Who Woulda Thunk it, Eric?

Who Woulda Thunk it, Eric? by Roxanne McDonald

Granted, you played a strong game. But who would have thought being overly concerned about the whereabouts of opponents would actually benefit you and help you win–and that you would continue to be mean, discounting, and ungrateful afterwards?

Sure, we know kindness and refraining from mockery and insults do not guarantee a win. Granted, we have covered general motivation factors before, but never did we consider that almost obsessing about where the others were at all times would be the thing that instead of tripping you up accelerated your progress…all the way to the finish line. And true, emotional misappropriation has littlle to do with winning, evidently, but you still have a nasty personality. Even Rob has charisma: you just sulk on top of your meanness, and blame TV cameras for not portraying realism. Uh, who were they filming if not this surly and stuck-up guy?

Interviews with you speaking also not realistic?

The malcontent thing just didn’t cut it with us. Even though you later claimed Danielle had to be treated differently as a woman, that you had to be more sensitive toward her, you seemed to be the one more negative. Hell, after winning, you even told her (in a Reality News Online interview ) That your former “Amazing Race” partner was a much better partner. Whew.

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Now Who Do We Root For?

Now Who Do We Root For? by Roxanne McDonald

“Amazing Race Allstars” is left with the least likely to deserve, or at best, the least desirable personalities.

All the strong ones are gone (Rob and Amber, Uchenna and Joyce). All the endearing ones are gone (Ian and Teri). All the funny ones are gone (Danny and Oswald). Is it really down to ugly sarcasm and who can out-manipulate whom?

Who cares how beautiful they are? The Beauty Queens, or who Eric longingly identifies as The Blondes, are not all that beautiful all the time.

When on one leg of “The Amazing Race” the Beauty Queens discover there are two teams ahead of them on the list, they tell their ticketing clerk that Danny and Oswald were behind them, so the order of the list is not “right”, is not fair, they insist.

Similarly, on another leg of the race, the Beauty Queens get all frustrated that Charla and Myrna are getting preferential

wait-list treatment, and because they prefer the flirty, bat-your-eyelashes approach, they snipe how Myrna is “oh, my, God…so pushy,” and that she “wins the pushy award of the list.”
The best way to win is to use feminine wiles, they’ve decided, doing so with everyone from the sergeant examining their engine flap cleaning (where their schmoozy bullshit doesn’t fly) to giggling over the naval officer’s manicured nails (which just make the woman smile but doesn’t get them anywhere any faster or anything) to flirting with Eric, telling him “how buff” he looks in his white jersey (right in front of Danielle, no less…what gall).

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Amazing Race = Airport Chase = Szzzzzzzzzz

Amazing Race = Airport Chase = Szzzzzzzzzz by Roxanne McDonald

Again the “Amazing Race” is more an airline ticket chase and a hurry-up-and-wait snore than anything else, the show reduced to too many scenes of negotiating, haggling, and hassling in airports.

And we already have a reality TV show dedicated to airports—“Airline”– though it hasn’t been on in awhile. Gee, I wonder if people got sick of it? Any hints, there, “Amazing Race,” that maybe if the flight planning element (and the waiting and the bitching) were removed from “Amazing Race,” maybe the format of the game would return to being exciting for viewers and less ridiculous (always on stand-by, etc.) for racers?

This week, then, it was not the flight to Honk Kong but the fight to Hong Kong…. Oswald negotiates for his team to be at the top of the wait list, and Danny tells him he is his hero. The Beauty Queens request to get on the wait list. Charla and Myrna request to get on the wait list (adding that there are some people on that list or in this race who are not so nice).

Oswald and Danny return to confirm the airline agents are maintaining an exact order for the list.

The Beauty Queens discover there are two teams ahead of them on the list.
The Beauty Queens tell their ticketing clerk that Danny and Oswald were behind them, so the order of the list is not “right”, is not fair.

Oswald slips back to the counter to inform them otherwise, that he and Danny were indeed ahead of them and therefore rightfully in front of them on the list.

The agent, still unbelievably patient, tells them the chances are slim for all of them, anyway [so get over yourselves]….

Charla and Myrna do some weird allying with Eric and Danielle, suggesting no more “giggling or phoniness” and presuming that the final three teams will be Charla and Myrna, Eric and Danielle, and Danny and Oswald and saying how this will be “fun” [for you, maybe, Myrna].

Donny and Oswald give Charla and Myrna some stand-by code for the list, because Charla and Myrna have shared information with them before, and, as Oswald says, “it goes back to kharma.”

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Take the A Train

Take the A Train by Roxanne McDonald

Then indulge in too many cookies and contradictions….

A fellow TV writer emailed me the other day that he is getting more into Survivor and more sick The Amazing Race, while I am getting worn out by Survivor and more interested in The Amazing Race. Of course, the last week’s installment put me over the edge, as I am a student of the Holocaust and am writing the memoirs of a man who was a child in the camps.

But the most stunning of locations to “play” at was handled quite well, quite respectfully, and the return to horrible events and memories did not deter faithful Amazing Race followers.

The Amazing Race participants, however, seemed to quickly forget the value of sensitivity, compassion, and respect, returning to their own perspectives, speculations, and side-swipings of others.

I don’t know how much real time passes for the players, between legs of the race, that is, but I would think even a week passing wouldn’t be enough to make them forget completely. Or maybe the AR production team edited out comments regarding the past experience…I don’t know.

In Krakow on their way to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Uchenna and Joyce are discussing the down-to-the-wire competitiveness; and Oswald and Danny are working their way into another of many disputes in their thirteen-year relationship.

The focus is on needing a minimum of 45 minutes for a connecting flight in Germany when they only have, they are

told, an hour. This is going to be close (and as we have seen before, maybe disastrous, as the arriving flight is never on time). No one is getting rude, yet, as Oswald calmly and wisely checks for different flights with longer connection times, finds a later Paris arrival, and as he and Danny say goodbye to fellow partners Uchenna and Joyce, who have opted to stay with the riskier flight.
The Beauty Queens and Charla/Myrna, however, are not having as cordial or respectful a time booking flights, as one team sneaks a listen to the other team’s departure times, etc.. That is, while you might have guessed the sneaky ones to be Charla and Myrna, this time, all of a sudden, Myrna has gotten the notion to have some morality, and insists she and C. will not resort to such underhanded strategy as sneaking a listen. Had the Beauty Queens not thought to do it first, I am sure Myrna would be announcing a different rationale, here.

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Race for the Right Flight Makes for Unfair Fight

Race for the Right Flight Makes for Unfair Fight by Roxanne McDonald

So…if you took booking an imperative plane ticket out of the equation, would the Amazing Racers be better matched? Would the bitching be any less intense or the manipulation be any less obnoxious?

I know this is the goal of a number one reality show, but every g-damned time one of the teams is booked on a later flight, locked out of a flight, or taken off a plane ready to fly, my heart goes surging. Then I, too, start bitching (to myself, as no one else is here), and then start thinking about how ridiculously imbalanced are the opportunities for anyone to win when the airlines sabotage thirty percent of the players.

Yes, flying anywhere these days sucks. Besides having to be searched for the potential terrorist you are—you with your two and a half-inch embroidery scissors—besides having to arrive hours early, besides having to wait hours more…if you

are anyone other than a business person or an “Amazing Race” contestant, forget having a “pleasant flight”.
But if you are an “Amazing Race” player, forget having a fair fight in your favor (or anyone else’s, for it’s a crap shoot) if plane travel is involved.

And it is.

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Amazing Race Advice and Admonitions

Amazing Race Advice and Admonitions by Roxanne McDonald

Advice that aint about getting along, being helpful, or any of that gooey or groovy crap, now.

The advice may be for the benefit of viewers at home. It may be directed toward partners on the teams. Or it may just be the motivating mantras that work to keep individual racers going.

What do you tell others or yourself to keep going strong?

You can start with the wonderful advancing team of Charla and Myrna (my favorites, usually), and with Myrna saying how “if you don’t take risks, how are you going to win?”

You can define your position, your status, and hope:

“When you’re marked at last place (penalty instead of elimination), means you must wait 30 minutes [and hope] not everyone comes in….” Joyce

You can go to extremes:
“[Spend the night at the airport.] You wanna be at the back of the line, or you wanna be inconvenienced? Let’s try to start racing smart: stop, look, and listen.” Ian

If someone else, a competitor, whines about wanting to go back home, you just tell em:
“Go back. What are you waiting for?” Charla

Know the thing to do:
“I say wait here. They’re just doing something to be doing something. Stand in line is the thing to do.” Ian

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Getting Along no Great Equalizer

Getting Along no Great Equalizer by Roxanne McDonald

With no Rob and Amber to be bitter at, the Amazing Race contestants get itchy for something or someone to gripe about.

As if the requisites for flying now including having to go to a travel agent, where everyone catches up, isn’t maddening enough, the little quirks of partners is starting to grate on nerves.

Danny is “starting to lose [his] patience, okay?”
Oswald snipes that perhaps they could take turns getting cranky.
Charla is still a little bubbly, saying how “anything lower to the ground works better for [her].”

The beauty queens are trying to hear what flight Charla and Myrna are getting booked on, deciding it’s time to be sneaky and underhanded (in honor of Rob, maybe?)
Somebody says how badly he needs a shower. Somebody else, his partner, says, after they have visited a powder and cologne shop, that now he smells like a French whore.

Danielle is in on the complaining now, saying how it is not anything in particular “the Guidos” are doing…it’s just that they are “so annoying.”
Then Eric and Daniell fight with that very team—over who passed whom in what taxi, wah, wah, wah.

Then the rat guide task sets a few on an even sharper edge…huge, sniffing rats that have collars and leashes and names and are hired out to track stuff—in this case, the next clues.

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Reconsidering the Competition

Reconsidering the Competition by Roxanne McDonald

They may have hoped for it but I would wager they didn’t expect it: the competition they fretted over is over—for now.

It’s old news now that Rob and Amber were eliminated from “The Amazing Race.” [Sorry, I was still reeling from the American Idol results—argh.] But what was interesting was the competitors’ takes on what competition means to them, how they regard their own abilities to compete, and who they see (or saw) as the biggest threats.

Joyce says how Rob and Amber beat her and Uchenna a lot, though they didn’t beat them in season seven, and that, Joyce says, must have hurt.

The Beauty Queens are concerned with their own

inconsistencies and with not trusting themselves enough. Rob and Amber, they add, are fast…are the team to beat. [The BQs placed fifth this week.]
Oswald says that it is thought that “Danny and I are not very competitive, but I think it’s just this opposite.

While Teri implies that luck helps, Ian comments that their physical abilities may not be as good as those of the younger teams. Bill and Joe, also older, remark how “being at the bottom of the pack makes us open up our eyes, makes us more competitive.”

Feisty Mirna and Charla are all over the competition aspect of the game, with Mirna saying, “I work very hard physically, mentally…to do well. Charla obviously wants to contribute, but I do all the work to compensate for any shortcomings we have.”
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Do Gender Differences Matter?

Do Gender Differences Matter in Amazing Race Road Blocks? by Roxanne McDonald

Do gender differences help or hinder or matter at all for Amazing Race challenges?

The Road Block, appearing on every leg of the tour, requires one of the two teammates to perform a skill-specific task—eating a massive plate of tough and chewy meat; building; doing a verbal clue puzzle; selling flowers or fish or something; seeking and finding flags; or finding one’s way through a maze in the dark, for example.

The way the road block question is phrased and the way the teams decide who will do the task is what I find interesting, especially since so much has been studied about male and female abilities, which differ according to skills required for certain tasks, and since teams on The Amazing Race are a mix of two females, two males, or a male and a female—making for the question of an imbalance or balance of skills.

Hypotheses maintain that men are better at spatial tests and most often strength tasks, while women are better at verbal tasks or those which require detail. So when a Road Block asks who is better at detail, for example, Joyce and Mary told teammates Uchenna and David they would do better.

Then, there are wayfinding approaches that are based on what Sigrid Schitz and others determine as route knowledge and configurational knowledge—route

knowledge including “important landmarks in the environment, the routes connecting them and the order of route turns (relational directions such as right, left, straight ahead)” and configurational knowledge including having a “more global representation of the environment according to an Euclidean reference system, cardinal directions and metric distances serv[ing] as coordinates to map spatial relationships among distinctive locations within a network of routes.”
In male/female teams, you usually see the man driving—or the woman driving and the man bitching about it the whole while. But in teams composed of two females, you might see some additional struggle. Watch how Carla and Myrna, who do well on several tasks requiring adventure, detail-orientation, or even eating, but flounder madly when having to navigate a map and drive to a distant location.

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Kindness Continues on Amazing Race

Kindness Continues on Amazing Race–as the Hissing Sounds Go Off in the Background by Roxanne McDonald

Despite the reasons and ramifications, teams help each other through the tough times.

Mary of Mary and David may have been right, that kindness gets you nowhere but last of the line, but it’s still nice to watch people looking out for others…even if they do so resentfully or with an agenda:

Uchenna and Joyce, the first team to arrive at the airport before it is open, reserve as many tickets [from Calama to Santiago] as they can—for Oswald and Danny, Joe and Bill, and Eric and Danielle (though without security numbers on credit cards, they can’t do so for everyone).

Rob and Amber sort of work with Eric and Danielle, and Rob tells us he doesn’t mind so much as he finds them no threat….

When Joe and Bill miss a vital half of a clue and are too faro out to turn around but are lost without help, Charla and Myrna (well, Myrna) tell them they have to reach the point right before P… Joe and Bill describe their help as a “godsend”, though Charla and Myrna can’t believe they helped’ then, they are shocked that at the rapids Bill and Joe just “take off”….But David and Mary, who have been so helpful on a number of occasions, do so again…and end up shorting themselves. They come in last and are eliminated.

I can’t help but think of the anecdote about the woman who is all groovy, earth mother type:

She is out walking in the woods, and comes across a wounded snake. She bundles him up, takes him to her hut, and nurses him back to health. One day, when the snake is better, he bites her. She is shocked. But the snake says to her, “Hey lady, what’d you expect? I’m a snake.”
SirLinksAlot Amazing Race links

Amazing Racers Moved by Music

Amazing Racers Moved by Music by Roxanne McDonald

Check out the team playlists. Chris Daughtry, who is third-best-selling album right now, is at the top for Amazing Race competitors!

If you have a brain, if you live on this planet, you likely know Sprint teamed with Amazing Race. It’s all over the net, in the news, and even, of course, in ads aired during The Amazing Race.

But you may not have yet checked out the teams’ playlists.

I was intrigued when the sample playlist shown in a commercial on Sunday, March 4th showed Chris Daughtry at the top of the list, so I investigated further (despite the fact that I don’t use, own, or care yet about having a cell phone [which is not an invitation for solicitation…grumble, grumble]).

Here’s what I discovered at the CBS/Amazing Race site:

Charla and Myrna listen to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, an appropriate competition song which Teri and Ian also listen to. Cyni Lauper and Madonna are on the twenty-somethings’ list, as are Mary J. Blige’s esteem-empowering song, “Take Me as I Am” and Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor”. The cousins reinforce their bonds with “We are Family,” by The Pointer Sisters, and take it easy, I suppose, with slower songs like Phil Collins’ “Take A Look At Me Now,” by Kira and Bonnie Tyler or moodier songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.”

Eric and Danielle apparently get empowered differently, with a bit more venom, in songs like “Lips Like Morphine,” by Kill Hannah, and “Hate”, by Plain White Tees. At the same time as these fairly new lovers have included Jack Johnson’s “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” and AFI’s “Love Like Winter,” they have motivators or mood elevators like The raconteurs’ “Steady As She Goes.” The couple even has some good classic stuff from Dylan, “Hurricane”, and Kenny Loggins, “Danger Zone,” which likely come in handy during Road Blocks and Detours and such.
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Amazing Race, Amazing Strengths

Amazing Race, Amazing Strengths by Roxanne McDonald

While a Road Block asks which of the partners is better at a particular task, all legs of the race call on skills of brains or brawn or bravado….

Even though we are only two weeks in to the new season of The Amazing Race, it is already clear that Rob and Amber have honed their skills and strategies (maybe thanks to that six month stint of poker?): they have come in first for both legs of the race, and have done so using good old sneaky Robs special tricks and requests for special treatment.

For instance, in episode two, the couple is getting tickets to Santiago. They talk the agent into giving them a special flight which arrives a half hour earlier, and then Rob begs her not to tell any other team about the earlier flight. She complies. Ahhh, that Boston charm. And. Well, Rob’s relentless efforts this time around to not necessarily put the fear or intimidation into fellow all-stars but keep them “preoccupied” by him and Amber just enough to throw them off focus and thus off their game.

But Rob and Amber aside, for now, the other teams have some strengths of their own that are keeping them in the running.

When Drew and Kevin get stuck in the mud flats of Lima, Kevin gets out of the vehicle, straps himself into a nylon harness and pulls the car out! [Unfortunately, Drew’s failing health and falling down land them in last place, but their teamwork is not to be discounted….]

Uchenna is also bringing a different kind of strength to the effort. This time, he says, while he wants Mrs. Right, he also acknowledges he has to be Mr. Right. I trust he intends to ease up on Joyce, not always having the last word and not pushing her to be more than he himself can be.

And despite how much I don’t care for them, or don’t care enough about them to watch them all that closely, I have to give it to the beauty queens, Dustin and Kandace. In the Road Block task, Dustin decides to be the one who is good at details. And she is. Very good. While it takes other teams up to what seems like the full hour, Dustin steps into the fake boardroom, looks at the letters placed about the room (on sleeves, lapels, pens, scratch pads, etc.), and then takes into account the photos in frames around the room. This is necessary to the task, though many others don’t get it until they see an opponent studying the pics, and Dustin figures out that of all the letters as clues, only one, the “Q” (or maybe the “H”, I can’t recall) is shared with one pic—of copper mines in Chuquicamata, and with this she is first to be passed through.
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Amazing Race All-Stars: Not Just Campy Competition

Amazing Race All-Stars: Not Just Campy Competition by Roxanne McDonald

The Amazing Race All-Stars brings back the best of the boldest, bawdiest…and funniest, making for a great viewing experience this time around.

I’m sure we each have our favorite team. Or we have bets down already on the surest to take the final prize. Some see Rob and Amber as the fiercest players; others are aware of how Uchenna and Joyce made it through to first once already. But besides sitting at the edge of the couch to root for the hoped-for 1st placers, we also get some substantial dialogue with this new season of “The Amazing Race”—the Emmy award-winning reality show that is packed with heart-pumping action and heart-rending mishap.

This year, one of the most engaging elements is the humor. [Unless they are always at their best and wittiest on day one of the race and I just forgot that….]
Here are the players (including the losers of episode one) and a few of their endearing or delightfully witty remarks:

John Vito and Jill—cute couple; he quips that they will do well “as long as she realizes [he’s] in charge.” He also tries to cheer her up during the final leg of the first race, telling her, “Just think of how many times last time we thought we were in last place and weren’t.” Oops. Sadly enough, they were this time. They are the first team to be eliminated.

Oswald and Danny—one of the funniest of couples. Between them, they have already made allusions to going through menopause; have commented that though they fought for years, as best friends they are now husband and husband; and have told us that yes, they are aware of Rob and Amber, for they do, after all, live on this planet….

Rob and Amber—A team I thought I would again be rooting for to win, but I am thinking of other favorites who need the money more, really. Still, Rob has stepped aside at one moment, letting a team onto the train/bus first since they were there first, and responds that he has offered his first kind gesture—one which killed him to make. Last time (on season 7), they came in second. This time, they add, they have a “whole new bag of tricks.” They must have played a couple from that bag, for Rob and Amber came in first at the first final destination point.

Eric and Danielle—We may not be familiar with this couple, for they were separate players before: in season 9, Eric ran with Jeremy and came in 2nd place; and Danielle played with Dani on an opposing team, and came in 7th. Now they are lovers—thanks to the show. Danielle says when she first met Eric she thought, “Alright, he’s a Casanova.” But then she soon realized he is a “gentleman” of the sort they don’t get often in New York.

Kevin and Drew—these two have got to be an audience favorite. They are sarcastic as hell, and to me that translates as funnnneeee. Let see, they said that as season 1’s fourth place players, on individual legs of the race they have gone from worst to first and can do it again. Also, they have a banter going on that if it doesn’t turn into buddy bashing will continually entertain us. For example, one says, “Peru is nice.” The other snaps back, “I’m sure it’s nice in Peru; we’re in Ecuador.”

Charla and Mirna—These two were the darlings of season 5, to me anyway, went on to appear in all kinds of shows and events, and are back again to win our hearts…and first place, which they assert right off they are “gonna win this time!”

Teri and Ian—These guys have the years and the accompanying wisdom—of resilience, for starters. Referring to their performance in season 3, where they finished in second place, they describe that experience in context: “By less than two minutes, we were kicking but out there…. Yes, we bickered, but that’s who we are.” During the first run this time around, Teri asks Ian how he liked that last chase, and he likens it to “chasing drug dealers in the eighties again”…which gave and gives him the rush he loves.

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Congrats to Models who won Amazing Race!

Congrats to the dude model boys who won Amazing Race! By Mike

Congrats model boys! You deserve the first place and the million bucks for winning the Amazing Race!

It just goes to show that you CAN experiment with DRUGS and get off track so long as you reign yourself back in and get back to the good way of life!

These 2 boys deserve the big prize! Rob and Kimberly would have been deserving as well but I am glad the boys won.

As for Alabama finishing 3rd - they should be proud. They had the most challenging time!

The season finale was fun to watch. The end was a slight bit anti-climatic as they did not play up the race to the finish but despite that it was still satsifying to see all the racers applaud them as the finished first!

Coming soon is Amazing Race All Stars! I wonder who will be on that? Rob and Amber???