Now as a hater of all Boston sports teams I would never intentionally walk into a sports bar dedicated to Beantown, unfortunately Crazy Legs Conti is not only a a legendary competitive eater but he is also a fan of the Boston Celtics and threw his annual 4th of July Hot Dog eating after party at Professor Thomas in the East Village. Despite being surrounded by vomit inducing New England Patriot memorabilia I had a great time. My lady Kimberly Kane is still in town so I dragged her out and a couple of High Life’s later she was having a great time too. I ran into my friend Doug Sakmann there too and weirdness follows him everywhere.

I didn’t really shoot any photos until ESPN rebroadcast the hot dog eating contest and I had to pull out my camera to get shots of professional eaters watching themselves eat. Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog champion and #1 ranked eater in the world Joey Chestnut walked me through the last minute of the contest and how he ate something like 8 hotdogs in the last minute cause he wanted to get to 68 again. It was pretty much like Michael Jordan explaining to you what it was like to hit a play off buzzer beater fadeaway jumper as he watched it for the first time.

I didn’t shoot a lot of pictures at Professor Thom’s but I dig all the shots so you should look at em real quick cause professional eaters are really fun when they get together and get really drunk.

Click here to see the pictures from the 4th of July Hot Dog Eating After Party at Professor Thoms.

Bonus Links: If you haven’t already make sure you check out my pictures from the actual Nathan’s Famous hot dog eat off and check the pictures from the 2010 Crazy Legs hosted hot dog eating after party!

Although I missed it last year because of my epic road trip, I have been to 8 of the last 9 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contests. 4th of July to me is hot dog eating at Coney Island. In that time I have become friends with some of the contestants and now have a pretty good hook up to Major League Eating events so I got my press pass and headed down to shoot the madness.  I took A LOT of photos and the media riser is so far away that all the shots sort of look the same but you should flip through them anyway. There are also a bunch of nice shots at the end of contestants after the event. So let’s get to the important stuff.

The women’s competition was won by Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas a 100lb woman who has been dominating all other women and most of the men in competitive eating events for as long as I can remember. She is turning 45 this year and was determined to eat her age. She succeeded and in the process beat her own female world record by 4 hot dogs. She is amazing and she also happens to be from my hometown of Alexandria, VA so there are a LOT of pictures of her in the gallery.

The men’s competition was won by Joey Chestnut of course. The American champion has now won six years in a row and won by nearly 20 dogs. He ate 68 in ten minutes to tie his own world record that he set in 2009.  The only other eater in the world that could touch him, Takeru Kobayashi, has not competed the last three years after a contract dispute with the MLE. Kobayashi staged his own event at the exact same time and ate 58.5 hot dogs. Even if he had beaten Chestnut it wouldn’t have mattered since it was unsanctioned and done in different weather with different hot dogs. America wins again!

New York hero Tim “Eater X” Janus and Chicago favorite Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti came in second and third, as they almost always, do but it was Matt Stonie who impressed the most eating 46 hot dogs at only 19 years old. The long haired, skinny jean wearing Californian came in 4th and is set to become a super star in the world’s most important non-football sport.

After the eating at Coney Island “Crazy Legs” Conti threw an after party in the East Village. I showed up and took some pictures which I am going to post about twenty minutes from now so come back for that…

Now click here to see all the pictures from Nathan’s Famous 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island.

And click here if you want to see my pictures from older contests!

Seven months ago I ran into Crazy Legs Conti, New Yorks most notorious professsional eater, at Lit Lounge.  I recognized him and struck up a conversation. Turns out he is actually a fan of this site after I gave him one of my cards at the Nathan’s Famous 4th of July hot dog eating contest a few years ago.  He told me that every year he throws and after party and all the eaters come and drink as much as they ate and that I needed to come take photos.

Well here we are in July and Crazy Legs invited me to the party just like he said and people drank just as much as he said.  Nearly all the eaters from Nathan’s showed up except the ladies and Bob Shoudt.  Joey Chestnut was there, as were Tim “Eater X” Janus and Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti who were first, second and third in the contest respectively. Legendary eaters like Eric “Badlands” Booker and MLE commissioner “Hungry” Charles Hardy made apperances as well.  There were probably about 20 eaters in total all taking down shots of tequila during the almost three hour open bar.  By the time I got to thinking about leaving things were getting pretty out of hand.

The highlight of my night aslo involved drinking. I don’t actually drink except on rare occasions but I have a gift for chugging beer.  I am not sure why I was given this gift but I always had it. It was not something I developed or practiced.  I was just born to chug beer. My friends in college used to take me to bars to challenge frat dudes and win money betting on me.  To this day I have never lost. I made an off hand comment about it to Eater X and he told me that I needed to challenge Deep Dish Bertoletti. He told me Deep Dish was the best and he would take on all comers. He was game and we went pint of Bud Light to pint of Bud Light.  In his defense he had eaten 37 hot dogs only 8 hours earlier and he was allready drunk, but we tied. Seriously, it was dead even. So now I know that if I can stand toe to toe with the 4th ranked professional eater in the world in a drinking contest, I can probably throw beers down with anyone. I think this is an important thing to know about myself. In the world I live in of skinny jeans and gay dance parties it’s good to know I can man up when I am called to the table.

Anyway, I am clearly losing my mind due to lack of sleep once again, so I will stop this crazy talk about hot dogs and beer. What you need to do while I try to sleep for 15 hours is to click right here to see all the pictures of professional eaters getting really drunk at a midtown bar called Redemption.

Until tomorrow… Eat all you can eat.

It’s that time of year again. The 4th of July hot dog eating contest at Coney Island. It has become a tradition in my life ever since I made my way down to Coney Island in 2004 after the Richmond, VA based  band I was managing at the time drove up to NYC to play a show on the 3rd.  I returned the next year, intentionally booking the band a show so I could make the trip.  The year after that the bad actually played the contest and the last three years I have been covering the event as a journalist.  The last two years for the Village Voice.  I have seen some amazing feats.  I was there for Kobayashi breaking his own record with nearly 54 hot dogs in 12 minutes which no one ever thought was possible.  I was there when Joey Chestnut defeated him in a contest which shocked the world and I was there last year when Chestnut ate an impossible 68 hot dogs in just 10 minutes.

This year records were not broken.  It was so hot that eaters across the board had troubles eating.  Chestnut, who ate 72 hot dogs in practice, managed to win the contest eating 54 hot dogs. Five years ago this would have been an incredible feat, but this year people questioned if he wasn’t pushing himself without a serious contender.  You see, this year Kobayashi watched from the stands.

Due to a contract disagreement between Kobayshi and the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) the Japanese legend did not compete. Right before the contest started he appeared in the crowd and people began chanting his name.  He was wearing a “Free Kobi” t-shirt but seemed content to watch from the stands. When it was over and Chestnut had one, Kobayashi made a break for the stage.  His translator said that he wanted to eat for the people for free, others said he just went  up there to congratulate Chestnut, the Larry Bird to his Magic Johnson. Either way he was grabbed by police and carried of stage.  He clung with all his might but eventually was pulled off.  He was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest and spent the evening in jail.

Later at the after party competitors, friends and family were cheering for Joey, themselves and America as the ESPN highlights showed on TV.  They had a big USA, USA! chant going on.  But when they showed Kobayashi being arrested a silence fell over the room until people started booing.  Everyone hated such a thing happen to a man they respected so much. The story should have been about Chestnuts 4th straight victory, but instead, it was a sad day at Coney Island and a sad day for Major League Eating.

Click here to see all the photos from the 4th of July hot dog eating contest at Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island. Pictures from the after party will be up tomorrow. God bless America.

Ps. Just wanted to give a special shout out to Crazy Legs Conti who invited me to the after party and introduced me to a lot of the eaters.

You haven’t heard from me in a few days and there is a reason for it.  Really there are two reasons for it.  The first is that I got so unreasonably sunburned at the hot dog contest that my arms actually blistered.  I spent the entire day Sunday in bed just laying next to the air conditioning suffering.  I got absolutely no work done what so ever.  It was a struggle to move.  I was slightly better today, however, when I sat down to work I took a new medicine that is supposed to help me focus on work. Unfortunately I grabbed the wrong bottle and I didn’t notice that I had taken too sleeping pills accidentally.  This is actually the SECOND time this has happened.  The pills look almost exactly the same. I ended up getting high as hell, but because I had just woken up, sleep was not an option, but neither was working on my site so I went into the city and bought a bunch of Soul and R&B records.  Supremes, Commodores, Teddy Pendergrass etc… I also picked up some Hall & Oates, Willy Nelson and some Kurtis Blow.  It was a pretty good haul and the guy gave me a pretty big discount.  I also had a picnic while I was really really messed up on these sleeping pills.  It was sort of an intense feeling just floating around.  I talked to a former heroin addict turned Jesus freak bicycle salesmen and lent a friend $150.  Then I came home so I could listen to records and talk to you about hot dogs… So let’s talk about hot dogs.

As I prayed, predicted and hoped for, Joey Chestnut took his third straight Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog title at Coney Island.  I heard him talking about trying to eat 68 hot dogs but I wasn’t sure he could really do it.  Two years ago he set the record for most hot dogs and buns eaten in 12 minutes with 66 dogs.  The problem is, last year they cut two minutes off the official eating time, and it is now down to just 10 minutes.  Last year he ‘only’ ate 59.  This year, he ate 68 dogs in 10 minutes and you got the idea if he had an extra 2 minutes he might have eaten 80.  It was amazing.  Takeru Kobayashi never stood a chance.  Also broken was the women’s record of 39 dogs.  That record was also set in 12 minutes, so it was go to see my future wife Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas beat her own record by 2 dogs in 2 less minutes.  Deep Dish and Eater X also broke the 50 dog mark which is unreasonably impressive.  You can eat 53 hot dogs in 10 minutes and not even get a third place trophy.  Amazing.

Anyway, there are a TON of photos in this gallery and I am going to post a bunch here.  I will do it in reverse order with the hot dog eating at first and then post some shots of the weirdness that goes on before the event to build the proper dog an pony show state fair atmosphere.  I mean you have 50k people in Brooklyn being filmed by ESPN you need some carnival style hokeyness to really appreciate what you are about to see.  The low budget, yet highly entertaining theatrics included dancers, trampoline artists, jugglers, an actual dog show, clergy, acrobats, dwarves, rapping eaters, dancing hot dogs, T shirt cannons, trivia contests and of course a strong man bending steel girders with his neck.  It is just not really a party until someone bends metal beams with the most defenseless and vulnerable part of their body…. and it was a party.

Also, thanks go the Shea’s.  They run Major League Eating and and the IFOCE. They are great guys.  Rich I met a few years ago and always gets me press passes and his brother George is the host of the event and he is absolutely one hell of a host.  Not many people can just grab a mic and keep people entertained for 4 hours in the hot sun.  He does it every year.  (Even if his MJ tribute was slightly lacking… The Smooth Criminal shoes were a nice touch at least…)

Click here to see all the 4th of July hot dog eating madness!

Last year I actually put a little art project together for the 4th of July. I took photos of a ton of people holding note cards where they did their best impression of the most famous signature in US history. Pretty much no one came anywhere close… What was more surprising was how quite a number of people had no idea what I was talking about at all. Still, it ended being pretty interesting. Take a look at the project if you missed it last year. I am going to Coney Island to watch Joey Chestnut embarrass Takeru Kobayashi for the third year in a row. I hope to get those pictures up today, but I haven’s slept, so that is probably wishful thinking.

Again, check out the John Hancock project. See you later.

It is that time of the year again. It was my 5th year in a row at Coney Island for the contest. I got media access this year and got to shove other photographers out of the way to get shots that probably 50 other photographers got. Pretty exciting. My man Joey Chestnut AKA the greatest American hero won a sudden death over time. It was all tied up at 59 hot dogs each in 10 minutes. They lowered it to 10 min this year because they did some research and found that the original contest was only 10 minutes. I am not sure that is a good thing. Anyway, Joey came out a head with a big lead after two minutes, but by 8 minutes Takeru Kobayashi was up two dogs. Joey came back and tied it at the last second. It was pretty exciting. They had to go into over time and be the first to eat 5 dogs. Joey won by roughly seven second. It was intense. I took far too many photos. You can see them here.