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TAR 21: James LoMenzo & Mark “Abba” Abbattista "Friends"

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http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-james-lomenzo-and-mark-abba-abbattista-talk-the-amazing-race-%28part-1%29-14105.php

Exclusive: James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbattista talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 1)

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/19/2012

James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbattista were eliminated from The Amazing Race during Sunday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 21st season.

The "Friends" team became the sixth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's eighth Pit Stop at Sokolniki Park's public performance pavilion in Moscow, Russia in last place. The pair's primary reason for finishing in last place appeared to be because they were forced to waste most of their time during the leg trying to find their stolen bags and retrieve Abba's passport in order to continue on, but they failed to get their hands on both of them.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, James and Abba talked about their The Amazing Race experience.

Below is the first half of James' and Abba's interview. Check back with Reality TV World on Tuesday for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: Do you have any idea how long you guys spent looking for Abba's passport?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: That night, when we checked in initially with [The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan], we had been sort of given the opportunity, like, "Listen, you can either quit or, because there's still teams out running there, technically, you're still in the Race. So what do you want to do?"

And I was like, "Well, that was an easy choice." So we wound up going and we went to kind of a big hotel chain to a concierge, we had police come in, we tried to fill out police reports -- it was a crazy long night.

And then the next day was kind of the same thing, where we had been inside of Interpol, we had been to several different police stations, we were filling out with the hope that maybe this guy got [feeling] guilty and threw the bag out a window somewhere and maybe just realized that there wasn't much in there or somebody found it -- who knew.

These were all kind of hopes, but that's all we had at that point. (Laughs) So we tried our best, and what happened was too that it was a Friday and a Saturday night, and the Tuesday was the Russian Independence Day. So because of the holiday, all the Russian government buildings were also closed that week.

We happened to run into something else, so it was just bad timing all around. So basically, it was our whole time. And then even afterwards, when we were eliminated, we still had to get home. I mean, this wasn't just a TV show. This was real life.

We had to get out of Russia, so we ended up going to the U.S. Embassy, it took a couple days to get a passport, and then we also had to go and get a Russian visa to exit the country. And the Russian Democratic system is not very flexible, so through a lot of pounding and perseverance, it was about six days before we got the visa.

Reality TV World: Could you explain why you couldn't check in without having both passports when you first got to the Pit Stop in fourth place but then were able to check in later? Is there a rule about that or could you at least talk about what explanation you were given?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: I can't explain that, and it was kind of weird because just this morning I was reading something online, and somebody asked that same question, like, "How come they were able to -- if the passport didn't make a difference when they came in on the final leg, why did it make a difference when they came in fourth?"

And you know what? I never even really thought about it until I read it. So no, I have no explanation. Looking back, maybe we should've been entitled to come in fourth. That might've changed the next day and our ability to maybe do something. I don't think so, I mean, I don't think that it had an impact. But that I can't answer. I don't know!

Reality TV World: Do you know whether the fact the next leg was taking place in the same country or the fact that the leg was a non-elimination was why you were allowed to check in and survive? Because when the same thing happened back in Season 15 with Zev Glassenberg and Justin Kanew lost his passport, and they weren't allowed to check in at all. They were immediately disqualified.

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: Yeah, but that was also because they had movement the next day. So because we had the second leg in Russia, we did not have a need for the passport on that first leg. Obviously we needed it for the second leg, and that was the cause for the disqualification. We couldn't move on. But we didn't need a passport to end that first leg.

James LoMenzo: Right, so theoretically when you check in and the next leg goes to a different country, I mean factually, then you have to have your passport to move on. So that's why we got that extra day out of it.

Reality TV World: Just to clarify a little bit, is it normal for Racers to leave their bags in a cab maybe because it tends to be the safe or easiest thing to do or was that just a case for you guys in which you meant to take them with you but forgot them? Because it seems like you're always taking a risk that your cab might take off even with your belongings inside.

James LoMenzo: Beth, that was a totally calculated risk. Throughout the whole Race, and I said this before, I kept telling [Natalie and Nadiya Anderson], "Look girls, you can't" -- because they kept leaving their bags in their cabs and made the cabs wait. So I said, "Listen, that's a bad idea. You never know if they're going to take off."

So clearly I was aware of that. When we got to the bridge with the "trees of love," we had found the clue box. We assumed that we were going to grab the clue and then get right back in and go. We had such a tough time that day getting cabs that we thought we were just going to grab the thing -- grab the clue and go.

So then when it turned out the challenge was taking place right there and we took an extra minute to set up the challenge, then we were like, "Oh jeeze, okay, get the cab and tell him to wait. Whatever."

And by that time, he had already gone. So, it was really weird because there was a moment when I was about to step out of the cab and grab my bag and I realized that Abba's bag was in the trunk, and so I was just like, "Ahh, we'll just grab the clue and then we'll come back."

So it was one of those fast decisions. It wasn't like -- it wasn't something that I would recommend anybody do during the Race. And again, I cautioned other people...

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: I'm going to go back and take a look at this, because I bet every single team did exactly that. Because the clue box was only like 50 feet away from the cab. You could see it very clearly. We had not paid the cab, and as soon as we got out of the car, he drove away. It was a conscious act and intent to steal our bag.

And that was the only time that had ever happened and we had ever left our bags. So I mean, it was just an odd situation. Why was my passport in the bag? Because we had come out of the pool. There were towels in the room with the pool but not in the locker room.

And when I came into the locker room, I didn't have a towel and all my clothes were soaking wet and I had my passport in my pocket, took it out, put it in the bag -- otherwise, it never would have been in the bag, and we would've been able to move forward. So it was just a very unfortunate sort of string of circumstances that really just kind of fell into a bad way for us that day.

But we got a six-day all-expense paid trip out of it to Moscow. Had we won the leg, we would've been getting the same trip, and so that's kind of what we view it as.

Reality TV World: Speaking of unfortunate incidents, during a prior leg of the Race, you guys accidentally dropped $100 and Natalie and Nadiya picked it up and stole it. They even admitted during the episode they knew it was yours, so what was your reaction when you found out it was actually another team who took your money?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: Yeah, we found out by watching it that night on television. We saw it two days before or whatever on a commercial, and that was sort of news to us what had happened.

So you know, I wish it didn't happen from their point of view. I wish that they had made a better decision. We liked both of those teams. [Trey Wier and Alexis "Lexi" Beerman], it was pretty shocking that they went along and did that -- [split the money with the twins].

But you know what? We used it as sort of an opportunity to go, "Hey, you know what? We had a problem here." Looking back at it, the rearview mirror is probably not kind of the way that you learn how to drive -- by looking at pictures of car crashes -- it's too late at that point to make a decision. But we went about it level-headed.

We thought, "Okay, here's this problem." And we very successfully corrected that problem, and we had a wonderful day there with the generosity of these people in Bangladesh, and no other team go to experience the day that we had. And that was kind of the beauty of it. And if there was some kind of almost like a little bit of a "haha"-kind of vengeance, it was that we would have beaten that team anyway.

We beat the twins that day, you know? So yeah, you know, we got hit with a lemon and we made lemonade out of it that day. The next day we got hit with another lemon (laughs) -- We didn't have any water that day though. We just got hit with lemons. (Laughs) I don't know.

James LoMenzo: We made smoothies the next day. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: When I recently talked to Rob French and Kelley Carrington-French, they said that Natalie and Nadiya -- if not Trey and Lexi as well -- should've received a penalty of some kind for stealing your money -- maybe even going as far as eliminating them from the Race. Do you have any thoughts on that or what kind of penalty they should've gotten, if anything at all?

James LoMenzo: They should've been struck with a wet noodle. They didn't break any of the rules as they're written before the game. I mean, they basically picked up our money off the floor. It's more of a moral question then, because I'm sure production would've been right on that, you know?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: There are rules that say they're not allowed to steal or vandalize any of the other teams' property. And apparently, the Race made a decision that this wasn't technically stealing, you know? And we were the only people in the room. There were six of us there and four of them were huddled around kind of dancing with money that they found.

It was a lot of U.S. dollars, and if we had been at [a] McDonalds, I think I would've felt a little differently about it -- [or a] Dunkin' Donuts I think they made a bad decision. I think that the public outcry sort of happened after that. It's just kind of the result of their actions, and you know what? Let them deal with it. And we didn't do that, so you know, we'll stay on the high road.

Above is the first half of James' and Abba's interview. Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion.

bc922:
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-james-lomenzo-and-mark-abba-abbattista-talk-the-amazing-race-%28part-2%29-14109.php

Exclusive: James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbattista talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 2)

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/20/2012

James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbattista were eliminated from The Amazing Race during Sunday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 21st season.
 
The "Friends" team became the sixth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's eighth Pit Stop at Sokolniki Park's public performance pavilion in Moscow, Russia in last place. The pair's primary reason for finishing in last place appeared to be because they were forced to waste most of their time during the leg trying to find their stolen bags and retrieve Abba's passport in order to continue on, but they failed to get their hands on both of them.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, James and Abba talked about their The Amazing Race experience.
 
Below is the concluding portion of James' and Abba's interview. Click here to read the first half.

Reality TV World: Referring to how Natalie Anderson and Nadiya Anderson had stolen your $100 cash when they found it, what would you have done if you were in their shoes and discovered another team's lost money? Would you have returned it?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: Yeah, I think that, again, if you found money on the street somewhere and it was local money, I think that the answer would be different. But we were in a room, in a travel agency, and we were the only ones there and it was really an exorbitant amount of U.S. dollars in that society.

So you knew it was somebody's, and I just kind of think that the decision they made -- again, I can try to understand it, but I think they made a bad one, you know? It's not, I don't think, something we would've done. I hope not anyway, because again, you are on-camera and people are watching you.

Not that that makes it any different. I just think the camera, if you're a good person, it magnifies it. Well, I shouldn't say that. When you do a good thing, it's magnified. And when you do a bad thing, it's also magnified.

Reality TV World: Obviously you guys got kind of lucky because you were right near the financial district when you lost the $100, but were you still shocked you were able to gather all that money back, especially as quickly as you managed to?

James LoMenzo: We were floored. Floored. We didn't expect it was going to be -- it wasn't incredibly easy, but we didn't expect it to come to us like it did. It was merely, we were just kind of reaching out to people and asking them... One of the fellas, it almost looked like he was giving us the money, but what he had actually done was he held a cab for us.

It was actually a very funny moment because the cab he held for us, the guy refused to take us. So he made this big speech the guy, he was like, "These are guests in our country! We have to show them that we treat them as guests." And then the guy goes, "But my cab is broken." And he goes, "I don't believe you." So then the guy got out of the car and in fact, his back bumper practically fell off. (Laughs)

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: There was no floor in the backseat either. (Laughs) He said, "I'd take them but my car is broken!" And the guy was like, "I don't believe it!" I thought they were like going to get in a fight, you know? And he was like, "There's no floor!" And I was like, "Thanks anyway. We'll take the next one."

James LoMenzo: But then the guy found us a good cab and he was really representing on behalf of everyone in Bangladesh. It was beautiful. We had a great time trying to find our way out of that problem.

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: That was also a great time in retrospect, because that was happening and it was 110 degrees and life was pretty miserable, you know? But it was one of those things where you're like, "Okay, you know what? Today is maybe not going our way, but it's not over yet."

And I think that that was just sort of -- we really did try to make the best out of whatever little we had. And it was pretty unbelievable that the people there were as generous as they were with the little that they had.

Reality TV World: During last night's episode, we saw you had to complete a Speed Bump task but viewers didn't get to see anything between that moment and when you got eliminated. What was the Speed Bump task and how long did it take you to complete it?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: James had to drink a milkshake through a straw in his nose.

James LoMenzo: It was pretty hard to do.

Reality TV World: What?! (Laughs)

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: (Laughs)

James LoMenzo: No, we had to find the church. We were sitting in a limo and we had to direct the guy -- obviously in an English, Russian translation -- where to go directly to this church and not make too many wrong turns because there were a lot of one-way streets.

It was around the university, so it could've gone really badly. We were kind of hoping when we showed up to the church that the guy would like pull our passport out of the contribution box or something.

What you didn't see was we got back and we did actually complete one more task. Abba took on the "time zone" challenge. He just whizzed through it. It was shocking. I wish they had -- were able to show that last night, because I mean, he was probably quicker than [Brent Ridge], I believe.

We sat there for maybe -- I think we went through five tries and then we were on our way. So we were hell-bent on completing the course whether we were winning or losing -- passports or not. We thought it was very important to finish up while we were there.

Reality TV World: So did you also do the Detour task as well or just the "time zone" Roadblock you just mentioned?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: No, the Detour -- by that time, because this was well into the second day, I don't think that those tasks were available to us anymore. Because we had spent most of the day running all over town to the police station and all that.

James LoMenzo: Yeah, we never did the Detour.

Reality TV World: While you guys were on the show, which teams did you believe were your toughest competition and why?

James LoMenzo: That kept changing week by week, so it's really hard to call that one. You know, we kind of didn't feel like -- some of the teams we didn't feel like were our biggest competition, like the monster truck guy. We thought he was kind of weighing himself down with the bags they were carrying and stuff like that -- and maybe that isn't the best decision.

There were a couple teams like that where you kind of look at them and go, "Well, I don't think they're really going to keep up with us." But at the same time, we didn't underestimate anybody just because that would make us weaker, actually. So we kind of gave everybody the best props.

Reality TV World: Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz have obviously been coming across as an extremely competitive team this season. So considering the last two legs, were you guys surprised they actually stay with Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent and wanted to race with them and wait for them in certain tasks? What was your reaction to all that?

James LoMenzo: They're just beautiful, lovely people, and we'd expect no less from them. (Laughs) I wonder how much of that was purely out of necessity and I wonder how much of that might have been because of just Josh and Brent.

I don't know. I guess what happens when you're in those situations, it's best to keep people close to you, you know? I think that's the old mafia rule, right? Keep your enemies closer.

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: I think Josh and Brent, they played everything with, again, a certain maturity and class to them. They were very kind of open with people. Abbie and Ryan came at this thing from a whole different kind of way -- not just what you see on TV. That's what was really happening there. So yeah, I was actually a little bit surprised that they held out and waited for them.

I wasn't sure when I first saw it if it was just kind of some ploy to kind of go, "Well, we don't want them" -- like look, you're the last two teams. What are you going to do? You're going to race each other? Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to break that.

So you know, I mean, in a foot race, I think I would take, again, Abbie and Ryan over the other two. And I think they would probably say that too. So I was kind of expecting sort of some little kind of last minute race to the mat kind of thing. So I was a little surprised by it, but you know, I don't think surprises mean too much in this Race because it changes everyday.

Reality TV World: Zev Glassenberg and Justin Kanew ended up making it on an All-stars edition after being eliminated in their first The Amazing Race season for a similar passport issue as you guys had? Would you guys ever be interested in doing something like that?

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: Right now, I wouldn't even change. I'd grab my passport. That's the one thing I would do. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: And keep it on you at all times? (Laughs)

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: You know, I've kept it on me my entire life up until now! -- at all times. I think it would be an honor if we were asked. I think that the response we received back from people watching -- the fans of the show -- has been wonderful for us. It's nice to feel appreciated and supported like that. Obviously we think this is the best show on television.

It's got the hardware -- the Emmys -- to prove it. After being there and watching the way that it's put together, it's really an honor. It's really a top-shelf unbelievable production with how this television show comes about. To be asked back, I think it would certainly provide us an opportunity to try and kind of write something that kind of happened to us.

And also, I think the fact that we didn't feel like we were beaten by another team sort of leaves a little bit of unfinished business that I think we might have that the other teams may not. So again, if it happens, we'd love to do that. And yeah, go knock on CBS and keep telling them you want us. (Laughs)

James LoMenzo: We definitely didn't go out on a positive in this case, so we'd definitely like to get back to where we were. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: How were you guys cast on The Amazing Race? How did you end up on the show?

James LoMenzo: We did it like everyone else. We submitted a video tape and some information and it was that simple. We just decided to do it. It's that simple -- just like everybody else gets.

Mark "Abba" Abbattista: We supplied the online application. I live in Colorado, and in Denver, there was apparently an open casting call here -- which I didn't even know about. But you know what? Yeah, we just -- we went through the application process like everybody else and for all the people that always sort of say, "How do we get on?" It's one word -- apply!

I think that probably the fact of our occupations are somewhat kind of a novelty, the way that we look with the long hair, things like that -- again, I think we made a nice team. We were something different obviously to look at.

I think our stories of how we got to this point in life hopefully are kind of interesting to people, and I think our friendship is real. And I think everyone saw that. I think we've lived pretty adventurous, interesting lives up to this point. And I don't see that changing. It's only going to get better.

Above is the concluding portion of James' and Abba's interview.

serendipity:
After reading their interviews I really hope to see them in All Stars.  They are very funny and are always so positive!   :hrt:

To me, the producers owe them for not penalizing Natalie/Nadiya of stealing and that's already a valid reason to invite them racing again!

Alenaveda:
James LoMenzo ‏@BassiusMaximus

Thanks for all your good wishes for us on The Amazing Race, It was a grand adventure! Fun to share it! More stuff ahead, stay tuned!

11:27 am - 21 nov 12

ovalorange:
Such a bummer to see them go, especially like that. I was just starting to really like them :(

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