April 2006 Archives

My buddy The Congratulator was an auto mechanic in Ipswich. He was also, as one or two of you might reason from his name, the world's biggest fan of Congratulations, both the word and the gesture. He loved to congratulate people, he lived for it, and he loved to be congratulated. If your morning paper arrived on time, before you'd settled down for your cereal and juice, Congratulations! If it arrived on time and with every section and insert in the proper order, well then, Congratulations again! If it arrived on time, with every section and insert in the proper order, and completely dry because the paperboy placed it inside your screen door instead of on the doormat, which was wet because it had rained the night before, then--you guessed it--Hey! Congratulations! Three for three! Alriiiiight!

The Congratulator was smitten. He loved the sound of the word congratulations. He loved the emotions its utterance inspired in those to whom it was directed. And he loved the camaraderie, the support, and the intimacy among people that its mere existence implied. "The degree of civilization in a society," he once said, channeling Dostoevsky," is reflected in the willingness of its people to congratulate each other."

I once saw The Congratulator faint dead away, like one of those famous fainting goats, when shown the word "Congratulations!" written on a cocktail napkin. If you ever wanted to fuck him up in a game of H-O-R-S-E, you could congratulate him, before he shot, on his flawless shooting mechanics: "Hey, man. You've got a great shot. You've been working at it. I can tell. Congratulations!" And his next shot wouldn't even sniff the hoop. If you ever wondered what cards he was holding in a heated game of Fan Tan, same thing: congratulate him on something silly like his choice of black leather shoes, which "perfectly match the ace of spades," and he'd tip his hand long and low as he swooned while the word swept through his body. It was a liability, I know, to love something as much as he did, but I'd have traded the world to feel that feeling just once. No one alive felt love the way he did.

I write of my friend The Congratulator in the past tense because, alas, The Congratulator is dead. He died on Monday, viewing trencherwomen.com, reading all of the comments that had been posted about the participants in Saturday's contests. "Congratulations to Joey on the win!" read one posted by Bubba Yarbrough about the asparagus festival in Stockton. "Congratulations Joey. Great Job!" read another posted by Wills. And while Bob Shoudt deserves some credit for avoiding the word "congratulations" in his epic comment about Myrtle Beach's Steeplechase, his overall effusiveness and selflessness--a tacit congratulations--did very little to actually help matters. In all, I think there were four or five messages of congratulations posted on the site that day, far too many for The Congratulator's excitable heart to take. The coroner who performed his autopsy said that his heart exploded.

"Like how?" I asked him over finger sandwiches at the memorial. "Like a big bomb?"

"No," he said. "Like fireworks. Like happy fireworks on the Fourth of July."

To you guys, to you gracious, careless, free-firing plaudits (Bubba, Wills, Bob, etc.), Congratulations! You've gone and killed a decent man.

"Eater X! Eater X," I cried as I pounded on his door at 10:00 on Sunday morning. "Have you seen Beautiful Brian's website? Have you seen The Letter?"

Eater X's door opened slowly and the stench of an unshowered body that had spent 2 days in a poorly ventilated car slipped out. Eater X looked like shit: deeply set wrinkles and stains on his t-shirt and shorts; baggy, bloodshot eyes; and greasy, matted, hat-head hairs that couldn't seem to agree upon a direction.

"Damn, man! What happened to you?" I asked, a bit taken aback by his appearance.

"I just got back from Myrtle Beach a few minutes ago. Drove all through the night with Bob in a rented Chevy Malibu. I haven't slept more than a few hours since Thursday. I wouldn't call this one of my better days."

"Good trip?" I asked.

"So-so," he said. "Now what are you talking about? What is this letter?"

I walked over to his computer, cued up the world's greatest competitive eating website, beautifulbrian.com, and clicked on a picture of Larry "The Legend" McNeil, the IFOCE's 19th-ranked eater. A page bearing the headline, "THE LEGEND SMELLS A RAT!" popped up, and underneath it appeared the text of an email that Larry had apparently sent to Beautiful Brian.

"Read it." I said.

Eater X sat down and began to read.

It was a short, cuss-filled tirade slamming Eater X, his friend and fellow eater Bob Shoudt, and the IFOCE for a host of alleged moral and ethical breaches. It was angry and threatening and, well, here, you can read it right here. I'll just copy it for you.

Hey brian i am writing this as it comes to me so sorry, but i just got a call from loren and he said he got an email from Humble "B.S." bob saying him and janus/eater x/ whaler /mr virtue/ love of the sport my ass, just got confirmations and are headed to myrtle beach, this to sounds like a fu-ing fix to me, loren talked to bob earlier in the week and he said he wasnt going, appearently there wasnt enough "star power" so these 2 got the call, is it really worth the travel for them to come down here to spilit 500, i guess so, i am so pissed right now you cannot even imagine, one the IFOCE would pull some fu--ing bulls--t like this and two these "fellow eaters" are willing to go for it, print this word for fu--ing word for all i care the, I hope that some how some way i can pull a rabbit out of my ass tomorrow and kick the living sh-- out of both of them, i can tell you one thing i will never be so motivated as i will be tomorrow, i wish we could line it up right now, comrades huh DEAD 2 me from now on, these 2 would do well to stay far far away from me, I guess i have fuel for my fire from here on, this is some rambling b-llshi-- and i am sorry gfro that, i hope tomorrow "The Legend" will truly be born!!!!!

Eater X finished reading the email, and he exhaled dramatically and then smiled. "Do you know what I think about anger?" he asked. I didn't respond because I didn't know the answer, so he continued. "It's my least favorite emotion. It rarely does anything to help a situation or to prevent a similar one in the future. It's a tangent. And when you explore it when you have better things to do, you get lost and you lose, at the very least, time. Now sadness," and he raised his finger to signal that a point was to be made. "Now sadness I get. Sadness makes sense. Whether something unfortunate happens by chance or whether someone does something to bring it about, I can be sad that the situation occurred or that a chain of events was set into motion that brought about my frustration. And sadness doesn't hurt other people. But anger? Come on! Anger's never much impressed me, except as a reason to laugh. At least on the level at which I operate, there's something funny about watching someone simmer."

"I know what you mean," I answered. "It is pretty funny."

"It's fantastic!"

Eater X fixed his eyes on the computer screen again and reread Larry's email, and then without prompting offered, "I wish Larry'd run this by Bob or me first. He's not right about any of it. Bob and I weren't summoned to South Carolina by the IFOCE. I approached them on Wednesday, and then on Thursday I approached Bob. He agreed to it on Friday. It was my idea because I was bored and thought Bob or I might win a title. Bob didn't even really want to go. I put him up to it. And the IFOCE didn't pay for us to go. We paid for our own trip, rented a car, slept in shifts on the highway. Larry can hate me if he wants--it's his right even if I don't get it--but he shouldn't be shitting on Bob and Kate and George and Rich and Dave."

"Well, so what do you do now?" I asked, thinking that he'd want to email his side of the story to the best moderator in the history of all websites, pickle champ Beautiful Brian Seiken.

"You know what I usually do," he asked me, "when I receive angry letters or even stupid ones that don't seem well worth my time? I take the letter and edit it, correct all of the punctuation and spelling and grammar, and then I return the proofread copy to the sender. It's a jerk move." I nodded, and Eater X completed his thought. "I had a Spanish pen pal once who wrote me a letter and then, two months later, a second letter wondering why I hadn't yet responded to his first letter. I didn't care for the fact that some kid I'd never met had the nerve to criticize me for being slow and lazy, so I corrected his shitty English, changed the date at the top of the page, crossed out his signature and signed mine in its place, and then I sent it back to him. I never got another letter from him. I did the same thing to a guy who took exception to a story I'd written for the school paper back in college, and to a girl who kept writing crazy letters to me long after we'd broken up. It worked very well in communicating my message, which was always the same: I don't care about you!"

I laughed. "Will you do that today? With Larry's letter I mean?"

Eater X thought for a moment, not so much it seemed to figure out his course, but more so to choose the right words and to justify his tack. "No. I won't. I'm not mad at Larry for his email, and I don't even know if he's mad at me still. And he was writing a letter to a friend, a casual letter. I doubt he even proofread it. And even if he did, correcting someone's grammar is petty and mean and completely irrelevant. True intelligence is measured better by the thoughts someone produces than by the dumb little symbols he uses to express them. Grammar, spelling, punctuation--they say nothing deep about a person. We could pick the world apart if we chose to focus on the superficial. Hey, you're better looking! Oh, she makes more money! Fuck that."

"So then what will you do?" I asked, expecting that he'd plan something.

"Nothing," he said. "You know I only shoot when shot at it, and even then I won't always shoot back. It depends if I've lost, what I've lost, if I care, what I hope to recover, and if I hope to gain. I don't think any harm was done today, and I don't think I have anything to prove by firing back. I'm gonna let this one fade. I won't say a word, except what I've already said to you."

It was almost 10:30 now, and Eater X still smelled bad. It wasn't a matter of his clothes and body needing to air out a little bit. It was a matter of soap and water and washcloth needing to come together heroically. As I backed away to excuse myself from his apartment so that he could sleep and--pray--shower, I asked what he thought of the state of South Carolina.

"It's okay, I guess. It's a little too flat, and I wish were a few more deciduous trees. But the thing that really stood out to me was how many of their stores sell fireworks. If this country were to ban fireworks, South Carolina's entire economy would crumble."

"No shit! Right," I said, agreeing. And I closed the door behind me and Aaaaaah! breathed in fresh air.

PETA's been a thorn in The Whaler's side for years. They've come to Gloucester on several occasions to burn my boats and cripple my humble whaling operation. They can't stand that I kill whales, and I can't stand that they won't let me be. We're sworn enemies now.

I try to stay abreast of PETA's plans because I need to know when they're coming to town to terrorize me again. I've bribed informants, planted moles within their organization, and monitored their chat rooms in the hope of sniffing out an impending attack and minimizing the damage they inflict upon my business. The other day while surfing the internet, my reconnaissance software uncovered a message, presumably from a high-ranking PETA official, encrypted on a page on ebay. (I was shopping for domain names at the time and thought that this listing, at $7,011,600, would make a nice addition to my collection. The part about free shipping really stood out. So did the idea that the seller prefers to be paid in British pounds; currencies fluctuate, and if I can lock in that price on a particularly strong day for the dollar, I'll be getting an even better deal.)

In the past when I've uncovered the details of an impending PETA protest that hasn't directly threatened me, I've blown it off and gone back to my business at hand. But this message, the one that I uncovered on ebay, is different. It affects Eater X, or his friends at least, and I think I owe it to him to warn them. Decoded, here's what it says:

"...we'll throw ketchup on them. It will symbolize the blood of the innocent cows they've killed and plan to eat. And it will anger the hot dog purists among them who adhere to the tenet that mustard is the only condiment that should ever adorn a hot dog. Johnson, you're in charge of buying the ketchup. Publix has a great deal on Hunt's Ketchup this week. But bring your Rewards card with you because they won't give you the discount without it. You can't keep depending upon the kindness of the strangers behind you in line to let you borrow one of their cards. I'm serious.

If we run out of ketchup, we'll throw mustard on them instead. I don't know what it will symbolize, but it will be messy. It will stain their skin and stain their clothes, and if it gets in their eyes, it will cause redness, itchiness, and mild irritation. If we're able to purchase a spicy brown mustard, the seeds in the mustard may scratch their corneas. Taylor, you're responsible for the mustard.

Let us all now pray to God and ask for his compliance that Billy Mays does not arrive to aid the competitive eaters. Like a war cry carried by a mighty wind, his speaking voice pierces the ears, chills the blood, and sends shivers down the spines of the hearty. His presence alone is among the few in this world that can derail our mission on Saturday because he carries with him Oxi Clean and Orange Glo, two stain removers so powerful on so many different surfaces that Satan himself may have conspired to unleash them upon us. Billy Mays and his cache of stain removers will embolden Saturday's eaters to stand their ground against us as our condiments rain down upon them. Let us pray, dear brothers. Let us pray for a victory swift and sweet and, in its absence, for the strength to struggle in the face of resistance with valor and resolve."

Good God!

And good luck, eaters.

There are no rattlesnakes in the two-acre desert lot behind the Hampton Inn near Tucson's international airport, or at least none that Eater X could find. Though tired and hungover from a night of pre-contest partying and clad especially poorly for such an expedition, he spent 90 minutes of Saturday morning wandering through that dusty acreage, overturning tires and discarded sheets of corrugated metal and poking haphazardly at bushes with a giant stick he'd pulled from the branches of a nearby tree. Although I've known Eater X to do this sort of thing every now and then (as a college senior, he packed his car with a hockey stick, a garbage can, a boning knife, and a disposable camera, and drove west to Sweetwater, TX, for the Sweetwater Jaycees' annual Rattlesnake Roundup), I never thought he'd do something so silly a few hours before a contest.

"What if one had bitten you?" I asked him, referring to the rattlesnakes I was glad he hadn't encountered.

"Well, it would have made for a funny story," he said, "missing a contest because of a rattlesnake bite."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked.

"Yeah, I sort of do."

It wasn't the only nonsensical thing that he did this weekend. On Saturday night, when he should have been sulking because he ate like a wuss, he went out and partied again. By 12:00 that night he was mildly buzzed; by 2:00 he was pulling hairs from his chest and encouraging women he didn't know to blow them from his fingertips and "Make a wish!"

Honestly, seeing him in action this weekend, seeing him goof around as if on a vacation, I'm not surprised that he hasn't won a world championship since last June's Shoo Fly Pie Eating Contest. He's seems a little too careless to win.

It's only April, so I'm not too worried yet. But I hope that fucker finds his focus soon 'cause hot dog season's just around the corner.

Eater X went on vacation. And he skied. And he wrote a poem. The air was thin up there.

If you were to steal my milk and
Use it in your cereal because you had none,
I would steal your cat and
Lock it in my refrigerator.
If you were to buy me a new carton of milk as penance,
I might give your cat back.
Or I might give you a different cat, a slightly bigger one,
A younger one and say, "Here. I know it's not the same cat.
But there's more of this cat. It's bigger. And it's fresher!"
Just like you did with my milk.

Or maybe I'd just kill you.
Or maybe I'd cut off your hands.

If you were to eat my ice cream
And put the container back into the freezer
With less than I ever would eat,
I would cry. Oh Lord, I would cry!
If you were to do it again,
Or if an elder were to inform me he'd dreamt that you had,
I would cry again. Oh Lord, I would cry!
But for you instead of for me.

Or maybe I'd kill your first-born.
Or maybe I'd cast you into a river.

If we were to go to the movies,
And if you were to eat my last cherry Red Vine,
I would try very hard to ruin your viewing experience.
I would talk on my cell phone loudly.
I would shout to the actors on screen.
I would laugh way too long and too often
And at inappropriate times.

Or maybe I'd poke out your eyeballs.
Or maybe I'd sleep with your wife.

Yeah, that's it. I'd sleep with your wife.