Cigarettes and Nuggets, Cocktails and Dreams: The Final Notes from the Campaign Trail

It was, without doubt, a moment of great shame, an hour we would all regret. The friends and family all of all six participants, me included, would look on the events of last Wednesday evening with repulsion and embarrassment. In the smoky haze of boredom, bought on wholly by the depression of the dullest and most criminally flaccid election campaign in the history of man, it was decided, to some excitement it must be added, that there would be a nugget-off. Nugget-off ’07, a title I dare say that did not need to be chronicled as it will stand in time as the one and only Nugget-off. In these parts, at any rate.

There would be a trip to that fine family eatery, McDonalds. The challenge was to engorge your body with as much processed concentrated chicken – referred to in most circles as the chicken nugget – in the time frame of one hour. We had, by intention or fate, entered the sordid and depraved world of competitive eating. And we were doing so not as fans but as competitors. We had entered the realm of gurgitation. This was not Nathan’s fabled hot dog eating contest or Philadelphia’s Wing Bowl and there were no Kobayashi’s or Joey Chestnut’s partaking. We were six bored cats who had somehow reached the collective desire to scar our bodies, minds and reputations for what, at the time, seemed like a highly amusing and potentially financially profitable way to burn an hour.

This was not my first foray into the world of amateur competitive eating. There was the storied Yogo-off. And some vile pizza eating contest that came to fruition as one leg of an eight sport contest (that involved darts, table tennis and pool) known as the, well, lets just say it was a cup with an alternative and unpleasant title. But these were college times and there were happenings and goings-on that were a lot stranger than cheap eating contests for pots small enough to get you a free round at the Worker’s Club and not much more. Today, things are a little different. I am a professional and this kind of silliness can cause a great deal of unpleasantness that often requires violence and bravado to amend.   

On the long march to suburbia, a place where, due to decisions of lifestyle and intelligence, we remain unknown in most circles due to a fear of crossing the city boundaries, a great feeling of shame encompassed the crowd. The absurdity had been realised. We strode on, nonetheless, for reasons most likely to do with identity and mental state. There was soon a great wave of panic among McDonald’s employees. There appeared, at face value, to be a severe nugget shortage. As grown man after grown man ordered twenty-pack number one, with a varying array of sauces selected on reasons of tactics and taste, McDonalds was thrown into a state of chaos. That carnage soon turned to a deathly silence of amazement and antipathy as the truth of what lay before them dawned.

Ten nuggets in and it was noted that Grant, second favourite in pre-post betting, suffered from a heart condition and was challenging death head on. He had also eaten McDonald’s for lunch in what seemed, with the benefit of hindsight, somewhat sadomasochistic and perhaps even suicidal. The fact he survived through thirty-six was a feat of unbelievable strength and stupidity. By the end, he was hallucinating, believing Duff, another in the throng of wantonness, was a prancing unicorn hopped up on caffeine. He survived though and that has to count for something.

Thirty-six nuggets were enough for second place. I had folded first, on what, under the circumstances, was a somewhat dignifying twenty-five. Three others filled the spaces in between and retired for cigarettes and fresh air not long after the half-hour mark.

The contest, however, was far from over. The winner, a man/eating machine running with the moniker of Douglas, continued on long after victory had been devoured and bets had been settled. With Grant drifting in and out of consciousness and Adrian (another contestant) hustling in the street for punters to “come and watch this amazing feat for only a single dollar” like a King’s Cross strip club greeter and a wild and enthusiastic gathering of pimple-faced employees yelling things like “you guys are okay” and “I think I missed the responsible service of nuggets seminar”, Douglas proceeded to down 76 nuggets. It was not near the world record of Sonya Thomas (80 nuggets in five minutes) but it was still as amazed and appalled as I have ever been at any singular moment of my life.

All I could do was warn, in deathly tones, a young burger-flipper who had described the self-degradation he had just witnessed as cool. “Son”, I said, “this will be you in ten years if you don’t mind yourself.” He jumped on his bicycle and rode like the wind to who knows where.

The shame of such a low-rent contest was, no doubt, predominantly ours. But it was also the shame of the nation and the body politic and Australian voters that we have allowed a nothing campaign by the ALP in Australia’s most important election to be so successful that depression and boredom drove us to the gluttony of an eating contest.

We have allowed the 21st century to become “a century of fakers”, to steal a line from Gregory O’Brien and Stuart Murdoch. Me-tooism, pallid imitation and hollow words have become the new strategies of the political elite. A vote for Kevin Rudd is a vote for phoniness, a grand acceptance of hollow ideals and rapacious greed in the guise of leftist romanticism. Seemingly, the majority of Australians have become fat and blind, flabby on the spoils provided by eleven years of economic and political stability and blinkered to the cunning and vacant façade of Labor.

“And you’re filling your fat face with every different kind of cake”
-Belle and Sebastian, A Century of Fakers

And now we must all pay the heavy price that will follow. That price will be a return to economic policy born out of union interest, a cleansing of Australian values to fit the story of the left, a rewriting of modern Australian history with Australia cast in the role of the villain and a Greens controlled Senate that could lead to any kind of massacre on the Australian way of life.

Worst of all, the man who has guided us through a time of unparalleled prosperity will be forced from the scene with a whip and a demand never to come back. The hand that feeds has not only been bitten but ripped from the bone and swallowed in maniacal delight. Due to ridiculous arguments (which, to some extent, highlight the frustration and inadequacies of democracy) such as “it’s time for a change” and “we don’t dislike John Howard or think he has done anything wrong but we are going to vote for Kevin”, our greatest ever Prime Minister will be flogged and humiliated at his farewell party. No celebration. No gold watch. Just a giant fuck you and the thank-you gift of a punch to the left kidney.

And those Labor and Green punks, developed in an atmosphere of thuggery and Machiavellian self-interest, will attempt to reconfigure the Howard period as something far from what it is and was.  

“They took your mould and they burned it on the fire in history today”
-Belle and Sebastian, A Century of Fakers

Indeed. And as a sign of gratitude most have decided to calm the blaze with urine and spit.

There is little point in imploring the, surely millions of Making The Nut readers, to not vote Labor and not vote Green and not leave Australia in its current state of well-being. Despite the ringing endorsement of your loyal author for Australian’s to stick with the Howard team, all evidence suggests most will not. Through the lethargy of fat and with the reasoning of a mad man, Australian’s will shuffle to the polling booth and put a one next to the Labor candidate and then scurry away with a smug smile and the common sense of a crazed fox with a broken leg. They will impale a man and a government for the right to snobbery and self-satisfaction. Petitioning the nation to stand tall and true is futile.

I have resigned myself to the fact that these are, with near certain probability, the final days and hours of the Howard era. Tears well and quiet melancholy overcomes. Not just for the political death of one of the greats but for the death of political accountability and the death of debate and the death of the meaningful campaign and the death of Australian values and the death of the faith that Australians are not susceptible to a cheap play on gullibility. I always firmly held close to my heart that Australians would not fall for a con as obvious as it is scandalous but it seems like most will. There is a lot more than an election to be won or lost on Saturday.

All we have now is hope and the prospect of a miracle. John Howard has done it before but he has never left it this late.

These are depressing times. And they are about to get a lot worse. I will be taking no calls on Saturday evening and I may never take another call again.