Author (#32)February 2006 Archives

Fun Fact: Eater X wishes this guy would pack it in.

When Eater X was a kid, he collected football cards. On the backs of some of those cards were facts about his favorite football players, many of which he can still remember. For example, Eater X hasn't forgotten that Manu Tuiasosopo's name means "Happy Bird" in Samoan; that Mosi Tatupu bred pit bull terriers; that Jack Thompson was nicknamed "The Throwin' Samoan;" that as a child Reggie Roby used to punt footballs over the roof of his house; that Rafael Septien has appeared in Mexican soap operas; that both of Jim Plunkett's parents are blind; that Lynn Dickey's high school stadium was named after him; and that a juvenile Dan Marino competed in the NFL's Punt, Pass and Kick competition. This week's posts are inspired by those football cards.

Fun Fact: Eater X likes to boil hot water.

The pace of the conversations that occur in the "comments" section of trencherwomen.com kills me. And so does the obsequious tone of some of them. Here's my impression of a conversation between a couple of bootlicking eaters responsible for the treacly back-and-forths. The eaters in the script are based on no one in particular. They're composites, so don't get mad at The Whaler.

Eater A: You're great!

Eater B: You're great.

Eater A: No. You're great!

Eater B: Thanks. But you're great.

Eater A: You know what? You're great, and so is he.

Eater B: You're right. He is great.

Eater A: He's really great.

Eater B: I know. He is.

Eater A: (Bobbing his head and looking around awkwardly while typing) Yep. He is. And you're great.

Eater B: Thanks. But, hey, I've been thinking. We're all great.

Eater A: Yeah, you're right. We are all great. We're great!

Eater B: I love you.

Eater A: Let's have sex.

Eater C: Can I come?

Thank you! I'll be here all week.

Eater X's family wasn't pleased with his performance Saturday at the Wienerschnitzel World Chili Cheese Fries Eating Championship. They didn't know what Eater X knew: that Eater X had actually eaten 9 plates of chili cheese fries, good enough to win the event, but that in his zeal he'd also eaten three of the cardboard plates on which they'd come and wiped out all evidence of their existence. Contest officials had no choice but to credit him with 6 pounds of chili cheese fries eaten. The world believed he'd lost the contest, an opinion with which Eater X's pride could at least coexist. But his family believed he was a loser, an opinion with which it could not.

"We wouldn't have come to America if we'd known you'd stink so badly," they said collectively and with thick accents, as if they'd been rehearsing their line for weeks.

"How can I show my face in Winnipeg?" his mom cried selfishly.

"You've let down all of Lithuania," scolded his dad. "You're a bigger disgrace than Rolandas Paksas."

His sister said something too, but Eater X broke into tears before he could finish recounting her comments to me. It had something to do with her being glad that she'd taken her husband's surname and was no longer legally a Janus. Eater X's tears made a thick mud of his facepaint, which hours earlier had shone blue and green like the California waters upon which the Queen Mary lazily rocked.

We were in Long Beach, downtown at the aquarium, where we were watching the sharks as they fed on dead fish. It was 5 o'clock in the evening on Saturday, and I'd arrived in port four hours earlier, in time to witness the start of the event. Competitive Eating's cognoscenti had said that it couldn't be done; sea captains and maritime experts had universally agreed. "You can't set sail from Gloucester and arrive in Long Beach overnight," they cried. "It's impossible!" And yet I'd done it! I'd set a nautical record and was proud. I'd skipped happy hour at Fanny's in the Azores. I'd merely waived from my boat to the lovely Bonita as she stood on the shores of the Panama Canal and bid me to dock and "bèsame mucho." I'd cut every corner imaginable and enjoyed a year's worth of luck in one day. But as Eater X sat on the rail in front of the shark tank and cried and spilled his heart to me, I put my pride in my pocket and listened, as a good friend sometimes must do. There'd be time enough later to enjoy what I'd done. The day belonged to Eater X.

"I wish I were one of them," he said, pointing to a sardine exploding under the pressure of a hungry shark's jaws. As the shark chewed on its meal mechanically, the sardine became a white cloud of fish juice and splintered meat. A few large pieces fell softly from the side of the shark's mouth to the floor of the tank, where bottom-feeders snatched them up immediately.

"I can't believe they'd say that," I said, referring to his family's comments. "You can't let them bother you. It's your quest not theirs, and you know that."

He nodded at me and burped but declined to speak further.

"Let it out," I said, encouraging him to vent his anger.

He burped again.

A blizzard had struck the Northeast on Saturday afternoon, and Eater X's flight home that evening had been canceled. He was stranded in Long Beach with a ticket for a flight from Burbank the next morning but without a hotel room in which to relax in the meantime. Because my boat was tethered to a searock nearby, I suggested he spend the night there. "It's free," I said, "and there's an extra hammock to which you know you're always more than welcome."

"Thank you," he answered, "but no. I think I'd like to play make-believe tonight. I saw a perfect nook in the Queen Mary's World War II exhibit. It's right beneath a couple of mannequins dressed in army flannels. I'd like to spend the night aboard Her and imagine myself a stowaway. How many times in life do you get to be a stowaway?" he asked rhetorically. "Those days are long gone."

I suggested that we grab a drink because it was early. I even offered to pay for them. "All you can drink," I said, and I raised my eyebrows and opened my eyes up wide to emphasize the offer.

"I thank you, Whaler. You're kind," he said. "But I'm eager to go and be alone now. And I'd better claim that spot early. I can't be the only one with designs on it. There was a heating vent nearby!"

I followed Eater X out of the aquarium and watched him as he slowly walked away down the avenue. I wanted to stop him and insist that he stay with me because the floor of any boat is a poor place to sleep. But as I studied him closely and saw him staring up at the rising moon and whistling, I realized that he'd be alright. He was sad, of course, as he should have been, but at his core he remained as unbreakable as ever. He was independent and dreaming again, which is all I believe he has ever really needed.

Poll: (post your vote in the "comments" section) Should competitive eating be in the Winter Olympics or in the Summer Olympics, or should the IOC create a separate Olympics in the fall or spring for competitive eating exclusively?

Lobster Larry, you can only vote once!

I met up with Eater X on Sunday at a coffee shop in SoHo, where Eater X ordered water because he doesn't drink coffee or soft drinks with caffeine or sugar in them. It was supposed to be an intervention at which we were to discuss his bizarre behavior, but I was the only one of his friends who'd made it out of bed that morning. Each of them was hungover.

"Good God, this water sucks!" Eater X cried upon taking his first sip from the contoured 10-oz. glass placed in front of him by the waitress. "I hate water. It doesn't taste like anything!"

I'd heard this complaint before and, frankly, had grown quite tired of it. He's a grown man, 29 years old. He doesn't need to whine about water. "So then put some sugar into it," I suggested impatiently.

Eater X looked at me as if I were crazy. "Have you seen my teeth?" he said, and then he opened his mouth up wide so that I could have a closer look at them. "They're terrible. They're falling apart. Sugar will only hasten their departure."

"So then use some fucking Splenda!" I snapped, and I threw a couple of yellow packets in his face.

It was early, I was tense, and I was frustrated that I was the only one who'd shown up for the meeting. I made the decision right then to postpone the intervention and to my eat my breakfast as quickly as I could and leave.

When Eater X had finally created what he deemed a "potable" sugar-free beverage, he pulled out a book from his jacket pocket and began to read aloud. "Ssh. Ssh," he said. "Listen to this.

"Pedro Romero had the greatness. He loved bull-fighting, and I think he loved the bulls, and I think he loved Brett. Everything of which he could control the locality he did in front of her all that afternoon. Never once did he look up. He made it stronger that way, and did it for himself, too, as well as for her. Because he did not look up to ask if it pleased he did it all for himself inside, and it strengthened him, and yet he did it for her, too. But he did not do it for her at any loss to himself. He gained by it all through the afternoon."

Eater X closed the book and placed it on the table and looked with at me with satisfied smile on his face. "So? What do you think?" he asked.

I looked at him for a second in disbelief and pulled out a book from my jacket pocket and placed it on the table in front of me. It was the first book in Kevin Trudeau's series of MEGA MEMORY books, and I'd been studying it for weeks. "Honestly? I don't know what you're talking about," I told him. "But because of this book," and I pointed to mine, "which has helped me to unlock the full power of my memory, I can repeat to you exactly what you just read."

I started to recite the passage he'd read, but Eater X raised his hand to stop me. "You know how I loathe Eaters of Fortune?" he asked.

Eaters of Fortune is the derogatory term Eater X has given to those eaters who care primarily about money and fame. He eats--and he'll poke you hard with his index finger as he tells you--"for honor and pride and for love of the game."

"Of course, I do," I said. "You've made it abundantly clear."

"Well, lately I've been conflicted because I've found myself eating for reasons that I can't quite accept with a clear conscience." He looked at me intently as he finished his sentence, and I couldn't help but ask the question his admission was prompting.

"And what are those reasons?" I said.

"Eating as art. Eating as war. And eating to share my art with those around me that I love." He sat back in his chair. "I wondered at first if those three things cheapened my purpose. I wondered if they brought me down to the level of the Eaters of Fortune. I was worried because I always thought that Purpose had a finite number of units and that I had allocated every one of those units to Honor and Pride and Love of the Game. I thought that if I introduced a new purpose into my life, I'd subtract units from the purposes I've always cared so much about."

Eater X paused, and I nodded for him to continue.

"I see now that as long as I love what I do, and as long as I do it for myself first, I can do it for my own Lady Brett, too, whoever or whatever she is--because she doesn't have to be real or even human--and it can strengthen me, just like it did for Pedro Romero."

I stood up and slapped my hand on the table and released a $10 bill to cover the cost of my juice and cereal. "I'm glad to see that you're not crazy," I said sarcastically. And I turned and walked out.

P.S. Cheers to the guy or girl who attached to my last post a link to the video of an exploding whale. Fantastic Fuck-it, Cold War logic on the part of Oregon's beach officials, who apparently, after much deliberation, threw their arms in the air and said, "Hey, you know what? Let's just blow it up." Whoever posted that link deserves something very special in return, like this video of a chimp attacking a primatologist. I'd share it with Eater X, but I'm afraid he'd fault the primatologist's strategy, whip out a telestrator, and then attempt to "break it down on film" for me. I can hear him now: "Fie, fie contemptible fool..."

Eater X: Fuck you.

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: Fucker.

Grilled Cheese: (more silence)

Eater X: I hate you. Fuckface.

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: I would shoot you if I had a gun. You know that, right?

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: I swear to God I'd do it.

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: It'd be a musket, and I put a bayonette on the end of it and stab you first. It would hurt. And I wouldn't stab you just once or twice. I'd stab you a lot. Like maybe a thousand times. Maybe more. I don't know. I'd be so crazy, it's hard to assign an accurate number to it. I just know that when I'd finished stabbing you, you'd be flat pieces all over the ground. I'd probably stab you so thoroughly I'd split an atom.

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: And then--oh, I don't know--I'd probably pee on you. That would humiliate you. I'd pee all over you and then stop for a second and then resume peeing on you, because I think it'd be fun to get your hopes up that I was done peeing on you and then dash them by peeing on you again. I'd pee all over you, in a bucket though, so that you'd have to sit in it after I'd finished. I might make you sit there for hours. In the sun! I might even pee on you a second time if I could. You know what? I would! I would pee on you a second time. I'd drink plenty of water to make sure that I could because peeing on you once wouldn't be enough. You should have to be peed on at least twice. And I won't promise you that I'd stop after the second time. I might pee on you for days. I might make it my mission to pee on you for five days straight. I might make it my mission to pee on you for six days. It's like my friend used to say, "If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly." And I would. I'd go all the way and pee on your for six days straight! In fact--you know what?--I resolve right here right now that if I were to pee on you, in a bucket, I'd pee on you for a full week. I'd buy a big bucket, a tall one, to make sure that I could pee on you forever if I wanted to. And maybe I'd put you and the pee in a jar afterward. Yes! Probably that'd be good. I'd put you in a jar with pee and then shoot you with the musket a few days later.

Grilled Cheese: (silence)

Eater X: But I wouldn't shit on you.