The Amazing Race is like walking the tightrope of life. I went through all that personal loss and I was living below ground but I think this race will get me to run above the surface.
I have taken on two new challenges in the last few years. The first involved a questionnaire: “What has been the most defining moment of your life that has given you a new outlook?”
“Let me get out my Rolodex,” I answered. “I’ve had so many. The latest? I’d have to say the death of my best friend knocked my rose-colored glasses off for a time, but I’m back with a vengeance. Every one of us is going to die; as long as I wake up above ground, I’m going to live each day to the fullest.”
The truth? I really wanted to remark, “That’s because you’re not very good at asking the right questions. I’ve been interviewed longer than you’ve been alive!”
As my partner and best friend remind me, I can BS my way through just about anything.
That’s me! I follow George Costanza’s motto, “It’s not a lie if you believe it!” I considered these new adventures experiments with performance art. Watching two HR women arguing about my love life was a show unto itself.
People say they want the truth, the real you, but do they really?
Oddly enough, in the first case, while they liked my answers which were truthful, and I got past first base, in the end, I didn’t hit a home run. And ironically, in the second case, I told HR what I imagined they wanted to hear and they gave me the job. Although I admit it didn’t hurt that the position was as a host at a busy restaurant. Whoever met a successful maître d’ who was honest? Once hired, I remember being asked in front of a whole group of co-workers, (perhaps to use me as an example) “You don’t lie do you, Donald?” “Are you kidding! I shot back. “I’ve lied four times since we’ve started this conversation.”
And that’s why I believe I would have been perfect for the gig I didn’t get: Amazing Race Canada. I am the ultimate game player. I was made for reality TV, or as I call it ‘phantasm programming’.
The trick is to know how to play the reality game. I confess I’ve had incredible training. Just one example: I had a therapist who prepared me to testify in front of a compensation board in the early ’80s. She said, “Now Donald, you know you have a tendency to tap dance while you describe a painful experience. You need to convey a feeling about an experience even if you’re not feeling it in the moment.”
“Conjure up?”
“The point is if you walk in there and tell your story set to music it will be to no avail.”
“Got it!”
When I went in, they placed me in an isolated chair in front of a long table that was reminiscent of the one used in the Last Supper. I admit I watched too much SCTV in my youth but it was intimidating to see a chairperson surrounded by what appeared to be, if not apostles, at least a dozen disciples. I was so disarmingly honest, they all stopped taking notes in rapt attention. Yet it was the leader who dropped her pen and was the Doubting Thomas, even though I was giving them the God’s honest truth. She challenged the authenticity of my words. What to do? Sorry shrink but I had to detour, tap dance a few bars, and they bit, hook line and sinker. Mission accomplished.
So just what did my training teach me is the gift that gets you noticed for a reality TV show?
Rule Number 1: Conjure up the best version of yourself to get noticed
Consider my friend Richard and I applying to Amazing Race Canada Season 8.
I was never even a regular viewer. In fact, Richard would watch season after season and I would just roll my eyes. Then just before the first episode of season 7 began last year, I decided to give it a try. (Arriving late to the party is a habit of mine.)
Richard, at first surprised, soon regretted it because when I get into a show I obsess. I also stated during each episode, “There is no frickin’ way I’d ever do even one of these challenges.” Richard was the opposite. He would do every one of them. Most episodes I cringed but I was, surprisingly, thoroughly engaged. As we viewed the final episode, I turned to Richard. “So, you want to enter the race?”
“Are you serious?”
“If two young men from our own city and in great condition can be eliminated in the first episode, I think us two old fogies should give it a go. But if we do this I need to know you are one hundred percent committed. You know how I am.”
“I’m in!”
And how am I? An absolute control freak, planner, studious to a fault. I had not even seen one reality show audition let alone Amazing Race’s videos.
So I watched, read all things Amazing Race. If I found a clip of producers expressing likes and dislikes I’d take copious notes. Richard was the opposite. He trusted me and frankly I don’t think he wanted to do anything but get on so he could do the challenges. He said, “You be the brains and entertainment. I’ll be the brawn.” Well, that’s a given.
Rule number 2: Know who you are, your strengths and weaknesses.
I planned out the photo and video shoots. Our photos had to show that we are complete opposites. At our ages, then, of 58 and 60, I knew looking healthy and photographing well are part of the game (see photos). The casting agents are only human. Straight or gay, no doubt they have a “hot meter” in the viewing room.
For the video, I wanted one take, not a perfect take but one that showed that we could carry a conversation non-stop without editing.
To prepare, I filmed us doing lines with an iPhone. Of course, I directed Richard. He is quite averse to a camera, let alone film. I always know where there’s a camera, even if it’s a surveillance one!
I told Richard he has to touch, poke, push me. We needed physical interaction. I don’t like being touched but as I’ve already established the goal is conjuring up what makes good television. I would have let Richard knock me out if it would have pleased the producers. From our first practice, you would have thought we had just met for the first time.
Rule number 3: Tape yourselves first to observe your behavior on camera.
I also wanted to incorporate real aspects of our long-time friendship, history, personal lives, experiences and talents all in a 3-minute video. The video we submitted was our second take.
Not that things didn’t go wrong in the planning. I had scoped out the location I wanted, a friend had access to a convertible and he would film us. We couldn’t rehearse on location as there were too many factors involved.
That’s where a problem arose I didn’t anticipate. On the day of our shoot, we called our friend from our vehicle, “We’re here. We have the coffees and the snacks!” He answered, “Sorry we have to do it another day. I can’t get the convertible.”
“We’ve planned this for a month. We have to shoot it today. Can you meet us and film us anyway?”
Rule number 4: Expect the unexpected to happen. Once it does, panic, be disappointed, but get over it and quickly. Re-calibrate.
Our friend arrived in his girlfriend’s vehicle. I noticed her SUV had a sunroof. Lightbulb moment: “Can two people fit through your sunroof?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t tried.”
Richard and I climbed in, bones creaking, but it worked.
Rule number 5: Read and reread rules and suggestions multiple times.
I never thought of external traffic noise but after one take I knew but didn’t express our take was not up to par. Richard said to me, “Okay, just one more.”
Rule number 6: Revisit rule number 4!
I knew I had to give take two my all because this was it. Predictably, we did have too much external noise but I knew our video ticked off every other box. Amazing Race Canada Season 8 Audition Tape by Donald D’Haene & Richard Martin, London, Ontario – YouTube
We made it through the first stage of Amazing Race Canada Season 8 but we were sworn to secrecy and we will honour their request.
We heard from the casting team within two weeks. We were so excited! My calculation paid off but what to do now? I told Richard, “Let’s do a 180. This time, completely spontaneous.” Richard agreed.
How’d we do? We felt like winners. We didn’t make it on the show but no one did yet. COVID-19 took care of that. The season has been postponed.
The journey is what excited us the most: the challenge of the unknown, the anticipation, thrill, discovering the extent of our individual and joint skills and challenging them.
Our life is a stage but we write our own best lines. We know who we are. We know what we like and WHAT we’re like individually and together. In our 30 years of friendship, we’ve lived through and survived a number of dramas but we’re not drama queens. That, we’re not sorry to state, we believe how you play the game is more important than winning it.
Final Rule: Don’t take it personally if you don’t get chosen. Too many unknown variables. Consider the experience a reward in itself.
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Photos by Donald D’Haene
