Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: In AL, which sucks
Posts: 500
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Goth Couple on CBS The Amazing Race
Louisville couple Goth and loving it
Contestants hope to dispel myths on 'The Amazing Race'
What you see is not what you really get, say two contestants from Louisville on "The Amazing Race" at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS.
They're Kynt Cothron, 31, and Vyxsin Fiala, 29, who besides standing up for their hometown, will be representing the local Goth community, people dedicated to the Gothic lifestyle. Their hairstyles, makeup, offbeat clothes, not to mention name spellings, make them stand out, to say the least. But the couple say they'll be able to stand up for who and what they are.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't a lot of Goth people on TV," said Fiala, "only on daytime makeover shows where they try to make Goth people not Goth anymore."
In their other lives they're waiters who look like everybody else. She works at Ramsi's Cafe on the World, and he takes orders at Texas Roadhouse. Off the job they're something else -- and maybe not what you think.
"People think of Goths as depressed, socially inept basement dwellers," Cothron said. "We're here to show them it's actually a celebration of beauty, intellectualism and individualism."
Fiala is anything but down in the dumps.
"The perception is Goth people are gloomy and sort of reclusive and depressing," she said, "but I would feel gloomy and depressed if there wasn't such a thing as Goth," she said, explaining that it gives her a channel for the creative part of her personality.
"The Amazing Race" producers, who undoubtedly picked them because they are different, say their lifestyle gives them a stronger drive to win as an "us against the world" couple. They are also unlikely contestants for a TV show in more ways than that.
"We're not actually big watchers of television," said Fiala. "Some reality shows can be kind of absurd."
If they watch anything, it's probably the Sci-Fi Channel and "The Amazing Race."
Fiala said the show is "fun to watch" because "it's more of an adventure." They loved it so much they decided to become a part of it.
"We saw an advertisement that they were ready to cast season 12, so we rushed out and put in an application," Cothron said. They made an audition tape, sent it in, and several months later the phone rang with an offer to join up.
The audition tape was personal. "We talked about how we met," Fiala said. She first saw Cothron when he was handing out fliers for a Goth event. "I decided he was the cutest thing I'd ever seen," she recalled. The twosome teamed up and have been hanging out together for three years. They may share a Goth lifestyle, but they're opposites in other ways.
"Even though I sort of have a prissy air about me and love makeup and silly clothes, my family was in the Army and extremely outdoorsy," she said. "We always went camping, and I started repelling (rock climbing) when I was a kid."
"I'm the exact, polar opposite," said Cothron. "I've done very little of a physical nature in my life other than liking dancing."
"The Amazing Race" can be a very physical contest at times, so they decided they'd better get in shape.
"Vyxsin took me camping for the first time in my life, which was very traumatic," Cothron said. "It was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life," Fiala said. It turns out he was a little at odds with the outdoors.
"He cannot stand it if it's raining," Fiala said, "even if he has an umbrella. He's like a cat if a drop of water gets on him. He has a little tantrum because he's afraid it will mess up his makeup. He likes his air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter."
"It was really difficult to apply my mascara in a pup tent," he admitted. The hardest part of being on the "Race" was packing.
"We're a little on the high-maintenance side," he said. "We had our hair dryers, our flat irons, makeup and all these things, and we like clothes … fashion is our passion."
People may get some other wrong ideas about the twosome.
"People look at us and wonder what the gender-power dynamic is between us," she said. "(But) Kynt is the head of the team on the 'Race' and off," she said. "It's so funny because people think I'm some sort of Amazon."
He believes that misperception could work in their favor on the show.
"When those other contestants lay an eye on us for the first time I know exactly what they're going to be thinking," he said. "They'll be thinking this team can't do it … they'll be more concerned about their eyeliner than winning. The fact is the other teams aren't going to realize how lethal we are until we're miles, if not days, ahead of them," he said. That doesn't mean they won't be worried about competing.
"The hardest part of being on the show," said Fiala, "was the fear of being eliminated. Every team wants to do well and win, and only one team is gonna do it. That was nerve-racking because your fate is not in your own hands."
Cothron agreed. "Elimination means the adventure continues without you."
There was a lot of stressful and even scary stuff along the way, but she loved the journey.
"The good far outweighed the bad, and we had an awesome time and got to do it together," she said. "That's what is special about 'The Race' versus other reality shows. You're kind of on your own but have the experience with someone you're the closest to."
The 12th edition of the show will find the teams globetrotting 30,000 miles to places such as Ireland, Croatia and Lithuania. (The season has all been taped, but contestants sign a contract that forbids them from disclosing the outcome.)
Cothron and Fiala knew they'd be in a battle for the million-dollar prize, so they bought all the past seasons of the show they could get on DVD and studied them.
"One thing we saw is how much time these teams waste on arguing," he said, "how much energy they expend cursing the world and bicker, bicker, bicker." Fiala said she knew she had the best partner possible.
"Kynt is definitely more level-headed under stress," she said. "Pretty much anything can happen, and he's totally calm, clear-headed and lucid."
He describes himself as a get-on-with-it guy.
"I prefer to keep my sights on solving the problem," he said. "There will be problems. One day we'll be driving down some road, and we'll have a flat tire or the carburetor will blow up out in the middle of nowhere. If you go into it with that in mind, it's not going to be a disaster."
They were confident going in.
"We're really excited about bringing something brand new to 'The Amazing Race,' " he said, "with a new approach to the game, a new spirit and we hope to surprise a lot of people.
And what would they do with the dough if they crossed the finish line first?
Fiala said, "I would purchase one of those little grills and I would take it home and take my server apron and set it on fire and I would say, 'Yea, no more!' "
"The first thing I would spend my half of the million on," Cothron said, "is laser hair removal so I would never have to shave again," he said.
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Looks like the season has already started. Might be cool if they did win, but I'm not so sure about the matching pink/white zebra striped shirts they had on. Just wanted to share!!
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