|
Surviving Survivor:
Bill Vaughn's Loose Lips
Notes on Episode Five: Dirk Swims with the Fishes
By Bill Vaughn
 |
Pathfinder Video
|
In the end, not even the Creator had enough clout to prevent Dirk's Tagi tribemates from booting him off the island in the fifth episode of Survivor, which aired on Wednesday, June 28. The bible-thumping dairy farmer began to seem slightly wigged out a couple of episodes ago by the heat and his failure to catch fish, and also by truck driver Susan's
relentless nagging: "How's the fishing?" "Catch anything?" "Where's the fish?" But it was Dirk's cloying evangelical zeal as much as his growing skinniness and deteriorating physical condition that finally convinced Susan and Rudy and the others that The Believer just had to go. His banishment was set up, of course, by Kelly getting her butt kicked in the
rowing contest by Gervase, which resulted in a Tagi defeat by Tribe Pagong. "I got beat by a guy who can't even fucking swim," Kelly lamented.
No one cares about Dirk, but where have all the fish gone? Is it a simple case of over-fishing? Is there some connection between these bereft seas and the mysterious slick reported last year on the windward side of Pulau Tiga? East Malaysian authorities began cracking down a year ago on local fishermen who were so frustrated with the dearth of finny
protein they had begun dynamiting the area's reefs to bring up the bacon. The stingrays Richard speared and the eel he caught last night seem to be the only things swimming around, except for the sea kraits, the deadly serpents that make eels their favorite meal.
What are your thoughts on the recent Survivor episodes? Who would you have voted off the island? Share your views in our
Survivor Forum.
So what's with all the jewelry and geegaws the contestants are wearing? Isn't this supposed to be a pristine wilderness where man and woman, naked under the sky, stripped of the decadent accoutrements of civilization, go to find out who they really are? Check out the hardware wrapped around Richard's neck, for example. And Sean's nipple ring. And Kelly's
collection of earrings and clips. Or Susan's matching Wal-Mart-quality turquoise ear bobs and necklace? What are these people doing all day when they're not on camera? Shopping?
If the government of the state of Sabah is right, and Americans are going to be attracted to north Borneo in droves because of this CBS monster hit, they're going to find plenty to see and do and smell and taste in places other than the Survivor island of Pulau Tiga. For one thing, they can fly up to Sandakan and see the wildlife at the Sepilok Orangutan
Centre. A charming deaf British tourist I had mistakenly spied on when I was gathering Survivor secrets was an accountant named Stuart McNaughton, who told me that on his visit there a young female orangutan had swooped down from a tree, snatched his pack, scampered back up the tree, and ate not only his sun block, his passport and his malaria pills, but
his hearing aids as well, which he wasn't wearing at the time because sweat caused by the 90 percent-plus humidity had been shorting them out.
Next time: a visit to Mount Kinabalu and my account of the hellish cab ride from my hotel, through the jungle, to Kuala Penyu. And look for Joel to get his comeuppance in next week's episode, or maybe the one after that.
Finally, that single vote June 28 against my man Rudy is worrisome, but he's weathered adversity before. I still believe the Old Crank will win.
|
