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.

Okay. Let’s start by staying happy 4th of July. When I think of the 4th I think about going to the beach with my family and setting off hundreds of dollars worth of free fireworks every year. My dad used to loan one of the maintenance guys at his law office a few thousand dollars every year and he would open a firework stand and sell fireworks for a few weeks. He would always pay my dad back with fireworks as interest. So every year we would always have the sickest, most dangerous fireworks. My friend Marshall and I used to take them apart and make bombs out of them. About a year ago, my parents turned my old bed room into a guest room and they made me clean out the room. When I was going through all my stuff I found one of the bombs we made. It is huge, and I think I am going to set it on fire today and see what happens. It is at least 12 years old, probably older. It will either do nothing, or blow up in my face. There is not really a fuse and I remember putting gun powder in it. Yikes.

My second point of order is that it is my dog Freedom’s 17th birthday today. This is a completely unreasonable thing. My dog has been deaf and mostly blind for several years. He can barely move. He can’t walk up stairs and he can no longer run. That being said, he never seems like he is in pain, and is always happy to see me when I visit my parents, so I am very glad he is still hanging in there. I got him in the 5th grade and I could not have been happier to have a dog. I wanted a big dog, or a pug… but my parents wanted to get a Westie.. they won. I wanted to get the biggest one of the puppies, but my brother wanted the smallest… he won. Still, I was just ecstatic to have a puppy. I had him sitting on my chest when I was resting on the ground. He jumped for possibly the first time in his life and it was about the cutest thing I had ever seen. I almost vomited cupcakes.

Anyway, if he just makes it one more year, I can probably sleep with a girl who is younger than my dog, and I think that will be a feat worth mentioning.

Anyway, happy 4th, I hope you have fun. I will be busy blowing up bombs and watching people devour hot dogs for sport.

Enjoy this video of America’s Greatest Hero: Joey Chestnut… See you at Nathan’s

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBIH8Frq-8[/youtube]

I have nothing to do with this event and I am not going to be able to make it, but I have had some of the best times in my life at Coney Island.  The first time I went with this girl who I had a crush on for years and we rode the Cyclone together and she told me she wanted to kiss me and I went to Lit for the first time and I danced which I never do and I finally kissed her and it was one of the best days of my life.  The next time I went I saw Kobayashi break the record for hot dog eating on the 4th of July and got one of the worst sun burns of my life.  I went with my girlfriend at the time Zoe and we took photos and rode the Wonder Wheel for the first time and it was surprisingly terrifying.  We saw the 10-1 Side Show and ate cotton candy and Nathan’s Hot Dogs.  And then the last time I went I got the Gaskets a gig playing the hot dog eating contest and they played in front of 50,000 people, got written up on Dead Spin and we got to watch Joey Chestnut break Kobayashi’s record and bring home the Mustard Belt to the US.  We got to hang out with all the eaters and watch 62 year old Rich Lefevre continue to eat hot dogs after the competition because he was still hungry.

Amazing moments.  Great days of my life.  Recently there has been plans to develop Coney Island and one of two things could happen.  Coney Island as an amusement park could cease to exist and condos and things could be built, or they could carry out the city’s proposal for a redevelopment of the theme park.  The new design is amazing.  Anyway, this proposal needs your support.  From the Save Coney Island Myspace page:

The City of New York recently revealed its exciting proposal for the rezoning and redevelopment of Coney Island. The heart of the plan safeguards Coney Island’s Amusement District by declaring it Parkland, ensuring that Coney Island remains a spectacular Amusement Park for centuries to come. The proposal protects our national treasure rich in history, culture, arts and entertainment, and eliminates the threat of transforming Coney Island into another development of luxury high rise condominiums. However, this proposal will only get passed if the community shows that they want Coney Island’s legendary Amusement legacy to be preserved and protected in perpetuity. Hence, a fabulous group of Coney Island gliteratti have banded together to plan this wild spectacle of an event, demonstrating support for the City and this aspect of its plan, and to celebrate this incredible and historical opportunity to Save Coney Island!! 

So… come out to their event.  It is at Southpaw in Brooklyn this Saturday. It starts at 8pm and you can get tickets here.  For more info and a sweet Coney Island jam check out the Save Coney Island site.

Anyway, this event is giving me the chance to post some of the photos I took the first time I ever went to Coney Island.  For more photos, click here.

So I recently posted about how I took the official Agyness Deyn Wikipedia photo… well I am back and this time I took the photo of my personal hero, Takeru Kobayashi.  I have personally witnessed him break the hot dog eating record in 2004, break it again in 2006, and I finally saw him lose to the great Joey Chestnut.  It was a sad day for Kobayashi, but a great day for America.  Anyway, last year at the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest I had back stage passes and I took a shot of Kobayashi massaging his jaw that he supposedly injured (likely story).  We all knew he was just afraid of  Chestnut and making excuses… but I snapped this shot while he was rubbing his face… I put it on my Flickr account and a Wikipedia editor contacted me and now you can see my photo on the official Takeru Kobayashi Wikipedia page.  I guess Flickr has been good for something.  Hip hip hurray!

Joey! Joey! Joey! Joey Chestnut, American hero, defeated the Japanese destroyer Takeru Kobayashi, eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The Gaskets played 4 songs to open the contest and we all got back stage passes. I took a ton of photos and now, you can see them. It was an amazing day. I was going to spend it with my girlfriend, but she blew me off because she took a bunch pills so she could sleep and couldn’t wake up. That wasn’t rad. We did go to Coney Island yesterday in prep for the show and we had a lot of fun, but still ditching me at 7 am was not cool. Everything else about the day was. Plus my friend Sam came down, and he got her back stage pass. We ate tons of free hot dogs. It was amazing. I talked to Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas for a while and tried to talk to Kobayashi, but he does not speak English good like I do. Rich Lefever is this really old time eater and after he ate a disappointing 31 hot dogs, he just kept eating food back stage. It was amazing. What a good day.

And God bless Joey Chestnut. Drivenbyboredom wants to congratulate Mr. Chestnut on his record smashing 66 hot dogs eaten in 12 minutes today. Kobayashi only ate 63. The king is dead, long live the king. Photos coming soon.

The womanly Takeru Kobayashi is hiding from brave American hero Joey Chestnut. Chestnut, as I previously blogged, is American greatest hope to bring the Mustard Belt back to the US. Chestnut embarrassed Kobayashi in the qualifying rounds of the Nathans Hot Dog eating contest, beating his worlds record by 6 full hot dogs. Kobayashi has won the national contest many years in a row and is always the man to beat. He knows that Chestnut was going to embarrass him on the world stage at Coney Island this July 4th, so he has made up a fake injury to avoid shame, which as far as I know means he would have to stab himself to death at dawn according to traditions in the back water country that is Japan. The savages there have no idea what a man like Chestnut would do to their national pride. So Chestnut will bring back the belt to the US, but won’t get the satisfaction that we Americans deserve for creating a monster like Joey. Read about Kobayashi’s cowardice here and then watch Kobayashi shake in his boots. God Bless America.