 1: dog eating contest Uh contestant. Here's another one. He was
Speaker 1: buried alive under sixty cubic feet of popcorn, and he
Speaker 1: ate his way out to survival. That David Blaine of
Speaker 1: the Bowel, the Evil kin Evil of the Elementary Canal,
Speaker 1: the Houdini of Cuisini. Please welcome Crazy Legs conti. And then,
Speaker 1: of course an older man who is white and has dreads.
Speaker 1: I'm on stage and he's forty hot dogs? Right? Are
Speaker 1: you getting kind of decayed into Here's a Here's another one.
Speaker 1: He will do whatever it takes to win. Three days ago,
Speaker 1: he broke up with his girlfriend and euthanized his dog
Speaker 1: to leave a void of emptiness inside of him so
Speaker 1: he can do today with hot dogs and buns. And
Speaker 1: then he brings out some other guy. And this has
Speaker 1: been going on for George. She has been doing this
Speaker 1: for thirty years. He has said a lot of things
Speaker 1: over the years what I and and it does take
Speaker 1: a turn, but he said a lot of things taken
Speaker 1: a couple so far, broke up with his girlfriend and
Speaker 1: euthanize his dog. Uh. George, She has said a lot
Speaker 1: of things, some of them about what makes someone a champion,
Speaker 1: some of them about what makes someone an American, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them about hot dogs, because that is
Speaker 1: what his job is. Most of what George Say will
Speaker 1: tell you is complete bullshit, and he will be the
Speaker 1: first to tell you that. Here are two quotes from
Speaker 1: him that I think are the closest to the truth
Speaker 1: as he's ever told. The first is something he said
Speaker 1: to mel magazine last year. He said, you could argue
Speaker 1: that people are so inured to everything that there's very
Speaker 1: little downside to causing controversy. The second thing he said
Speaker 1: was in en Uh in twenty nine. There was a
Speaker 1: thirty for thirty about hot this hot dog eating contest,
Speaker 1: and George Say is very much the villain. He says this,
Speaker 1: A lot of what I say literally isn't true in
Speaker 1: terms of words, but emotionally it is true. Um, and
Speaker 1: that is sort of the entire ethos of what George
Speaker 1: Say does. He has said some similar things He's I mean,
Speaker 1: is there an episode in the works? Um no, because
Speaker 1: he's a perfect man who lived the ideal human life. Well,
Speaker 1: George Say, he simply hasn't he He's He's a very
Speaker 1: funked up man. George Shea and his brother Richard Say
Speaker 1: are a large part of why the Nathans are a
Speaker 1: large part of why the Nathan's famous hot dog eating
Speaker 1: contest is one of America's most disgusting traditions, right up
Speaker 1: there with drone strikes. They're not the entire reason which
Speaker 1: would be a bad place for a drone strike. First
Speaker 1: of all, don't say that because I go there. Um, look,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to sacrifice some good people in order
Speaker 1: to deal with the problem, please me and Joey and
Speaker 1: bad Lands Booker? Have you ever seen bad Lands Booker
Speaker 1: or Matt Stoney. I'm talking about because his champions in
Speaker 1: our culture, Robert, Yeah, I have no idea who those
Speaker 1: people are because they do eating contests and that's not
Speaker 1: a thing most people know about. You're sick in the head.
Speaker 1: You're so alived, Okay, so uh George and Dick Shay Uh,
Speaker 1: made this a very popular cultural thing in the US
Speaker 1: by channel energy, excess and showmanship. Uh. They are the
Speaker 1: founders of Major League Eating, which was founded in and
Speaker 1: they're also the perpetrators of a bunch of deception, racism,
Speaker 1: and misogyny that exists in service of America's great dish,
Speaker 1: the hot dog. Now, Robert, we've discussed hot dogs before,
Speaker 1: and I am curious if you have um updated improved
Speaker 1: your views on the hot dog at dog because last
Speaker 1: time we talked about it, you said octopus was a
Speaker 1: hot dog, which was just so common. It's delicious. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's octopus. It's an octopus on bread, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's delicious. Hot Um. I think hot dogs are defined
Speaker 1: by the fact that you can't possibly limit them to
Speaker 1: a specific sort of meat. Anything on a hot dog
Speaker 1: bun is a hot dog, Well, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: that's a gorgeous assumption. I would say that it tends
Speaker 1: to be a meaty paste. It can only be created
Speaker 1: under the least ethical circumstances possible. So if we have
Speaker 1: the octopi in your hot dogs, are are are dying
Speaker 1: in the most unsavory ways. I will guarantee you they are.
Speaker 1: I mean, as a general rule, if we're getting it
Speaker 1: from the sea, where we're destroying the ocean's ability to
Speaker 1: support life in order to do it, well, no, I
Speaker 1: understand that. But I just have you ever seen video
Speaker 1: footage of a hot dog factory? Because it's it's unique,
Speaker 1: it's uniquely bad. Yeah, I mean what I love. I
Speaker 1: will say I prefer hot dogs that are mixes of
Speaker 1: unspeakable nightmare meats, of course, because I want when I'm
Speaker 1: eating a hot dog, I want to feel bad about myself.
Speaker 1: Well you should, you should, um, and I have, and uh,
Speaker 1: my life is really I've taken years off of my
Speaker 1: own life, uh not out of not out of eating
Speaker 1: hot dogs, which people will say, they'll cite this study
Speaker 1: being like, oh, every hot dog you eat takes thirty
Speaker 1: six minutes off of your life, when it's like, well,
Speaker 1: serotonin adds to your life, so it's pretty much evens out.
Speaker 1: But the but the psychic guilt of eating this many
Speaker 1: hot dogs is what's removing time from my life. The
Speaker 1: Shade brothers uh created so they created major league eating
Speaker 1: into a marketable sport in the US, drawing heavily from
Speaker 1: the sports early success in Japan. So today there's over
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty eaters who are registered with Major
Speaker 1: League Eating, and they've expanded to competing outside of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: They started with the Nathan's Contest, but now they compete
Speaker 1: sucking everything. There are wings contest, there's pie eating contest,
Speaker 1: there's Joey Chestnut. Started with asparagus eating. That was his
Speaker 1: that poor woman, that was his breakout, his breakout moment.
Speaker 1: Robert he ate asparagus in San Diego and ascended to
Speaker 1: a great man. Uh. There's calamari, there's raman, there's everything.
Speaker 1: There's like hundreds of categories. Um. And now the Joey
Speaker 1: Chestnut is currently the face of Major League Eating. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't always that way. The Shay brothers grew up
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. George Say was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four or five in Boston. Richard Shay is four
Speaker 1: years younger. They grew up in Maine, with no particular
Speaker 1: interest in UH sports or competitive eating whatsoever. Richards Shay
Speaker 1: describes them as being very introverted teens who did amateur
Speaker 1: magic and listen to the Smiths and r e m together. Well,
Speaker 1: that does make sense because the state sport of Maine
Speaker 1: is slowly waiting for death. I was about to say,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that as far as teenagers in Maine,
Speaker 1: that's not that bad amateur magic. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: worse ways to go. You stare into the gray skyline
Speaker 1: and wait for your life to end. That's that's what
Speaker 1: what all the kids get up to in Maine. I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in Maine as a kid,
Speaker 1: and um I never made a single friend. No, nobody
Speaker 1: has friends in Maine. It's not allowed. Your only friend
Speaker 1: is the echoing emptiness of the woods. But I will
Speaker 1: say the streets are paved with signed Stephen king Bucks
Speaker 1: and I do love that. Um so they grew up
Speaker 1: in Maine. George later in rolls in Columbia University in
Speaker 1: New York. He wants to be a fiction writer. This
Speaker 1: is a big part of the George. He's a fucking
Speaker 1: do weve. He's walking around and listening to the Smiths
Speaker 1: and R. E. M on his little cassette player. He's
Speaker 1: a huge fan of James Joyce and Flannery O'Connor uh
Speaker 1: who he claims to these to this day are his
Speaker 1: biggest writing influences. When he's writing the introduction to hotdog contests,
Speaker 1: which are, to his credit, sometimes very literary. Um. So
Speaker 1: he wants to be a fiction writer, but he graduates
Speaker 1: in and has to get an adult job while he's
Speaker 1: working on a series of failed plays and novels that
Speaker 1: never get off the ground ewhere, but he starts um
Speaker 1: living in New York and working for a series of
Speaker 1: pretty high profile ad men. And so the guy who
Speaker 1: gives him his big start and gets him into, um,
Speaker 1: the Nathan's Famous hot Dog Eating Contest is this guy
Speaker 1: named Morty Matt's who is extremely fascinating in his own right.
Speaker 1: He also it's like the most admin name I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: Um So Morty Matt's uh invented the Nathan's Famous hot
Speaker 1: Dog Eating Contest, although he denied this for years and years. Um. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Dick Shay, who kind of fades in and out of
Speaker 1: this story. He went to Villanova and uh later kind
Speaker 1: of just he's kind of like writing Georgia's coattails throughout
Speaker 1: this experience. Um, this this whole story. Um, Oh, no,
Speaker 1: Sophie's Internet. Well, everyone back at home, we lost Sophie. Sophie.
Speaker 1: You know we're gonna go to ads. Now might as well,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, do you want a product or a service? Maybe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go check out ads while we see if those
Speaker 1: fucking assholes at Spectrum UH can get Sophie back on
Speaker 1: the internet. They dropped corn cob TV and then they
Speaker 1: dropped Sophie motherfucker's We're a bunch of dumb Hicks, Jamie.
Speaker 1: That was a very professional pivot. I loved every second
Speaker 1: of it. Oh my god, those ads were great. And
Speaker 1: what's even greater is that Sophie's back. Hi, Sophie's back.
Speaker 1: The Spectrum gods have taken Um, I don't know of
Speaker 1: my happiness. Yeah, they still haven't brought back Corn TV.
Speaker 1: They still haven't, and I have a bad feeling that
Speaker 1: they won't, even though I've really enjoyed the programming, including
Speaker 1: iconically coffin Flop of course, of course, I mean one
Speaker 1: of the greatest shows on television or was, and they didn't.
Speaker 1: I don't care what people say, No they didn't. I've
Speaker 1: been there, I've seen it. I wrote, Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what it was. Its great television. We're talking about George say, okay, um, George,
Speaker 1: So George say he graduates from Columbia in starts working
Speaker 1: for this ad man named Morty Matts. Morty Matts is
Speaker 1: an absolute legend in the field. He's still alive. I
Speaker 1: think he's like nineties seven years old. Um, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just kind of skip down to, uh what Morty Matts
Speaker 1: has done, because his resume is just extremely wild. Morty
Speaker 1: Matts says when he takes over the Nathan's hot Dog
Speaker 1: eating account and begins this contest, he gives a series
Speaker 1: of made up legends as to how long this contest
Speaker 1: has existed, all of which are lies. He first says
Speaker 1: that there has been a contest since nineteen sixteen, when
Speaker 1: Nathan's opened. He says that four immigrants held a hot
Speaker 1: dog eating contest on the pier on the fourth of
Speaker 1: July to determine who was the most patriotic. That was
Speaker 1: a lie. He then pivoted to say that the contest
Speaker 1: began in nineteen forty one as a protest to World
Speaker 1: War One, and that was a lot. World War one
Speaker 1: in nineteen one, right, World War two? Okay? And uh
Speaker 1: then okay, in nineteen forty one. If you're protesting World
Speaker 1: War two, you're probably not someone you would want to
Speaker 1: associate your sport with either, but look to be fair,
Speaker 1: he's lying, and then yeah, of course, of course. And
Speaker 1: then Morty pivots this again and says in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: one that it was begun as a protest to the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. He makes up all of these weird lies, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what is your lion as to win lying is good
Speaker 1: or not? Because I have a thing that I've been
Speaker 1: doing for a while now where whenever I have a
Speaker 1: close friend or loved one, I tell them one lie,
Speaker 1: and it's it's always it's always something very so. The
Speaker 1: first example of this is I I convinced the person
Speaker 1: I was with for a number of years, just as
Speaker 1: the result of a casual conversation once that the band
Speaker 1: Hanson had died in a terrible bus crash. You told
Speaker 1: me I was literally last week, And like, I know, well,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, what is the line? Because sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be fun to do that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: And then someone brings up a lie, the lie you
Speaker 1: told me? And what I never tell anyone? What the
Speaker 1: lie I've told? I know the lie? You? I know
Speaker 1: the lie Robert told me he didn't tell me when
Speaker 1: someone was named Daddy, But that was for an altruistic reason.
Speaker 1: I had to say, Christ told me I never I
Speaker 1: never lied to you. That's great. The point is that
Speaker 1: you should never trust anybody, and that's why everyone it's
Speaker 1: one lie. I trust you there, I know. That's what
Speaker 1: makes it so dangerous. I wanted I only lie. It's
Speaker 1: the opposite of gas lighting. I want a god dammit,
Speaker 1: so sad. I don't think that these are bad lies.
Speaker 1: I think that these are very marketing lies. And Morty
Speaker 1: Matt's because he's still alive and he's literally almost a
Speaker 1: hundred years old, he admits in two it's it's too
Speaker 1: old and he's still working, which I'll get. He's currently
Speaker 1: he's currently working on rehabilitating the reputations of some mega
Speaker 1: church pastors. That's what he's working on in his twilight years,
Speaker 1: meaning he's seven. But he admits in that all of
Speaker 1: these origin stories are lies and that it was Morty
Speaker 1: Mattss idea in this early seventies to start whole ding
Speaker 1: this contest to drum up some publicity for um, for
Speaker 1: Nathan's hot Dogs, UM. Other things about Morty Matts that
Speaker 1: I would just like you to know is that he's
Speaker 1: almost a hundred He fought in World War Two. He's
Speaker 1: currently still the press agent for the Durst family, so
Speaker 1: he's been a busy man lately. He's at work. Uh
Speaker 1: there is just like his career is equally fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: He so he is the reason George Say exists. George
Speaker 1: Shay came up working for this guy who did, like
Speaker 1: George Say, I think a combination of very funny and
Speaker 1: very evil things. Um, some things that are attributed to
Speaker 1: Morty Matt's as sort of innovations for better or worse
Speaker 1: in American pr He's said to have popularized, uh, the
Speaker 1: idea of a purp walk, So like marching a suspect
Speaker 1: into police headquarters for people to take pictures of. I
Speaker 1: guess that that was something that he kind of innovated,
Speaker 1: and he would never want any You should not want
Speaker 1: people to know if that's the thing you helped invent.
Speaker 1: Well that's the thing about these guys though, they don't care,
Speaker 1: like it's all about impressions. It doesn't matter what the
Speaker 1: impression is as long as it's getting attention. So he
Speaker 1: fully claims, you know, whether it's true or not, that yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the guy who invented the purp walk. Um, he
Speaker 1: worked with the New York Mob in the sixties. He's
Speaker 1: he invented that Big Nat worked with the Mob. I
Speaker 1: don't have any more information than that. That's just what
Speaker 1: he said. He's worked with he worked a lot. He
Speaker 1: think he's self described Gotti adjacent mob. Is what was said. Um,
Speaker 1: he invented the big National Debt clock. That was I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's still there, but it was in
Speaker 1: Times Square for a very long time. He invented that
Speaker 1: with the Durst family. Um. He invented the current route
Speaker 1: of the New York City Marathon so that it would
Speaker 1: go through more areas and get more press. Um. He's
Speaker 1: working with mega church pastors now. Uh. And he created
Speaker 1: the Nathan's Hot Dog Contest. He's done a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and his legacy is is very all over the place.
Speaker 1: And I really am just like, should he still be alive?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Definitely not. I'm going to answer that one.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, maybe, you know, he should have
Speaker 1: hung up his little hat a long time ago. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but all that to say, he creates this myth
Speaker 1: around Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, and already there's a
Speaker 1: lot of uh. Mythic qualities to the hot dog eating
Speaker 1: or too hot the hot dog industry in general. Um there,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really fall under the purview of this story.
Speaker 1: You'll just have to buy my book next year to
Speaker 1: find out, Robert. But it, I mean, it's very very
Speaker 1: well known that like, the meat packing industry is a
Speaker 1: fucking disaster, um, and that the hot dog isn't an
Speaker 1: American dish. It was brought here by German, Polish and
Speaker 1: Austrian immigrants um as sausages and kind of innovative over
Speaker 1: time by independent carts. The real American quality to hot
Speaker 1: dogs is the industrial era. And the most American thing
Speaker 1: about hot dogs is uh the worker and animal abuse
Speaker 1: that comes with their production. So like, whether it's the
Speaker 1: like I mean to this day, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got Upton Sinclair reporting on meat packing in the jungle, right,
Speaker 1: and then you've also got uh as recently as last year,
Speaker 1: there were um those meat packing scandals after Trump and
Speaker 1: you know sent out that executive order that to say
Speaker 1: that the meat factories must remain open. And so there
Speaker 1: were these huge coronavirus outbreaks at meat packing industries, and
Speaker 1: there were like executives and managers taking bets on how
Speaker 1: many workers were going to get coronavirus because of this
Speaker 1: executive order and their own incompetence to protect their own workers.
Speaker 1: Like it's just an absolutely the story of hot Dogs
Speaker 1: is truly the stuff of nightmares. But George Shay's job
Speaker 1: is to make it very American and very appealing and
Speaker 1: very watchable. Right, So George Say starts working under this
Speaker 1: guy Morty Matt's Mr Purp Walk himself, Mr Robert Durst
Speaker 1: best friend um in the nineteen eighties. Okay, so ah,
Speaker 1: George Shape prior to this had been sort of like
Speaker 1: working his way up in this company. He was slowly
Speaker 1: I feel like, I mean, it's we hear this story
Speaker 1: all the time. He was just slowly giving up on
Speaker 1: his dream of becoming an artist in pursuit of becoming
Speaker 1: a very evil person, you know, um, so much like Hitler, right,
Speaker 1: and then the reverse Hitler George W. Bush, Like, there's
Speaker 1: all these failed artists, um who end up doing the
Speaker 1: most funded up thing you could think of, George Say. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: there's been like multiple people who were like, thank god, George,
Speaker 1: she only is interested in hot dogs. Or he really
Speaker 1: could have done some damage because he's truly like a
Speaker 1: very fucked up person. Um. But in the eighties he
Speaker 1: would do all these sorts of things for Morty mats.
Speaker 1: There was one account of him, um, convincing an attractive
Speaker 1: woman to sit on an egg for two weeks and
Speaker 1: claim that she was trying to hatch it. That was
Speaker 1: some pr he did. What was what is that pr for?
Speaker 1: What is that, Robert? I don't know. You gotta know
Speaker 1: who it was for? Right? Was it like an egg
Speaker 1: selling company? What is this? My source there? And I
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in learning more, to be perfectly honest, my
Speaker 1: source there is. It's in the thirty for thirty documentary
Speaker 1: where George Say is showing the documentary in around his
Speaker 1: office and says, hey, this is one of my early successes.
Speaker 1: And he points to a newspaper clipping that I could
Speaker 1: not find online fucking anywhere of a woman sitting on
Speaker 1: an egg, saying woman sits on an egg for two weeks,
Speaker 1: and he's like, this is one of my early successes.
Speaker 1: Who I assull think he was advertising eggs, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. It was baffling. Okay, great, and that's that's
Speaker 1: that's wonderful. I love this mystery listeners at home find
Speaker 1: out what he was. So another thing he does is
Speaker 1: this is to promote Palisades Park. He puts an elephant
Speaker 1: on water skis. These are the things that he's doing
Speaker 1: to prove himself to Morty Mats, right, and it works.
Speaker 1: And Morty Mats by the late eighties early nineties says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to bring you in on the Nathan's hot
Speaker 1: dog eating account. You know, start coming to these contests
Speaker 1: that I've been holding since the nineteen seventies. So this
Speaker 1: is the story that George She tells about how he
Speaker 1: came to take over this contest beginning in nineteen Again, George,
Speaker 1: she is saying it, so it very well could be
Speaker 1: a lie, but this is what he says. Um. He
Speaker 1: says that he first became more intimately interested in after
Speaker 1: noticing that a hot dog eating competitor was cheating during
Speaker 1: the contest. So he went up to his boss, Morty Mats,
Speaker 1: and said, hey, someone is cheating. We should do something
Speaker 1: about this. And then quote big Morty told me to
Speaker 1: go over and get a cop to arrest the guy,
Speaker 1: which I thought was crazy unquote uh. But basically what
Speaker 1: this taught him was it doesn't matter who wins, It
Speaker 1: just matters how much attention it gets the company. And
Speaker 1: it's with this mentality that George Say takes over the
Speaker 1: Nathan's hot Dog Eating account in the first one he
Speaker 1: runs is And by this time Richard Say was slowly
Speaker 1: starting to become involved as well. Uh some things that
Speaker 1: he did throughout the nineties before establishing Major League Eating
Speaker 1: and after Uh, there was this huge scam he did,
Speaker 1: uh where he wrote a scholarly article that he submitted
Speaker 1: to the New England Journal of Medicine called the Belt
Speaker 1: of Fat Theory. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard of
Speaker 1: this from the King of the Hill episode about competitive eating. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that was a real thing. He basically made up
Speaker 1: this complete bullshit lie, submitted it to the New England
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine and then, upon being rejected, got a
Speaker 1: ton of press for saying, I can't believe the New
Speaker 1: England Journal of Medicine doesn't think that the belt of
Speaker 1: Fat fat theory is any good to get more people
Speaker 1: to come to the contest, and it worked it like
Speaker 1: it always works. That was fascinating, I mean, and also
Speaker 1: I think I kind of want to lie to the
Speaker 1: New England General in medicine now too, seems like a
Speaker 1: worthwhile thing. What's your lie of choice? I mean you
Speaker 1: said one lie? Does that also to the New England
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine, Robert, Yeah, I think I might try
Speaker 1: to get them to believe that Hansen died in a
Speaker 1: bus crash. I think a gout of critical interest. The
Speaker 1: other major thing that he does before founding Major League eating.
Speaker 1: The Belt of fact thing came came after, but before that.
Speaker 1: The critical innovation that he makes to this contest is
Speaker 1: that he invents a prize, which there wasn't previously. There
Speaker 1: was just a winner and then it's over. There weren't champions,
Speaker 1: it wasn't viewed as a sport. It wasn't people weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to be invested in a year round. It was
Speaker 1: just kind of a yearly stunt. Yeah. It sounded like
Speaker 1: a lot more reasonable than what it's become. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: George Shay decided, you know what, I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be a sport. So he invented something called
Speaker 1: the Mustard Belt, which he made with an old belt,
Speaker 1: a bunch of paint from an art store and rhinestones.
Speaker 1: He like made it on the floor of his friend's
Speaker 1: apartment and just brought it to a contest in the
Speaker 1: nineties and said, this is you know, a symbol that
Speaker 1: you're now competing for, which very very quickly, uh, increased
Speaker 1: interest in competing. There's kind of the idea of this
Speaker 1: w w E style belt that you could win for
Speaker 1: UM for for winning the contest. And I would say
Speaker 1: that the current Nathan's Contest is equally built on UM
Speaker 1: Japanese competitive eating TV shows and the w w E.
Speaker 1: Because George Shea's wife is a writer for the w
Speaker 1: w E. UM, which is also endlessly interesting to me.
Speaker 1: She produces soap operas and writes for the w w E.
Speaker 1: This is just like the most pageant style family of
Speaker 1: all time. Very fun. Uh. And it's also in the
Speaker 1: nineties that George Say becomes the the m C of
Speaker 1: these events. So, Robert, I made you look at a
Speaker 1: picture of this I listeners, if you haven't seen a
Speaker 1: picture of him, I would google the term George Shay
Speaker 1: hot dog. People lose a bunch of George Says in
Speaker 1: the world. Uh, Robert, how would you just how did
Speaker 1: you describe this man Roger Stone dressed as the Riddler?
Speaker 1: If the Riddler came from the Antebellum South, and that's
Speaker 1: also kind of the vibe of his performance as well.
Speaker 1: So his his job of em C, it's all energy,
Speaker 1: it's all very mythic overstatement, and his job is to
Speaker 1: to basically bring on the most normal looking people in
Speaker 1: the entire world and make them sound like they're w
Speaker 1: W E wrestlers, which he's been doing for thirty years now,
Speaker 1: for better or worse, very effectively. But this is how
Speaker 1: George Say describes what he does in he said, uh quote,
Speaker 1: a guy eating a bunch of hot dogs is one thing,
Speaker 1: but a guy in a straw hat pounding the tables
Speaker 1: like an apocalyptic preacher is such a contrast that it
Speaker 1: really drew people in unquote. Um. So he developed this
Speaker 1: style of introducing competitors and attributing these very mythic qualities
Speaker 1: to him. So this is from The New Yorker in um,
Speaker 1: he's it says Matt Stoney represents youth. George Say says,
Speaker 1: youth is feral and it is vicious. Joey Chestnut is
Speaker 1: a hero. Uh George Shay says he has God's user
Speaker 1: name and password, which I think is awesome. He's I
Speaker 1: mean some of them are pretty good. UH and Sonya Thomas,
Speaker 1: who calls herself the Black Widow, is a villain. George
Speaker 1: Say says, she is the darkness, driven ever westward by
Speaker 1: the rising sun. So it's just look this very dramatic
Speaker 1: performative style. UM so okay. By the late ninety nineties, UH,
Speaker 1: George and Shay Uh founded Major League Eating, which still
Speaker 1: exists to this day. UH Dick kind of stays in
Speaker 1: the background, although later on he will begin to work
Speaker 1: as a color commentator on ESPN when they start to
Speaker 1: broadcast them nationally. But we're not there yet. The nineties
Speaker 1: for this, shas are is very kind of scrappy. They
Speaker 1: are starting to start UH contests around the country. Nothing
Speaker 1: really bad has happened yet. They're just trying to get
Speaker 1: this made up sport that they invented to take off,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of working sort of. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why, but it does feel like competitive eating is
Speaker 1: one of those things that couldn't really take off until
Speaker 1: we had nine eleven happen. I'm not sure why, but
Speaker 1: I think nine eleven was critical for competitive eating. You're
Speaker 1: almost right, You're almost right. Much like the movie Shrek,
Speaker 1: Competitive eating really takes off about two months before nine
Speaker 1: eleven happened, but it's very very close. It takes off
Speaker 1: in I think that this is actually I think the
Speaker 1: Shrek came out in July two thou one, maybe June,
Speaker 1: and uh competitive eating major League getting really starts to
Speaker 1: take off in two thousand and one for the reason
Speaker 1: I'm about to tell you. Um, but yeah, like the
Speaker 1: Major League Eating, it was like a very scrappy, like
Speaker 1: slowly slowly building momentum throughout the nineties and early two thousand's.
Speaker 1: They've got this big goofy logo that has Latin on it,
Speaker 1: and the Latin translates to engrging truth. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: just all like ridiculous. So what they're missing essentially and
Speaker 1: getting this sport that they've inmitted to take off, is
Speaker 1: any sort of champion or person worth rooting for. That
Speaker 1: is like very much what is missing. And so they
Speaker 1: find their first major champion who becomes I think kind
Speaker 1: of huge casualty of George Shay's um villainous tendencies, and
Speaker 1: that is Japanese eating champion to Kara Kobyashi. Do you
Speaker 1: know of to Kara Kobyashi? Robert uh is he who
Speaker 1: they named the Kobyashi Maru for I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think we're I don't know what you're talking about. What
Speaker 1: that's fine, that's fine. No, I don't need to explain things.
Speaker 1: Please continue. I very much so. Kobe as he was,
Speaker 1: he was a very very popular figure in America for
Speaker 1: a span of like five to seven years. But um,
Speaker 1: he was. He's a Japanese eating champion who first begins
Speaker 1: to compete in America in two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: so he was invited by Major League Eating to come
Speaker 1: from Japan to compete in America at the Nathan Tatta
Speaker 1: Eating Contest because um, there was already, you know, cultural
Speaker 1: infrastructure for competitive eating on TV and in pop culture
Speaker 1: in Japan, and so there were all of these kind
Speaker 1: of like uh, low budget competitive shows that Kobyashi became
Speaker 1: a minor celebrity in because he was this very um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, he was just really fun to watch.
Speaker 1: He was like twenty three years old, he was really skinny,
Speaker 1: he had a six pack, he had like a signature
Speaker 1: move called the kobe Ashi wiggle. He was just like
Speaker 1: this like sexy heartthrob who girls loved, and he could
Speaker 1: eat so much meat in one sitting, and that was
Speaker 1: his whole thing. Um. But what kind of sent him
Speaker 1: apart in terms of uh, what impressed people about him
Speaker 1: in America was that he trained as if he were
Speaker 1: an athlete, like he had an actual training regimen and
Speaker 1: stayed very lean. Um, And wasn't you know what Americans
Speaker 1: associated competitive eating with, which was just like people gorging themselves,
Speaker 1: like there was strategy involved. So Obooshi comes in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, uh, and the shaise are very they
Speaker 1: they are always emphasizing his other nous since he gets
Speaker 1: to America, Um, they're emphasizing, oh look at this skinny kid.
Speaker 1: He says he can eat fifty hot dogs. What a liar?
Speaker 1: You know, all this stuff. But Kobyashi comes to America
Speaker 1: and in a single event on the fourth of July
Speaker 1: doubles the record for a number of hot dogs that
Speaker 1: you can eat in at that time twelve minutes. So
Speaker 1: he eats fifty hot dogs in twelve minutes, does a lap,
Speaker 1: a full lap around the closest American and people lose
Speaker 1: their ship and he immediately becomes this kind of huge
Speaker 1: um viral in early two thousand's terms figure in America.
Speaker 1: So the Shades are very quick to say, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got to keep this guy, you know around. This is
Speaker 1: the most attention our competition has ever gotten. And they
Speaker 1: encourage Kobo Ashi to keep coming back, which he does
Speaker 1: because now he's becoming an American celebrity, there's access to money,
Speaker 1: he's in like a MasterCard commercial. He becomes, you know,
Speaker 1: a minor American celebrity now, um and what is like
Speaker 1: interesting And this is all laid out in the thirty
Speaker 1: thirty documentary which I would highly recommend, called The Good,
Speaker 1: The Bad, the Hungry UM is that from the very
Speaker 1: very beginning, the Shades were always rooting for and against
Speaker 1: Kobe Ashi. They were saying, well, this guy can eat
Speaker 1: more hot dogs than anyone else, but what if an
Speaker 1: American could do that? And they were always kind of
Speaker 1: trying to um stoke the very American tendency to dislike
Speaker 1: people who are not American UM. And so Kobe Ashi
Speaker 1: was not really hyper aware of this at the time
Speaker 1: because he became and American celebrities so quickly that he
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to be you know, in
Speaker 1: New York for a weekend in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: not you know, not in September, but he was just
Speaker 1: going to go, you know, to America for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, so he didn't speak English fluently, and he
Speaker 1: didn't really understand for a while how he was being
Speaker 1: talked about right in front of him, even though I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of footage of it, and it's
Speaker 1: um pretty unsettling, and over time he starts to realize
Speaker 1: kind of, um, what is going on. But he becomes
Speaker 1: a celebrity and he wins the contest in the US
Speaker 1: for the next six years. He wins every single year
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one to two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: There's no real American competitor that can touch him, and uh,
Speaker 1: the Shase kind of continue this process of building him
Speaker 1: up so that they can keep their operation, you know, popular,
Speaker 1: but also constantly saying, let's get an American in here.
Speaker 1: They were very very much seeking out an American champion.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to two thousand and seven, Uh, where
Speaker 1: Major League Eatings first viable rivalry comes out and the
Speaker 1: Shaise are fucking all over it. And guess who comes
Speaker 1: into the picture at this point, Robert, guess who it is.
Speaker 1: It's Joseph Chestnut. Baby. Uh, he is and he's exactly
Speaker 1: who they're looking for. He is a random white guy
Speaker 1: from San Diego whose dad's name is Merlin. He is
Speaker 1: like the champion that they're looking for him. And so
Speaker 1: this is extremely bad news for for Kobe Ashi, who
Speaker 1: at this point has a lot of American cultural clout.
Speaker 1: But the second that there's an American rival for him,
Speaker 1: the Shades are very very clearly switching their allegiance, and
Speaker 1: they're doing this through promotional materials. They're doing this through
Speaker 1: the press, and all of a sudden, Kobe Ashi is
Speaker 1: being villainized in the press instead of lifted up as
Speaker 1: kind of the only hero of this sport. Um. What
Speaker 1: is especially frustrating about that is that Joseph Chestnut only
Speaker 1: became a competitive eater because he was a huge fan
Speaker 1: of Kobe Ashi. Like literally every UH current American eating
Speaker 1: champion started because they watched Kobe Ashi on TV when
Speaker 1: they were kids. Because he was this just huge figure. Um.
Speaker 1: He could do things that no one else could do.
Speaker 1: He trained, you know, he was very artful in the
Speaker 1: way he ate. And so Joey says that he saw
Speaker 1: Kobi Ashi on Terrible UH Spiked TV broadcast, which again
Speaker 1: the Shades are getting all sorts of money off of
Speaker 1: this because they signed koby Ashi two major league eating
Speaker 1: he's not allowed to work for anyone else, and they
Speaker 1: start to kind of like license his appearances out, so
Speaker 1: they're making a ton of money off of his success.
Speaker 1: And when Joey is a teenager, he sees koby Ashi
Speaker 1: on American TV losing a hot dog eating contest to
Speaker 1: a grizzly air. What what what this is on TV? Robert?
Speaker 1: He watch there is on Spike TV. Kobyash, I mean
Speaker 1: the list of a TV how to do that to
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear. That can't be good for them. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't know that means it shouldn't be legal to
Speaker 1: do to to Karrol kobe Ashi, I mean they but
Speaker 1: it's and it's interesting to listen to. Kobe Ashi talked
Speaker 1: about his views on American culture and how that changed
Speaker 1: over time, because he, I mean, it was just the
Speaker 1: chaise were very much escalating the second there was interest
Speaker 1: in the sport. They were like, Okay, Kobyashi can eat
Speaker 1: fifty hot ducks. Okay, what can we get him to
Speaker 1: do on TV? We're gonna get him to compete against
Speaker 1: a Grizzly Bear. We're gonna have him eat cow brands
Speaker 1: against a bunch of American weirdos, Like they had him
Speaker 1: doing all of this stuff, and he's in a contract
Speaker 1: that is mutually beneficial, like he's making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but he can only do what they say he can do,
Speaker 1: which becomes a big problem later on. But Joey seems
Speaker 1: kind like it started as a big problem. I would
Speaker 1: argue everything you've described as a problem, it is. It's
Speaker 1: a huge problem, and it's and it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the podcasting industry in that there's
Speaker 1: just no that. I have no notes, and I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful that it exists, but there's no there's no precedent
Speaker 1: for it, you know, like there there was never a
Speaker 1: major league eating contract. Uh. People, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: marketing it as a sport, but people who are in
Speaker 1: sports don't think it's a sport. So it just kind
Speaker 1: of becomes this weird novelty thing that if you are
Speaker 1: the person in power and making these contracts and there's
Speaker 1: a significant language barrier between you and your champion, you
Speaker 1: can fux someone over pretty heavily, which is what they
Speaker 1: do over time to Kara Koby Ashi. Um So Joey.
Speaker 1: Joey sees Kobe ashily lose to a grizzly bear and says,
Speaker 1: I want to be a bear baby. He said, all right, Merlin,
Speaker 1: get in the car. We're gonna start eating asparagus. And
Speaker 1: that's what Joey does. I mean, Joey like is so
Speaker 1: inspired that he decides he wants to be an eating champion.
Speaker 1: And while he's in college in San Diego, he starts
Speaker 1: training with his mom and he wins a local asparagus
Speaker 1: eating contest, and slowly it becomes clear, as he's competing
Speaker 1: in more and more, you know, increasingly prestigious eating events,
Speaker 1: that he might be an actual threat to Kobe Ashi.
Speaker 1: So when the Chaise get wind of this, they see
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut, who is really the most whatever guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I love him dearly, but he's just some guy, right,
Speaker 1: and they but he can eat a lot of hot dogs,
Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, this is the American champion that
Speaker 1: we want. Let's push this rivalry as much as we
Speaker 1: possibly can. And so by two thousand and seven, Um,
Speaker 1: there is an established rivalry between Joey and kobe Ashi,
Speaker 1: and they're pushing it. And at this point, beginning in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, off of kobe Ashi's popularity in the US,
Speaker 1: ESPN begins broadcasting this event every year. It's been on
Speaker 1: ESPN every single year since two thousand and three. Um,
Speaker 1: they split it by gender, in which I'll get to
Speaker 1: because there's no reason to do it and it's fucked up.
Speaker 1: But they broadcast the men's competition on ESPN and they
Speaker 1: broadcast the women's competition on ESPN three because um, well
Speaker 1: you know. But anyways, it as of two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: all genders compete in the same contest. So the big
Speaker 1: three competitors in this contest that the Shades are pushing
Speaker 1: or Kobe Ashi, Joey Chestnut, and Uh Sonja Black Widow
Speaker 1: Thomas and uh Joey beats Kobe Ashi. And this is
Speaker 1: a huge turning point in the sport, but only because
Speaker 1: it very much changes the way that the Shas approach
Speaker 1: UM marketing. There now two champions, so kobe Ashi um
Speaker 1: doesn't quite understand this at first. He was at first
Speaker 1: like kind of excited to have someone to compete against
Speaker 1: because it was I guess kind of like bor like
Speaker 1: they had to keep pitting him against animals because no
Speaker 1: one could compete with him. But now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: well there's this guy he can actually compete with, and
Speaker 1: he was kind of excited about it, only to find
Speaker 1: that very very quickly, the tide changed at the Shais,
Speaker 1: you know, encouragement to being as racist to Koby Ashi
Speaker 1: as you could possibly be in service of Joey Chestnut
Speaker 1: becoming the American champion. Um So Joey win ends in
Speaker 1: oh seven uh, and immediately the crowd turns on Kobe
Speaker 1: Ashi and the Shades are encouraging it. They're saying all
Speaker 1: sorts of um. I don't want to say what they
Speaker 1: were saying. It was very racist and immediate. And they're
Speaker 1: draped in American flags, shouting USA, USA to Joey Chestnut
Speaker 1: and kind of in and right, and it's like, in
Speaker 1: a single moment, you know, Joey is like changed from
Speaker 1: some guy from San Diego into a symbol that is
Speaker 1: very much not within his own control, and the Shades
Speaker 1: are in control of that symbol. And so you know,
Speaker 1: after two thousand seven, Kobe Ashi is the other, the
Speaker 1: extremely other non American enemy, and Joey is the American champion.
Speaker 1: Right UM's thoughts. Yeah, I mean it's it makes it
Speaker 1: makes sense. But like they would abandon the guy who
Speaker 1: had made them all of this money as soon as
Speaker 1: there was a chance at having an American and and
Speaker 1: like use him cruelly because it seems like that's exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of people they are. M. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's wild. The competitive eating sounds more or
Speaker 1: less exactly like the w W E. M. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: there we go. But you know what isn't unethical to
Speaker 1: its workers? Oh no, the podcasting industry, uh huh, for sure.
Speaker 1: And you know what that's supported by. Oh okay, I
Speaker 1: was like, where is this going? These these products and
Speaker 1: services exactly? God bless product USA. USA. We're back. And look,
Speaker 1: I lied a little bit. There's a lot of unethical
Speaker 1: stuff in the pod casting industry. For example, sometimes Sophie
Speaker 1: ASTs me to get up as early as eleven thirty. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's first of all, violence against Roberts. And second of all,
Speaker 1: we just found out a few minutes ago that you
Speaker 1: are a liar. So what's what is an example of
Speaker 1: a lie that you've told me? No one lie. Everybody
Speaker 1: gets who was my lie of the daddy thing or
Speaker 1: is it a different lie? No? No, that was for
Speaker 1: a utilitarian purpose. I had to do that for everyone's say,
Speaker 1: categorizing your lives like that. That's bullshit. It's called categorizing
Speaker 1: and I do it all the time. Does my lie
Speaker 1: have anything to do with Anderson? I can't say so.
Speaker 1: I think I know what it is, and I'm furious.
Speaker 1: I can't say, Wow, what, okay? Do I want to know?
Speaker 1: Everyone gets one, including the listeners of this show. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody gets one? What's the lie? Robert Low's one of
Speaker 1: you lie? I know, but that's the lie he loves.
Speaker 1: Statistically speaking, but that's the lie. That's okay, So curious.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and seven, you guys. Joey is the
Speaker 1: champion now and everyone is. The Tide is very much
Speaker 1: turned on Kobe Ashi and George Say being himself, being
Speaker 1: his straw hat and villain. UH is very um upfront
Speaker 1: about what he was trying to do here. He says
Speaker 1: this in the documentary. In Uh, he says, I have
Speaker 1: always used pro American rhetoric, and the belt is a
Speaker 1: national prize from the day the belt was made. Reminder,
Speaker 1: the belt was made by him in a living room
Speaker 1: out of cardboard. Uh, he says, quote, you think I
Speaker 1: want Kobe Ashi to win six years in a row?
Speaker 1: Necessarily if he wins, he wins. But that's not grey
Speaker 1: for the narrative. You need to understand that there's an
Speaker 1: American hero, and you can be a hero in the
Speaker 1: same exact way, but you can't be an American hero
Speaker 1: because you weren't American. Unquote. So that he's very very clear. Okay,
Speaker 1: He's like, hello, I am racist about my weird cardboard
Speaker 1: belt that I made. Um, and this is where I
Speaker 1: mean it genuinely like it. It's uh, it's difficult to
Speaker 1: watch and learn about because this like for sometime, I
Speaker 1: mean he's fine now, but like this like really destroyed
Speaker 1: Kobyage's life for some time. Where um, you know, he
Speaker 1: describes being completely shocked and scared at how the American
Speaker 1: public very rapidly turned on him once Joey Chestnut became
Speaker 1: the champion. Um, he said, quote, I didn't understand American culture,
Speaker 1: so it's scared me and George say, you know, this
Speaker 1: guy who is contracting him and is in complete control
Speaker 1: of his finances, is going on live television and mocking
Speaker 1: him to his face, you know. After immediately after Kobyashi loses,
Speaker 1: George Say gets on stage and his little outfit and says,
Speaker 1: the dark days of the last six years are behind
Speaker 1: us of his own champion, and you know, raises Joey
Speaker 1: Chestnuts fist in the air. And Joey's role in this
Speaker 1: is um insidious and passive, where in all of the interviews,
Speaker 1: Joey is very aware of what's going on. He knows
Speaker 1: that he's being you know, raised as this champion, and
Speaker 1: he knows that Kobyashi is being mistreated, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: stand to benefit from saying anything, and so he doesn't. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's clear and kind of clips that you can
Speaker 1: find that, UM, the Say brothers and and George in
Speaker 1: particular are very much trying to control uh Joey Chestnuts behavior.
Speaker 1: You can see in a series of promotional clips that
Speaker 1: UM they'll ask Joey a simple question of like, well,
Speaker 1: how does it feel to beat kobey Ashi? You know,
Speaker 1: and Joey is, UM, he's a simple man. You know,
Speaker 1: He'll he'll say things like it felt good, you know,
Speaker 1: like and then you know, George she will be off
Speaker 1: camera offering him mythic punch up um to to what
Speaker 1: Joey said, to make it sound meaner and to make
Speaker 1: it sound more you know, jingoistic and all of this stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: there's this incredibly funked up clip uh where George say,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he's filming uh promotional clip uh talking
Speaker 1: about the day that Joey Chesnut defeated Kobe Ashi and
Speaker 1: he says, um, in this very I don't know, He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the bullshit is at eleven and he says,
Speaker 1: after that event, I went back to my room and
Speaker 1: I wept. I silently wept because something was lost. We
Speaker 1: had a hero and our hero was no longer invulnar
Speaker 1: double and I wept. And then there you are. These
Speaker 1: people are eating too much food, Like stop it, stop
Speaker 1: taking it so seriously, stop being like this. Well he's
Speaker 1: lying though, because it's like right after you know, he
Speaker 1: says and I wept, there's a pause. He thinks the
Speaker 1: camera has cut, and then he starts laughing because he's
Speaker 1: making it all up. He's doing it to humiliate Kobayashi
Speaker 1: and elevate Joey Chestnut because he doesn't give a ship
Speaker 1: and he just wants people to to watch the fucking
Speaker 1: broadcast like he does it. It is like a level
Speaker 1: of I'm I'm certain that he's a jingoistic, racist person,
Speaker 1: but there's there's like a level of lawlessness here that really,
Speaker 1: um uniquely unsettles me, where it's like it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to know what he thinks about anything because he'll
Speaker 1: just say whatever he needs to say to get attention.
Speaker 1: Like it's his views could be anything. It's UM, I
Speaker 1: don't love it so UM. After this, Kobayashi becomes understandably
Speaker 1: frustrated with Major League eating. UM. He loses his mother, um,
Speaker 1: which also kind of makes him want to be closer
Speaker 1: to home. He doesn't want to be in the US
Speaker 1: so much anymore. Uh. He's also being actively mistreated by
Speaker 1: people in the US. People are like cornering him on
Speaker 1: the streets of New York and screaming USA in his space,
Speaker 1: and he's saying, like I felt unwelcome. I was shocked.
Speaker 1: They used to cheer for me, and I started to
Speaker 1: feel like I wasn't welcome in America anymore. UM. So
Speaker 1: he wants out, you know, he's he's not being treated
Speaker 1: well in this contract. There's been this w W E
Speaker 1: style he'll turn that he has not consented to and
Speaker 1: people are treating him like shit. And so uh, he
Speaker 1: competes against Joey for a couple more years. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: on and off. I believe, I've that Joey is edging
Speaker 1: him out most of the time. I do believe that
Speaker 1: koby Ashi wins against him at least once in that
Speaker 1: stretch of years. Um. But by he's done and Kobe
Speaker 1: Ashi tells George say, I'm not competing in the competition
Speaker 1: this year. I'm I'm I'm done. Uh. And this was
Speaker 1: partially because George she would not release him from his
Speaker 1: contract because all of Major League eating was so dependent
Speaker 1: on this rivalry. Specifically, he didn't want to let koby
Speaker 1: Ashi out. He just wanted to keep calling him a
Speaker 1: piece of ship on live television and saying racist things
Speaker 1: and having that be how Kobyashi made his living. So
Speaker 1: he says, I'm not going to do it anymore. And
Speaker 1: at contest there is a big dramatic event uh where
Speaker 1: koby Ashi refuses to compete but does go to the
Speaker 1: contest uh wearing a T shirt that says free Kobe
Speaker 1: and basically start to this chant in the crowd among
Speaker 1: Kobe y Ashi supporters, and this is all on ESPN,
Speaker 1: like you can watch the whole thing. Joey is in
Speaker 1: the middle of competing against no real viable competitor at
Speaker 1: this time except for the Black Widow, and Um, Kobe
Speaker 1: is in the crowd wearing a free Kobe shirt. I
Speaker 1: really want a free Kobe shirt. Um. I think our
Speaker 1: listeners can find that for you. There's somebody who here
Speaker 1: listening who is deep into eater culture, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be now yelling at me that eaters are what
Speaker 1: you call people who are part of the weird fetish
Speaker 1: community and not appropriate as a term for these athletes.
Speaker 1: And they're very angry right now. They're shrieking at me
Speaker 1: through their headphones in the middle of a trader. Joe's
Speaker 1: I hope I'm getting this right to whoever that listener is,
Speaker 1: because it's it's a lot to take in. What's fun
Speaker 1: about stuff like this, Jamie's, no matter how much research
Speaker 1: you do, we're wrong in a specific enough way that
Speaker 1: somebody is literally shifting on the floor of a trader.
Speaker 1: Joe's having a stroke in fury because you've gotten a
Speaker 1: fact wrong about Kobe Yashi's early practicing career, some ship.
Speaker 1: It's going to be for this going to be great
Speaker 1: insight into your life. My listeners are very nice. Okay,
Speaker 1: um he's wearing so he's wearing a shirt. This is
Speaker 1: free Kobe. He starts a chancing let him eat, Let
Speaker 1: him eat, and Kobe Ashi is like, I mean, he
Speaker 1: is a showman at heart. He can eat a lot
Speaker 1: of fucking hot dogs. But he's again no offense to
Speaker 1: my husband Joey, but he's got the showman personality and
Speaker 1: the technique that Joey Chestnut has never had. Joey Chestnut
Speaker 1: is an awkward guy who could eat seventy six hot dogs.
Speaker 1: That's basically what he can do. Kobe Ashi has like
Speaker 1: an air about him. He's very exciting to watch. And
Speaker 1: so what he does is storm the stage after the
Speaker 1: contest ends, saying I want to shake Joey's hand. That's
Speaker 1: all he says. What George Shay identifies is an opportunity
Speaker 1: that goes back to him being at that contest saying
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. What the right thing to do is
Speaker 1: have him arrested and people will watch that, and so
Speaker 1: George say it is said, there's no proof that George
Speaker 1: say ordered this, but it stands to reason, George Say,
Speaker 1: tell security arrest Kobe Ashi on live television, and that's
Speaker 1: what happened. He was dragged off the stage, he was
Speaker 1: slammed into and he was arrested on live television, and
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Yeah, the chanch. Couldn't people just watch
Speaker 1: fucking people other dudes eat too much? Like why does
Speaker 1: all of this nonsense have to happen? It was, It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be on ESPN if it was just guys eating too.
Speaker 1: I mean it it is absurd, like how far they're
Speaker 1: willing to go, and it is also absurd how effective
Speaker 1: it is because this was a huge story, like when
Speaker 1: Kobe Ashi was arrested at the contest that he won
Speaker 1: six previous times at the contest that he had popularized
Speaker 1: in the first place, and they fucking arrested him like
Speaker 1: it was just it was It's I'm very deep into this,
Speaker 1: but it is very compelling footage to watch. And again,
Speaker 1: George Say, years later, is very upfront about what he
Speaker 1: was trying to do. He says this last year, he says, uh,
Speaker 1: when Kobyashi stormed the stage, it was phenomenal, unfortunate in
Speaker 1: so many ways, but phenomenal for press. That's how it
Speaker 1: grew and grew. It was always about the free media.
Speaker 1: This year we had something like forty billion consumer impressions,
Speaker 1: just a massive number and huge value. And so again
Speaker 1: it's just he doesn't care, Like it's whatever the thing
Speaker 1: is that's going to get attention is the thing he
Speaker 1: will do. And in this moment, it was arrest Kobe Yashi,
Speaker 1: which is you know it, Yeah, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about that? I I think they've overcomplicated watching people kill
Speaker 1: their hearts through processed meat. And I'm I'm livid, Jamie.
Speaker 1: I'm the angriest I've ever been. Good good. I was
Speaker 1: hoping that this story I would get you there because
Speaker 1: it is a very it's so I mean, and it's
Speaker 1: so like specifically American in the ways that it's infuriating
Speaker 1: because it's all just like weird pr and eating things
Speaker 1: that are bad for you, Like it's so ridiculous. Um,
Speaker 1: it's already it was never going to be a good
Speaker 1: thing because it's it's bad to eat seventies six hot dogs,
Speaker 1: like it's not a good thing to do. Watch for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. Be careful, be careful. But but
Speaker 1: they've just made it so unpleasant for no reason, and
Speaker 1: I am I'm livid. Do you understand now, though, why
Speaker 1: people say that it's good that George Shay only applies
Speaker 1: this skill of evil to hot dogs, because imagine this
Speaker 1: somewhere else it was. Yes, I am glad that he
Speaker 1: stayed out of politics. Um. I guess people like him
Speaker 1: are going to do damage somewhere, and maybe siloing off
Speaker 1: to them to the competitive eating community is better than
Speaker 1: some things. But I mean, the main person who's screwed
Speaker 1: here is Kobe Ashi, who I just I love Kobe
Speaker 1: Free Kobe Uh. He's devastated by this happening, obviously, he says,
Speaker 1: I thought the U S was a place where people
Speaker 1: would be recognized as an American hero because of their achievements.
Speaker 1: And I thought that where you came from and what
Speaker 1: race you are had nothing to do with it. Um.
Speaker 1: And Joey Chestnut said in response to this entire event,
Speaker 1: maybe I lack a little empathy because Joey chest I
Speaker 1: mean this, he's not the bastard on the chopping block here,
Speaker 1: but he you know, he doesn't say anything. He doesn't
Speaker 1: say anything in Kobe Ashi's defense, and in spite of
Speaker 1: the fact that kobe Ash she's the only reason that
Speaker 1: he's even doing what he's doing. He very much goes
Speaker 1: with the flow with the Shade Brothers um every single time.
Speaker 1: So okay um. So that's kind of the extent of
Speaker 1: the men's contest to this day. I mean, ever since
Speaker 1: kobe As she left the sport, Joey has lost one time,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you why now. It's very funny. Uh.
Speaker 1: After Kobyash, she's gone. Joey Chestnut like to this day
Speaker 1: is the face of the company. The chaise love him.
Speaker 1: He plays ball with fucking whatever. He makes you know,
Speaker 1: like two to three thousand dollars a year. Competitive eating.
Speaker 1: He's got a vanity mustard line. He loses once, and
Speaker 1: it is very funny. He proposed to his then girlfriend
Speaker 1: on stage immediately before eating seventy hot dogs. She says yes,
Speaker 1: it's all and we're all like woo, who you know?
Speaker 1: And George facilitates the proposal. It's all very weird in
Speaker 1: corporate joy that shows up to the event and you
Speaker 1: find out through a series of very funny ESPN color
Speaker 1: commentary that the wedding was called off and she dumped him. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's good for you, honey. She was. She was said
Speaker 1: to have been his trainer. You gotta wash that man
Speaker 1: right out of your hair. And Joey is so upset
Speaker 1: that he was dumped that he loses to my other
Speaker 1: hot dog eating crash, Matt Stoney, who's a very popular
Speaker 1: YouTuber who's objectively just a very good looking person. Um.
Speaker 1: But he loses to Matt Stoney and then does that
Speaker 1: thing that scary people do sometimes, that he was so
Speaker 1: upset that he lost to Matt Stoney, you know, the
Speaker 1: competitor associated with youth, that he spends the next year
Speaker 1: getting absurdly good at eating hot dogs, and then comes
Speaker 1: back the next year and has been undefeated since. And
Speaker 1: he has a new girlfriend now, um, which I'm assuming
Speaker 1: he balanced, you know, he balances in his marriage with me.
Speaker 1: She says, he smells like too much meat, but they
Speaker 1: seem to love each other. I don't know. I ordered
Speaker 1: some of his mustard. It's not my business. Quick word,
Speaker 1: Why are you enabling this? Is what I is what
Speaker 1: I want to know, because you may be a kind
Speaker 1: of the bastard here yourself. Why why are you enabling this?
Speaker 1: This marble industry? Why am I enabling the hot dog industry. Well,
Speaker 1: uh no, no, not the hot dog industry, the competitive
Speaker 1: eating industry. I'm fine with the hot dog industry. Well,
Speaker 1: there's there's so much about the competitive eating industry I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to cover here because it doesn't pertain to George. Say,
Speaker 1: for example, so many people in the hot dog eating
Speaker 1: can unity are fucking each other. It's fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: you would have to you would have to just suck
Speaker 1: other hot dog people because the mead smell is going
Speaker 1: to be a problem for anyone else. Robert literally, So
Speaker 1: I went to the contest this year. The current women's
Speaker 1: champion could not compete because she was eight months pregnant
Speaker 1: with another hot dog eaters baby. Like it, This ship
Speaker 1: goes deep. It is a fascinating subculture, and I can't
Speaker 1: let it go. They're just very folks doing the worst
Speaker 1: thing they can think of a lot of money. The
Speaker 1: worst things I can think of, yourself is this entire sports.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot for me to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess football doesn't sound so bad anymore, but a
Speaker 1: cte here and there, I still think. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you watch clips, which I know you're not going to
Speaker 1: Kobe she really uh it peaked with the kobe Ashi
Speaker 1: Um chest Uh competitions like take the Shase out of It.
Speaker 1: Their competitions were very exciting when they were pure and
Speaker 1: it was just like two guys trying to see who
Speaker 1: can eat the most meat. It's very fun to watch.
Speaker 1: Their techniques are very different there whatever, Okay, I have
Speaker 1: to tell you one more thing about George say and
Speaker 1: it uh it pertains to how he doesn't like women either.
Speaker 1: So uh, there is a champion who is a woman
Speaker 1: for some time in this same era of Kobe Ashi
Speaker 1: and Joey Chestnut. Uh. She her name is Sonya Thomas Um.
Speaker 1: She's she's really cool. I'll uh. She basically they She
Speaker 1: also came into the sport after seeing kobey Ashi on
Speaker 1: tv UM. She's a naturalized US citizen. She came from
Speaker 1: South Korea. She managed a Burger King at Andrews Air
Speaker 1: Force Base in Maryland and was like, I can eat
Speaker 1: a lot of burger king. Let me see if I
Speaker 1: can eat a lot of hot dogs. And she got
Speaker 1: really fucking good edd eating a lot of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: And she was consistently the second and third place in
Speaker 1: an all genders competition for years, but in the Chaise
Speaker 1: decided that they wanted to separate the contest by gender.
Speaker 1: There was no reason given for why this was um
Speaker 1: other than just misogyny, because every other competitive eating contest
Speaker 1: in the country at that time was not separated by gender,
Speaker 1: because there was no reason to do that. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: why would why would you ever think that's necessary. Stomachs
Speaker 1: is stomachs. And Sonya Thomas, I mean there was a
Speaker 1: huge like she had this real kind of like run
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands of like she was beating
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut all the time, and she was beating Kobayashi
Speaker 1: and like it she's kind of erased from the main narrative,
Speaker 1: but she was a huge competitor who was just like
Speaker 1: very fun and like she loved the backstreet boys and
Speaker 1: the carpenters and she worked at Burger King. Like she
Speaker 1: was just America is not ready for a woman who
Speaker 1: can eat a lot of hot dogs. We're twenty years
Speaker 1: away from being able to accept that fully. Clearly not.
Speaker 1: Because it was like all the press around her was
Speaker 1: very misogynist, Like in every piece written about her she
Speaker 1: was it was written about like she had an eating disorder,
Speaker 1: as if every hot dog conson. Literally the entire sport
Speaker 1: is an eating disorder. People like all of them have one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a professional eating disorder. Seventies six hot dogs.
Speaker 1: That isn't eating disorder. This I mean she's she's still around.
Speaker 1: She stopped competing after a while, but she's I mean,
Speaker 1: she is very petite. She the first time she won,
Speaker 1: she weighed ninety nine pounds and eight thirty seven hot dogs.
Speaker 1: Like she's, she's very petite. That is a significant amount
Speaker 1: of her body weight. It is quite like, I think
Speaker 1: it's more impressive that she than she can do that
Speaker 1: than Joey or kobe A. She can do fucking anything,
Speaker 1: but whatever. Like So, beginning in the Shaise decide, actually
Speaker 1: we you know, and this is after Kobya's departure from
Speaker 1: the sport, we want to separate men and women. They
Speaker 1: give no reason, um, and they immediately move the women's
Speaker 1: competition to ESPN three, where no one will ever see it.
Speaker 1: They change the belt from a mustard belt to like
Speaker 1: this pink pussy shaped thing, and they cut the prize
Speaker 1: money by seventy So that you are a woman who
Speaker 1: can eat the most hot dogs, which Sonya Thomas always was,
Speaker 1: you would only get two thousand, five hundred dollars as
Speaker 1: opposed to the ten thousand you get if you win
Speaker 1: the main contest on ESPN U. The Shas put a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on Sonya Thomas to endorse this decision
Speaker 1: um and sort of posited as a good thing. And
Speaker 1: she made the point at the time saying, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this will be good, maybe more women will get
Speaker 1: involved in the sport. This is fine. I don't feel
Speaker 1: the need to ask for more money. Um. And but
Speaker 1: you know it, it blows up in her face. You know.
Speaker 1: The women's contest to this day is still broadcast on
Speaker 1: ESPN three. The the amount of money is um still.
Speaker 1: I mean there's still a lot of disparity in terms
Speaker 1: of Joey Chestnut makes a hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: money than the current women's champion, Mickey Pseudo, who was
Speaker 1: pregnant with I can't emphasize it enough another hot dog
Speaker 1: years baby. Um. And they still give women a pink
Speaker 1: pepto bismol belt instead of the mustard belt. And this
Speaker 1: year build the Blasio gave the women's belt away. So
Speaker 1: it was insulted all around. So that is the story
Speaker 1: of George Say. He is still m seeing the contest.
Speaker 1: To this day, he's still uplifting Joey Chestnut as the
Speaker 1: one true champion. Uh. Fortunately, with time, there are you know,
Speaker 1: competitive eaters that are now less financially dependent on the
Speaker 1: Shay Brothers specifically then they were when Kobe Ashi was
Speaker 1: kind of at his peak in the US. Because Internet,
Speaker 1: so there are competitors like bad Land Booker and Matt
Speaker 1: Stoney who have millions and millions of subscribers on YouTube
Speaker 1: and TikTok, and there are more ways to be able
Speaker 1: to eat or chug a lot of food and uh
Speaker 1: make money from it that are not inherently connected to
Speaker 1: these two fucking weirdos. But for the most part, they
Speaker 1: still have the market very much cornered. Um. It's here
Speaker 1: that I will include George Say recently started went cameo.
Speaker 1: Uh if you Robert described cameo, because you described cameo
Speaker 1: to where people who are technically famous get paid what
Speaker 1: are actually kind of embarrassingly small amounts of money in
Speaker 1: order to make random videos for strangers on the Internet.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, for me, it was not an embarrassingly
Speaker 1: small amount of money because I pay So I've been
Speaker 1: withholding this fact, but I wrote a whole show about
Speaker 1: being Joey Chestnut's fictional wife. I've been work shopping it here.
Speaker 1: It's called Mrs Joseph Chestnut America, USA, and it's all
Speaker 1: about my tortured marriage to Joey Chestnut. And so for
Speaker 1: this show, I wanted to get a cameo from George, say,
Speaker 1: encouraging Joey Chestnut to break up with me was the
Speaker 1: point of this. I paid one and twenty US American
Speaker 1: dollars for this, Robert, and he sent me, whatever this is, okay, Sophie,
Speaker 1: can we can we watch it? Dred and twenty dollars
Speaker 1: is good for Joey Chestnut. It's very funny when someone
Speaker 1: like Rudy Giuliani is in there and making videos for
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty bucks, because it's like you, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be that cheap, Rudy Giuliani, like Robert's gonna it's
Speaker 1: not a good video. And it's the thing is, even
Speaker 1: though it makes no sense, there's no option on cameo
Speaker 1: to respond to someone and say, hey, that's about what
Speaker 1: I asked for. That's not what cameos for. You don't
Speaker 1: You don't get to cameo to have an equal relationship
Speaker 1: with these people. Jay, Here's what he's said me you ready, Robert,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen of America, citizens of the world, we
Speaker 1: now address Joey. A man of incredible strength, a warrior
Speaker 1: king who stands with the land meets the horizon, steadfast
Speaker 1: and unshakable, upon whose shoulders God has arranged the flesh
Speaker 1: of an archangel, a man of immense wisdom, who, while
Speaker 1: he is faced by abundant challenges, will stand on the
Speaker 1: ramparts of victory, overlooking a sea of truth. Because he
Speaker 1: will never stop, and he will never stand down, and
Speaker 1: he will never submit, and he will never surrender until
Speaker 1: his bones are cracked and splintered and scraped like chuck
Speaker 1: on pavement, until the very dome of Heaven collapses and
Speaker 1: the black avalanche of space pours down around us. He
Speaker 1: will fight on why Because the rock on which he
Speaker 1: stands is not a rock. It is the United States
Speaker 1: of America. And now it is go time. It is
Speaker 1: go time. Time, it is go no go, Lock and
Speaker 1: Lord and love him and leave him smoking. If he
Speaker 1: gotn't see you want to see a seing on the
Speaker 1: other side. Time time it's condition read all hands on deck,
Speaker 1: batt and down the hatches, belly up to the bar,
Speaker 1: do it to would feel the burn fire and the
Speaker 1: whole hold the phone could be gold. Go home game
Speaker 1: on game day. Game face, never say never, never said,
Speaker 1: I never give up. Put up a shut up, shape
Speaker 1: up a ship out, show me the money, make my day.
Speaker 1: Good night, Irene. Wake me when it's over. It's go time.
Speaker 1: A word from Jamie. Do you like the end? I
Speaker 1: like at the end where he goes from Jamie, I'm
Speaker 1: not happy that you gave this person add twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: Feel good about it? Advocate that was worth every penny.
Speaker 1: You know it wasn't it was bad. I feel I
Speaker 1: really thought that I was. Look, I've used cameos in
Speaker 1: my shows before. I used a Heidi Montag cameo in
Speaker 1: my lash a Girl. I remember it was wonderful to
Speaker 1: great effect. George Shape, what was that that we just heard?
Speaker 1: We just heard someone have a knockdown? Yeah, I know that.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I guess an element of it's it's
Speaker 1: competent showmanship, but also it's the kind of showmanship you
Speaker 1: have when your sport is incredibly boring and you feel
Speaker 1: like you have to throw a bunch of nonsense in there,
Speaker 1: because all it actually is is watching people eat fucking
Speaker 1: hot dogs. Okay, first of all, again, I feel they
Speaker 1: need your fucking mouth. Yeah, this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of there's gonna be a lot of people messaging
Speaker 1: me after this, being like Robert, I love your show,
Speaker 1: but I also have been a fan of Competitive Eating
Speaker 1: for years and I need you to know why you're wrong.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna let you know now, not going
Speaker 1: to read those emails people. I do feel like there
Speaker 1: is significant crossover between your audience and people that like
Speaker 1: competitive eating. And that's not an insult because I am
Speaker 1: that audience. I The thing is, it's I I do
Speaker 1: believe that it is a sport, and I believe that
Speaker 1: it is a sport that is run by two fucking
Speaker 1: weirdos that shouldn't be in charge of the sport. And
Speaker 1: I believe that Joey Chestnut is a complicit you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's half complicity it and have trapped and free
Speaker 1: Kobe is how I feel. I want to share one
Speaker 1: more quote from George say uh and then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: absolutely die. Um So again, this boils down to one
Speaker 1: man and his younger brothers desire UM two. You know,
Speaker 1: just create a bunch of bullshit where it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be and have it be extremely successful. So last year,
Speaker 1: George Say says in an interview to Mail magazine, he
Speaker 1: says this, humans can't understand something without a narrative, so
Speaker 1: we'll make one up in the absence. And that's a
Speaker 1: very powerful thing. And ultimately, I think that's what he does.
Speaker 1: He creates a narrative where one doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: to get people excited and upset, and he's very good
Speaker 1: at it, and he'll weaponize the worst of people in
Speaker 1: order to do it. And that's just ory of George Say. Well,
Speaker 1: I hated this, Jamie. I it actually feels great to
Speaker 1: hear you say that. I feel like that means I
Speaker 1: did an okay job. Yeah, you did a wonderful job.
Speaker 1: I I don't like these people and I don't like
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They're bad. I maybe have food. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's not a thing we get to have anymore. You
Speaker 1: know what's cool, though, is that um Kobe still competes,
Speaker 1: but he com he competes in a different area of
Speaker 1: New York against nobody. He just eat a ton of
Speaker 1: hot dogs with his like friends and community just and
Speaker 1: regularly quietly has an eating disorder. No, no, he didn't know.
Speaker 1: It's community. It's exciting, like it's community eating. He didn't
Speaker 1: the the exciting that you were giving the negative twist
Speaker 1: to that story. I'm going to give the positive to
Speaker 1: watch him eat. No, it's a it's a community. No,
Speaker 1: it's just like a unity event that he and his
Speaker 1: wife put together of like it's uh, it's free food
Speaker 1: for everyone who shows up. And then Kobe eats a
Speaker 1: ton of hot dogs because that's what he's famous for
Speaker 1: and that's what he's really really good at. And so
Speaker 1: I thought it was very cool to see him, you know, like,
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't make him quit. He still does
Speaker 1: it and now he does it for himself. I'm happy
Speaker 1: for him. They didn't take the thing he loved the most.
Speaker 1: I would. I would eating a lot of meat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I do think. Yeah, people have, people
Speaker 1: have the right to I want to eat a lot
Speaker 1: of meat. Um. I just find all of this deeply
Speaker 1: off putting. Jamie Free Kobe. I'm glad that Kobe is
Speaker 1: doing better, though. Um. Not a fan of Joey Chestnuts though, look,
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut is you know, yeah, look, absolutely has the
Speaker 1: name of a character. And then I think you should
Speaker 1: leave sketch it is and that is just his name.
Speaker 1: And then the further you go up the family tree,
Speaker 1: the scarier the names get. Merlin Chestnut. Come on, there's
Speaker 1: if you want to see something really fucked up, which
Speaker 1: I know you don't, but the videos of Joey Chestnut,
Speaker 1: because there's like no protocol for how you should train
Speaker 1: to eat seventy six hot dogs. So Joey Chesnut is
Speaker 1: just doing like free form jazz on how you would
Speaker 1: prepare for something like this, And there's these horrifying video
Speaker 1: clips of him, um gas like he does sit ups,
Speaker 1: but he does sit ups where he's gulping air like
Speaker 1: he's trying. And then he choose on a little plastic
Speaker 1: ball for twenty minutes a day to get his jaw
Speaker 1: all limber, and like he just he does all these
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it works, but to what end
Speaker 1: he's I do think that ultimately Joey Chestnut is not
Speaker 1: an ethically good person. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: think he is being forced to kill himself for our entertainment,
Speaker 1: and I think that that is very sad in it
Speaker 1: in its own way. I get, yeah, yeah, that's sad.
Speaker 1: All of this is bad. That said, I will be
Speaker 1: there at contest and I might actually train and see
Speaker 1: if I could maybe get on stage on the women's contest,
Speaker 1: because I think you only have to eat like eleven
Speaker 1: hot dogs in ten minutes. I could do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could do that too. Um but no, no, I
Speaker 1: don't support this, but I together eating all those hot dogs. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're no fun. I couldn't be less supportive of this
Speaker 1: for you, Jamie, maybe that's the one. Maybe that's the
Speaker 1: one lie he's telling you, Jamie, we don't know. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: I got to eat. When I was leaving the contest,
Speaker 1: they put like a plate of a pyramid of two
Speaker 1: hundred hot dogs in front of Joey, just again for
Speaker 1: the showmanship of it all. He only ate se and
Speaker 1: so for the rest of the five they just give
Speaker 1: them out to the audience. And so I got to
Speaker 1: eat one of Joey's leftovers and it did feel really special. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I don't like. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say I'm happy for you, but I'm glad you had
Speaker 1: an experience that he was happy for me because I
Speaker 1: thought it was very fun to eat Joey's soggy little leftover.
Speaker 1: Felt good, I said, oh, in the middle of a pandemic,
Speaker 1: felt safe. Yeah, I mean I wasn't going to bring
Speaker 1: that part of but yep, ye. Well, Jamie, you got
Speaker 1: any plugables if you possibly want to interact with me
Speaker 1: after what you just heard, Um, yeah you can. You
Speaker 1: can go on Twitter, Instagram. You can find me there.
Speaker 1: Jamie loft is help on Twitter, Jamie christ superstar on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and just set a reminder in your phone for a
Speaker 1: year from today saying hey, did I preorder Jamie's book
Speaker 1: Raw Dog that comes out in April? I sure, hope
Speaker 1: I did, And then you can buy that book that
Speaker 1: will come out next year that I'm currently absolutely torturing
Speaker 1: myself trying to complete. So I hope you read it
Speaker 1: when it comes out. It's about um this, I mean
Speaker 1: truly this, George She stuff takes up a couple of pages.
Speaker 1: There's just so much about hot dogs and their history,
Speaker 1: um and uh and there's just a lot. So I
Speaker 1: hope to tread out Raw Dog. Incredible title. Very excited for.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I really pushed for raw Dog and satisfied
Speaker 1: with the outcome. And you can listen to any of
Speaker 1: my podcasts, uh my YearIn Mental Lolita podcast, spectel Cast
Speaker 1: or act cast about the Kathy Comics. Follow your Heart.
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me do this, Robert. I had to.
Speaker 1: I hadn't know if I'm putting this together. Thank you
Speaker 1: for telling me this how it doesn't it feel exciting
Speaker 1: to be on the other side and you feel absolutely
Speaker 1: deflated and like dying at the end. I feel great.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit alone in a dark room for
Speaker 1: the rest of tonight. Yeah, what do you think I
Speaker 1: do every fucking time I'm on this show? And that's fair?
Speaker 1: This is this is very I mean comment. I may
Speaker 1: have to go just open one of my old Hitler
Speaker 1: books to cheer myself back up. There, you books. They
Speaker 1: can pre order your book after the Revolution. Yeah, google
Speaker 1: a k Press after the Revolution and you can pre
Speaker 1: order my book. And if you preorder it, it comes
Speaker 1: with a special signed book plate in it, which is
Speaker 1: a nice little art sticker thing inside the book that
Speaker 1: has my signature on it. So preorder it a k
Speaker 1: Press after the Revolution. Uh, please buy my novel um
Speaker 1: It will be out in May. You can have it
Speaker 1: in hardcover. I'm still working on the sequel. I just
Speaker 1: finished chapter four and started chapter five, so it's it's
Speaker 1: humming right along. And now you signed mine, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: if you order a pre order it, you'll get a
Speaker 1: signed one. Fuck you. And we got a behind the
Speaker 1: Bassard's live stream show on February one of those dates. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a moment, how stuck on slash Phine the Bastards. Yep,
Speaker 1: we that's over. Mm hmm.