Surviving Survivor:
Bill Vaughn's Loose Lips
Notes on episode thirteen: Old Soldiers Never Die.

By Bill Vaughn

Pathfinder Video

But Klub Rudy lives. Because of Commander Boesch's courage in the face of relentless Pagong cuteness, not to mention niceness and huggability, and because of his unwavering loyalty to the Tagi Alliance, tribemate Richard Hatch surprised the world by becoming Mark Burnett's first Really Big Cheese.

It was Rudy's oath to stand by the Fat Butt-Naked Queer to the final death vote that enabled the corporate trainer from Rhode Island to chopper off Pulau Tiga with a million smackers tucked in his pocket -- er, fleshy folds. When the Rudester's hand slipped off the totem idol by mistake during the ultimate Immunity Challenge, giving the Tagi traitor Kelly Wiglesworth the win, he knew his rat was skewered. But he did not whine, he did not ask for favor, nor did not point to scapegoats, praise the Lord. "I gave away a million bucks," the war hero said. "It's nobody's fault but mine." And because I predicted many weeks ago that the Rudester would never ever walk the Walk of Shame, I will now eat my crow, which tastes surprisingly like rat, and ask for seconds.

How could this miscalculation happen? After all, you might say, fingers pointing, voices raised in a harsh chorus of yadayada, you're a trained journalist, Vaughn, and you saw the island with your own bloodshot eyes, the island all of us were forced to witness through the lenses of CBS. All true, I admit. And I stand before you, dear readers, deeply regretful that I didn't push my sources to the wall and put a shiv to their throats.

"It's the cranky old guy that wins," I learned from certain young CBS contractors soon after filming wrapped on April 20. Once the unstable B.B. Anderson was heaved off the island -- the second bootee -- I assumed "cranky" and "old" could only apply to the Rudester. But to someone in his early twenties, these adjectives, I see now, could apply as well to the 39-year-old Richard Hatch.

I didn't take sufficient time to weigh this possibility because I was all full of myself after eavesdropping on CBS crew people at the Magellan Sutera Hotel in Malaysia, where I learned that both Joel and Ramona would get early death votes. I published these names in "Survive This," of course, before the toothsome New Jersey chemist became the fourth ejectile, and the buffed Arkansas salesman the sixth.

There's a lesson here for you kids, of course. I just can't figure out what it is.

Some might say that Burnett's Borneo crews -- perhaps anticipating the cottage industry of prognosticators that grew up around his show -- filmed multiple Survivor endings.

But that conspiracy theory is cold comfort to the millions of Rudy fans who have no idea what to do with their lives now that The Commander is gone. Sadness not only rules the Atlantic Fleet on this day, but also the multitudes who are still hung over from last night's festivities at the gazillion Survivor parties that were held all over our fine Republic. At one such lavish fete in Carlsbad, California, thrown at the home of Victor and Marcia Lieberman, the yard is still strewn with tissues. Many of the guests went home weeping.

"The Rudester has been such a part of our lives," Marcia opined, remembering those many special Rudy moments.

Like when 63-year-old Sonja Christopher was heaved off the island after tripping and falling during the Immunity Challenge, thus costing her Tagi tribemates the win. "You hate to put an old dog to sleep," the ex-Navy Seal observed, "but you know you just got to." Or when he told Richard Hatch that the minute the show was over "I'm gonna shake your hand and hope I never see you again."

We all laughed and cried when Rudy was handed a shirt during the first immunity challenge on Day 37 in order to identify its owner, and promptly lifted the garment to his nose.

There are a couple of consolations, however. First, the new season of Sopranos is now only four months away. Or, if you can't wait that long for your next dose of cruel, check out "Battlebots" on Comedy Central, which features homemade robots fighting each other to the "death."

Finally, if you lost the rent betting on Rudy I know how you can make it back, plus some.

Put your money on the Chicago Cubs to win the National League pennant.