The Amazing Race 18--Episode 1

Season 18 of The Amazing Race started last night and it looks like a lot more fun than the last reteaming of previous contestants. Best of all, Boston Rob is nowhere to be seen. I saw his hateful puss on the cover of TV Guide for his Survivor return and nearly lost my lunch. I thought I was rid of that bitch, I said to the checkout girl at the Price Chopper. I have no idea who the other bozo is on the cover with him, touting their so-called intense rivalry, but I hope he beats Rob's 15-minutes-of-fame ass. Thank God I do not care for Survivor, I'd go nuts otherwise. Another side note: have you noticed how TV Guide is no longer the most important mag around? Thanks to DVR and the handy program grid on the cable system, nobody needs it anymore.

But I digress. The episode opens in Palm Springs and Phil informs us it's really windy there--the second windiest place on Earth (What's no. 1?). The 11 teams gather (see previous blog for my thoughts on each) and Phil calls them a bunch of losers. And OMG what is with Jaime and Cara's hair? Wherever they got their coloring done needs to be on Tabatha's Salon Takeover right away. Their henna rinse makes them look like two Lincoln head pennies. Zev and Justin are wearing Harlem Globetrotter T-shirts for some reason. We later see they giving Flight Time and Big Easy a big clue. Word to the wise: help teams that are weaker than you, not stronger. Learn from Margie who helped Kent and Vyxen and then said in her interview: We need to have a team we can beat at the end.

After the teams find a paper airplane amidst a bunch of windmills--except for stupid but cute Amanda and Kris who are still mad at being U-turned several years ago--they take off for Australia. It takes a 20-hour flight to get there from the West Coast. I know because the press agent working with Geoffrey Rush told me the actor took the trip twice to get to LA from Down Under for the Golden Globes and then the SAGs. The first flight became the second when a passenger had the gall to suffer a heart attack and caused them to be delayed in Hawaii.

Once in Sydney, they had swim with sharks--repeat of a task from the season with Chip and Reichen--then decipher a clue with flags and letters. I marvel at the lack of culture among these people. Are you telling me none of them had heard of the phrase, Between the devil and the deep blue sea? I shouldn't be surprised since they didn't know who Chekhov or Kafka were.

Jaime and Cara incured bad karma for their awful hair by having their boat turn over and one of the crew step on Cara's foot. "Get off my foot, peasant!"

Miss Kentucky--where they never lie, according to her--and her dad won the Express Pass, but it turns out they had to keep racing. I like that we have a two-parter at the very beginning, but it may also be because they sometimes do 90 minute premieres and they are just trying to save money by spending two episodes in one location--Sydney.

Mallory and Gary--one win--Express Pass
Day One--Palm Springs, CA (20 hour-flight to Sydney)
Day Two--Syndey

Taking Down the Christmas Tree on Presidents' Day Weekend

Yeah, you read that right. I did not put away our mid-size artifical Christmas tree until this weekend. So sue me, to quote Nathan Detroit. I got better things to do, like stay in bed and complain, to quote Judy Tenuta. (Whatever happened to her?) I have not been to our upstate place in a while so we just left the tree standing. Removing the ornaments brings back memories because so many of them are from trips we've taken: a lobster from Provincetown on Cape Cod; a pineapple from Honolulu; a stuffed doll figure of Henry VIII from the Tower of London; Spongebob Squarepants and Capt. America from Universal Islands of Adventures and a Mickey Mouse from Disney World; a crayfish and some Mardi Gras beads from Santa's Quarters on Decatur Street in New Orleans. There are also a set of portaits of Batman, Robin, Catwoman, and the Joker, as well as Sylvester carrying a load of presents with Tweetie on top. There are also figures of Spiderman and several different Santa Clauses as well as Renaissance-type archangels. On top is a Father Christmas figure. I remember a Presidents' Day weekend about three years ago, I should have been working on my book about George C. Scott, but I goofed off and watched a Project Runway marathon. It was from season two, before I was obsessed with it. I watched several episodes I hadn't seen before.

Presidents' Day also had me thinking about Richard Nixon. Jerry went to see the Met HD broadcast of Nixon in China and I had seen the premiere live just before we went to Florida. From age 9 to 16, Richard Nixon was president and how I hated him. I remember my sister saying if he were elected in 1968 he would make us go to school on Saturdays. During the Watergate scandal, I yearned for his impeachment and we wathced the hearings avidly all during that summer of 1974. He was the boogey man, the evil villain taking advantage of his power and betraying the trust of the American people. I remember several years after he resigned--I was so angry that he stepped down rather than allowing us the magnificent spectacle of a trial in the senate--he showed up on Nightline with Ted Koppel. I screamed as if I had seen a ghost and I had. His hair was white and he was noticably older.

Now John Adams' opera shows a more human figure, pathetically singing of his days in the navy running a snack bar and selling the guys hamburgers and beer, desperately wanting them to like him. In 100 years, is this how Nixon will be remembered? Yes there is Oliver Stone's movie with Anthony Hopkins as a troll-like co-conspirator, but the opera may survive it and be performed around the world. How will this era be seen?

Nixon in China got me interested in hearing more modern opera and I looked up Einstein on the Beach on YouTube. It is hauntingly beautiful, but I doubt if I could take five hours of it. Robert Wilson's productions look fascinating, but I think his main esthetic is visual since he is also a designer, and not dramatic, so his productions look good but don't move you.

The Amazing Race 18: Unfinished Business: Preview

Here's a David Desk first: a preview of the next Amazing Race season before it even starts. Next week starts the second time TAR has reassembled a bunch of teams from previous seasons and this time, it's all audience favorites who didn't win through bad luck or stupidity. I checked them all out at CBS's website and here are my thoughts:

Zev and Justin: My very favorites. The guy with Asberger's disease and his pal. They were eliminated after finished first in an early leg because they lost their passports. I loved Zev's spirit when they beat the beefy Boston lawyer and his girlfriend to the mat. The lawyer claimed he was a lion and the other teams were gazelles. Zev said right there he'd take on the guy. Love it. I want them to win.

Mel and Mike: Definitely rooting for them, though Mike is a successful actor and screenwriter so he doesn't need the money, but they were a lot of fun and I would love for middle America to see a gay father and son win.

Father and daughter (two teams): Why are these people back? One is Miss Kentucky and her dad and the other is the Asian dad and daughter who were always fighting. Both did reasonably well and finished near the top of their respective races. This season should be reserved for those who finished near the bottom and goofed up because of a little slip. Neither of these two excite me.

The cowboys: These guys came in second and the other brothers who won were just a tad smarter than them. They had plenty of airtime in their season and were not cheated of anything. So I don't think they deserve a second chance. They're jsut popular with the Oklahoma viewers.

The Goths: Fun outsiders who added a lot to the mix. I enjoyed them and their eccentricities.

The Globetrotters: I'm sure these two are great guys but they're professional athletes for heaven's sake. Unfair advantage. Plus they don't need the money. They lost because they couldn't figure out who Franz Kafka was, but I doubt if they've been boning up on European authors.

Volleyball players: They lost because one had to go to bathroom and couldn't wait. So I don't feel particularly sorry for them. But they did show a lot of spirit. Also look for them to renew their rivalry with the deaf son and mother.

Deaf son and mother: Again they did very well on their race, finishing near the top, so I'm not rooting for them.

Cute couple: There has to be at least one hot straight dating couple on every show.

Cheerleader chicks: I guess they needed one token pretty-girl team. I don't even remember this pair, what season they were on or what their tale of woe was to qualify them for returning. Oh yeah, they had a bad cab driver. Boo-freakin'-hoo, baby!

Valentine's Day A Day Early

Just got back from a lovely pre-Valentine's Day dinner with my partner Jerry. We went to Benoit, a French bistro on 55th St. between Fifth and Sixth aves. I would definitely recommend it. We started with three delicious cheeses--the brie was unexpectional, but the blue was exquisitely thick and rich and the third, I can't remember what it was, had a nice texture. An excellent light white wine which was slightly citrus-y, almost grapefruit-like washed it down.

I had the prix fixe three-course dinner--lobster salad, stuffed quail, and porfiterolles. The lobster salad had a syrupy dressing which wasn't too sweet. The lobster itself was fresh and cold, mixed with greens and a little fruit. The quail was stuffed with figs and pate. My only quarrel with it was it was small. The bird was served on a bed of spinach prepared with just a hint of salt and butter. I had a taste of Jerry's buttery filet mignon. He said it was the best he'd ever eaten.

The dessert was truly heaven--a plate of little pastries with creamy filling was set before us. On the side was a dish of hot chocolate sauce, decadently rich. We each got a dish of vanilla ice cream and fondue skewers. We dipped the pastries in the chocolate sauce and stuffed them in our mouths. Then poured the sauce over the ice cream. A cup of earl grey tea for me and coffee for Jerry finished one of the best meals I've ever had.

"You May Call Me Creepy, Cookie!"

Just as Masha in Chekhov's Three Sisters cannot get a snatch of poetry about a golden chain around an oak tree out of her head, I cannot stop thinking about Creepella Gruesome's first words to Wilma Flintstone: "You may call me Creepy, Cookie." And like Masha, I don't know why. Is it the eagerness for intimacy expressed by the unconventional Creepella to the conformist Wilma? Is it the fact that Creepella looks exactly like a drag-queen version of Cher? Is it the introduction of a horror-show neighbor to the Flintstones because The Addams Family and The Munsters were flooding the airwaves?

The Gruesomes were pretty much forgotten among the 1960s monster families that invaded America's living rooms. These Halloween nightmare creatures were substitutes for the hippies and weirdos creeping into the suburban consciousness of middle-class USA. They were safe versions of the scary challengers of the two-car garage. In an interesting development when the Flintstones introduced the freeloading Hatrocks to the Gruesomes in order to scare the pesky hillbillies, they took to the weirdos. It took a conspiracy of all three Bedrock families--the Flintstones, the Rubbles, and the Gruesomes--imitating a prehistoric version of the Beatles to finally get rid of the Hatrocks. You would think the red-state yokels would want to shoot to long-haired Gruesomes on sight.

Maybe Creepella was really a tranny hiding her bizarre secret from Wilma and Betty.

Finding the Fantastic Four in Florida

A little vacation is better than none, so my partner Jerry and I took a five-day trip to Florida in the midst of one of the worst winters in recent memory. We were scheduled to leave on a 7 AM flight on thurs. morning Feb. 3. I made the mistake of covering the opening night of Nixon in China at the Met the night before. The John Adams modern opera was three hours and 45 minutes. I got home by 12 which only left me about five hours of sleep. Fortunately, I was able to sleep on the plane; it was Spirit Airlines where they pack you in like sardines and the seats don't recline. Plus you have to pay extra for your seats and each piece of luggage is another $15, even your carry-on. I dozed in an upright position for most of the three hours.

The weather was lovely. We visited friends who have a condo in Hillsboro Beach which is near Fort Lauderdale. The best part was walking on the beach thinking of our car under a foot of ice and snow. While having lunch on Los Olas in Ft. Lauderdale, our young waiter, a transplant from New York, asked if there was anyting we were looking to see. Jerry asked if there were any used CD stores for himself and comic book stores for me. The waiter said he would call his friend who was a comic book fan. He recommended a store called CJ's Comics which wasn't far. What the hell, we thought, and drove there. It was a little place in a tiny strip mall. It appeared closed but there was a handwritten sign in the window reading "Back in 5 mins." We waited until CJ showed up and I bought five issues of the Fantastic Four from the 1990s. I finally found the one where it's revealed the Human Torch's wife Alicia--who was previously in love with The Thing--is really a Skrull. That's a whole story line I thought was a bit farfethced even for a comic book. But it turned out to be a pretty good issue with unexpected twists. I'll have to find the rest of the story arc.

Our hosts were wonderful, especially considering that on our second day, they had gotten a phone call informing them the roof over their inside pool at their home in Massachusetts had collapsed from the weight of the snow.

We spent the rest of the time with Jerry's sister and brother-in-law who have a home in Lake Worth. While we were there, we swam in the pool and soaked in a hot tub. We also saw Capitol Steps, a touring musical political revue.

Our next big trip will be a cruise to Alaska with my parents and brothers, then we stay over in Vancouver where Jerry has a conference to attend.