Blake Towsley's Early Show Interview
Survivor: Guatemala Episode 5 Boot
(SurvivorFever.net 10.14.05)
SEGMENT 1
Rene Syler: Blake Towsley, good morning.
Blake: Good morning, Rene.
Rene: Oh my gosh, you looked like a train hit you last night.
Blake: Yeah, yeah.
Rene: I mean, you were STUNNED. Had no idea that was coming, did you?
Blake: I completely got blindsided. I didn't - I mean, it just didn't make any sense to me. I literally left the game like, 'How did that happen?'
Rene: Yeah. You thought Brian was on his way out. Did you have any idea that they thought you talked a lot about yourself?
Blake: No, not really. And what it comes down to is, you don't realize these are 3 days of our lives. It's really kind of depressing to watch the show. It's really kind of depressing to watch because I realized every night after the show's over this is 72 hours to show in 45 minutes. You don't see a lot.
Rene: So this is happening over a 3-day period.
Blake: Yeah, this is conversations over...the hardest part about Survivor is the monotony of the days. 12 to 5 when it's 120 degrees and mosquitoes and all you wanna do is be home with your family, so you try to interact. Somebody talk to me. People just sit there and complain.
Rene: So just talking because just to break the monotony.
Blake: Just to - you don't have a TV, you don't have music. Somebody talk. Every once in a while someone would entertain. Amy would be swearing or a crocodile would come by and make conversation. But half the time we're just sitting around bored, so...
Rene: I think it was just sort of some of the things you talked about. Your girlfriend and, you know, some of the stuff, I thought, 'WOW'. You were very forthcoming I thought.
Blake: They showed me as forthcoming, but Amy talked about things I probably wouldn't talk about in private company, and things like that. We had some pretty interesting conversations. Some of it's probably just not appropriate for family hour.
Rene: You think? Yeah, perhaps. (laughs) So how did you take to being called 'Golden Boy', 'Captain America'. And how did you even earn those? You had sort of an inauspicious start.
Blake: Well, my whole plan was to stay under the radar and sort of play the role of like Brandon and some of these guys who were athletic and just wanted to provide support and the tree fell on me in the first hour of the game.
Rene: I thought you were done for because your shoulder looked hurt.
Blake: I was blacking out. Luckily Margaret was incredible. They were holding me down and she's pulling these thorns out of my shoulder. I still have 2 in me now. The skin grew over by the time I was done and they never took out.
Rene: OK, that's gross. That's gross.
Blake: They're still in there, and that slowed me down a bit. Just going through the process of the game; every athletic competition I stepped it up, and that was the most I could do at that point, so...
Rene: Why do you think Danni flipped? It was Danni, Bobby Jon, Brandon and you, the original Nakum tribe. What was up with Danni? Why would she do that?
Blake: To me, it made sense. I'm a guy. I'm sitting there with Bobby Jon and Brandon and we're all jocks and we were all winning challenges and we were like, 'Let's take the 4 strong people to the end, and we'll figure it out when all's fair in love and war.' We uh...it just totally made sense to me. I know I had Brandon to the end. Brandon supposedly was just devastated the next day and Bobby Jon, I really know he flipped at the very end. To me it didn't make any sense. I had talked previously with some former Survivors and they were like, 'It's all in the odds. Just play it out in the odds.' So it made perfect sense. You see Brandon, Bobby Jon and I going to the bathroom together, in the woods talking about it..
Rene: Yes, I saw that, and yes young man. So you guys go together? And men talk about women going to the bathroom together.
Blake: Exactly. (laughs)
Rene: Oh my gosh. I saw that and I thought too much already. Blake Towsley, good to see you. Enjoy the full pork sandwich your mom said she was going to make for you. Good to see you.
SEGMENT 2
(Harry introduced a "Secret Scene" of Brian talking about why they called Blake "Golden Boy" )
Brian: Amy's taken to calling him things like Golden Boy because he's got this perfect smile and this model hair and his body and everything he touched turns to gold. Which isn't true anyway. So Amy likes to call him Golden Boy because she has a little bit of a crush on Blake. That's about it. It makes me want to vomit because Blake is one of the most egotistical people I ever met. When Blake opens his mouth you can be 99% sure it's going to be about Blake. So we call him Golden Boy. Call him Golden Boy, he feeds right into that. But fact of the matter is, that's part of our strategy right now. If you can feed Blake's ego and he likes it and he knows that you're an ego stroker, he'll like you better. So I'll stroke his ego til the day he's voted out. Fine with me, I don't care. But all-aside, it's ridiculous. He's dumb as hell.
Harry: So, Blake, what is it like to go out there, play the game, be involved, you come back and hear what some people have to say about you. What is it like to endure that?
Blake: You know, it's hard from my perspective. I spent a lot of Thursday nights at the bar after Survivor. One thing I said I'm really proud of myself with, and if you know me, to the people who spend time with me afterward, 'You're such a humble person.' I talk about myself now, but in the game, you don't get portrayed as you always are. I wanted to come away with more than a million dollars, I wanted to come away with my honor and my integrity, and I did that. One thing that - everybody in the cast, everybody thought that Brian was gay, and they made it a big issue. They made it a big hot topic. He was adamant about defending himself on that. Never once did I speak a bad word about Brian. They had me in interviews like, 'He's not gay.' But everybody thought he was, except me and Brian. The exception to the rule. I try to be a good guy for everybody and...I think I got out right before it got ugly.
SEGMENT 3
Harry: It's hard to believe but Survivor: Guatemala is the 11th installment of the hit reality show. Of all the competitors to play the game, Rupert Boneham just may be the most popular. The Survivor All Star won a million dollars last year thanks to America's Tribal Council. Rupert is with us this morning, too.
Harry: You've been watching the show this season?
Rupert: Right. Right.
Harry: It looks like it's harder than past shows.
Rupert: Survivor is the hardest game out there. I will have to say, Panama was pretty darn hard. Anytime you've got over 100 plus degrees, 90% humidity, rain that is just torrential...it is hard.
Harry: Did you watch Blake's game?
Rupert: Right. Oh, my gosh, yes.
Harry: Critique his game.
Rupert: You forget about the social side of Survivor. You don't really understand when you start talking about yourself and how other people see you. You had Brian. I had little Johnny Rotten. They just kind of feed you and push you into talking about yourself, telling different things. I was yelling at the TV last night saying, "you gotta stop, you gotta back it down."
Blake: The elements are so rough. Everything is complaining about the environment and food and I'm like, "let's make some conversation". It's pure physical and pure social and luck.
Rupert: There is a lot of luck.
Blake: Things change. I was on the 4 to 3 side.
Rupert: I know. It changes that quick.
Harry: You still like to watch?
Rupert: I was a Survivor junkie before I got on the game. Now I understand the game even more.
Harry: See what I'm really surprised at, is that your personality has calmed down.
<laughter>
Harry: What's with the hockey puck?
Rupert: That's why I'm here in New York. I'm doing the Secret Service Games at the Codey Arena in Essex County. Secret Service has named Rupert's Kids as their key charity. In Indianapolis we've changed the juvenile court system.
Harry: You've worked with kids and you've stayed good to your word, all kinds of charitable organizations are just pouring money into you. What's the most important thing you've done for these kids?
Rupert: I've got one of my kids living on campus out at IUPU college in Indianapolis. I've got three kids in GED program. I've got six kids in work programs. All these kids were last stoppers. I'm showing how these kids in juvenile court systems across the country are not bad kids.
Harry: Who's your favorite player on this season. Wait. Do you think Stephenie has a chance to make it to the finals?
Rupert: I think Stephenie has a chance to make it to the merge. Now if she doesn't change her attitude she's not going to make it in that merge.
Harry: Everybody loves Stephenie.
Rupert: I like Hogeboom. I like Gary.
Harry: His secret didn't last very long.
Rupert: He should have admitted that darn lie. He's going to be seen as a liar.
Blake: It wasn't that big a deal.
Harry: Blake, Rupert, what a pleasure.
Rupert: Always a pleasure.
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