Eater Lunch Series: Beautiful Brian

When you think of the word "beautiful," what comes to mind? A hot girl sunbathing on the bleached sands of Maui? Or perhaps a snow-capped vista and the clear blue rivers of Switzerland? You know what we think of? A big guy with a Brooklyn accent, a large stomach capacity, an Internet connection, and a lot on his mind.

Those new to the sport of competitive eating probably know "Beautiful" Brian Seiken mostly through his writing. He updates his website, beautifulbrian.com, weekly and is a regular commenter on the popular fan blog eatfeats.com (formerly trencherwomen.com, notorious for inspiring long exchanges of heated comments among the eaters). And those who have never met the 46-year-old eater, might assume that the somewhat volatile, trash-talking image he projects is what he's all about. But when one meets him in person, it's not long before a more sensitive side emerges. That's not to say Beautiful Brian is all bunny rabbits and rainbows, but what's revealed is a man with a tender spot for competitive eating--a sport he witnessed the inception of, and one he's afraid is leaving him behind.

Beautiful Brian was the first competitive eater we ever met. It was December 2005, just prior to the IFOCE Carmine's meatball competition in Atlantic City. We were nervous, not knowing what to expect from the eaters or the event. But it wasn't long before Beautiful Brian came over, shook our hands, and introduced himself and Kevin Lipsitz as the vying pickle champions. That competition proved to be a pivotal moment in what would soon be a future full of eating contests for us, and Brian has been a constant throughout. Over the past year, he has always been quick to email us updates or gossip, or the occasional complaint peppered with compliments.

So, late July, we met up with Brian for lunch at the original Junior's restaurant in Brooklyn. We figured a little authentic diner food and some famous cheesecake would be the perfect background for Brian's stories, and we weren't wrong. Brian was there when we arrived, standing out of the rain in the restaurant's breezeway, wearing a blue IFOCE t-shirt and supporting baseball hat. He greeted us warmly and we stood around for a few minutes inside while waiting for a table. "Looking at all this food really gets me thinking about competing," he said, casting a hungry glance at the shelves full of glistening pies and decadent cheesecakes. Competing with food is never far from his mind; Brian says every time he's eating a food, a part of his brain can't help wondering how fast the food would go in a competition.

It was clear Brian was eager to be interviewed, but nervous about how he might be portrayed in print. He noted that he enjoyed reading Eat This Book author Ryan Nerz's omitted chapter about him, but said it hurt him when Nerz referred to him as "disheveled" (his memory omitting the "pleasantly" that qualified Nerz's passing description). "I mean, did he have to write that?"

This may strike you, as it did us, as a tad overly sensitive. After all, this is the guy who has a website dedicated to fueling the fire of ongoing controversies and airing grievances; no one's ever said Brian doesn't like a little trouble. A recent entry on his website entitled, "The new kids show no respect" debates whether some of the younger eaters might have used older eaters for eating tips and then "dumped" them. Pretty strong words, but it turns out this tough-guy persona is only good in writing. In person, Brian is as quick to dole out compliments as he is criticisms (usually following the latter with the former), going over a situation several times from different perspectives, and underlining it all with gently self-deprecating humor.

The service at Junior's was excruciatingly slow that day, and we didn't get the pickles that usually adorn the tables. Being that pickles are one of Brian's triumphs, it didn't seem right that we wouldn't have any, so we requested them…several times. Eventually our food came (Brian: corned beef and pastrami, Krista: tuna melt, Liz: grilled cheese), and we finally got the harried waiter to bring over some pickles. He set the dish down and Brian slid it over by his plate, "And one for the table, too!"

We all dug in as Brian reminisced about his foray into competitive eating.

His first competition was a Nathan's qualifier in 1997. His sister Kara told him about it and he went because it seemed like fun and he liked Nathan's hot dogs. Though he only finished with 8.5 hot dogs, there was something in the excitement of the event and the eaters that piqued his interest. He says he mentioned to George Shea that he should start some sort of club for the eaters, to which Shea apparently replied: "I'm just a PR guy for Nathans; I'm not really into this stuff." Brian swears that exchange took place, but readily admits that Shea certainly wouldn't remember it. But in any case, that was the year the IFOCE was born.

Brian remembers these early years of the IFOCE as being particularly fun. George called him up the year after his first competition and asked him to come eat at another Nathan's qualifier, making him feel like he'd somehow impressed the Sheas with his presence the year before. He recalled how excited they were to have Don Lerman, known for his matzoh ball eating, join them and become the first "marquee eater."

"The contracts back then were beautiful," Brian said, referring to the forms the eaters have to sign when participating in IFOCE events. "You could do anything you wanted to." The Sheas had what Brian called a "little crew" of eaters that they were slowly building up, including Mike DeVito, Charles Hardy, Ed Jarvis, Kevin Lipsitz and Eric Booker, among others. He liked the people and was having fun. He had some successes, winning the pickle championship title in 2002, giving a good show in matzoh balls, but these were often followed by defeats: the pickle title was taken from him by Jarvis in what he thought was an unfair contest the following year; he never made it to the Nathan's finals. What he thought was going to be a promising career in competitive eating was turning out to be a bit of a bust. He was feeling frustrated with having to eat loads of food and never winning. So when Eric Booker suggested he start a website, Brian was intrigued. Booker told him he could get his feelings out and bare his frustrations online. With Eric's help, he started beautifulbrian.com, and suddenly he felt like something of his spirit had been restored.

"With the website, I felt like I had to impress." He worked hard on it, trying to update it at least weekly with little articles, thoughts on contests and other competitive eaters. He'd get his information firsthand, or from informants who would call to chat. "Ed Jarvis was really my knight in shining armor," Brian said, referring to the amount of gossip Cookie was good for. Brian would feature the eater on the site in exchange for the more juicy bits that Jarvis came across. The site began getting about 250 hits a day, and he gained some respectability among the Shea brothers who were working hard to promote the IFOCE and sponsors' events. In his eyes, Brian went from being an eater who was overlooked, to one the Sheas began to promote, all because of the website. The website was mentioned at competitions and he thinks it helped get him into a chicken nugget exhibition with Sonya Thomas and Tim Janus.

But along with his fame for his fun, tabloid-esque writing, came the criticisms. He remembers fellow competitive eater and friend, Kevin Lipsitz, warning him that the website was "going to make him a lot of friends and a lot of enemies." Ironically, it would be Kevin that he would make angry with some biting remarks and Dave "Coondog" O'Karma and he almost came to blows over some things Dave wanted edited out of a post about him. Brian became reflective about those moments. "Coondog is a good guy. He's down to earth. And now that I think about it, I probably wrote some things I shouldn't have." He took small bites of his corned beef and pastrami sandwich, "Words like that don't sound like much, but they can hurt."

Brian wants to continue writing, but he says it's hard to compete with eatfeats.com, which Brian said he helped discover and assisted in spreading the word about by linking it to his own website. ("It was like I hired [OJ Rifkin] and he was doing his job!") However, he's been taking some time off lately to focus on new things. Mainly his upcoming 28th Canarsie High School Reunion in August. He's been having fun thinking back to his younger days where he says he spent his time playing on the champion basketball team and dancing at Studio 54. He thinks if he went, he would get a lot of attention from former classmates for his eating career. Laughing he said, "I'd probably be the light of the freakin' thing. That's how pathetic it is!"

Brian is more multifaceted than some would assume. Over slabs of famous Junior's cheesecake, he tells us that he runs four miles a day, likes to fish, and collects sports videos and rare movies ("No porn!" as he is quick to point out) to resell on eBay - his favorite movie is Rocky IV. He doesn't own a dog like Don Lerman, but he does have a cat "to keep the mice away." He's made some great acquaintances in the eating world; he and Allen Goldstein are good friends and they like to kid each other a lot about their eating careers. He said he's met so many interesting people he had to put old friends on the back burner to make more room for his eating friends.

Brian is impressed with the younger eaters, though he believes that with every new champion that emerges, he slips further from the minds of the IFOCE and the public. "If it wasn't for the website, I'd just be another Joe off the street," he said. But he's not ready to throw the towel in yet. Inspired by Joey Chestnut's recent triumphs and his new technique, described by Brian as resembling a conveyor belt heading into a juice machine, he would like to try out some new things. "Joey Chestnut doesn't chew," Brian said, looking contemplative. "I'm going to try that next time." Like other eaters who may buy into the "belt of fat" theory, Brian is trying to drop some weight. "I'd have to drop 85 pounds to be where I want to be. But not too much weight. Once I weighed 230 and I looked almost anorexic at that weight."

As he discussed on his website, he wishes there were more communication between him and the younger eaters. In fact, he wishes there were more communication in general between the IFOCE and all the eaters. Asked if he could change anything about the organization, he answered, "Just that they'd take care of each and every eater, so no one felt unwanted."

He has a part-time girlfriend Shona; part-time because she refuses to come to his cramped apartment, so all of their interaction happens at her place or out on the town. He was married briefly out of high school, but as young love is apt to do, it fizzled quickly. He pays the bills by working as a postal worker and seems pretty content with his life. He's got a lady friend, a close family, good friends, and a hobby that gets him some occasional publicity.

As for the future of the website, he's not sure what will happen, but he will continue to write for now. "One thing is for sure," he says laughing, "No one should take anything I say personally." He loves debate, whether it is about him or coming from him, "That's what makes it so beautiful, everyone is different." When asked what he was going to do after he left Junior's he said, "Tonight I'm gonna go home, relax, and go on the website and figure out how to entertain people."