WESTFIELD, IN—Reflecting on how his past struggles had fueled him on his road to becoming a champion, professional eater Joey Chestnut recalled on Friday how he was cut from his high school’s varsity hot dog eating team. “I was scrappy and had a burning passion for inhaling hot dogs, so as a freshman, I went to try out for the varsity team, but the coach took one look at me and said I was too skinny,” said Chestnut, explaining how the crushing setback threatened to jeopardize his dream career of inhaling 70-plus hot dogs in 10 minutes. “So immediately I started training on my own, watching their practices and wolfing down bratwursts, hamburgers, sausages—anything I could get my mouth on—in order to discipline my gag reflex and build up jaw strength. I was determined to show them they made a mistake not giving me that letterman jacket. They gave my spot on the team to a sophomore who weighed 350 pounds. They thought he was going to be a prodigy, but I knew he just didn’t have the drive and swallowing technique that I did. And guess what? He’s a bank teller now, never went pro, and here I am chowing down on pig scraps on the world’s biggest stage.” Chestnut went on to advise young aspiring eaters not to let anyone tell them what they can’t do, and also to eat a lot of hot dogs.
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Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
