Amazing Race: Smith Still In There (Plus: I'm Famous)

I won't bother with the big SPOILER ALERT!!!!! warning here. If you haven't watched Sunday's "Amazing Race" by now, well, as Scott Rolen once said, "Sorry about your luck." Former Phillies coach Steve Smith and his daughter Allie, in 4th place starting this week's show, are still alive but have dropped to 7th place out of the 9 remaining teams. How this happened is hard to tell because they got virtually no screen time. I guess the EW.com writer is right about them being too boring.

She does have a good point in her latest recap, regarding Jet and Cord, the cowboys who currently hold the lead:

The one truly disturbing moment of the episode for me came when Jet and Cord were on the boat going to Isla Margarita. They were gabbing about how they didn't bring swimsuits and Cord says "I've been skinny dipping once or twice" at which point Jet scoots away from him as if his partner were a leper. I have lost all patience for this kind of jokey homophobia. What's wrong Jet? Would swimming with a naked guy make you gay? If you really think that or feel you need to make that "joke" you have bigger problems than a plastic bag on your cowboy hat. And Berty V-M, let's nix the homophobic jokes in editing, shall we?

Totally agree. It's possible that it was left in because of the gays in the race. Perhaps there's a bit of foreshadowing of a future conflict with the lesbian couple (currently in 3rd place) or the gay guy teamed with his straight brother (8th)? Meanwhile, last week's leaders, "Big Brother" couple Jordan and Jeff, are now in 6th place and the team that includes the ditsy former Miss Teen South Carolina are 4th.

By the way, since I hadn't seen anything in the local papers about Steve Smith being on the show, I decided to share my "scoop" with them. I emailed the TV critics and the local features/gossip columnists from both the Inquirer and Daily News. I got nice replies from all four writers. Both papers reported the story and one, the Inquirer's Michael Klein, was kind enough to mention me and my little old blog. I'm a rising star, baby! ;-)