TAR 9: Lech mir am Arshle, bitte bitte bitte sehr. by Wheeze

Well, well. Here you are. Just when you thought the Big Buckin’ Chicken was the best thing on TV, The Amazing Race brings you a real doozy. Just before it begins, The Network shows a commercial about some amazing fruit drink, using gigantic fruit that people are climbing all over. Enormous fruits, on the coast of some body of veryblue water. And right where I have this frame paused, in pink, 7-point font letters on top of red, juicy strawberries, are the words, “Contains no fruit juice.”

There’s an irony there in that commercial that relates to this particular episode. Oh yes, yes there is. If you figure it out, let me know what it is because it’s over my head.

The show opens with a montage of craziness that can only be called Moscow. That’s in Russia, in case you didn’t watch Anastasia eight hundred brazillian times, not that we are bringing brazillians into this – well, some of us might when we try to talk to cab drivers in Moscow.

Little know fact: All cab drivers speak Spanish. It’s a prerequisite. Minimum is 4 courses, or a 215 class equivalency. Whether in Brazil or Russia, you can always find somebody who speaks the universal language.

Let’s talk about me for a moment.

I can’t remember names. I don’t even remember who won TAR last season. If I knew their names then, I’d be surprised. But I’ll never know if I knew, because I am too lazy to check the last TAR episode I did.

Usually (still talking about me here), if we’re down to four or fewer people, I’ll manage to get the names okay. But today we are dealing with eighteen people. Plus that one guy with the stone cold tits who never smiles. That’s a lot of names.

Here are the people I know: FrankenBarry, The Geeks, The Fratboys, and The Scoobs, as in Scooby and Shaggy, stolen from Beannie because that’s funny stuff. Also known are LaWanduh and LaFawnduh who make up the Spanglish team, Lake and his bitch, and the other team that looks like Lakenbitch, hence, the Lakealikes. And there’s Token of course, who will never win because they are black. I’m missing one team, but for the love of God and money I can’t remember who that might be. Maybe we’ll find them later, maybe not. Oh hell! It’s the Dani team (plural, Dani). Silly me.

On to the show. Which is a continuation of last week. So go read Beannie’s if you haven’t been keeping up.

Phil feels right at home in the freezing cold land of Witch’s Tit, Russia while Fratboys discover this leg of the race isn’t over yet. They take their clue and head to the airport, with intention of continuing on to Frankfurt, Germany.

The rest of this summary will be written in German, in honor of my beloved and dearly departed grandmother, who was, incidentally, found to have a sewing needle in her bum during one lengthy CAT scan I was forced to attend. Boy, was that a shocker.

Ja. Nun. Die Fratjungen gehen, und Lakeundbitchen gehen nach. Sie sind sehr glucklich! Nummer Zwei, viel spaß und gluck! Aber. Es ist nicht am enden, nein, nein, nein! “Ach, Scheiss!” sagt Bitchen. Undsoweiter, undsoweiter, die andere personnen, wie Yolanda auf dem Tokens, sagt auch, “Ach, Scheiss!”

“Wo den?” fragt die Frat. “Zum Taxi?”

“Nein! Danke!” sagt die andere Frat. “Ich habe den Wagen da!”

(And with that, I have fulfilled the prophecy of the Bundeslände Karten of 1987, by using the one phrase I said I’d never ever ever use. Because when would I have a car in Germany?? That’s just nuts. But. The spell has been broken, and I no longer must honor my Grossmutter in such fashion. For which you will be thankful, and you [b]will[/b] praise me, and tell me how thankful you are in your comment below.)

In the taxi, the Fratboys decided that on the mat in front of Phil the Witch would have been a good place to be holding hands with the Dani. And now we know that the Frats will neverever win this thing, because they think with their heads.

The Lakers are “haulin’ ass,” and Lake utters a slimy under-chuckle like a red-faced Dubya in the presence of Helen Thomas. Or, heck, even that not-scary David Gregory.

Tokens are third, and Mister sez, brightly, “I don’t want any of the other groups to catch up to us.” Ohhhhhhhhhh… I think I get it now.

Shaggy and Scooby turn up next, and they share a tender moment about FrankenBarry. Shaggy generously tips Tits, who almost…almost…cracks a smile and becomes animated. He just can’t wait to blog about the Scoobs later on. Meanwhile, Scooby grabs the dollar back from Tits and they are on their way.

FrankenBarry are fifth and oh so excited. Too bad they’ve quit twice already. How many times will FrankenBarry quit today, is the REAL question here. I think they should be Titliminated immediately for being whiney.

LaWanduh and LaFawnduh are doing what Latinos do best – cleaning the buses of Caucasians. Sadly, they keep crying about it and refuse to leave, streaking. You get what you pay for, I guess. The Lakealikes clean too.

Meanwhile, the Frats get their tickets to Frankfurt without a problem, and are in a philnominal lead. The call the ugliest ticket counter woman I have ever seen ‘beautiful’ and head to the plane, while the Lakers are refused ticketing. The Frats take off at 7:05 pm.

Little Known Fact: I like the Fratboys. I like the Scoobs, and I love the Geeks.
Everyone else must die.

Back on the mat (hi, Matt!) in Moscow, the Dani are 6th, the Duhs are 7th, the Lakealikes are 8th and the Geeks, who also cleaned the bus, have fallen into last place, OH THE HORRORS! Tits plays a mean trick on them, and this is the first time we’ve seen them cranky at Tits’ ‘Psych you out pit stop’. But not nearly cranky enough for me to lose one iota of geeklove for them.

The Lakers manage a flight a couple hours behind the Frats, and the Scoobs pick a smart spot to wait for ticketing in the airport. Meanwhile, the Frats arrive in Frankfurt, grab a train, win the lottery and get laid by a whole host of Veela, that’s how fucking lucky they are today.

On the 9:15pm flight to Frankfurt are the Lakers and Scoobs.

LaWanduh and LaFawnduh piss and moan about this being the worst day ever, and the ticket counter person pulls the shade in their face. Ha! The Lakealikes go elsewhere to Lufthansa to get a 7am flight to Frankfurt the next morning.

I’m beginning to think we’re never going to get out of this damn Aeropuerto (that’s Taxispeak for shithole). The other teams find out one by one that they will have to come back in the morning to book flights. Ach, Scheiße! The Lakealikes make camp in the airport while the others go find a hotel. And we wait. For seven am.

The Frats meet Johann on the train to Stuttgart and immediately ask him if there are pretty ladies in Germany. Johann smiles all cute and stuff and says yes, there are. Sometimes. And adds the worldwide wisdom, “The more you trinkt, the schöner they get.” The Frats wonder why the Germans are always drunk. They make it to Stuttgart, and find a taxi which brings them to the Mercedes building. The run to the clue box, and we hope they get a clue that says, ‘Du Sceißkopf! There’s nobody behind you. You can walk.’

Once 8:30am arrives, the teams will hop into a Mercedes and luckily have a driver to take them on the ultimate torque + spiderman experience of driving on the ominous WALL OF DEATH, which is not to be confused with that little wall that was once in Berlin, though the results were similar.

Train 2 reaches Stuttgart with the Lakenbitch and Scoobs teams, who also head to the Mercedes factory and get their clues.

Back in Moscow it’s 5am and the remaining teams are all present at the airport and getting tickets for Flight 3, which leaves at 7am.

Little Known Fact: Russia is a mere 55 miles away from the United States.

At 8:30am in Stuttgart, the ISS arrives to drive the teams in circles and demand an answer to the world’s most puzzling question: What the fuck is wrong with your president? The teams urge Germany not to wait to get involved – 335 million lives depend upon them. ‘Yeah, we’ll get right on that,’ they say.

Teams get the tour of the track, first on the high-speed lane, where they reach 170 kilometers per hour, which, after careful calculation, I have determined to be roughly 885.3 miles per hour. All the teams yell. The Frats reach climax. Some (coughSCOOBScough) do the Chicken Dance, while yelling Mach Schnell! Mach Schnell! (which, translated, means ‘No hurry. Take your time.’)

Little Known Fact: All first year German language students learn the Chicken Dance, as well as the song, Mein Hut. Crazy, crazy lyrics there. Goes a little like this…

(clears throat)

Mein Hut, er hat drei Ecke,
Drei Ecke hat mein Hut.
Und hat er nicht drei Ecke,
Denn das is nicht mein HUT!

(Ja ja ja!)

Which, translated, means “Um ya ya, um ya ya, Um ya ya ya! Gooooo Terrapins!”

Groups 1 and 2 are all bunched up again, the teams receive their next clues from the drivers and are given the keys to the ‘cedes. They must now drive 200 miles(4.6 kilometers) on the Autobahn (i.e. Wall of Death 2), to Bad Tolz (meaning “BloodBath of the Nightmare G(ah)Nomes”). In the haunted field there are decapitated and bisected fantastical creatures who have apparently just been attacked by Hector, Gunilla and the whole team of Ithilgorn’s Orc Brigade. Their cleaved bodies are strewn about the field. The teams must pick up the body parts and look under them, for apparently Gnomes are a little like worms – when split in half, they don’t die, they regenerate a new gnome underneath. The racers must collect the newborn gnomies and bring them, coddled in their bosoms, to the Tit Queen and Dumbledore, who is sometimes mistaken for Santa.

But first. The third group of teams arrives in Stuttgart, and the LaWanduhs ask their taxi driver what the word for ‘fast’ is. “Schnell,” says he, and they begin to chant ‘Schnell, Schnell, Schnell!’ at him, just in case he doesn’t understand ‘fast'. Of course, after a while, LaWanduh forgets the word and starts saying ‘Schlaff! Schlaff!’ instead, which is a really, really extremely funny thing to say to someone who is driving you around on a race for a million dollars. They all do their Mercedes ride, with the only thing of note that happens is that Lakealike gets in the driver’s seat, then can’t get his seatbelt on.

The Geeks find themselves in 4th place and holding the keys to their Mercedes, but aren’t sure how to find Bad Tolz. LaWanduh asks for directions using the universal accent, and LaFawnduh is completely annoyed. The Tokens find someone to give them directions to Bad Tolz, and the crabby Mrs says, “Hot boooty,” which will now be my new phrase to repeat endlessly, and with which I will drive all my friends crazy.

We go back to the Geeks, who have now found directions, but when the Lakealikes ask them, they deny that they know anything. Hooray, Geeks! Way to get a strategy. They confess they may have lied, just a little...aren’t they so cute?

Little Known Fact (to LaFawnduh and no one else):

Munich? Is the same as München.

Then, tragically, stupidly the Dani follow the LaWanduhs going the wrong way, which turns into a Bill Murray scene on Ground Hog Day.

Meanwhile, back at the Gnomish Field of Destruction, with yodeling music playing in the background, the Frats find their regenerated gnomebaby. They take their next clue, which says, “Drive yourselves to Bavaria Film in Gruhnewald, take your gnomebaby with you and call his name Yeesus, for he is the great and powerful god who will bring you safely to your next pit stop.”

Lakenbitch pick up a German man who speaks like he lives in Ohio. “I cannot drive, I’m too drunk anymore,” says he. “Lech mir am Ärshle.” Which is Schwäbisch, or Stuttgartian, for “Kiss my ass and call me Sally.” Or something like that.

“Nein, danke, Ich habe den Wagen da, und lech mir auch, bitte,” replies Lake, and Wheezy gets a bonus point added to her GPA.

Little Known Fact: Wheezus hearts Gothmog am besten.

Lakenbitch and the Scoobs arrive at the Gnomely Battlefield. Shaggy dances around like a goon, which for some reason annoys Bitch. Somebody needs to take a bottle to her insolent little head and teach her a lesson in how to have fun.

Lake finds his baby Yeesus while Shaggy does the Sawmill Lumberjack Dance. Boy, those hippies are sure good at dancing. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a task that involved dancing? They’d totally win. Scooby continues searching and wonders aloud what the gnomes look like when Lake finds his. Almost as if we had planned it, Scoob pulls up the next decapitated gnome head and finds new growth. “Like this?” he says, holding it up. Bwa ha ha. Shaggy admires Scooby’s new toy. “Nice gnome, buddy!” he says, like he’s talking to a 4-year-old. Those two orange-panted sillies crack me up.

FrankenBarry arrive. Barry will be the one to venture out on this dangerous task. “Be systematic!” yells Fran.
“I’m gonna only do feet!” yells Barry.
“Why?” screeches Fran
“Because that’ll be my system!” he cries.
The yodelers are gone; Mission Impossible now plays in the background. Barry’s plan works, that sly devil. He grabs the creature and runs. Back in the car, Barry confesses, “That’s the way Fran and Barry travel,” he boasts. “In a car, with a map, that’s what we do. We hit our stride.”

Ground Hog Day on the Autobahn. Much fighting within the vehicles occurs. I have no further comment on these idiots.

The Frats arrive at Bavaria Film, where they are faced with a choice between two tasks: Break It or Slap It.

Break It involves breaking stunt bottles on each others’ heads. They cannot do this willy nilly, oh no. They must wait for the cuckoo bird to … uh … cuckoo before each attempt. Once broken, they must look at the label and find one that says “Prost!” which of course means, “Watch Survivor Next Thursday!”

In Slap It, teams must learn and successfully (snort) perform a series of steps from a German folk dance. We the viewers are led to believe that the dance is long and difficult.

Whichever they choose, they will all dress up in silly costumes.

The Frats choose Break It and make eyes at the Pauli Girl whose job it is to oversee the cuckoo clock and the bottle breakage. At first, the Pauli Girl scowls and pouts like all good German blondes should do when facing naughty frat boys, but soon her boredom leads her to giggle openly. After several Lederhosen jokes and Abbott and Costello attempts, they still come up short.

The Tokens are in 5th place and seem to find their gnomebaby immediately. They discuss the Lakealikes, and wonder how they are always so hot on their trail. Mr. Token sounds like he’s reading his off-the-cuff comment from a cue card.

The Lakealikes find their gnome. The Geeks arrive, search and soon find theirs as well. They make their way to Bavaria Film, where the Frats are still smashing bottles. They ask the Pauli Girl out for some beers afterward. “Eef you pay,” she says coolly. They begin to get cranky at how long it’s taking. Finally they find one as the hippies arrive. They receive kisses from their Pauli Girl, and request she leaves a mark of proof, which I guess will show that they’re not all just talk. Or something.

The Scoobs choose Break It. Shaggy needs a changing room because he’s not wearing underwear.

Yeah, you just sit and think on that for a while.

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The Frats receive their next clue, which leads them 10 miles away into Munich, where they must find Leopoldstraße. The pit stop is at the Siegestor, which, incidentally, is not the same as the Spiegel Store. No, it’s a 153 year old monument to peace. The last team to arrive may be eliminated.

Not Really A Little Known Fact: the “ß” is a symbol used in the Germanic language, and is called the ‘S Set’. A set of s’s, it is. You’d pronounce it just like you’d pronounce a double ‘s’. Why not just write two s’s in a row, you ask. I.Don’t.Know. But I do know that on my new iBook, all I have to do is push ‘Option s’ to get it to type.


Scooby and Shaggy are in their element. They ARE yodelers. After filming a quick Riccola commercial, they begin their task. They, unlike everyone else, can actually speak a few words of Geman, and they are not bad at it. They yuck it up and after a few bottles, Lakenbitch arrive. The Lakenbitches, incidentally, just finished filming a remake of The Accused. Breaking bottles over Bitch’s head is standard procedure. Poor Bitch. She feels she must hide the truth, even when the bottles are fake. “That hurt because you hit it so soft!” she says, looking for Lake’s nod of approval. That one was the winner, and the LakenBitch moves on. In the car, Bitch remarks unconvincingly, “That was fun, huh?”

The Scoobs finally get their Prost, and they kiss and flatter the Pauli Girl. “Ich mochte du tanzen gehen!” says Scooby, which on the screen translates to “I would like to go dancing with you,” but in my cobwebbed German dictionary of the mind, sounded more like, “I would like you to go dancing.” I shrug. Ich weiß nicht.

FrankenBarry enter the Tanzen Universität, and I must say, those little shorts never looked more flattering on a man than Barry. And once again, it appears that FrankenBarry have chosen improperly a task suited for their abilities. Oh, if they had only brought their gnomebaby Yeesus inside to help them.

The Fratboys make haste to the Siegestor. They grab gnomebaby (he ain’t sayin’ nothin’) and rush to find The Tit Queen, who is standing on the mat alongside one of the seven dwarves. Moldy, I think it is. Or Paunchy. The boys are the first to arrive, and they have won a terrific trip to Africa. TQ notices the lipstick on their faces and declares these two to be the biggest Casanovas ever to appear on TAR. They launch into reverie about the Dani, saying they hope the Dani make it to the mat in good time so they can ‘do a little more tongue wrestling or whatever.’ Phil gives them a sterile look. I don’t think he really wanted to know that. And I’m sure the Dani will be glad to know the Frats just spilled that bit of news to the world.

Lakenbitch and the Scoobs meet in the street, trying to find Leopoldstraße. The Lakers are fighting. Lake tells his Bitch to ‘zip the negativism out’. She immediately becomes annoyingly positive, which I hope she is doing on purpose. The Scoobs sneak around the back way to the Siegestor. Realizing they are well in front of the Lakers, they decide to run to the mat, backwards. They turn around, and Scooby’s face lights up. “SANTA!” he cries when he sees the dwarf. What a couple of crazies. Lakenbitch is right behind, in third.

FrankenBarry are still Slapping It. It takes a little longer at that age. They manage not to fall down as the professionals go through it one last time, from the top, at half speed. Before the musicians can gouge their eyes out, the leader declares FrankenBarry to have completed the task perfectly. EVERYBODY CHEERS WILDLY. They head for the pit stop.

The Lakealikes arrive at Bavarian Film and start breaking bottles, followed by the Geeks and the Tokens. Some of them are a bit too big for their britches, but they all make it to the set and start breaking bottles when the extremely bored band decides to do a little parade around them. Somebody screeches. The band plays. The parade marches. The cuckoo calls, the bottles smash, and the screech again. Play, march, cuckoo, smash screeeeeeeeeech. It’s Stomp, Bavarian style.

And good God in heaven, we forgot all about the Dani and the LaWanduhs. They’re still back on the grassy knoll looking for trollbabies. In the dark. They dig in the dirt of the already emptied nests, hoping against hope for a twin. The Dani finally find one, and LaFawnduh declares that there simply aren’t anymore. It’s a mean, evil trick. Miraculously, the camera person stands stoically next to the correct one, and waits until somebody notices. Finally, a new Spanglish gnomebino is born. They drive off into the impending sunrise.

FrankenBarry arrive at the Siegestor and are delighted at their fourth place finish, and back at the Film, The Geeks have luck with bottles and head out, The Lakealikes are mesmerized by the parade and follow the piper, deciding suddenly they can dance. And guess what – they CAN! Quite impressively, too. The Tokens are peee-ussssed, go dance, and totally do fair as well. Of course, the clarinetist has by now run out of spit, so they were practically pushing people through the dance line. As long as they were still standing when the music stopped, they were free to go.

My Sweet Geek-Cheeks take the number five spot on the mat (hi matt, my sweet geek boyfriend!) and are worthily proud of their comeuppance in the ranks from the previous day. Lakealikes arrive in the Six spot, all cute and smiley. They really aren’t anything like the Lakenbitches. They are sweet. Ewww. Not far behind are the Tokens, and Yolanda manages to crack a smile.

And we regretfully go back to the Film, where the Dani have arrived. They start dancing. It looks as if the entire band has gone home for the day, but that was just a little camera trick. They were all simply backstage, the accordianists exchanging spit with the woodwinds. They are team players, the Bavarians. You should see them play soccer.

Little Known Fact: I did, indeed, see the Bavarians play soccer against Manchester United in Soldier Field a couple of years ago. It was a great game. They did not, however, wear the same outfits as what we saw on our television sets Tuesday last.

The Dani make quick work of the dance, and in no time have their next clue. I bet they get lost again…let’s see. Meanwhile, LaWanduh and LaFawnduh find the dance and do a piss poor job. Here’s where it’s a lucky time to be last – they let them go anyway.

The Dani get lost (what else is new) and after asking fourteen people for help, finally have the building in their sites. Of course, by this time, LaWanduhs have managed NOT to get lost for once, and they spot each other. It appears we may indeed have a close finish. But no. The Dani make it, the Duhs do not, and Peter the dwarfman says, “Welcome to Munich, Germany,” in the sweetest grandfatherly voice you’ve ever heard.

The Duhs have been eliminated, they are crying (again), and they tell their tale as if they were forced to join this race. The past four days have been hell, it’s been one nightmare after another, they say, and I for one am glad to see them go.

Next week, on TAR: The teams look for a clue in pieces of hanging laundry, and Geekgirl breaks down at the Roadblock, apparently while putting together a giant Michelin Man.  ¶ 5:34 PM