This is a copy/paste from Sensei's blog:
Great Read:
"F*ck yeah!"
Great Read:
Quote:
Well guess what? This week I got my wish. Because yesterday I had an hour-long phone conversation with my favorite Survivor. And I'm sure you'll believe me when I say it was pretty exciting.
Before I get too far into this story, I have to say that I wouldn't have met Chris without the help of a friend of mine from MySpace. I don't want to say his or her name (because I don't want them to be inundated with requests to meet Survivors) but if this person want to reply to this, they can. You know who you are.
Anyway, Mystery Friend X was friends with Sarge. So Friend X passed along the Funny 115 link to Sarge (who is in Iraq), and asked Sarge to please pass it along to Chris as a personal favor. Sarge did. And that's how I ended up getting a very nice unexpected email from Chris Daugherty's wife, Lorie.
Lorie and Chris don't own a computer. So they've never really been a part of the online Survivor world. In fact their only real link to online stuff at all is if Lorie prints things out from her computer at work. And that's exactly what happened. Sarge sent Lorie the link. Lorie loved the Funny 115. So she printed out reams and reams of paper and brought it all home for Chris to read.
And that's how I ended up talking to them.
So far, I've ended up speaking to Lorie two times on the phone (as well as exchanging numerous emails). And then yesterday I finally got to talk to Chris. Apparently he's not much of a phone person, so Lorie was pretty impressed that we actually had an hour long conversation. I got to ask Chris lots of questions about Vanuatu and Survivor. I wish I could remember everything we talked about (at least the stuff I'm allowed to repeat) but here are some of the highlights you might find interesting:
* Remember when I called Chris, "The winner in the wifebeater." Well, Lorie and Chris weren't familiar with that term. I didn't realize it wasn't a widespread slang word. Perhaps it's just a West Coast phrase. I had to explain that a "wifebeater" was just a slang term for a sleeveless tank top. I even sent the wikipedia entry to prove I didn't just make that up.
* Speaking of his famous red shirt, Chris said that wasn't even his shirt in the first place. When he packed it in his bag, it was just a plain old red T-shirt. But the night before they started filming, the production team cut off the sleeves and the neckhole and turned it into a tank top. Chris's theory was that the producers just wanted all the players to freeze out there. But yeah, that was never even his wifebeater in the first place.
* Chris shared some interesting gossip about the Yasur tribe. He said that LeeAnn was the real mastermind behind that whole women's alliance. It wasn't Ami. In fact, if anything, Ami was covering for LeeAnn by intentionally putting herself out there as "the bad guy." LeeAnn was the player who was really calling the shots. That sort of changes the entire way you look at Vanuatu, now, doesn't it?
* The popular stance among internet fans is that "Twila got robbed" and "Twila would have won if the jury had a chance to vote again." Chris told me that this subject even came up when the Vanuatu cast was recording the commentary for the DVD. Apparently things got so heated among the cast that they actually had to stop the recording and settle down before things got out of control. And it was at this point that the jury decided to vote again. Since most of them were there in the commentary room, they decided to test Twila's theory that she would have won if the jury had a chance to vote again. And guess what? Not only did Chris win this time too, he actually won by one more vote. He won in the revote, 6-1, because Scout switched her vote to Chris. So just keep that in mind before you spout off that Twila got robbed in Vanuatu. Chris also won the unofficial "revote."
* Chris isn't really a construction worker like it said on the TV show. He's actually a site inspector for the state of Ohio. He still has the same job that he had before Vanuatu.
* On the night that John K. was voted off, Chris stole his socks. They all knew that John was going home (because he was completely out of the loop regarding alliances), and Chris desperately needed some socks to stay warm. So he swiped John's socks right before Tribal Council.
* The day after Chad was voted out, all the producers kept begging Chris not to quit. For some reason they were all petrified he was going to give up and throw in the towel once he was the last male left in the game. Chris said it got annoying that they kept asking him so often about it.
* John P. was originally going to be the first Lopevi member to leave the game, but the guys decided to keep him because he was actually trying to make fire. Brook was deemed much less valuable to the tribe so they dumped him instead. Chris made almost all the decisions on Lopevi about was going to get booted, and Sarge will back this up if you even ask him. Sarge wanted to boot Rory a few episodes later but Chris convinced him toboot Brady instead.
* Chris and Bubba made an alliance almost the very first minute of the game. Chris didn't let on that he knew how Survivor worked, he just told Bubba that he knew "numbers are important." And the only reason Bubba trusted Chris so much is because he always trusts guys with ponytails. That's an actual quote. Bubba trusted Chris because Bubba always trusts guys with ponytails.
* Remember how the "Fat Five" alliance formed against the younger guys on Lopevi? Chris said that division started before they even got out to start the game. The cast was sequestered for five days before the game. They were all locked together in a lodge somewhere and weren't allowed to communicate or anything. But it became obvious that the four younger guys of Lopevi were all passing notes or doing non verbal things to try to catch one another's attention. So according to Chris, the fat five/young four split was in place before the tribe even made it to Camp Lopevi. In fact Sarge even called the young guys on it the very first night on the beach.
* Apparently Scout and Twila were horribly mean to Eliza. It was apparently much worse than we even saw on TV. Eliza was never going to vote for either of them in the jury, and that's why Chris wanted her so desperately on the jury at the end. He said Eliza was one of the sweetest people he's ever met and it was amazing how downright cruel people were to her.
* In one of my favorite entries on the Funny 115, I talked about how Chris screamed the F-word when he won, and how he was the first winner ever to do that. Well, Chris confirmed for me that the phrase he yelled was "Fuck yeah!" and he had been explicitly told not to do that. Before the final vote, the producers pulled Chris and Twila aside and told them that no matter who won, they were expected to shake hands and congratulate the other person. But when Chris won, he got so excited he just screamed "Fuck yeah!" and ran out to the crowd to hug his family. If you'll notice the bottom of my Chris entry, you'll see I was laughing at one of Chris's family member who was mugging for the camera. That guy (the camera hog) is Chris's nephew. He was so excited to mug for the camera that he actually knocked Lorie (Chris's wife) out of the way and sent her sprawling. That's why Lorie isn't anywhere in that final shot.
* The scene where Chris begs Eliza to vote off LeeAnn was apparently much, much longer and much more detailed than they showed on TV. He had to do a lot of convincing because Eliza was scared to death that Twila and Scout were going to come back and betray her. The only logic that Chris could use at all was by saying, "If you don't vote for LeeAnn, you're going to go home tonight instead." That reasoning finally worked.
* When Chris came back from Vanuatu, he had a pretty good idea that he had won. And he was excited because he knew it would be the greatest comeback in the history of Survivor. He now had the single best storyline of any Survivor winner, ever, and he was excited to see how people were going to react. I actually asked Chris about this subject a few times. I asked him if he was aware that Vanuatu was an incredibly unpopular season when it aired, and if it sucked to know that people didn't really get into it. And eventually Chris admitted that yes, he was a little hurt that people weren't excited by it. Like me, he was baffled by the fact that so many people were actively rooting against him. I shared with Chris my theory on why this probably happened. I've always said that Vanuatu's popularity was hurt by the facts that:
A) Probst didn't sell the ending because he was too close to Julie.
B) The first three episodes were sort of boring and it's hard to recover from that.
C) Survivor's core online audience is made up of women and gay males, and neither one of those groups wanted to see some cocky guy waltz in and make these tough women all look like fools.
But yeah, Chris was always a little saddened by the fact that the audience never really got behind his storyline. So shame on you, audience. I've always thought that you guys blew this one.
* Oh yeah, and finally, Chris and Twila had a deal during Vanuatu that no matter whoever won, the winner would buy the other person a Harley. But Chris never actually came through with that promise after the show. I asked him why, and he just laughed. "Fuck that! A Harley costs more than the actual prize money!"
So anyway that was my chat with my favorite Survivor of all time. Chris Daugherty was a really nice guy, and he actually had a lot of fun stuff to say once he got into it. And I may talk to him again in a few weeks, so if anybody has any questions they'd like me to ask, just let me know.
I'd like to personally thank Chris Daugherty, Lorie Daugherty (who is really funny, and a huge fan of the show!) and Mystery Friend X for setting this whole thing up. So thanks, everybody. I really enjoyed it!
"F*ck yeah!"
