How can one not be highly impressed with our impish Amazing Race 9 hippies BJ & Tyler? While the other all-male team, Eric & Jeremy, continue to roast in lust for Danielle & Dani — while missing them entirely through the Russia to Germany leg — and burning for a busty St. Pauli Girl (and for each other, in Red Square?) while bursting bottles on each others' noggins at Bavaria Movie, BJ & Tyler amazingly continue to commiserate with (and show concern for) and heap honor upon elders Fran & Barry.

By David W. Taylor (Email The Author)
Reality Reel Media
03.25.06

<img src=http://image.realityreel.com/2006/03/25/fran_barry.jpg align=left> I mean, who else would give Fran & Barry a moment's glance? Danielle and Dani blew right by them when they were stranded on the side of the road with a dead VW battery in Brazil. In this American era of the young Abercrombie & Fitch demographic, who would pay attention to a frazzled, withering pair of sixty-somethings? The hippies, though, treat them like dear old mom and dad. Like ancient Timothy Leary acolytes. I almost choked up. After arriving third at the illusionary Pit Stop, these San Francisco stoners looked worried: "I'll feel so bad if Fran & Barry were eliminated," they yelped. And yelped sincerely!

As a surprised Fran & Barry found themselves in the fourth poll position, Tyler's face sparkled like the sun. "Fran & Barry are still in it!" he glowed. "Yeah, yeah!" And then these two guys walked over, awash in congratulatory giggles, and hugged the aging pair like they were family. It was beautiful.

As BJ and Tyler zoomed away in their Moscow taxi — the letters 'P-H-I-L' neon-blinkering atop a looming high-rise — Tyler quipped, "That just goes to show you it's not over until the Phil sings." The Russian night shining and the Race starting anew for nine teams still trudging onward — Fran & Barry surely having found unlikely new friends half-way around the world. One with a bushy beard, a silly grin, and donning a cowboy hat; and one who wears no underwear.

(And poor, abused Phil Keoghan. What's with these kids nowadays? First Eric & Jeremy greet him in Red Square with a way too-familiar, punchy "What's up big Philly-style?" And then after their Moscow check-in, BJ & Tyler hand him over a dollar bill with a dismissive, "Phil. Thanks for the help. See you in Germany." Even the nerdish Lori squawked about Phil's somber Pit Stop pose: "Phil being his dramatic self." Soon, watch, Phil's gonna blow.)

If one remembers back to another pair of oldsters, Don & Mary Jean, on The Amazing Race 6, one can recall them driving in the early morning hours through a town in Iceland graced with the Arctic perpetual sun and finding nearly everyone milling about the streets drunk. The bars had just closed but the sun was still up. Asking for route directions was like herding cats. It was déjà vu near Stuttgart as Lake & Michelle ran into "the German guy" meandering down an earthen roadway around the city of Bad Tölz. They stopped their Benz and asked "Hans" for directions to Ellbach Field. Old Lake cajoled Hans to go with them (in his own cornpone style). Hans, bleary-eyed, said, "I-I-I can't drive and I'm too drunk anymore."