Joey Jaws, the human money printer is back to Coney Island on Friday
Some may consider this week great because it’s a holiday week. Sure, fireworks and cold beers with friends and families are great assuming you make it through the day with all your little fingies still attached to your hand. Which, let’s be honest, if you have to lose one make sure it’s your ring finger. You can’t wear a wedding band, but to be honest no one is going to want to love a nine-fingered freak after you couldn’t get the Mega Bomb tube to detonate properly, Jethro.
There’s also the emotional or historical concepts that bubble up to the surface on the 4th. Though admittedly depending on who you ask the current stars and stripes awesome America mentality is either raging or waning, it’s still a celebration of our independence at its core, which is a good thing all things considered. I for one am not built to love soccer, warm beer, or royal families, so dumping tea in a harbor and subsequently telling the British to get their shine box worked out pretty well for me. It also gave us Hamilton and this banger of a Walton Goggins sketch from SNL…
For me, July 4th takes on a bit of a different emotional symbolism though as it speaks to our very core of freedom and perseverance and grit… symbolized by dozens of people choking dow hundreds of hot dogs in the sweltering summer heat of Coney Island with the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. And this year, in case you hadn’t noticed, his contract dispute resolved, the greatest hot dog chomper of all time is back in the saddle again as Joey Chestnut returns to Coney Island to lay the smack down on the field. And I, for one, cannot wait to welcome him back. It’s like watching Derek Jeter in pinstripes, American Pharoah in polka dots, or Axl Rose covered in vomit… sometimes you just get to witness greatness cook.
And let’s be clear, it isn’t just about sitting by with a cold one at noon waiting to see people consume a year’s worth of sodium over the course of an hour. It’s not about hoping a protester storms the stage again and Joey Jaws applies a rear naked choke hold while scarfing down glizzy after glizzy. Like most things in my life, it is about unadulterated and shameless gambling, which the Nathan’s Hot Dog Contest provides ample opportunity for. We’re in the dog days of summer, folks. What else are you going to bet on? Baseball? Psssh. This is the last real gambling opportunity before football fires back up in the fall. Join me, won’t you?
My grandmother was disturbed when she saw me watching the Nathan’s Hot Dog Contest a few years ago with immense anxiety and nervousness. I want to say it was the COVID year where it was indoors, plastic shields, etc. and without the usual fanfare and celebration that comes with it. After I told her I had sizable bets on a total dogs over ladder and a reversal bet for someone in the field, I could see the disappointment in her face, wondering how her grandson, so educated and professionally accomplished would bet money on people scarfing down hot dogs. What I told her is as true today as it was back then… the only thing more disgusting then someone choking down 70 borderline meat dogs is them doing so and us not gambling on it. LET’S GET THIS MONEY BABY! Gambling picks to come later this week as Hustle Belt becomes HotDogBelt. But let’s be honest… you’re going to love it. It’s as American as it gets.