It's a hot afternoon in late May, and the mayor's standing on the Brooklyn Bridge outside the New York-New York hotel-casino, competing in a hot-dog eating contest. Wearing a dark suit, smiling under a Nathan's Hot Dog tent, he's part of a team called the Top Dock Dogs, all preparing to shovel patriotic tubes of cased meat into their faces. If those seven sins are truly deadly, then the grim reaper should have struck down the gluttons. But there go the teams called the Lost Dogs, the Moon Dogs and the Manly Meat Munchers, all employees of the hotel-casino, chugging water and snarfing wieners as medics wait onsite and a grown man dances around in a furry hot-dog suit that says "Frankster."
The mayor smiles, chats with the people around him, basking in the moment. The only thing that can stop his smile is an occasional cameraman blocking it from sight. But it's still there, now that the ethics hearing is behind him, and he's out doing what he loves: smiling at the crowd.
One of the emcees asks the mayor how many hot dogs his team will eat in 10 minutes. "Three hundred-forty," he proclaims. Not exactly possible in 10 minutes, but not quite an ethical lapse. Just overly optimistic.
The mayor's hot-dog eating technique stems from the esteemed (or scoffed-at, depending on the source) competitive-eating champ Takeru Kobayahsi, who separates the hot dog from the bun, eating one at a time (Kobayashi dips his buns in water. Thankfully, the mayor does not). Then he eats the dog, dipping it in mustard, at a leisurely, mannerly pace. After consuming two of the links, he starts talking to people around him, the crowd, New York-New York personnel, the man dressed as a hot dog. He offers his plateful of hot dogs to the crowd and sips on his signature gin martini.
Not everyone is so dignified. His competitors stuff, shove and mash the emulsified meat into their mouths, with the best eating a little more than one hot dog a minute for 10 minutes. But these are the amateurs. The county-fair-grade eaters.
The real competition follows when competitors for the International Federation of Competitive Eating takes stage. These people consume mass quantities of food. They train for competitions. And one even wears a white robe with Uncle Sam shoving a hot dog down his throat. They don't take themselves too seriously. But seriously enough to assault their bodies and aspire to bloat their bellies. Winner Rich LeFevre, a slight man who lives in Henderson, took in 26 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, and will go on to the international competition in July. He might want to take in Supersize Me in the meantime. Or try and find the list of ingredients in a hot dog.