My Carefully Worded Warning About Competitive Eating

I start my Oakwood Village Centrist blog in earnest with this entry. It is an editorial. In the future, I will endeavor to include human interest, current events, sports, arts coverage etc. However, today, I hope you'll indulge me as I express an opinion. Just an opinion... For those who are interested, the powers that be here at Oakwood Village Center have, against my advice and the advice of the town counsel, decided to go forward with their First Annual Mixed Competitive Eating Contest. I know they'll have a physician on hand and extra janitorial staff present but it still doesn't seem like a good idea to me. While the idea is fresh, like all fresh ideas, it needs some serious testing before we go forward. By the way, I am not, nor would I ever suggest animal testing for this competition. First of all, you can't force an animal to eat more than they want to. The feral Pekingese that roam the grounds at Oakwood Village Center, for instance, eat precisely ¾ cup of ground beef when they pay us a visit. No more no less. Once, I tried to do ⅞ of a cup for a particular favorite of mine and he literally lifted his front right paw and swatted my wrist. Now why would he do that unless he really meant it? That ⅛ cup of meat sat there untouched for ten minutes before a custodian arrived to pick it up. As you can imagine, I was quite embarrassed to explain that I was, to some extent responsible for the minor mess. I beg your pardon but I have diverged from the topic. My point is that mammalian digestion is a beautiful but complex and precarious thing. Maybe we should, slowly, gradually and with careful monitoring, introduce a second food. Perhaps our contestants could, after each entire blueberry pie ingested, take a small bite of a hotdog and then return to gorging on pie. If there are no major incidents, we up their intake to a second bite or maybe even half a hot dog. As it stands now, The First Annual Mixed Competitive Eating Contest will operate as follows: Competitors will begin with a blueberry pie, then a bratwurst, then two mountain oysters (we could have only done one but I think one of the organizers has a bit of an irreverent streak), then a cream soda, a 12 ounce steak, and finally a cup of ranch dressing and their own dignity. This competition will raise money for high blood pressure research and diabetes research. Now, because I hate to dampen the mood here at OVC, and because you are all adults (the contest IS only for adults), I encourage you to DO YOUR RESEARCH. Find out if mixed competitive eating contests are for you! If your doctor agrees that you will survive, even thrive in such competition, then have a wonderful time. But please tell the children to stay in school. Tell them that if they give up on their dreams to become a doctor or astronaut or whatever it is they want to be, they might HAVE TO eat competitively to make their living. Perhaps in this way, we can see this competition as drama, as a morality play even. Only as example of what happens when caution is discarded and replaced with undue pressure on ones intestines can I be full behind this competition. But it might be wonderful. I've been wrong before. And now with my raised eyebrow of scorn lowered and reunited with its partner, I say with all earnestness, if you're doing it, do it well! And as always, have fun!

What Comes After Beta?

Hello...? Testing. Testing. Can anyone hear me? LIS (that's internet talk for "Laughing InSide". I'm hoping it catches on. Fingers crossed. It's your old pal Jack the Small Talker! After the events detailed in my memoir, "Ballad of the Small Talker", (audiobook available on iTunes, Spotify and CdBaby), I decided to change the blog a bit. As those of you who've heard the story may know, I recently changed our circular from one made of paper to one made of bits and bytes. It's futuristic magic but it's real. I'd like it if you considered my wildly successful (and unexpectedly so) local version of my blog as the "beta test" version. Beta went well. So what's next for the senior small talker at the fourth largest entertainment destination in the upper third of the lower forty-eight states without a mascot? This very blog! The one you're reading! It's here! Please allow me to inform and entertain you from this day forward with the news and events at Oakwood Village Center as well as with (if you'll allow me the self-indulgence) the occasional opinions and musings about just what makes "The OVC", Oakwood Village itself and, in fact this whole great nation, tick happily on! If you haven't heard my memoirs, "The Ballad of the Small Talker", listen to it. It'll make the experience of reading this new, exciting blog, that much richer. Here's the link to part one (of seven!): https://open.spotify.com/album/24gpnCPaWnnjxhlvSNaI8J I hope you'll listen and enjoy! I also hope you'll keep reading. Have a happwonderfantastical day! Jack!