the real big one

I think I've mentioned before that my brother-in-law Joe is passionate about growing giant pumpkins... well.. if not... HE IS! He's also real fucking good at it. He's won a bunch of contests and spends a ton of time on online giant pumpkin message boards and selling seeds etc. My sister supports him in this endeavor to an extent, but it gets on her nerves sometimes too.

My mom told me that there were people filming Joe for some documentary. I didn't think much of it, I assumed it was gonna be a segment or a student film or something. Imagine my surprise when my mom called me this morning to tell me to tune into PBS on Wednesday, September 5th... to watch...


Lords of the Gourd: The Pursuit of Excellence

The extreme gardeners who compete at the annual Cooperstown Weigh Off have one obsessive goal - to raise the biggest pumpkin in the world. These gurus of the gourd nurture their fruits through harsh weather, floods, animal attacks and even sabotage to produce pumpkins of gigantic proportion. Follow Joe Pukos and his fellow competitors through the final harrowing days of harvest and the journey across New York State with the bulging behemoths.

It's a whole friggin' hour-long prime time PBS show centered around my brother-in-law and his pumpkins!?!?

Sooo... TiVo that shit if you have a chance... I bet it will be real fun to watch!

Wednesday, September 5th (8pm here in NYC on Thirteen... those of you in the Chicagoland area will have to figure out when it's on on your own because the WTTW schedule site didn't have it listed yet).