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Sunday, March 26, 2006
Covington: The Amazing Race
By Gary Covington
Looking In
WEDNESDAY night is Amazing Race night and I'm glued to the tube. I'm not much of a fan of reality TV -- most shows are so contrived you can hear the producer scraping the bottom of the barrel -- but Amazing Race and Survivor I enjoy. It's watching for the gems of lunacy, the "how are they going to get out of that" moments and the apparent inability of us human beings to pull together -- either mom and dad or the best of pals couples or the bigger teams stranded on some tropical beach.
We're on Amazing Race #9 at the moment but somehow, amazingly (sorry), none of the competing couples have managed to see the other eight to figure how to go about things. Like at the airport.
Here are couples arriving at a strange city in a strange country tasked to search for their next race clue at a given location. It may be in town at a local landmark -- a museum or park -- or it may be miles out in the country. Wouldn't it be a good idea -- between the immigration desk and the taxi rank -- to buy a map or two? Not to this crowd it wouldn't.
Through the airport terminal they gallop, spy the taxi rank, heave their bags into the nearest and only then enquire of the driver "You know the Flugenplatz?" The driver -- true to his kind all over the world -- will answer yes or da or oui or all Americans are hicks, load them into his cab and set off.
Five minutes later -- a TV five minutes, which is nearer thirty in real time -- motoring about downtown Lagos or Helsinki or Rio with no sign of their target the racers are starting to sweat. They peer out of the cab windows (resolutely ignoring signs which shout Flugenplatz THAT WAY!), complain about the smell -- all non-USA cities smell -- bicker at each other and generally behave like, well, hicks.
Each leg of the race ends with an obligatory twelve-hour rest period at a hotel, which the show calls a pit stop. Arriving couples are welcomed at the pit stop mat by the show's host, Phil, and a meeter and greeter representing the local city or country. Last night's leg of the race finished in Bavaria and the local rep wore leather shorts, a floral waistcoat and a green felt hat. They probably feel complete idiots but it gives us the audience something to look forward to; will Iceland's meeter and greeter be a ravishing blonde, Borneo's a headhunter swinging a trophy?
There's been all sorts over the years; Tahitian beauties, South American gauchos, and my favorite of race two or was it three, the Mexican meeter and greeter done up as a gigantic green parrot.
It takes nerve to shake hands with complete strangers dressed as a fully feathered, tailed and beaked parrot but for this guy worse was to come. That particular race leg had been longer than usual and pretty arduous. The first team home arrived in the late afternoon, the last team nearer midnight and all that time Phil and the parrot had to be on hand to do the honors. No doubt they snuck off now and again for something warming because as the evening wore on down came the rain and the refreshing sea breeze strengthened to half a gale.
Phil and the parrot stuck to it like heroes. Phil merely became wet through, the parrot a sight to see. It was like watching one of those before and after ads except we got to see the middle bits as well. The parrot at first became a little damp, a glistening on the feathers with the guy inside the suit glancing at the sky. Two team arrivals later the parrot was drenched, his crest drooped, he'd wrung out his tail and staggered now and again as gusts of wind buffeted at his wings. By 10:00 Amazing Race time -- Phil was soaked but still smiling in a grimacing where-the-hell-are-the-teams sort of way. The parrot? Think drowned chicken. A monstrous green drowned chicken cursing his agent, gringos and in particular reality shows. Isn't that great?
(March 26, 2006 issue)
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