The first thing one notices when they walk into the Wachovia Center on a Wing Bowl Friday is the smell. Strong is putting it kindly. Actually, it’s more of a stench than a smell, kind of like the one that emanates from a baby’s diaper if it were placed out in the July sun all day and mixed with a curry.
Quite simply, it’s demoralizing. For mere mortals one whiff pretty much is a wrap on the day and that is saying something considering we arrived before the stroke of 6 a.m. Then again, that’s our fault for attempting to lead a life of dignity and self respect.
Such concepts as dignity and self-worth were not measured with the abundance as the tally for chicken wings ingested on Friday morning in front of a rather underwhelming crowd in the Wachovia Center. But, you know, what else is new. Using the Wing Bowl — the 18th annual version of it, no less — as a commentary on social values and mores is foolhardy at best. As they say, it is what it is.
Call it hubris masked as hedonism.
Is it out of line to wonder if Wing Bowl, put on by radio station WIP, is one of the biggest reasons why the rest of the world hates America and why the rest of America thinks Philadelphia and Philadelphians are ugly? At least that's what Americans told a slick travel magazine a few months ago.
After all, those jackals that turned out for the peep show masked as some sort of eating competition, and the blathering/analysis from WIP’s lead buffoon, Angelo Cataldi, booed Snooki. Can you believe that?
THEY BOOED SNOOKI!
Granted, though advertised as a sellout, the arena was hardly full so the star of the MTV hit reality show, “Jersey Shore,” didn’t have to worry about D-sized batteries aimed at her head from the upper deck. She wasn’t exactly treated like J.D. Drew by the WIP crowd. More like Donovan McNabb on draft day.
But Snooki is not like me or you. She’s low to the ground and built like an armadillo. If you have seen her work on her show you know that she can fight her own battles. So when the crowd in Philly gives her the type of cheer they are so famous for, she didn’t back down.
“Philly is crazy,” she said while advertising the fact that she is a Mets fan. “I wish I could stay all day. I’ll come back when the Mets are here.”
See what I mean? Did McNabb punch back when WIP arranged to have him booed lustily on draft day? No. Instead he sulked and guided the Eagles to the Super Bowl in 2004. Snooki came back like she was Chase Utley at Yankee Stadium before the Home Run Derby.
“Boo,” he said. …
You know the rest.
Snooki is just part of the crowd who took chicken bleep and turned it into chicken wings. There was no demoralizing her, which is more than one could say for a couple of the gents in the competition who just didn’t seem to have the intestinal fortitude to complete the course. In that sense just be glad that Wing Bowl is a radio event because having gotten an eye full of the contestants and the assigned/paid members of their entourage along with a few of the deejays all hired to flash the crowd and… how do we put this delicately... um... bowwow.
Look, I'm no George Hamilton, but geez. Apparently there’s a reason why they airbrush photographs.
Thankfully Snooki was ushered to the off-limits area so she didn’t have to see the handful of contestants that filled the tank well past the top and left the contents of their stomachs on the table in front of them. It was almost like going to Yellowstone and waiting for Old Faithful to blow. I kept thinking, “Should I go to the car and get the camera or can I wait?”
I waited and I watched the forlorn face of porn princess Katie Morgan as men literally spilled their guts in front of her. Normally Ms. Morgan looks like a ray of sunshine beaming across a tranquil lake on a cloudless spring morning, but in this case she looked as if her doctor just told her that she had VD.
No, Wing Bowl is not for the weak. In fact, you better drink up because it’s an event that requires courage. Extraordinary displays of courage is where a man using the handle, “Super Squibb,” distanced himself from the pretenders wallowing in pools of vomit and intestinal bile. Jonathan Squibb, as his loving parents named him, ingested 221 bits of roasted animal flesh, properly digested it and then washed it down with a properly mature Pinot Noir.
You might be asking yourself, “Pinot Noir? With chicken?” Yes. I told you he was brave.
Super Squibb not only lapped the competition, beating a man named Not Rich by a hefty 83 pieces of dead animal carcass, but the back-to-back champ withstood taunts and catcalls from three-time champ, Joey Chestnut who turned up not to compete, but instead to work on a potential public intoxication charge if you believe parts of the dialogue from the lead buffoon with the loudest microphone. In fact, so complete was Mr. Squibb’s prowess and skill in the competition that Mr. Chestnut was shamed into making a comeback for the 2011 event.
Be sure to arrive early in next February, too, because I hear they gluttonous hijinx might be ready to add both a cigarette smoking and baby seal clubbing competition.
The tailgate starts at 4.