Melting steel

The Raley’s parking lot on East Avenue at 2 o’clock this past Saturday afternoon, a day when the temperature was predicted to hit 105 degrees or higher, felt like hell without the flames.

And yet the expanse of asphalt was filled with an eye-catching assortment of people, many of them standing in the blazing sun. They had one thing in common: They all hoped to be the lucky man or woman who could hold a 9-pound 12-pack of Pepsi (or other Pepsi-produced soda) straight out in front of his or her body longer than any other man or woman and thus win $500.

The rules were strict: Elbows had to remain locked, and the 12-pack could not dip below chin level.

The event was local hip-hop/R&B radio station KZAP’s “Men and Women of Steel” contest. Its purpose was to promote Pepsi, the new Superman Returns movie and, of course, 96.7 FM.

Potential contenders lined up to show IDs in front of the small carnival tent-like registration/broadcast booth that was flying a string of balloons and playing thumping hip-hop that vibrated the brain of anyone standing next to one of the speakers.

Then it was a matter of waiting for a half-hour or longer, in heat hot enough to make a lizard ecstatic, for the women’s contest to begin. The contestants, along with their support crews of family and friends, competed to find a skinny patch of shade under one of the puny parking-lot saplings. Small children squeezed next to parents seated on the few available tree-encircling cement curbs, sipping water and drinks purchased from Raley’s because nothing, including water, was available on site.

Two thin men said they’d come down from the foothills. One, who had an unfashionably long beard on his mottled face, complained that they couldn’t take part because they hadn’t signed up ahead of time. “Us poor people wouldn’t win anyway,” he lamented.

The women looked to be pretty much all in their 20s and 30s. They took their assigned numbered spots on the chalk-drawn “grid” on the blazing blacktop. The partner of one young woman—a turbulent, scruffy-haired man with a couple of front teeth missing—pitched a blanket alongside her spot. “Let’s get that money, baby! I need that money, baby!” he cheered. Turbulent’s gal lasted less than a minute.

After a while, other sweating contenders, their arms shaking, began dropping their boxes, which exploded, showering Pepsi or Mountain Dew about.

The winner was an attractive 24-year-old bridge-building construction worker from Red Bluff who was dressed in pink. Her name was Michaelah O’Reilley, and she looked intensely calm the whole time she held her 12-pack aloft. The thought that carried her through the six minutes that gave her the victory? “I wanted 500 dollars.”

The 30 or so men who entered were up next. Those whose spots on the grid were touched by a sliver of shade were told to move into the sun to make it fair for all the competitors.

“Big whatsup to Pepsi! Big whatsup to Raley’s!” a KZAP DJ shouted out over the loudspeakers.

As the men struggled in the heat, another voice jibed from the speakers: “It’s nice and cool here in the shade!”

When one man saw he wasn’t going to be able to hold his 12-pack long enough to win, he flung it to the pavement in a fierce finale of bursting soda cans. “What are you going to take home with you now?” asked the disembodied KZAP voice.

The winner was 34-year-old karate lover Ernesto de la Torre, of Chico, who lasted 10 minutes.

“I thought it was awesome!” DJ AR, “the night guy,” exclaimed afterward. (AR’s favorite quote, according to KZAP’s Web site, is, “No man is completely useless; he can always serve as a bad example.")

“We wanted a real spectacle,” AR explained enthusiastically. “That’s exactly what we wanted. It went off perfect! … And now that it’s over, it’s time for me to go to the river and get out of here!”