10 Random Thoughts About the “Survivor” Premiere Last Night

1. People do not pack properly.

  After 20-plus seasons, some of those fool contestants show up on the island wearing formalwear and exaggerated bling. What the hell are you gonna do with 6-inch spiked glitter heels and a Versace petticoat? Your name is not Ginger and you did not arrive on the S. S. Minnow. You are going to be dirty, nasty and chafed within three seconds, so there’s no point in pretending the island comes equipped with a model runway and fashion photographers.

2. Somebody always has to talk smack before we even know their names.

  Jeff’s helicopter blades haven’t even stopped turning, and some yokel is already spouting off about how they are going to win the whole thing or that somebody else is a worthless piece of crap that should be beaten with a club for even showing up. Look, Louden Bitter, did it cross your mind that maybe your ass needs to be nice at least until the second episode? That person you are blurrily flipping off right now might be the very person you have to sleep next to in a badly-built hut for three months.

3. The names may change, but the people stay the same.

  We had all of our requisite stereotypes in full view: the giggling bimbos, the strutting himbos, the sassy and confrontational girl with messy hair trying to be street, the country boy with an accent the size of Idaho, the really smart girl who was probably president of the Chemistry Club but doesn’t have enough social skills to fight her way out of a garment bag, and the old guy that just isn’t going to make it to the end unless everybody else gets dysentery or is just really, really stupid.

  Special mention to this season’s “Flamboyant And Chatty Gay Guy“: Colton Cumbie. (Yes, he’s even using a drag name.) I always hope they find some semi-studly guy that won’t twirl his way through the jungle like Celine Dion on acid, but I guess it’s just not in the “Survivor” script book. (Gotta help those slow viewers find the gay one, right?) And here comes Colton, wearing pearls and a Justin-Bieber tribute hairstyle, ogling the men and immediately becoming best friends with all the women.

  And when Colton when into Nelly Overdrive (hey, another drag name) during the competition, skipping down those steps above the net and flitting his hands in turbo-prop fashion? Seriously, I thought he was actually going to take flight and sail over the giant net, landing down the beach in a chorus line from South Pacific.

4. Speaking of being over it, Jeff really is.

  He’s just not as invested as he used to be. (He’s been at it for years now. How many ways can you ask “Survivors ready?” and still get excited about it?) The meet-and-greet opening scenes on the latest beach used to be a lengthy “welcome to the family, we’re going to have a swell time, good luck to everybody”. Very welcoming and supportive. Now we’re down to Jeff bellowing “you people go there, you people go here, figure out how to make fire or you’ll die, and somebody goes home in three days. Go!” Then he runs off to wherever he goes when it’s not time for him to raise his hand in the air or share stories by a campfire.

5. The “Survivor” producers like to mess with the players’ heads.

  For this season, we’ve divided into two teams, one for all the women and one for all the men. (Um, we’ve done that part before, folks. Recycling isn’t always a good thing.) Then they made the teams tramp off in different directions, lugging things through the jungle, with people sweating and cursing and pulling underwear out of places it shouldn’t be, only to have both teams end up at exactly the same beach, where both tribes will live together in one seething mass of ambition, greed, deception and unpleasant hygiene issues.

  I found it rather amusing, but the players did not share my enthusiasm. They didn’t want to live together. It’s so much easier to hate another team when you don’t see them all the time and they live in a different place. (Hey, that whole USA/Russia Cold War thing worked out just fine for decades, did it not?) It’s hard to do the plotting and the manipulating when there are so many people sitting around watching you plot and manip.

  Oh, and there’s not going to be a Redemption Island this time around. When you gone, you gone. You could tell by most of the players’ eyes that this announcement was rather irritating, since it meant they would have to get it right the first time, no lolling around on another island and thinking of clever ways to get revenge on your former best-friend alliance-member that threw your ass under the Tribal Bus.

6. Muscle mass apparently comes from unused brain cells.

  As usual, we had our standard quartet of beefy guys that immediately bond, probably because they have the same gym membership. They are already entirely convinced that they will make it to the end, in a triumph of physical dominance and possible steroid-usage. What they fail to realize (as these quartets usually do) is that the extra baggage they brought with them (you know, the arrogance, the bigotry, the sexism) is more than enough fuel to cause the weaker people on the island to band together and whack at the giants’ knees until they fall.

7. Some people just don’t pay attention.

  And now we’re talking about Kourtney. (Um, not the Kardashian one. That Kourtney doesn’t live in huts on islands. She buys them.) Our Kourtney, standing on top of that giant tower and preparing to leap into the net, was not listening to Jeff, with his helpful instructions about how to properly survive the plunge. She didn’t do anything like he said, and home girl ended up with a broken wrist. Damn, girl. You seem really sweet and all, but maybe you should have respected Jeff’s hollering instead of thinking about where you’re going to put your next tattoo.

  After the snappage, Jeff stops the competition, calls in Medical (I still don’t understand why those people have Australian accents), they drag Kourtney off to a full medical facility apparently located in an unnoticed cave somewhere, and Jeff pronounces that since the guys were ahead when Kourtney bounced wrong, that the guys automatically win Immunity.

  Unless… the guys agree to play again. I’m fully expecting them to do so, since most of them are so full of self-confidence and self-love. But they don’t. The bitches. One of the girls is going home tonight.

8. Chickens can run fast. Mmm hmm.

  Especially if the humans coming at them are wearing inappropriate clothing or singing random show tunes. Quick little cluckers. So both teams decided to work together to catch the hurtling feather balls, and then they would share them. Turns out “working together” meant the girls and the not-as-cute guys screamed and thundered about, while the self-defined God Boy Quartet basically stood around, took off their shirts, and watched each other do preparatory muscle-flexing. (Cooking is really a woman’s job, right?)

  End result, an amazingly-talented farm girl caught both chickens, then decided she wasn’t going to share them after all, mainly due to that tiny little issue where the guys stole an axe and things from the girls  (well, one guy, actually, the guy who might have had plastic surgery or just naturally looks plastic and pinched, but the other guys did high-five him for doing it, because boys are stupid). Fair’s fare. If you snatch my tool you can’t touch my chicken.

9. Those hidden idols end up in the weirdest places.

  So, folks are barely on the island and not fully hating each other yet, when Sabrina manages to stumble over one of the hidden idols. Turns out, though, that she has to give it to someone on the other tribe before the next Tribal. That sucks in an amazing way. (They never made Russell give up any of his 26 idols, ever.) So Sabrina ponders and strategizes, then finally gives it to Liza Minnelli, figuring that he might really need it, what with Colton all alone over there, awash in a sea of testosterone and protein drinks.

10. Here, kitty kitty.

  So the girls end up at Tribal. Things are really nice and friendly for about two seconds. Then Christina really gets into it with that Alanis Morissette chick, the angry one with the hair. Alanis is mad at the way Christina bartered with the guys to get some of their fire, but in the end Christina did get them some fire, so Alanis just needs to go off somewhere and write a bitter song about it for her next album. (“You Oughta GO!”)

  Turns out no one is going anywhere, at least not directly from Tribal, according to Jeff. Kourtney and her jacked-up hand will not be returning to the game, so no vote tonight.

  Claws grudgingly retract, and the girls head out into the night. Trudging through the quiet moonlight, they don’t notice Colton standing under a banana tree and doing his Judy Garland impressions…

10 Things I Learned While Walking on the Treadmill Today

1. I really hate walking on the treadmill.

It’s not the treadmill’s fault. He’s really nice. It’s the concept of exercise overall. Back in the day, when I didn’t have to exercise, but actually had an abundance of energy to do it, I was much more accepting of this exercise business. It was actually fun to exercise, plotzing about, heaving things and waving my legs in the air. I actually wasted years of my life trying to stay in shape at a point when I didn’t need to do so. I clearly wasn’t looking at the big picture.

But now I am, from the other side of that mirror where I was naturally svelte and could eat 7 pizzas in one sitting without gaining an ounce. I need the energy I had at the fun time in my life to be transferred to my current situation. In fact, I demand it. I am formally requesting that the Exercise Gods give me official credit for all that energy I wasted in my Twenties and apply it to my now doughy and lifeless body. Like lay-away, yes?

Sigh. At the very least, I wish a wise personal trainer had walked up to me at the age of 22 and said, dude, you really don’t need to be doing this right now. If you don’t stop, you’re going to be so bored with exercise by the time you actually have to do it that there are going to be emotional issues that require you to blog about them.


2. The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I spent 5 minutes jabbing at every button on the treadmill console, growing increasingly frustrated that none of those taunting buttons were causing the treadmill to actually start moving. Every single button. I was on the verge of calling Obama and asking him if this was also part of his Healthcare Plan, when it dawned on me that there was actually one more button worth review. The one near where the power cord enters the base of the treadmill. The one that is bright red. The one that says “ON”.

Things went swimmingly after that. I told the White House secretary that I didn’t really care to leave a message, and I hung up.


3. Cats are always the most interested in what you are doing at the moments when you least want them to be.

Just like when you forget to close the bedroom door when you want to engage in some slap and tickle, Scotch the cat came bounding into the middle of things to see what was going on. He was most invested in two things. First, the repetitive back-and-forth movement of my legs had him entranced. I’m not sure why this repetition was alluring, since it was rather boring to me after a few minutes. Perhaps something alarming and rhythmic had happened in his childhood? (And since he’s grown up with us, there’s no telling what we did at some point to cause this neurotica.)

Scotch got as close as he could to the edge of the treadmill without actual contact, then assumed the position which meant he was about to slice something to ribbons. To be honest, I did briefly consider ratcheting up the treadmill speed and letting him hop on, assuredly resulting in a startled yelp and an airborne feline achieving launch. This would be a learning experience for him, and a satisfying moment of jocularity for me.

But I softened, and instead resorted to firmly barking “NO!” in his direction until he figured out I was talking to him, that I apparently did not care for his planned maneuver, and that he should prance into the other room to sulk and contemplate revenge.

He was back in roughly 3 seconds. Now he was fixated on determining the cause of the whirring noise emitting from underneath the treadmill. The faceless creature that lived under there was surely of interest, and might even be tasty. So now paws were being poked into potentially violent, dismembering areas, and I had the challenge of maintaining my balance and breathing levels while dissuading Scotch from ending his own life as a side result of Daddy being fat. Eventually, a leaf fell in the front yard, and Scotch lost all interest in my mechanical monster as he raced to see who had dared to invade his proclaimed territory.

4. The time-space continuum is entirely dependent on your level of happiness.

Why is it that a 30-minute sitcom can whiz by in mere seconds, but thirty minutes on a treadmill can feel longer than flying to Paris, in coach, with a crappy movie playing, a family of spasmatics in the row in front of you doing everything they can to rip their seats out of the floor, and a flight attendant who insists on ramming that stupid cart into your knee every time you glance away? It’s just not right.

5. It’s hard to remain hydrated when you don’t have the right equipment.

You’re supposed to keep water nearby when exercising, taking petite sips now and then to keep you from drying out and blowing away. A sports bottle is recommended, and we have a few. I just don’t know where they are and I didn’t have the desire to track them down, because I was already doing one thing I didn’t want to do, why increase the pain? So I just got a regular drinking glass, half-filled it with water, and set it on a table that I could reach.

This was a bad call.

I’m sure some people can successfully retrieve refreshing liquid from a drinking glass whilst their legs are pounding along on a treadmill. I am not one of those people. That water was everywhere but in my mouth. Even when using both hands and my tongue to support the glass, I still got the water in my hair. I shoved the empty glass back on the table, hating it with intense passion.

Then I spied the liquor cabinet, also in reach. This thing was filled with enticing, slender-tipped bottles. All I had to do was pop the neck of the bottle into my mouth and guzzle away. Just like a sports bottle! And it would certainly improve my mood. But alas, I resisted temptation and just kept walking, my throat so dry I was afraid to cough lest my head should explode.

6. There are these little workout arms that you can use to pretend that you are cross-country skiing or picking up litter with one of those stick poles. This is supposed to increase your calorie burn.

I didn’t even touch them.

7. I no longer have a sense of balance.

There are also support arms on both sides of the treadmill, so you can keep your balance during moments of instability. Apparently this is the entire time for me. Every time I let go of the things and tried to walk nonchalantly, as if I were just out for a stroll, my legs would go completely insane and I would lunge all over the rolling mat, convinced that the treadmill was going to slam my head into the concrete behind us.

Really? Have I gotten that bad? God.

8. Sweat is not my friend.

I’m the first to admit that sometimes sweat is sexy, like when it’s dripping off the hairy chest off a muscled cowboy who wants to check my spurs. But most of the time, sweat has little appeal. Included in the non-fun category is sweat generated whilst walking on a fake moving sidewalk. Not a fan. Especially when you forget to bring along a handy towel and the saltiness is now blinding you while an inquisitive feline is trying rip your kneecaps open. Nope, the only time I want to sweat is when I’m having sex or I’m moving new furniture into my house. That’s it.

9. I no longer require cute workout clothing.

Back in that wasted day when I worked out pointlessly, I always had matching little outfits that were flattering and coordinated. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my workout couture actually had fringe and a Liza Minnelli wristband. If anyone in that day ever questioned my sexuality, all they had to do was look in my gym bag. Case solved.

Now? I don’t care what I work out in. Today for example? I walked in the door, ripped off my work clothes, fed the cat, and jumped on the treadmill wearing dress socks and boxer shorts. Sexy, eh?

10. Getting off the treadmill requires another set of skills that I don’t have.

Even though you might be living for the second when you have served your time and can turn off the treadmill, it’s not completely euphoric. Immediately, there’s this decompression feeling as the treadmill stops, even though your body feels like it’s still moving. The simple step from treadmill to actual floor is rife with peril and calamity. Your legs feel like noodles, even though you were just using them. What the hell is up with that?

So there I am, staggering around the room like I’ve been doing tequila shots all night at a skanky bar where everybody is too happy and clothing has become optional. All I want to do is get away from this treadmill that has been sucking the life out of me. I’m just about to escape from the room when I nearly lose my footing on a stupid step that somebody decided to build right there. (Oh wait, we did that.) I clear that last obstacle and slap off the light.

My last glimpse of the Death Machine is a golden tail sticking out from under it, as Scotch takes advantage of my distraction to stalk the whirring demon who lives under Daddy’s toy…