I've been meaning to say for weeks how much I've been enjoying Jon and Kelly on The Amazing Race. It took me awhile to warm up to them, but I really have. Kelly has turned out to be quite the trooper. This is a very physical game, and I give her major props for being the only woman left for awhile and beating all those boys. She hurt her hand the first time she punched those boards but she kept at it to break through all three sets. And then it hurt so she couldn't make a fist with it for the repelling challenge, but she jumped off that building one-handed anyway. That's fucking balls.

And I know a lot of people think Jon is an asshole, but I think he's a riot. Yes, he makes a nasty wisecrack now and then, and yes he gets mad at his girlfriend occasionally and once told her to fuck off. I make a lot of wisecracks too, and I have told a few boyfriends and girlfriends to fuck off. Who's a nice guy every minute of every day? How would you do with a camera trained on you 24/7?

I love how light-hearted his is about everything, and always eager to play. I like the way he plays. And the other teams seem to enjoy his company, and so does Kelly. I watch the way she giggles with him and clutches his arm, and I think they're good to/for each other 90 percent of the time. How many people do better than that?

And Chip & Reichen seem to have a ball with them, too. Editing casts a pall over all assumptions, so I put a lot of weight on how well the groups seem to like each other. They have the context. I put much less weight on Jon's gay-razzing in a couple clips. It's true that there's a clip on the CBS site showing Reichen saying it gets to him a bit, but he doesn't seem too upset about it. Jon seems like the type that will razz everyone about something: the fact that their gayness makes an easy target doesn't make Jon a bigot--as long as he doesn't get viscous or really hurtful about it. I have yet to see that.

I also don't think Jon's a homo. I would love to, cause he's a hottie and a fun guy, but I think he just likes to play. It's usually the guys completely at ease with their own sexuality who can pull stuff like pinching Reichen's nipple and jiggling his peck. I've known straightguys who like getting physical that way and they're usually switch-hitters only in my fantasy, not even close in real life. Any guy who had a true sexual urge to grab Reichen's pec would be afraid to even glance at it. Guys with those urges are scared to death of that stuff.

I may get hate mail for this, but I'd go so far as to say that if I had been on this race, Jon would be the one I'd be most likely to hang out with after. I just like people who like to play.

Of course I could be dead wrong on all the above. Editing, that's the trouble with reality TV. They might all turn out to be assholes or idiots. But imaging something better--or worse--that's half the fun of the experience.

But it's meaningless. Looks like a 99.9% chance of a non-elimination round tonight. They've already announced that the three teams are in a three-way final, that there's one more non-elim left, and that the finale is next Thursday. That would make tonight meaningless, unless one team gets really far ahead or behind.

(That did happen once in the first leg of the two-leg final. Oddly enough, the Guidos used the Fast Forward then and it set them so far back they were out of it. They took a slow route on a very long trip (train vs hiring a car or something) to save money. Bad move. But I would bet against that happening. Still, it should be fun to watch Chip & Reichen. And Jon and Kelly.)

I've been meaning to say for weeks how much I've been enjoying Jon and Kelly on The Amazing Race. It took me awhile to warm up to them, but I really have. Kelly has turned out to be quite the trooper. This is a very physical game, and I give her major props for being the only woman left for awhile and beating all those boys. She hurt her hand the first time she punched those boards but she kept at it to break through all three sets. And then it hurt so she couldn't make a fist with it for the repelling challenge, but she jumped off that building one-handed anyway. That's fucking balls.

And I know a lot of people think Jon is an asshole, but I think he's a riot. Yes, he makes a nasty wisecrack now and then, and yes he gets mad at his girlfriend occasionally and once told her to fuck off. I make a lot of wisecracks too, and I have told a few boyfriends and girlfriends to fuck off. Who's a nice guy every minute of every day? How would you do with a camera trained on you 24/7?

I love how light-hearted his is about everything, and always eager to play. I like the way he plays. And the other teams seem to enjoy his company, and so does Kelly. I watch the way she giggles with him and clutches his arm, and I think they're good to/for each other 90 percent of the time. How many people do better than that?

And Chip & Reichen seem to have a ball with them, too. Editing casts a pall over all assumptions, so I put a lot of weight on how well the groups seem to like each other. They have the context. I put much less weight on Jon's gay-razzing in a couple clips. It's true that there's a clip on the CBS site showing Reichen saying it gets to him a bit, but he doesn't seem too upset about it. Jon seems like the type that will razz everyone about something: the fact that their gayness makes an easy target doesn't make Jon a bigot--as long as he doesn't get viscous or really hurtful about it. I have yet to see that.

I also don't think Jon's a homo. I would love to, cause he's a hottie and a fun guy, but I think he just likes to play. It's usually the guys completely at ease with their own sexuality who can pull stuff like pinching Reichen's nipple and jiggling his peck. I've known straightguys who like getting physical that way and they're usually switch-hitters only in my fantasy, not even close in real life. Any guy who had a true sexual urge to grab Reichen's pec would be afraid to even glance at it. Guys with those urges are scared to death of that stuff.

I may get hate mail for this, but I'd go so far as to say that if I had been on this race, Jon would be the one I'd be most likely to hang out with after. I just like people who like to play.

Of course I could be dead wrong on all the above. Editing, that's the trouble with reality TV. They might all turn out to be assholes or idiots. But imaging something better--or worse--that's half the fun of the experience.

If you don't have cable, tonight is the night to see what all the Queer fuss is about. NBC is turning over the ER time slot to Queer Eye tonight, followed by an appearance of the cast on Leno. (Originally, NBC had slotted a half-hour condensed Queer Eye after Will and Grace. They upgraded to a full hour, after an hour of Will/Grace (a regular ep and a bogus clips show.)

They will be on Leno again tomorrow. The original plan was for the Leno makeover tomorrow, but that could have changed. My latest Tivo download still shows them on both nights, and so do the promo commercials.)

Last week, I wrote a post called Delusional, but I like it, which began:

It's ridiculous to treat Chip & Reichen as stand-ins for the whole big gay cause. I know this, but I like doing it anyway.

Apparently I am in crowded company. The post has generated 38 comments and growing (which is a lot for my site), and it's been fascinating to see how so many people feel about this. From Michael Bedwell :

Hero worship is an enduring human characteristic that, per se, is not "bad" or something to be resisted, whether or not it's a variation on the alleged "need" to believe in a "superior being." It's whom we idolize that determines one's maturity or morality. Hero worship can help us be/do better ourselves as we see, through the example of others, that improvement, even excellence, is possible. Even Chip called himself Spiderman after beating Jon down the side of the building . . .

Lots of discussion about the show, too--especially the ridiculous clucking apparently raging on a lot of message boards about Chip being an asshole--and internalized homophobia, gay-on-gay emotional violence and the gathering political storm.

Come join the discussion here.

Update: I had the wrong comment link for a few minutes, but corrected it. The server has also been hiccuping the past few days and comments are sometimes down. Try again in a few minutes if it doesn't work.