Fri, December 10, 2004

Dear Mom & Dad, and all the youths I mentor:

Hi! It's me, Julie!

I'm having so much fun on Survivor. It's been a real eye-opening experience, and I sure have learned a lot about myself. In fact, I've been so busy learning and having fun, I kind of forgot to play the game part of the time.

I'm a clever girl. I know my strengths and I know how to make them work for me. You thought I was crazy to flash my ass in my audition tape. Well, maybe sex appeal in reality auditions has been "done to death" but it worked for me – and earned me a chance to get even more risqué on national television! And, just as that flirtation worked to disarm the casting panel, it worked to disarm my competition on the island. That let me work my real magic: constructing lies so that Twila would team up with me when we were the only women on Lopevi, ingratiating myself to the female alliance after the merge in a quiet way so I wouldn't become a target, and staying close to Chris so I'd have options no matter which way things went.

I used my curves, sure, but I kept my wits about me. It's smarts that gets you the furthest in Survivor – unless you count Amber, or Tina, or Sandra. The point is, it's a game of strategy and manipulation, and that's how I approached it. While others were prioritizing friendship or dividing along gender lines, I just kept my eye on the power balance and kept myself out of harm's way. But then came the unexpected: in the blink of an eye, the long-standing women's alliance crumbled, and Eliza was picked for elimination – then, just as quickly, Chris mounted a coup and got rid of Leann, then Ami. My head is still reeling from all of it. All I could figure was that the jig was up: I was out of the game and had nowhere to go.

It's interesting how events link together into a chain of cause and effect which you can't really see at the time, but in hindsight it's so clear. Ami, aggravated about her alliance slipping out of her control, antagonized Twila over swearing on her son and breaking that promise. Questioned by Probst at Tribal Council, Eliza made a very non-judgmental case for why Twila had a right to do what she did and why Ami (Eliza's close friend) had a right to react to it. I stayed out of it, figuring Ami would leave and that would be the last I'd hear of it. But then Twila got all upset at Eliza for bringing it up (But she didn't! It was Probst!) and yelled at her for what seemed like all night! As a result, my strategic instincts were clouded. Twila seemed to make herself an obvious target for removal from the alliance of four (Eliza, Scout, Chris, and herself) which had clearly planned to vote for me next, so I saw no reason to focus on anyone else when trying to break up that alliance to save myself. If I'd been thinking more clearly, I'd have realized that Twila wasn't a threat to me, and she wasn't a threat to anyone else in the game. It wasn't worth trying to assemble a vote against her, because there just wasn't any incentive for any of the other voters to eliminate her.

Chris was the threat. Chris had weaseled himself in between both remaining factions: Eliza and myself, and Scout and Twila. He'd buddied up to both, putting himself in the catbird seat. And, what's more, he had a clear path to victory. A final four against Eliza, Scout, and Twila would put him at a distinct advantage in the likely event of a physical immunity challenge. Then he could eliminate his only real threat, Eliza, and sail into the final three with (in his words) "a sixty year old woman and Twila." Immunity as good as his, he'd eliminate one of them and then win the million dollars with my vote, Chad's, and Sarge's for sure. Plus probably Ami and Leann, who would blame Scout/Twila for eliminating them from the women's alliance. Oh, I wish Twila hadn't painted a target on her back! Then I could have seen what I needed to do! (Hm, I wonder if– surely she's not smart enough to have made a big fuss over nothing just to create fake conflict within her alliance? Wow, if so... we've all underestimated her.)

Eliza understood what I was trying to do. She knew that her alliance with Chris and the hags was just for convenience' sake. But she and I both failed to see that if either one of us went into the final four with Chris, we'd never make it to the final three. We failed to realize that the two of us against Scout and Twila would give us a tremendous advantage at making the final two. And we forgot – just because he rarely wins a challenge – he's still a threat physically, too. We set our sights on Twila because she seemed the easy target. We forgot to think about strategy. We let emotion cloud the issue. We didn't look at the motivations facing the key players. A real opportunity to shake up this game passed me by while I was worrying about saving my skin. My beautiful, supple young skin.

I pulled out a commanding reward challenge victory, though! It was one of those obnoxious "memory lane" challenges, where we had to do a piece of every challenge from the beginning, with mud pits, pig capturing, tiki puzzles, balance beams (I swear, I've seen enough of those in five weeks to last me the rest of my life!), and slingshots. Chris even managed to fail the tiki puzzle because he threw one of the pieces so far behind him that he lost it and didn't notice the cameraman focusing in on it for the all-important irony shot when this gets edited for television. You really have to pay attention to that. Luckily, Scout and Eliza stayed mum, and I finished my statue first. Then I raced across the balance beam and shot those tiles out with my marbles: one, two, three!

I won a trip to the mouth of the Yasur volcano. That's the volcano our original women's team was named after, but I failed to see it as a sign. I still had my eyes on bringing Chris into an alliance with me and Eliza to boot Twila, so I selected him to join me on my reward trip. I should've taken Twila with me. She was the outcast at camp, and I could've helped her see why Chris was the biggest threat, plus nobody would've suspected Twila and me of talking strategy on our trip, because everyone except Scout hated her.

The volcano was so amazing! When it exploded, it would send molten rock flying through the air, glowing bright orange. Its size and weight made it seem to move in slow motion – blazing lava appeared to hang in the air. It was something spectacular.

When Chris and I returned to camp, I noticed how concerned Twila and Scout were, and I noticed how he took care to reassure them that the alliance was intact. At the time, I thought he was just doing his job, keeping them off the trail. What I should have realized was how obvious it was that he was the swing vote. Why did we let him keep hold of all that power? We should've banded together. He was playing us two-on-two, when we could've been four against one. Why did everyone sort of trust him? He was still the one with the most to lose at any point from the moment we voted off Chad.

The immunity quiz went by in a flash. It was basically like those reading comprehension tests we all took in the tenth grade for the state educational board. Eliza and I finished closely together, but she didn't throw the challenge for me, which hardly seemed fair. There was never any danger of her going home!

We talked later and Chris assured us that he'd made his decision and he was going to vote with us against Twila. Another big hint! His decision? Why should he have all the power? I really should've approached Twila, especially after she and Eliza squared off and paranoia was running high. When we were alone together on Lopevi, I had such success winning her loyalty by telling her that the men were plotting against her while promising her an alliance. I'm sure that would've worked even better when Chris was actually up to something! It just seemed so great: Chris was going to do what we wanted! I didn't even think to question it, or to look for a better deal. Eliza and I just put our faith in him and hoped he'd come through for us. (The funny thing is, I remember Ami saying she hoped Chris wouldn't be a problem if she spared him and voted for Eliza instead. That didn't go so well for her, either!)

I'm a clever girl. I know Survivor is not a game of hoping, trusting, or caring. It's not a game of friendships. It's a game of advantage, manipulation, and numbers. And we could've had all those things – I just wasn't thinking. I wasn't looking at the long-term view, and I wasn't expecting the unexpected. I wasn't doubting an offer that seemed too good to be true. Everything I've learned from Survivor I set aside because things seemed to be working out for me.

I went to Tribal Council actually believing that Chris would vote with Eliza and me. But why would he? In his mind, Scout and Twila are the least threatening to have against him in the final three – and justifiably so! Scout can barely walk and Twila's scrappy but ultimately feeble. And God help her if there's a puzzle or word scramble in that immunity challenge! Plus, those two are inseparable. He'll have no trouble getting their help eliminating Eliza. We just never gave him a compelling reason to ditch Twila, and that's because – in hindsight – there wasn't one. He was the danger, but he and Twila kept our minds off it. Damn!

So, I'm coming home without the million dollars. I had a great time, but I wish I'd kept my focus just a little longer. I know nobody else out there really had a solid, consistent strategy through the whole game the way I did. But Chris is the master of misdirection: he thrives on finding ways to deflect attention and set himself up for victory. First it was cozying up to me so that he'd be the last man eliminated, then it was swinging Eliza's vote away from the female alliance right when it mattered most, and now he's the one on top, controlling everything. I have to hand it to him, he's played pretty well considering he was always at a disadvantage in the numbers game.

But he shouldn't be the one to win. The winner should be someone who deserves it. Someone smart. Someone hot. Someone naked. Me.

Thanks for your support! See you soon!
Julie

PS - I already got a call from Playboy! Gosh, they're fast. I'm thinking it over: Jenna and Jerri said it was tasteful. I sure wouldn't mind showing off a bit more!

***

But what's really noteworthy this week is The Amazing Race, the show that's staked its claim to the phrase "make your way" and isn't letting go. (Never mind the fact that the last person to invoke "make way" was Robert McCloskey in the '40s – don't even think of coming near "make way" or Phil will cut you!)

And now, we pause for a moment of nostalgia. Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, and One Morning in Maine were pretty excellent books and I haven't thought about them in almost twenty years. Aw, childhood innocence. I wish I had time to bask in it, but there's a race on!

What you hear in the background is the all-too-familiar sound of bunching, this time caused – as usual – by operating hours. The operating hours tango is getting some serious play this time around, and it's clearly strained the resources of TAR's signmaking squadron because the really obvious reality-television-contestants-only hours of operation sign is printed without the trademark Amazing Race typography or Amazing Yellow Background this time. After some brief confusion, everyone finds the first clue of the leg. (A few teams are thrown off, because they ask the locals what time City Hall opens. What?! Go read the sign! People don't pay attention to that sort of thing. I couldn't tell you when LA City Hall opens. I couldn't even tell you when Al Pacino's City Hall opened.)* When it's operating hours tango, it's best to check the sign. We all know CBS creates fake operating hours just for the show – so locals aren't really reliable.

During the confusion, we're treated to some perplexing video from the interviews filmed during the mandatory twelve hours of sleeping, eating, mingling, and interviewing. Bolo solidifies the appropriateness of his dunce-like name by summarizing his petty fights with Wifey McHalfnelson as "'I'm better than you are'/'You're better than me are'" while Don mentions that "we've been practicing stairs." Good move. That's how you stay in the top physical condition of your lives. But it does beg the question, why didn't he let MJ do the zip line when she wanted to? He said it was the stairs, but now he's punched holes in that logic. Meanwhile, Bolo has punched holes in a table, a phone book, and a sweater – just to prove he could.

The teams are headed to Senegal, in Africa, which is greeted with unexpected enthusiasm by both Kendra and Rebecca. These two seem even more excited about traveling to Africa than Chip was.

Teams converge on a 24-hour airport, which stays open all night and is much more suited to their timetable. (As they enter those sliding glass doors that can't help but remind me of "Shove. 'Bitch!' Advantage: Small! Run. Shove. Advantage: Tall!", MJ can be heard to say, "We've got to talk to a ticket person!" Strategy! She did tell us they were going to do well in the race by using their smarts!) Everyone flies to Senegal through Paris, but John & Victoria book a different flight to Paris than all the other teams, apparently out of spite. This means the Amazing Red Line has to get out of bed for no reason, so it's understandably cranky the rest of the day and takes it out on the dog.

Taxi hell ensues, with Team New Christie being detained for their driver to fill the tires, while MJ & Don lose a tire altogether. While they're fixing that, Jonathan & Victoria are testing out varying approaches at multilingual communication. She's telling their cabbie "Vite! Vite!" which is theoretically French for "Fast! Fast!" while he's just saying "Beep! Beep!" in an apparent attempt to invoke the speedy can-do attitude of the Looney Tunes Roadrunner. Once the new tire is on the cab, MJ giggles through Don's pronouncement that, "once again, the fickle finger of fate has diddled us." Somewhere, Janet Jackson goes apoplectic.

The teams are trying to track down the grave of the author of a poem they've been handed in their Amazing Clue Kit. Most teams query the locals to figure out the author's name, then discern his place of interment. But Jon & Kris just head off on a tour of graveyards. She's really peppy about the miserable condition of their cab, the airport, and the city in general. Between this and her cute little mock diva moment in the subway when they realized they'd bungled the operating hours, she seems fun. I think it would be fun to take this trip with her, and I still think the long-distanceyness of their relationship is making them a more effective team. It's a shame they definitely won't win the race. (Don't worry, this isn't just wishful thinking on my part that Hayden & Aaron or Team New Christie will win; it's just that we see very little footage of Team MCI and that typically means they don't go far on the show; considering how well they're doing so far, they must make a major error in an upcoming leg.)

All the other teams are showing up at the Bel Air cemetery and finding yet another Amazing Laminated Sign proclaiming the operating hours. (This one's in the right font, thank God. All is right with the world again.) As agonizing as the OHT is, it has to be comforting to know you've found the right cemetery. CBS hardly has time to go around tagging every graveyard in town with arbitrary, made-up hours of operation.

From the gravesite, it's more taxis to a Detour (choice! tasks! pros! cons!) involving fish. Either you carry a few heavy baskets of them to a table and lay them out on a rack, or you forge off into angry seas (seas so angry, they remind you of an old man trying to send back soup at a deli) and try to catch four fish using nothing more than a piece of string. Teams wishing to avoid being declared clinically brain dead opt for carrying and stacking fish, while the other teams – teams now known as the Alliance of Those Who Deserve to Lose – head off to do some fishing, and immediately commence throwing up overboard. (Each team has decided to split the task into puking and fishing, with Gus and MJ fishing while Hera and Don hurl.)

Team New Christie is experiencing a little additional cabbie trouble because, in his attempt to become New Colin, Freddy has refused to pay the full amount their driver is requesting. In TNC's defense, the driver said $30 at the start of the trip and changed it to $40 at the end, but the point is it's $10 and the only time we've ever seen teams run out of money is when Phil takes it at the end of a non-elimination round, so ending the dispute might be worth $10. Sure, they're getting ripped off, but they're making fewer enemies. (As it turns out, they don't pay, and some local guy sort of strides up to the cabbie and leads him away with a "Do you mind if we attach this car battery to your genitals?" sort of urgency. Someone's angling for a Bruckheimer internship!)

Gus catches a fish. His words: "That's a fish. Three to go." He was in the top of his class at the CIA Academy. Hera responds, daintily, "Hwhharrrghh."

Jonathan has clearly seen the dailies, because he's working hard on rehabilitating his image. Besides doing impressions of speechless cartoon characters, he's also hired a translator and started handing out candy to street children. (Somebody x-ray those for razor blades!) Once he and Victoria have completed the fish stacking task, he gives his supervisor a hug and a kiss as she hands over the clue. Then he undoes all the good karma by immediately littering: tossing the clue opening tab to the ground as he hustles toward a taxi.

"Every time Don threw up," chimes MJ, "I caught fish." Well, yes. But that reasoning is a tad specious. He's barfing non-stop. So, by definition, any fish you catch will be caught while he's vomiting. "Every time Don threw up, I was in the boat" would also be true, but hardly implies causality.

The Roadblock (task! only! one! perform!) is dredging some salt from the bottom of a pink lake and dumping it in a basket. Like the Detour, you cannot receive your next clue until you get the approval of your supervisor. Reality TV has succumbed to the dreaded bloat of middle management. Soon it'll be all cake parties and TPS reports, and nobody will get anything done.

Mercifully, New Christie (Kendra), Kris, and Hayden all opt to do the Roadblock. I know it's hardly chivalrous to be so excited about watching them get wet, but I have so little! Aaron's thinking the way I am: "You've gotta get wet honey!" Yes. Yes, you do. Meanwhile, Kris is just kicking ass at this task, and as Jon says, "looking fine doing it." "Damn, she's hot," he adds, and the local onlookers can be seen to agree. (And Jon and I aren't the only ones humming this tune, while pulling the sofa pillow silently over our laps. The editors go straight for the gratuitous chest shot when Kris brings her next load of salt.) I think it would be fun to take this trip with her, especially if you'd spent most of your relationship 400 miles apart.

Then, more taxis. You can tell Kris is a Southern California girl when she says that their driver, who proves himself to be quite a whiz, has "side-streeted it." Only amidst our tangled arrangement of freeways can "side street" become a verb. In the cab of a less motivated driver sits Jonathan, accompanied by Victoria. Their car is stuck in a traffic jam, surrounded on all sides by unmoving vehicles. Jonathan shouts, "Why are we stopped?!" And I can sympathize. I was once so frustrated that I yelled at the guy in front of me, "GO!" at the top of my lungs, even though two cars in front of him, the light was red. Luckily, I noticed this before honking and really making a fool of myself.

Meanwhile, Victoria has been wearing a cap for this entire leg of the race with the Golden Section embroidered on it (1.618). What the hell? Is this Da Vinci Code swag? Or a memento from the surgeon who did her boob job? Because that guy is the last man on the planet who should be talking about "proportion" with any authority.

The teams check in at the pit stop, and it's a down-to-the-wire race amongst the ATWDL. The old people hit the mat last, consumed with love for one another – which means surely they're going home – but... it's a non-elimination leg. Dammit! So close! Don interviews that they're the oldest team to get this far in the race, which surprises me because I feel like we were saddled with Joyce and her mummified corpse companion Bob for a hell of a lot longer. Still, it's a slanted statistic: they're only older because they're racing a year later. Think about it!

Next week: Hayden and Bolo square off. Shove! Advantage: Boobs! Push! Advantage: Pecs!

* It was 1996. February 16, to be exact. It tanked.

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