Tue, August 24, 2004

This week, reality seriously began to slow down because 23 out of every 24 hours of television are now devoted to the Olympics, which I suppose qualifies as reality programming, but come on. I still haven't watched the finale of Joe Schmo 2, so that will have to wait, although I'm sure it's spectacular. I don't know if you can count The World Series of Poker as reality television. I suppose it qualifies as "reality TV" as much as it is a "sport," but that's still not much.

But, whatever. It's not like I'm searching for reality TV to watch. It's not like I watch reality TV on purpose. It's a sickness. Some sort of otherworldly compulsion to keep feeding content into this website so I can press "reload" thirty times an hour and find out whether anyone's reading it the next day. It's a rough life, but it has its perks. Occasionally, I get to use the word "asymptotically."

Celebrity Poker Showdown

The latest tournament of Celebrity Poker Showdown wrapped up, with the entirely deserving Seth Myers taking the gold chip. I must have missed an episode along there somewhere because you can believe that I would have burned this site to the ground and stomped around in a fit for days if I'd known that Dave Navarro won an episode of this show. Of course, it turns out that he's charming and funny, so I guess you can't judge a guy by his tattoos. Or his appallingly silly facial hair. Or his wife. Or her ex-husband. It's hard to pick my favorite moment of this championship game, but I've narrowed it down to two:

Seth Myers is heads-up against Navarro and the flop comes 8-8-8. Myers: "I've got the eight, but I just have a low kicker.:

Steve Harris (Who?) of Boston Public (What?) goes all in with a pair of Kings, and they get cracked by Ace-rag. This is what happened to Arksie at the latest (unchronicled) SLCC tournament, so I feel a pang of regret.

That's all I've got on this one. I'm happy for Seth; he's a funny guy, and a pretty good poker player. And our first male champion! Good for him. Also, I learned that Navarro is part of Jane's Addicition. For some reason I always thought it was Nine Inch Nails, or Nirvana. I guess because they start with N. God, I'm an idiot.

Last Comic Standing

Early on, when it became clear that John Heffron was funnier than most of the other competitors in Last Comic Standing, Arksie made his standard prediction that Heffron wouldn't win because average-looking white guys never win anything in which the audience has a vote. It's a standard prediction for a reason, people! Never wrong. Except this time.

I have to say, as much as I don't trust the Last Comic Standing audiences, or TV audiences in general, to vote on things (see Friends or the previous Last Comic Standing), they managed to do okay this time. Bonnie McFarlane should've done better than she did, but I'll admit that her material doesn't have the broad appeal of some of the other comics. That's why I like her, but that's – by definition – why a broader audience might not. However, by some random chance, the voting audience managed to put three of the funniest comics in the final three. Todd Glass was also worthy, but I can't disparage the final three too greatly. And they all had plenty of material that appealed to a broad audience. John Heffron (anyone who's ever been a child), Gary Gulman (anyone who's ever eaten a cookie), and Alonzo Bodden (black people).

All three did a fantastic job, killing through multiple performances, as they were expected to perform again after the final vote, just for our amusement. Gary Gulman impressed me with the sheer volume of his cookie material. I was reminded of a one-hour Brian Regan stand-up special that Arksie and I saw in college, where Regan devoted literally 45 minutes to airplane material. And really good airplane material. Airplane material that killed! (No easy feat; all the "these peanuts are impossible to open" and "not enough legroom" jokes have already been done to death.) Gulman is like that with the cookies. Wow. And while his more cerebral style of comedy, more Seinfeld-esque, would generally be my favorite, I must admit I was rooting for Heffron with his energy and childlike enthusiasm. He had me at the pantomime shot-put. And the slow-motion superhero run he did in his impression of the We Gotta Go Girl was better than anything I saw on Next Action Star. Alonzo Bodden was also fantastic – I always appreciate a black comedian who can do race material and make it appeal to the entire audience (cf. Chappelle) in a way that, let's admit, Tommy Davidson cannot.

Last Comic Standing brought back last year's winner, Dat Phan, and runner-up, Ralphie May, to perform in the finale along with Jim Norton and Marina Franklin, neither of whom should've been eliminated, but both of whom were for various unfortunate reasons. Franklin didn't have her best set of the series so far, but she's been on Tough Crowd already; she'll land on her feet. Norton was hilarious as always. He had me on the floor with this line, in his bit about illness: "I've been feeling a little off ever since I got tea-bagged by that monkey." Ralphie May did his exact same set that he did throughout the first series, so I fast-forwarded straight through that like a Jay London retrospective. Dat Phan had new material but the same style, which is doing one joke and then repeating it all the way through the set, usually in a fake Vietnamese accent. It was shameful. Somewhere, Dave Mordal should be spinning in his grave. (Mordal, it turns out, was right in the audience. Because – oo! twist! – the next series of LCS will be a showdown between the ten comics from the first series and the ten comics from this time. Great. More Ant. More Tere Joyce. Someone kill me now.) Mohr interviewed Dat Phan briefly (give him a break; NBC made him do it) and Dat said that he voted for Alonzo who was a recovering addict and had had a rough life, so he wanted to see him achieve his dreams. So, pretty much Dat Phan subscribed to the same loony non-comedy-based voting strategy that won him the competition last time. Makes sense, I guess.

The only downside to this whole thing is that I was forced to TiVo an episode of Leno. TiVo gave me a look that said, "Three thumbs down, and you're still recording this?" and I had to wrap it in a warm blanket and talk him down.

The Amazing Race

Let's admit it. This is why you're here. This is why I'm here. This is why I consistently can't get any work done on Tuesdays anymore because I spend my entire day rocking back and forth, holding knees to my chest, and softly cooing "McRace... McRace..." The good news is that after this week, there's no more reality other than The Amazing Race for a little while, so there won't be any chaff to scroll through in next week's column, save for a little bit of bitching about NBC's "stro-motion" on the Olympic diving competitions. If, by some miracle, I watch the finale of Joe Schmo 2 next week, I promise to put it at the bottom of the column.

This week's episode begins with a flight and another flight, leading us directly to the glorious Door Blocking Incident, a.k.a. the Best "Scene From Next Week" Ever. I'm here to report that it delivers everything it promised, and more. Shove. "Bitch!" Advantage: Small! Run. Shove. Advantage: Tall! Sadly, this didn't lead to any real flight advantage or anything, but it did give the two teams a polarizing story to tell the other teams and set up a nice squaring-off that one competitor describes as the Mirna Camp vs. the Colin Camp, but I would characterize as the Mirna Camp vs. People Who'd Rather Not Deal With Mirna.

In this case, Team Mirna happens to incorporate the Bowling Moms (as well as Mirna and Charla, natch, although given the choice Charla might well have opted for Anti-Mirna), which is an unfortunate mistake for the Bowling Moms considering their hard-fought struggle out of last place in the previous leg. They started in last place with no money, and they managed to avoid elimination – pretty impressive, even with the gimpy delegates from Cafe Nostra planting themselves solidly in last place. With a little effort (and a break in their Terrible Airport Luck), they might've sailed out of last place this leg; hitching their wagon to Mirna's star is just asking for disappointment. The Moms see Mirna as a stronger competitor, but I fear they're just falling victim to the plague of "overestimation" that Mirna sees in the other teams. She opens the episode – more skillfully than she opens the clue envelope – by stating that teams have stopped underestimating her and her vertically challenged cousin; yes, now, "they overestimate us," which leads to all sorts of jealousy about how "capable" they are. But Mirna asserts that she'll stay above the fray (Shove. "Bitch!") because she and Charla are "having a good time and we're not going to let anyone take that away from us." No, you just take it away from every other team.

Anyway, off they go to find travel reservations to Kenya. At first, there is a tiny moment when the Non-Anti-Mirna Camp is out of visual range of the Anti-Mirners, and Twin One (or possibly Twin Two) takes the opportunity to get histrionically flustered. The Twinkies joined up with Anti-Mirna about three minutes ago (no one held a gun to their collective, identical head), but already they're regretting it. Fine! Leave! These two don't do that well on their own; they really should give this thing more than a couple of minutes before they knock it. For once, this is the kind of alliance that actually makes sense in the context of The Amazing Race. A vague agreement to share information doesn't mean that you have to wait for your allies or carry their stuff. You just keep each other in the loop.

Now, as it turns out, the tickets that their group acquired aren't the best, and Mirna has secured better tickets. However, this is quickly rectified, despite some hasty and sloppy attempts at subterfuge by Mirna (closing some venetian blinds). Colin discovers the better ticket opportunity, and goes about switching their tickets.

From the start of the show, it has been made clear that once you purchase a set of tickets you cannot "switch" them. So, I'm left to believe that in all of these situations, Colin has been reserving tickets but not buying them while he shopped around, because otherwise he's been "switching" a lot of tickets. If true, he's been very smart about it, not even buying tickets on connecting flights, but reserving those, too – because he switched connecting flights on the way into Egypt a couple of weeks ago when C&C created that enormous lead for themselves.

As Colin attempts to book seats on the new, faster, flight, Mirna appeals to the ticket agent, asking him to refuse to sell tickets to the other teams. She wants him to be on her side against the "Americans," but she's from Maryland. Her entire case for sharing a unique bond with this guy is that she speaks a language that the others don't. She certainly doesn't look like him. She and Charla are sheet-white, female, and one of them is teeny tiny. I don't know if he necessarily looks at them and thinks, "These are my people."

In fact – and this is something about Mirna's strategy with airport people that has bothered me from the start – I don't see why she thinks there's any way she can separate herself from the other teams, in the eyes of an airline ticket agent. They're all running around with giant packs on. They're all being followed by cameramen with lights and microphones. They're all waving CBS vouchers to pay for their travel (or however it is that CBS pays for all their flights). So, how does she expect this guy to buy her argument that "we're good, they're bad"? Isn't it painfully obvious that they're all involved in the same race? Even if these people don't get reality TV, they have to understand that whatever commotion it is with the bright lights and the Modern Machines That Steal Your Soul encompasses all the teams, and Mirna is just another part of that. When she'd point to Charla and say "Doctoro! We must get to doctoro!" how did that ever get her priority standby? Why don't they ever say, "Yeah, lady. You and your little girl have to get to the doctoro. Just like every other team with a camera crew following them around this airport in the middle of the night." Maybe they just made up "priority standby" like the fake number Elaine Benes used to give to men at parties. I guess I just bristle because Mirna and Charla are constantly crowing proudly about how they're breaking down little person barriers, but they still treat Charla like a walking Special Situation when it comes time to play tricks on the airport staff.

As it turns out, this ticket agent doesn't buy it, because everyone gets tickets on the good flight.

Then, when it comes time to get on the connecting flight, Mirna pulls a Colin and trades out her team's tickets and those of the Moms for another flight that should yield them a 30-minute lead on the ground in Kenya. So, everyone is just reserving or are they being lax about enforcing this rule? So far, I've only seen it apply to Dennis and Erika, very early in week one at LAX.

Anyway, Those That Do Not Speak of Mirna arrive faster because the quicker connection Mirna booked is delayed, and Colin and Chip dash to book their spots on one of three flights (of two teams each) which will carry them to Tanzania. Brandon and Nicole, and finally the Twinkies, sign up for the second charter flight. This is what exasperates me about Kami and Karli: they are clearly physically capable, but they don't run a very smart race, game-wise. They're constantly confused, ignorant, or lost. They join up with Colin, then immediately gripe about it. Then it gets them out in front of those who aren't in their group, but they are still lagging among that pack. They seem to follow quite a bit and rarely show any initiative or drive on their own. If they were running this race to win, they should've capitalized on this chance to build a real lead of their own. They should've sprinted off the plane and signed up for the first charter flight. It's not that they come very close to being eliminated all that often, but they seem to be lagging all the time, and most of the slow teams have now been eliminated so the race is at a point where you have to work hard to avoid last place.

At some point Mirna and the Moms show up, and Mirna asks if there's any room left on the first flight. You have to hand it to her, she's chosen that "plaintive plea for assitance" approach, and she's sticking to it at every opportunity.

As C&C and Chip and Kim embark on their trip to Tanzania, Chip continues to holler with excitement about "Africa!!" as often as he can. I guess I see the point, it's a rare opportunity to take an extended trip through your cultural heritage. I can't wait until later in the race when Colin will get the chance to bellow "Europe!" every time he gets off a plane.

Once the charter flights land, the teams take buses – with varying degrees of sketchiness – to a small village to participate in this week's Detour. The leading teams experience remarkable success with their bus relative to the other teams. Both of the other buses make stops on their way to the village, either for bathroom breaks or for elaborate extortion attempts.

By the time they're off the bus, the Twinkies and Brandon and Nicole are pretty shaken by their drivers' suspicious behavior and repeated price changes. This leads Nicole to act decidedly un-Christian in a final dispute with the bus drivers. It's hard to tell what the dispute was about, because there have been a number of verbal agreements by this point. As far as I understand it, Brandon agreed to pay $100 – half now, half later – for the trip, plus an additional $20 – again, half now, half later – which the driver scammed out of him by pretending to be "out of gas" along the way. In this argument, it seems that Nicole and Brandon are trying to renege on the final $50, just because they don't want to pay. They try to blame it on the breakdown, but technically that's just not valid. She's right that they're shady characters, but she's wrong about the money she owed them. (The TWOP recap implies that the amount in dispute is actually the gas money, which would be easier to understand. They should never have agreed to extra gas money, because the purchase of a trip includes the assumption that the vehicle is prepared to make the trip. I can see where they wouldn't want to pay the rest of that. I really thought it was the $50, but Miss Alli has watched the episode more times than I have, so if she says it's the $10, I can't disagree.) In any case, Nicole throwing the money (P.Diddy-style) at the drivers is one thing if she's absolutely in the right, but throwing it at them as an expression of her unfounded disgust is not really allowable. Since I can't be certain which case it is, I'm pretty glad Brandon stoops to pick up the money and hand it to the driver here. Unless you're just going to run away without paying, this is a situation in which it's safest to try to remain polite, even through clenched teeth.

The Detour options are "busy" and "buzzing" which means hauling furniture or working with bees. Everyone chooses "busy," and we at onebee offer our condolences to the beekeepers, who were probably as excited about the race as last week's water pitcher guy.

"Busy" seems to be another of those Detour options that Phil tries to make sound really difficult, but actually isn't that arduous. Addresses are hard to find in this tiny village, but helpful locals abound who seem to guide the teams to the right place – with the brief exception of Chip's team, who are led to a furniture "accoutrements" store instead of their intended destination. This is quickly rectified, though, and the only team that has any trouble with this task is Mirna and Charla, who don't appear to have any difficulty finding addresses, they just default to their mode of immediate hysterical panic as usual, and it slows them down. Charla insists that her heart is going to stop, and Mirna freaks out about a large mud puddle and initiates a giant detour that allows the Moms to rocket ahead into fifth place.

The completion of the Detour leads directly to the Roadblock, which is yet another sicko eating challenge. Teams that did well on this with the caviar put the same people back in charge; teams that had trouble with the caviar (C&C, Brandon and Nicole) switch off. In this case, they're expected to eat a scrambled ostrich egg, which Phil equates to about a dozen chicken eggs. Colin overthinks the situation quite a bit and decides that he needs his eggs to be cooked really well. In a sense, I agree that whatever makes the food more palatable to you, you should do it to make the task easier. However, as we saw with the caviar, there is a huge element of "psyching out" involved in food challenges of this volume. Downing a quick caterpillar on Survivor is one thing, but sustained eating of huge dishes like these gives you a lot of opportunities to get grossed out and mentally blocked. The more time Colin spends looking at his huge pile of eggs, the harder it's going to be to consume them – he should just cook them quickly and then gobble them down as fast as he can.

Of course, this kind of Roadblock brings up the situation of the Roadblock non-participants attempting to shout "encouragement" and other advice to their partners. Other than, "You're doing great, I love you" and "Keep it up, I'm proud of you," I think non-Roadblockers should just remain quiet and pour water glasses or whatever helps. Giving "ideas" about how to complete the task faster is just never going to be helpful, and only contributes to the distraction and psychological blocking. Christie's entitled to call Colin a "baby" a couple of times, because he was hard on her a bit during the caviar, but other than that, everyone should just shut up and be supportive. This is also something I think the teams should discuss in their down time at the pit stops. Do you prefer for me to stay with you and hold your hand, or would you like it better if I wandered off and gave you some space? Little things like that could really speed up these kinds of challenges.

Instead, practically everyone gets bogged down in the eating Roadblock, with the exception of Chip and Kim who rocket ahead and check in as team number one. I understand Colin's frustration at losing first place, but he can't feel too bad. Chip and Kim have come in first on every leg in which there's an eating competition. Chip just eats very quickly. Even with Colin's repeated retching into a bucket, Chip and Kim are the only team C&C dropped behind. No shame there.

The Moms hustle through this challenge and reach the pit stop third, an impressive display considering they were shackled by Team Mirna right up until the Detour. The Twinkies and Brandon and Nicole also check in, then Mirna and Charla are eliminated. Which is terrific. I can't be even a little sorry to see them go. I won't miss the added drama. I won't miss the villain. I'm elated that for all of her grand scheming, Mirna's team ended up in third place (not too bad) and sixth place (not too good). It would appear that the only team overestimating Mirna is Mirna's.

The episode concludes with an impassioned speech from pint-sized Charla about the experience of the race. She's clearly very emotional. I'm not sure if that comes entirely from sincerity or just the obvious physical exhaustion of running a hard race followed by eating her weight in ostrich egg and then riding across a high zip line. I do think she sincerely enjoyed the travel opportunities that came with the trip, at least those she wasn't too busy bitching to notice, and I'm glad. However, I worry about people who say that they undertake any particular endeavor in order to "prove to the world" anything about themselves. If you're going to enjoy it or feel validated, that's excellent, but don't worry about "the world." The world is just a bunch of people you don't know, and you shouldn't invest so much in whether they think you can run a race or not. Most of the world have probably never heard of you or given a moment's though to whether or not you could climb down a ladder, weasel your way onto a standby list, or eat a couple pounds of caviar. Preoccupation with the personal opinions of "the world" about you is the sort of thing that's symptomatic of Mirna's persecution complex and constant paranoia. That's unflattering. Try, if you will, to leave that at home.

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