The Amazing Race S05E14

At the time of our conversation, Phil "Frequent Flyer" Keoghan had already put in 180 shooting days this year, and he expects to travel about 400,000 miles before the year is up. Not only is he (as if you didn't know) the Philiminator of The Amazing Race, but his new show, No Opportunity Wasted, premiered last Sunday on the Discovery Channel. And in case you didn't see it, I will tell you as your skeptical recapper that it was really, really good. Frustratingly enough, you will all suspect that I would tell you that even if it weren't true, but all I can tell you is that it is true, that I have a Season Pass for it programmed into the TiVo, and that if you like Funny Phil, Intense Phil, or Cute Phil, you simply must get on the stick and crank up your recording device of choice. And that's not even counting the fact that it's kind of inspirational, even to my cold, black, angry, bitter soul. We spoke a few days after TARcon 5, at which I didn't get to see him, but did get to nibble on his face. Well, you'll see.

Phil: So I'm sorry I missed you the other night.

Miss Alli: Oh, yeah, well...these things happen. I heard you weren't there for very long.

I...it was crazy. And I had to go do a whole lot of international press. So I was up all night.

Yeah, that's what I heard.

I felt like I had to go for a little bit, and when I got out, I -- did you see they impounded the car that I was in?

Are you serious?

It's the second time that's happened to me. In fact, the Post wrote another story about it. A few years ago, I was leaving my house out of New York, and I was going in to do the Early Show, and the thing I know, I see cop lights reflected in the mirror, and so they pull the driver over, and he didn't have the right license, so they impounded the car and arrested him.

Wow.

So Michael Starr over at the Post wrote a piece about, you know, how I had to quickly get on the phone and call a taxi, and he wrote, like, I was being like a Racer, and I had to get in there, and I made it just in time. This time, I left your function and I get outside, and I see the cops around the car, and I'm like, "What the hell?", so I say to the guy, "What's happening?", and he says, "Oh, they're impounding my car and arresting me."

A-gaaain?

Yeah, it happened a second time.

It's you.

It must be me.

It must be you. You're a curse. Well, it was a very good party, we had a good time.

It was a great party, I thought. And I thought that kit -- somebody gave me one of the, uh...

The goodie bags!

The goodie bag. I thought it was amazing.

Isn't it cute? They work hard on those things. They've been making those since the first one.

I am amazed, I am amazed at how much work they put in.

I know. It was so cute. I love those things.

And you're -- I'm figuring that you are the first person to come up with the whole "Philimination" thing, right?

I don't know. I don't know, maybe.

I'm not sure, but I know that you must be one of the first to use it.

I think we popularized it, maybe.

Maybe. I'm not sure if it came out of, like, Season One, with Frank, and...anyway, the other day, the publicist took me in to the CBS store in New York, and they said, "Oh, you should check out the new Amazing Race merchandise. It's like the first time we've ever had, you know, Amazing Race swag.

We heard!

Right. And so I go over, and the woman goes, "Oh, my God, you're the guy from The Amazing Race -- can you sign this hat?" And I said, "Sure, sure," and then she says, "You should check out the t-shirt, check out the t-shirt!" So I look at the t-shirt, and it says, "Amazing Race: You've Been Philiminated" on the t-shirt.

Ohhhhh.

They're selling them.

Ohh, jeez.

And! And so then the woman says to me..."Oh, by the way, I'll give you a 20 percent discount if you want to buy one."

[cackle]

I said, "Oh -- oh thank you!"

That's awesome.

"That's great, thank you." I'm like...I know I'm in New York, man. She just asked me for an autograph, and she's like, "I love the show," and then she's going to...cut me a 20 percent discount.

"We'll cut you a 20 percent discount on your very own shirt!"

Well, it's not bad, it's kind of fun. I got a new one the other day. Somebody sent me a T-shirt made up, it said, "Phil Factor." A play on "Fear Factor." I thought that was a fun one.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we had a good time. Mirna and I shared a piece of cake with your face on it, so.

Oh, you got -- you know what happened? What happened was, one of the guys at CBS -- internally, at CBS, there's huge fans of The Amazing Race. And there's one guy there that always used to help us out, and he worked on The Early Show. And he's such a huge, huge fan, so he got that cake made, like at a special place. And it was at the [CBS] party, and I think people were too scared to cut into the cake because of the photo, and no one ate it. And I was the last one to leave that party, because I was talking to press and everything, so someone said, "Well, what are we going to do with the cake?", and I said, "Well, I'm going to go over to the TARcon party, so I'll take it over, because at least they'll appreciate it, and hopefully, somebody over there will eat it." So it was eaten?

It was eaten, and actually, like I said, Mirna and I, we settled our differences over a piece of cake with your face on it, so.

Oh, thank God.

So what can I tell you? It's peace in the valley.

Wow. Thank God. Thank God it was eaten. It would have been a waste. It was a beautiful cake.

Well, it was getting cut up at, I think, about 2:00 in the morning, so definitely people kept their hands off of it for a long time, but somebody came over and, just kind of, I don't know, popped it into the...they were all kind of gathered around watching, because first I was sitting around talking to Colin and Christie, and that sort of drew a crowd, because they're always wondering whether people are going to throw drinks on me and stuff like that.

[At this point, Phil and I engage in a boring web-site-related technical discussion in which we ascertain that neither of us knows what we're talking about. Hee. All you need to know is that you should visit him at his new show's site and see all the nifty stuff over there.]

I went by your site; that's pretty spiffy.

Yeah, you know, we're putting some work into it, and it's just my own web site. But I'm trying to...I'm going to do some episode descriptions, and put in some funny -- like, I was at a wrestling school with one guy who wanted to fulfill his dream to become a wrestler. And there's a guy there called "Intellectual" Arch Kincaid, and he and I kind of went at each other a little bit, just, you know, having fun. And it didn't make the cut of the show, but it's really funny. So we're going to post some stuff like that.

I think that's a good idea.

Just some stupid funny stuff.

Well, people like to go and see extra stuff.

I think it's good. And apparently, CBS got me to do those pieces for the thing [he is talking about Phil's Diaries on the CBS Insider, which I know from "pieces for the thing," because Phil and I speak each other's unspoken language fluently], and it's the first time they've ever had their on-air people do that. And they said that it was hugely popular. That and my photographs, which I don't know if...whatever. So they're like, "Keep doing them, because people are going to them."...I'm like, "Okay."

Well, I think people are very eager for extra info. They start to get in there and they feel like they want to have a little better idea of...you know, what REALLY happened. Especially when there's so much going on. But anyway. So tell me about your new show.

Well, it premieres this Sunday, 8:00 [PM Eastern] on the Discovery Channel. So it'll be on every Sunday. It's thirteen one-hours. The philosophy -- I mean, if you see from the web site, there's a lot of information there about all the different episodes. And the philosophy came from a near-death experience that I had when I was nineteen. I was hosting an adventure show, and I got stuck in a shipwreck, separated from the guy that I'd been diving down there with, and I found myself inside 22,000 tons of steel, in the blackness, not knowing where up and down was. And breathing too fast, because I was panicking. And I have claustrophobia pretty bad, and so I started to panic more and more. And I really didn't think I was going to get out. And I thought that was it. And I didn't know where to go. I didn't know where he was, and I thought...if I move from where he last saw me, then that's going to be it. And this thing is huge. I mean, if you imagine a boat the size of the Love Boat, underwater, 120 feet down, on its right side -- the starboard side -- I thought that was it. And thankfully, as you can tell, I got out. And I was so scared by it that I decided to write this list of things to do before I died. And so I immediately wrote it down on a paper bag. And just, dug into the brain and started writing down ideas of everything I wanted to do. And I was nineteen years old, so it was a pretty selfish list.

Fun things!

Yeah, it was fun things, but it was very selfish. It was, "I want to do this, I want to do that," and...and pretty immature, because I was only nineteen, very self-centered. But that really became a catalyst for my career. And that list, as I was sort of gravitating toward wanting to do those things, I luckily found a way to host TV, and do things that I loved to do. I had a series called Keoghan's Heroes, and I went around the world profiling people who were thrill-seekers and doing things with them. I had this show called Short Sports where I got to hang out with athletes and I did some talk shows, so I really managed to tick off a lot of things while I got paid. And then after I'd been on Oprah, I guess it's like four years ago now, after I was on that show, I was approached about maybe putting this philosophy into a book form and helping people write their own lists of things to do before they died. And the book is coming out in November.

Right, I saw that.

Yeah, you can order it now, but it's coming out in November, and it's a self-help book. ["Insert Dr. Phil joke here." -- Sars] It's like eight steps to writing your own list for life, your life contract.

Wow, you're a guru now.

Well, I've been doing this for a long time, and I've been doing a lot of motivational speaking, like companies get me to come in and talk to them about my experience, and talk to people about making their own lists, and so I really want to share this. And you know, to be honest with you, the point where I really felt even more motivated was back...and everybody talks about this as a pivotal moment in their lives, but it was for me...it was September 11th, I was sitting at home, we'd just launched Race 1. I could see a New York bus with the Amazing Race poster on the front -- every bus in New York had a poster of The Amazing Race. And there's a New York bus, and there's the poster, and it's all covered in dust, and then there's dust in front of the camera, and then these people covered in blood are walking onto the bus. And I just hated what I did right then. I just thought, "What I do doesn't mean anything." I just felt really...and I'm sure a lot of people felt like that. I wanted to be a doctor, or I wanted to be a lawyer, or...[has second thoughts, mutters], "lawyer."

Uh, yeah, you don't want to be a lawyer.

No, not a lawyer. But I wanted to be a doctor or a fireman or something useful in that moment. No, I definitely wouldn't be a lawyer. But seriously, it was like I just felt completely powerless, and I did a lot of soul-searching after that time, because I felt like, "Well, I really should be doing something that means something with my life," you know? Not that Race doesn't mean something, but...

Nah, I understand.

I just felt like maybe I have the power to do more, you know?

Uh-huh.

So it just pushed me more. I was already on the road to making this thing a reality, but it just gave me that extra "oomph" that I needed. And...doing something for others. You know, becoming less selfish from my original list. So at the top of my list was to make NOW a reality. And I'm a firm believer in writing things down and visualizing. So I got personalized license plates for my car that said NOW, so that every day, I was reminded [crazy electronic music plays] to, you know, do something towards NOW. And lo and behold, you know what they say, careful what you wish for? I had no idea this year was going to be as busy as it was, but...Race gets picked up, and then the book got sold, and NOW got picked up, and suddenly I realize I have a year where I don't have a day off, and I don't remember what sleep is.

I was going to say, I wouldn't think so.

I have done like a quarter of a million miles this year alone.

I was going to ask you that.

Well, 75,000 or whatever it was on Race 5 in February alone. I hit 100,000 on American Airlines in June...I just have been living on a plane, and I have never worked so hard in all my life. But I really am excited about this particular project, because I feel like it's actually...it's a powerful message that people can actually get something from. And I think Race has a lot of those great...I think the reason that people continue to gravitate towards Race is that it is a positive show that's entertaining. And I'm trying to do that with this show. You know, through entertaining people, inspire them. And this is probably a little more...you know, this show is more towards that motivational thing. And it's our first season out and everything, but I'm really pleased with it, and I'm really excited by it. People seem to be really responding well to it. I've been speaking to various critics, and this morning I did the satellite tour, and people who have seen it, they're like, "Wow, we were really jazzed by what we saw."

Well, that's great. What kind of stories did you do with people?

Well, you know, we got the whole gamut of dreams, and everything from a Jewish rapper who wanted to make a music video for his mother to prove to his mother that he was legit, and that he didn't have to be a lawyer or a doctor -- here we are going back to the lawyer thing again -- but, he didn't have to be a lawyer or a doctor just because he was Jewish, that he could be a rapper. To a woman who wanted to put on her own burlesque show, to a guy who wanted to make a movie in three days, to a guy who wanted to ride a bull for eight seconds, because he had an opportunity five years ago and he never got on the bull...a guy who wanted to face his fear of sharks...I've just done one on a guy who spent three days going to a wrestling school to become a wrestler.

Wow.

The whole point of the show is that we don't do anything to help these people other than clear their schedule for three days and give them a little bit of money. And people have said, "How come so little money? How come so little time?" And we're like, well, because most people don't have a lot of money, and most people don't have a lot of time. And the whole point is, what you can achieve with a small amount of time and a small amount of money.

So you don't want to create a situation where people will say, "Well, sure, if somebody came and gave me a month off of work and a million dollars, I could do..."

Exactly! And the whole point is that our show is really meant to be the antithesis to a lot of other reality shows, because we're trying to say...stop concentrating on what you don't have, and what you can't do, and really start to think about what do you have and what can you do? And so it really is about playing up that there is...if you use your imagination as your currency, it's better in the long run than looking into your wallet to try to pull out a wad of cash to make a better and richer life.

Yeah.

And, you know, I don't want to make it sound too preachy, but I think the whole message in the media right now is...you deserve a bigger house, you deserve a bigger car, you need money to be happy...

You need a makeover...

You need a makeover, you need to be this, you need to be that...I'm like, "Enough already." People are trying to attain things that are sometimes not realistic for their life. And you don't need to have the big house and the big whatever-it-is, and the big wad of cash to have a rich life. Or the makeover, or whatever it is. You can actually have a great life without that. And this whole slogan of "Imagination Is Your Currency," is to get everybody to go back to being resourceful. This country is the land of dreams. This is the country that was founded by people who were resourceful, who were imaginative, who were creative, and I feel like...we're getting more towards a sort of...you know, that easy fix. We're getting towards people looking for instant gratification. And I'm trying to say...no. Things come from hard work. And the satisfaction of getting your first home that you work for, or that job that you work so hard for, or setting up that business and reaping the rewards from that, taking that leap of faith and risking more to gain more is much better than looking for instant gratification.

And aspiring to some giant thing to fall out of the sky and land on your head that probably will never happen for most people.

Right, and I just am a firm believer that things come from hard work. Yes, luck will fall your way, but you make your own luck. And the only way you make your own luck is if you're ready to put in the hard work and make things happen. NOW -- for the book -- it's taken me four years of slog. I mean, when I first started, I was on my own, it's like nobody gets what you're doing, you're all on your own, and slowly, you try to build that momentum, and get people on your side, and then you -- well, you hopefully get there. And to me, so many shows where they hand people their dreams are vacuous. Because they don't care about the meat in the middle. Between the surprise of telling people they've been given an opportunity and the satisfaction of hopefully getting to some...place...they leave that out. The "Queen For a Day," these shows where it's sort of like handed to people, I find vacuous. Because if I said to you, you know, you've always wanted to climb Mount Everest, well let me plonk you up on top of Mount Everest...

Oh, sure.

While that would be really happy, and I could plonk you up there and while you'd feel a certain amount of satisfaction...

You wouldn't have done anything.

Right, you haven't walked up the mountain. And so you don't get that -- and that's what I'm looking for, and so...sometimes people don't attain everything that they want to. They set out to do something and they don't make it. And I put that in the show. I show that sometimes people don't make it. Sometimes they don't finish it in 72 hours. But at least they gave it a shot. At least they're not going to live with regret, and at least they're...they're not sitting back wondering, and they're not going to go through their life wondering or talking about "someday," "one day," "I might," or whatever. I'm trying to say to people...enough already. Just do it now, get on with it, write your list. Why are you getting up every day when you don't like what you're doing? Why are you not doing what you really want to do? You have to start doing it immediately. I had a near-death experience that forced me to start to live now. A friend of mine just got diagnosed with a disease...she's completely changed her life because of that. I'm saying to people, don't wait for that to happen. Start to think about it now. Put it down. If you don't know what you want to do, then what are you living for?

And what's so surprising to me is, I've asked a lot of people, "What is it you want to do with your life?" And a lot of times, I get a blank look, like..."I don't know." And to me, the hardest part is actually looking inside a little bit, and saying...well, what is it I want to do with my life? Like, why do I want to be here? Am I happy waking up on Monday morning and going to my job? And if I am not, then why am I not happy? And what can I do to change it, and what am I going to do to change it, and what am I doing today to change my life? And it's simple things that you can do. This weekend, tonight, tomorrow, this lunch break, whatever it is. And then there are things that are longer goals. But make sure you do them. And be imaginative and be original. And the ideas that we've got from people...everything from a guy who wanted to get everybody in America to join hands from one coast to the other [chuckles] to a transvestite who wanted to climb a pyramid in high heels [more crazy electronic music in the background], you know, all of these ideas are unique and original, and I'm trying to get people to be original. Because too many times, we kind of just are followers. And I love creative people. I get off on meeting people who are different and original.

Well, it's interesting, too, because it's an interesting thing to happen with a show like this, because when I was watching the Emmys, it occurred to me -- congratulations on the Emmy, by the way.

Thank you.

When I was watching, it occurred to me...you're watching all these people from a lot of different kinds of shows, which don't necessarily have that much to do with each other, all of the ones that are considered to be "reality shows," and there are all these people, and they're all sitting there, and you're sitting at the Emmys, and theoretically somebody's going to GET an Emmy, and yet you're sitting there and it's an endless stream of bug-eating reality show jokes. You know what I mean?

I know. I was a little disappointed that we had to be the butt of their jokes, but you know, to be honest, I think it's been hard, because -- of the shows that were nominated, I think they're all really good quality reality shows. I mean, I watch American Idol. I watch Survivor, because of, you know, my old connection [chuckles] with that show. And I've watched The Apprentice. I have not seen Last Comic Standing, to be honest. And I think Race -- I think all of the shows that were there, except I can't speak for Last Comic Standing, I think they deserved to be there. I think they're well-made shows that do entertain and I think they're well done. But there's so much rubbish that gets made that unfortunately, it spoils it for the rest of us on the rest of the shows. And so I can understand these people who are incredibly creative who are writers, and who have struggled so long to make it in network television who are tainted by all this other crap that's out there, in terms of their opinion of reality shows. Because let's be honest -- how many are actually really good? There's not a lot of really good ones. There's a lot of crap. [I wish you could hear Phil deliver this line. It's like, "There's a looooot of CRAP."] But to counter that argument, I would also say that there's a lot of crap drama and a lot of crap soap, and a lot of rubbish that's made. But unfortunately, because that genre's been around a lot longer, that stuff isn't like, "Oh, my God, did you see that terrible show that was played on such-and-such?" People don't talk about it, because they just know -- "Oh, yeah, this is some rubbishy sort of drama thing or comedy thing over here." So that doesn't make news, but God forbid a bad reality show comes out, everybody's writing about it. "Oh, there's this terrible thing now, and..."

And it doesn't make you say -- it seems to me that if there's a really trashy, terrible drama, people don't start to say, "Dramas are bad."

Exactly. But with reality? They say, "Look where it's going. Look how bad it is."

And it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I covered...after I covered Race the first couple times, but before I covered some of the other stuff, I covered, uh, Married By America. And I'll tell you right now, watching Married By America has nothing to do with watching any of the other better quality stuff that I've done.

Sure.

And it's not like you would watch that and say, "Okay, well, this says something about..." I mean, that show didn't say anything about anything except itself.

I absolutely agree. And you know, what we do on Race, and what I'm trying to do with this show, I think, is a lot harder. It's a lot harder to get traction with a show like this when you don't have really controversial, train-wreck moments of television.

And here's my -- I think one of the impressions that people had, one of the things that people talked about with Race this year, was that it did seem to have a little bit more of that stuff in it. And I think there was some concern about...you know, there's a lot of yelling...there's a lot of yelling at the animals...there's a lot of almost getting arrested...and it sort of felt a little -- there were parts of it that felt a little more train-wrecky than usual.

Well, you know, what we have is we throw all these people together in a pot and...I've said it before, that they are the writers of the show. And I think that you never...[crazy electronic music plays]. God, my phone just keeps ringing all the time.

[laughing] Is that what that is?

[Phil chuckles, puts end to crazy electronic music] Yeah. You never know what you're going to get until you mix it all together and you throw it out. And so I...I think that we just didn't know what was going to happen with this mix. But I think it reminded me more of Season One than ever before, and I think it's a strong season.

Really.

Yeah. I think in terms of the overall mix of characters, I think we got the best mix. One and Five felt very similar. And a lot of people, when we were out shooting Five, said, "Doesn't this feel like we're out doing Race 1 again?"