Eat Me

Here are some photos from the IFOCE Rolling Road Show STAND BY ME Blueberry Pie Eating Championship in Oregon.


I took this only because it's funny to me and T-munny because there's this ghetto place in Denver that did a similar job to a United Airlines sign. They are United Nails.


And this one is freaky because the Manitoba Meatsweats sign in the back window of the car was put in so it was readable to anyone behind the car. But the rear view mirror turned the image around so it read "Manitoba Meatsweats" instead of "abotinaM staewstaeM" or whatever. So would "Ambulance" read "ecnalubmA" in this rear view mirror?


No, it was like a Walgreen's.


Here is the river in the park in Brownsville where the contest was held. Very nice location.


See, here's the Meatsweats sign in the rear window. That rear view mirror was freaky.


I've gotta give a shout out to Fred at Avis. Avis is the official rental car of the Manitoba Meatsweats. When renting the car, Fred asked "so are you here for business or something else?" I said "no, here to eat pie" and yada, yada, yada, he upgraded the car from the subcompact Geo Metro I scored for $20 on priceline.com to this Ford Escape. I don't know how much of a favor it was, but it was fine by me.


Here is the empty field that the Rolling Roadshow turned into an outdoor movie house for the screening of Stand By Me, filmed in Brownsville.


Steakbellie was here?!?


The gathering crowd.


Ima Blueberry.


Some of the pies. Pie and tin together were around 2.35lbs.


Crowd continued to grow. Before the eating I walked around the crowd to get a sense what they were thinking and heard this:

I wonder if that guy who ate all the hot dogs will be here?
I know what they meant, but yeah he was there. 49 at Coney. Yeah he was there.


The twelve eaters and judge Ray Meduna.


Look at the crowd! I am as bad at guessing how many in the crowd as I am guessing age but maybe there were 500 or 600 people. Ryan Nerz did a fine job on the mic, and he got the crowd making noise and in to it the whole time.


Side-stage door from which we stepped.


Ryan's result sheet from the weighings. Everyone's stack of pie remains was weighed. Ray has been the judge at two events I have been in and, rightly so, he weighs everyone's stuff before results are announced. It what, takes just a few minutes and I doubt the crowd minds. I bet they even want to know, really, who ate what. One event I was at, yeah, everyone's food was weighed but only AFTER the results were announced. The winner was announced as eating 6.2 pounds. And that was known HOW?!? The accurate weighings did not effect the placings, but c'mon.


Someone's bottle. Hands-free meant everything was hands-free so if you wanted water then you had to have your assistant pour it in your mouth. Also they wiped you. They also kept giving you pie to eat. Every eater had an assistant. Some even male.


Here is the table afterwards. There is some detritus laying around, but Ray scooped up the bulk of the remains and put them in a tin in each eaters' stack. The pie crusts at the bottom of this photo belong to the fucker who beat me by 1.76 ounces! Waa!


Sign savior so my -1 is a 1. Photo by Erb.


Here's the movie field with the screen inflated.


This one's for Mommye Tommye. Since she is on a fixed income she could make a few bucks like this guy in the Portland Airport. DIA is calling!

Going in to the contest I had thought the final results might be more unpredictable than they were in the end. Sure, there's no way to deny Pat the favored spot but who knew what could have happened what with the hands-free wildcard in there. As for my 2.92, that's disappointing because I had the quite realistic goal of 3.75 as a target (I thought maybe each pie would be 1.5 lbs, and I thought 2.5 - so 3.75 lbs). But it is what it is.