(Transcript by SurvivorFever.net 10.17.05)

TW = Tom Westman DR = Dalton Ross BT = Blake Towsley

Segment 1:

Note: Jenna Morasca was away on a bike ride for charity.
Tom Westman, Survivor: Palau winner guest hosted in Jenna's absence.

DR: Blake let's get to it. I'm watching the episode. I see you doing a lot of talking. And then I saw Brian trying to flip it. And I see those things where they have Danni and Bobby saying, "maybe I'll flip." But I think it's one of those Mark Burnett punt fakes. I thought, "this guy's safe, he's not going anywhere." I guess you felt the same way.

BT: Yeah, I should have maybe seen it coming throughout the day as I had several interviews and they just kept pumping the question, "what's the order going out tonight?". I was like, 'Brian, Amy, Gary'. Am I stuttering here, is nobody else getting this? I kept laying it out. And that night I knew when Jeff flipped over the last card. It didn't make any sense to me at the time because we had the odds. I got a chance to talk to Coby from Palau and he said, "Blake, just be on the side of the odds, that's the most crucial thing I can tell you."

TW: Coby is like a season late for the strategy.

<laughter>

BT: He gave me that bit of advice and I'm performing in the challenges. Bobby Jon seemed to be really impressed with that and Brandon is just, he's been my boy so far. Danni seems to be...what I didn't realize was how much Danni was working behind the scenes. I let that one get past me.

DR: It was really exciting to watch. I didn't see it coming at all. I still don't understand the strategy of it. This is a numbers game and you've got the numbers, right, Tom?

TW: Yeah. Bobby Jon...the first time for him to drop his promise...the guy is such a great man of his word...for the first time for him to decide to play it and it's just not the right moment.

BT: I don't think BJ flipped at the last second. What it came down to was, Danni was really worried that if she took 4 guys strong when we merged, that Stephenie was going to see that as a threat. Here smart play, and 20/20 hindsight when I look back on it, was a really smart move, was to say, "let's get rid of Blake and even things out and show that we're playing fair over here." Gary went along with it, Brian will say that he had a huge hand in it and he didn't. I think that Gary and Danni sat down and Gary said, "hey listen, if you guys vote off Blake tonight I'll stay with you and give you my word." I think you'll see that come through. Bobby Jon realized that he couldn't lose Danni's vote.

TW: So the handshake that you guys shared there, not only was it not very sanitary but it didn't mean a lot either.

DR: Yeah I was a little scared to shake your hand today, I gotta be honest. I gave you a pat on the back, I figured that as close as I'm gettin'.

BT: We lost the challenge, we came back, everybody was very somber. I had the impression...I even spoke to Bobby Jon. He said, "I'm a man that likes to get things on the table, I don't want to sit here and play cat and mouse all day." I said, "At the pool today let's say, 'sorry, Brian, you're going home today. We have the odds.'" Bobby Jon said that it's been his perspective to not do that and just be quiet. Little did I know that Danni was working things and finally got into Bobby Jon's head. Gary was thrilled to be a part of the group and think he's not going home in 3 votes.

TW: Why was Brian going to be the target rather than Amy? She's older, she's got a bum ankle. Why was it Brian?

BT: It came down to Amy's personality and her humor. She's just fun to have around camp. You don't see that on camera.

DR: It drives me crazy when people are kept around because they like them more. Blake, you could have been the most annoying guy in the world out there but if you're part of the numbers...look...two weeks ago, the original Nakum had it. They had the numbers. Now you guys are down. And when the merge comes and these two tribes come back together, you guys are down. I just don't see how that plays well.

BT: We've got Bobby Jon and Brandon and Danni and I. Let's just eradicate the rest of Yaxha and go into the merger four on four and hopefully we'll win all the challenges. If Margaret still managed to make the merger, we've got Margaret's vote because she was still part of our original alliance. I think the biggest fear was Stephenie and what control did she have. She had Rafe and Judd and Jamie dancing like puppets. They were eating out of her hand. We noticed that when they would walk into challenges.

DR: Let's look at the reward challenge clip. We're going to see Jamie really struggling here. But also look at Stephenie's reactions.

<clip of reward challenge>

DR: Jamie looked shell-shocked. How fun was that cart ride?

BT: That was great. We hit the dirt and it sprayed all over us. It was kind of bittersweet.

TW: Well it wasn't that bittersweet.

BT: You're going past the other team and you can't boast. They're going to be voting for you at some point. As you see in the next challenge, Jamie redeems himself, the one we lose immunity on...he starts boasting. Bobby Jon, I thought he was going to punch him in the face. We had to hold Bobby Jon back. We all got pretty steamed after that.

Caller: How are you feeling now after seeing the episode. You were voted out because you talked a lot instead of being a strong competitor?

BT: I didn't expect to get hit by a tree or be sick for the first 10 days. I thought I was going to come in and be this big provider, win the challenges and help my team and be quiet. I finally got my wind back and I wanted to talk and be involved with the group. It was portrayed like I was talking too much but once you get into the game you realize that it's 72 hours of your life cut down to like 45 minutes plus commercials. Every Thursday night I was at the bar depressed because of the things I went through in that time period and nobody's going to know it. They portrayed me as that but you missed the entire days of conversations where Amy was talking about sex and we got into crazy conversations. I did my share of talking but it was to kind of keep morale up. It was a different tribe. With Judd it was like he just got more hairy and more depressed and more grouchy every day. I wasn't about to let my team do that. Like Danni, I was kind of a cheerleader for awhile.

TW: So you're still in denial. You're still not fessing up to the fact that...those people did vote. You can blame it on the edit but they did vote. Gary said that you've got to get a little more respect for women. This was their final shots at you.

BT: Well it's different. Me coming from Texas...I even apologized...I was walking the trail the first time with Cindy and Margaret and told them that I'm from Texas and I call everybody 'sweetheart'. If that offends you please tell me. They were like, "not at all, Blake."

DR: They also said that you had a lot of stories that made it seem like you didn't need the money. You were pretty well off, you had a good life, good situation. Gary is not letting anyone know his situation.

BT: Exactly. That was just like me trying to talk to people and let's interact. I loved to hear about Brandon. Brandon is the second of 4 brothers. One's the rocket scientist. The other is the playboy as he calls it. He's the farmboy. I wanted to know people. The neatest experience of this isn't the money. Winning is to me, huge, because I hate losing. These are people you don't hang around with. Like Judd, the doorman from New York City. I've been to New York twice. I never would have met him in my life. I think I was trying to soak too much of it in. Danni was saying that too but I realize afterwards that Danni was playing that but really playing to win the game.

TW: But the money comes in, the jealousy. But people know what people do for a living and they gage. People slip and talk about their childcare or tennis lessons. Everybody else is just filing that away.

DR: Any excuse you can find, any opening to say, "This guy, let's get rid of him...here's why."

BT: You try to find those connections. Like Bobby Jon, he models as well. We talked about that a little bit. Gary's involved in real estate in Michigan so we had that connection. You try to find something in everybody that you have a connection with and try to work with that.

DR: On line 5 we have Jenna from Pittsburgh, I don't know if that's Morasca or not. Jenna?

JM: Hey, it's me. Tom, you're doing a great job.

TW: Just keeping the seat warm for you.

JM: The cute guy gets on the week that I'm not there.

DR: What did you think of last night's episode?

JM: I thought last night was a great episode. Blake did you ever make an effort to go talk to Gary and Amy and Brian to make sure in case something did happen that you weren't so far detached from them?

BT: I tried to talk to Gary. We talked about hunting and Brian was always...we talked to Brian a bunch. Amy was just hysterical. Amy and I would go back and forth. I think I had that friendship. I didn't have that manipulation. I didn't want to jeopardize my relationship with the original Nakum. In that case I kind of kept quiet. So did Brandon and Bobby Jon. I think he talked with Gary a little.

JM: Bobby Jon obviously was talking to the other team.

BT: They realized that of the four Nakum I had been sick. I was the weakest person. Logically, I would have voted me off. Gary and Amy and Brian went running to... and you saw Brandon say, "I'm not voting for Blake."

JM: I thought that he knew you were going to get voted off but out of integrity he refused to do it.

BT: Brandon and I were really close. Brandon is a great guy and I hope all the best for him. I hope he goes as far in the game as he can. But, I didn't want to tip my hand with Danni and them so I kind of played it safe. I didn't jeopardize my position by working with Gary and them and I probably should have.

JM: When people say they're safe they sometimes pull a Rob Cesternino and make sure that just in case they have another group ready for them, in case something like this should happen. I wouldn't have ever known that Bobby Jon would do that. He's in full game mode with his Dr. Martin Luther King speech at Tribal Council about keeping the dream alive.

BT: He's like the Sunday preacher. He likes to get up there and give his half-time talk. He's a great guy.

DR: Thanks a lot, Jenna. Take a quick break and be back with Blake.

Segment 2:

DR: Blake, have you been taking a lot of slack for that whole handshake?

BT: I didn't even notice that and then afterwards my mom and girlfriend were like, "did you just shake Bobby Jon's hand?" I was like, both of us did. That's our bond. Ummm. Yeah, it was awkward.

DR: Obviously hygiene takes a backseat on Survivor. Ok, we talked about Stephenie earlier. I want to get to another clip. This is Stephenie turning the corner here, she's been very frustrated this season.

<clip from Survivor: Palau when Tom got wasted on Rum>

DR: You know we're going to sneak it on every time you're here.

Tom: I had to show my vulnerable side so I was doing a very convincing act. Yeah, I own it. That's the advice I'll give you , your story out there is whatever you had. You can't run from it.

DR: Ok, let's go to the real clip of Stephenie. A very different Stephenie than we saw in Palau.

<clip of Stephenie talking about Bobby Jon, "he cheers like a freaking girl", "he's so gay" >

DR: Comments and moments that you wish you could have back. I'm sure that's one, talking about Bobby Jon there.

DR: Blake could you see that on Stephenie. You weren't on a tribe with her but at challenges could you see that frustration?

BT: You see the frustration. I was never really in her camp so I didn't really have any interaction with Stephenie. But you could see the frustration and the jealously with Bobby Jon. I think that's being a poor loser. Bobby Jon was quiet and all about his game. I have nothing but respect for Bobby Jon. But it's got to be tough going from Palau where she just was at the skin of her teeth every episode, 10 or 11 episodes then comes here and she's losing again.

DR: Is that it, Tom. Is it just "here we go again?"

TW: I think it's also a bit of the editing. She didn't change between Palau and Guatemala. Stephenie is who she is. She's a great girl. The angel edit on one and now they're showing the wrong face at the wrong time and the wrong comments. Stephenie is super competitive. She's not the angel she was the first time and not the negative portrayal she's getting now.

DR: I've had Stephenie on and really liked her a lot. Last season the contestants had positive things to say about her. This time we've had people in here and not nice things to say about her. And you're making a face over there.

BT: I can't speak bad about someone, I've never interacted with her. I know that she and Judd and Jamie were talking trash about Bobby Jon. I talked to people afterwards and they were like "she ate more food than everybody else. The cameras were on and she'd be up doing things around camp and catering to them. The cameras would go off and she'd be swearing and reverting back to New Jersey ways with Judd and talking trash." I think she plays her princess role but I don't think that's who she is all the time. Maybe I'm wrong because I've never spent any time with her. A lot of people had a bad taste in their mouth from working with Stephenie. I see where the frustration would come in. To be losing and come in and be losing again. I didn't interact with her but from everything I've heard, I wasn't the biggest fan either. Athletically, at challenges she'd try to step it up and she'd create problems. Danni kicked her butt in the basketball game. Danni was the more valuable woman if you ask me. I was looking for this total super jock kicking the guys butt and I didn't see it.

Caller: Is Guatemala physically the toughest season or is that just hype? It seems like they say that every season.

BT: When it started we had the pleasure of having Mark Burnett come and speak to us. The guy is an incredible man. Eco-Challenge is one of his productions and they ended it because they thought they were going to get someone killed. They started out with this 11 mile hike and they realized these guys are out for 39 days. Mark Burnett was quoted in US Weekly, "We might have gone too far on this one". I wasn't at Palau but Bobby Jon told us, "this is far harder than Palau. In Palau we had coconuts, so we'd go to the bathroom every 20 minutes and we had chaffing from the salt water. But this is the harder environment."

TW: I don't pretend to compare the two seasons. I watched the opening and turned to my wife and said "thank you for sending me to Palau". When it got too much we could just float out on the water. It was paradise.

BT: We couldn't even get wet. Even the crew said this was the worst environment. The bugs, the heat, the crocodiles, no water. It was brutal.

DR: A lot of the same complaints you hear from people on Africa. No water, no place to cool off.

Caller: Blake, what was your impression of Brian, Amy and Gary after the switch up?

BT: When we came into the camp I was excited because we had the odds in our favor. I knew it was Gary Hogeboom. I knew he played in the NFL. It was fun trying to stick him with it. We'd ask him every 20 minutes.

TW: Bobby Jon said last week that Gary knows about team unity. So he must know, too.

BT: We brought it up a couple of times with the whole tribe sitting there. Gary would deny it. They'd ask us in interviews. It wasn't a big deal.

DR: He didn't step up in that tomahawk throwing challenge.

BT: He never threw once. <discussion about tomahawk challenge>
Amy was hysterical. We were really looking forward to meeting Amy. We had heard about her. We thought she was the weak link and when I was in original Nakum we thought she would be gone real quick. She was a workhorse, she was there, totally sweet lady. Just hysterical, everything that comes out of her mouth even if she's talking about nothing. Brian, everybody, the entire cast, thought Brian was gay. Brian denied it. I was a sport about it. I was like, "I don't think he's gay, he's grown up with women his whole life." Different strokes for different folks.

DR: At first Brian seemed to just do a lot of cheering but we've actually seen a lot of strategizing from him. He saved Lydia, turned that whole thing around. You said he didn't have a whole lot to do with your ouster. Not as much as we might be led to believe.

BT: Brian gives himself a little more credit than he deserves. In talking to people afterwards, after the game was over, I think that Brian gives himself a little too much credit. He's extremely intelligent. He's like Mensa intelligent. Brian, when we'd see him flying home, he's doing crossword puzzles. He's got to keep his brain going. He's a brilliant kid. He told us he's from Connecticut State University when he went to Columbia. He's probably the biggest Survivor fan I ever met in my life. He can tell you every person voted off in order. I think he took all the strategies and he had so much going on in his head. He was trying to really play. He was also trying to, he wanted to not just coast through and make it to the merger and then play. He wanted to be the one who, like Johnny Fairplay, making all the alliances and lying behind people's backs. He was ready to pull the knife out.

Caller: Blake, how did you feel when Nakum came up and Brooke was gone? And did you know that it was Judd's reason that Brooke that was gone?

BT: When we went to that next challenge, everybody came rolling in and you kind of see a different swagger in Judd. Amy had her head down. Cindy was quiet as a mouse. Judd comes in and he's looking like king of the mountain. We all kind of knew. Brandon and Bobby Jon and Danni and I discussed that. "Do you think Judd flipped?" Certainly we knew it. Margaret looked at me and gave me these eyes like, "I'm screwed." She gave me this look. I knew, Judd's doing something over there. Talking loosely with Amy and Gary and Brian they thought there was something going on between Stephenie and Rafe and Jamie. Now we figured, he's from New Jersey, she's from New Jersey, she's going to bring him into the fold. It was shocking to see Brooke but, not to toot my own horn it was kinda like, "we didn't' expect Blake to come off when he came off". I had been sick, nobody expected me to go all the way. They thought I at least had 3 or 4 more rounds to go. Everyone was like, "we expected Brian that night."

DR: Tom, what do you make of Judd? He's an area guy.

TW: I think Judd is the most entertaining guy to watch on the show right now. He is the James of Palau. He's going to do for the Northeast what James did for the South.

DR: For better or worse.

TW: It's not good. Not good. <laughs> I'm watching him last night, he almost seemed like he's never seen the show before. The way he was openly explaining to everybody that he's playing for himself.

BT: Judd wasn't playing the dumb role, he really was just uninformed. If he comes through it's because he's the big dumb animal who's got the brute strength that you're going to keep around.

DR: They had that one scene of him last week where they kept splicing him with that monkey scratching himself.

BT: Like I said earlier, you could see everyday...the beard got bigger. He just slowly went downhill.

TW: He's not having fun out there.

BT: He's not. I'm sick as a dog but I still want to be here. Judd did not. Judd did not want to be there. He wanted to win the million bucks and go home. He wasn't there to make friends. He was close to Brandon but he was talking trash behind Brandon's back. I don't think Judd had one friend out there. I was there more for the adventure.

TW: He's being kept there for his strength right now? The social aspect has escaped him.

DR: And that's such a big part. People are going to vote for you to win or not win a million dollars. You can't just do that to people.

TW: Like with Cindy last week, this hostile attack.

BT: There's points where even Jeff Probst doesn't know how to handle him. Jeff is looking around, like, what do I do with Judd. Judd is just Judd. He's entertaining.

TW: Thank God he's that because it's good TV. James was great. I'm glad James wasn't on my team.

DR: Jeff told us before the season that there was definitely someone at Tribal Council that was doing a lot of talking about. I think it was immediately very clear who he was talking about.

Caller: Blake, I want to say, way to stick it out. You stayed in there and played tough the whole time even when you were down. I hate the quitters, there were so many last season and you really rocked it.

BT: Thanks, I really appreciate it. They have a medical staff but it was a body bag to get me to go home. Mark Burnett spoke to us in Guatemala and gave this really incredible speech, like, win one for The Gipper. I hung on every word but one word I remember him using, because it's not a word I would normally use, he said, "the few people who have quit this game were pariahs in their community." So, as I'm sitting there sucking wind and in my 9th day, I'm like, I'm not going to be the pariah of my community. I'm either going to win this or they're going to have to carry me out of here or vote me off. I refused to quit.

DR: That was a concern, on Palau you had all those people who quit or said "you can vote me out." It's been so brutal in Guatemala, we feared that but so far so good.

BT: If I can go back, Jim. Jim was such a strong awesome man and it was so sad what happened.

DR: We're going to take a break.

Segment 3:

<clip of Blake discussing his girlfriend's DD size breasts and Brian baiting him to talk more>

DR: We see Brian and some of the things he's saying and you don't know til you see the show. What's going through your head when you see some of those comments.

BT: When you're in the game you don't want to talk about the game all the time. You want to put your mind somewhere else. Brian would talk about Survivor around the clock. We talked about all the cast members. We're sitting out at that pool, that's like the 5th hour. We're trying to save energy. If you're facilitating the conversation enough, you'll say something wrong. You can't be on point all the time. I had my favorite Survivors, Tom being one of them. But Tom, it's not so much that he won all the challenges but he's always got the game working. He's very much thinking and got a grasp as to where things are.

DR: You're talking about Brian talking a lot about Survivor, making no bones that he is an expert on the game. If I'm out there I'm not keeping an expert on the game in the game.

TW: But you know, we did. Katie was our expert on the game. Ian and I weren't as glued to it as she was. We'd be like, "when is this merge thing happening?"

BT: The Tribal Council where I get voted off, right before that, Brian was gloating that he's the biggest expert on Survivor and I think that was kind of a red flag to him that they don't show that. He sees Jeff and Jeff goes, "Season 7, number 4 off?". He literally in 3 seconds has the name. He had a photographic memory. He's from Connecticut State Community College..."you're very educated Brian, don't pretend...we expect that role from Judd." That came out eventually.

TW: Speaking of Katie, I was talking to her a couple weeks ago and she said the thing we haven't seen is the sleeping arrangements. In Palau, if you looked at the way we were all lying on those mats, you saw the alliances. We all lined up directly in order. You knew who was in, who was out.

BT: Coby told me the same thing...who you sleep with the first night is crucial. But our first night, we slept in the jungle, so who could you sleep next to and stay warm? Our sleeping arrangements, people slept outside, slept inside, because it was so hot. I'd be, "do I keep my clothes on and be bug free or take them off and not overheat?" That was a dilemma every night.

DR: You and Brian looked like the only cozy ones last night in that rain.

Caller: I read that you may use romance to get further in the game. You said you have this amazing girlfriend. How would you have handled that morally.

BT: Honestly, I did discuss this with my girlfriend before I left. When you're going through the interview process, you've got to sell yourself. My girlfriend and our relationship got really strong right before this all happened and I wouldn't have taken it to a level where I would have gotten in trouble. I told my roommate, "I'm not going to have some crazy relationship but if I have to kiss some girl for a million dollars..."

TW: I actually had a note from my wife saying I could hook with anybody, male or female, if it would get me through a tribal vote. <laughs>

BT: If it came down to it and it didn't.

TW: In Palau, thank God for the couple of Jenn and Gregg because everybody was so focused on them they didn't realize the real couple was Ian and I.

BT: They kept trying, they thought... I mean I could feel them pairing me with Danni. Before we even went on the adventure together they'd put us at tables together. We're not allowed to talk but they kept putting us in these situations. Danni and I got there and were talking and she calls me the fratboy but we made this conversation and asked, "do you think they're trying to pair us up?" She looked at me and said, "do you want to hook up with me?" I said "no". It was so gross, in Palau you guys got to clean up. We were so nasty. I wouldn't even think about it.

Caller: Blake, did you get an opportunity to see the towns and villages down there?

BT: We got to live in the ruins which is an amazing thing. These ruins are 2500 years old. It was a beautiful thing to be around but we got this great camp that was promised to us by Jeff and we had all the amenities there but the camp itself was like 500 yards from the water and it was miserable. Really, when it came down to it, Yaxha had the better camp. It wasn't by a beautiful ruins and it was up in the jungle but it had more shade and less bugs. It was 100 yards to the water, it wasn't 500 yards. Guatemala is a beautiful country. The lowlands we were at are pretty miserable. It's definitely a beautiful country and if you can visit it by all means I think you should do it.

<clip of episode 6 promo which ends with Jamie and Bobby Jon facing off>

DR: What's going on here?

Blake: Jamie is pretty lippy. The guy would just say things that were inappropriate. It offended Brianna and it offended a lot of the women. In last week's challenge they lost the reward challenge then Jamie starting gloating afterwards because he got his butt kicked in the rope thing, it was humiliating. I guess he said something and Bobby Jon literally was running at him. They grabbed him and pulled Bobby Jon off. I think that's what you're going to see, Bobby Jon just... the trigger snaps. He's a competitor. Jamie is just a little too cocky.

TW: Yeah, he's been negative and nasty on a few things when voting people off and talking off camera.

DR: Yeah, to Brianna.

TW: You know that their families are going to be watching so why trash talk somebody? When he said I like my girls...

DR: Pretty and crazy...

TW: ...and she's neither.

BT: Brianna took offense to that and Brianna is a beautiful all around person, inside and outside, and a sweet girl. At 21 she's far more mature than Jamie is at 24.

TW: She's not doing the social game out there.

BT: She's not and a lot of us weren't playing that. I don't think you're ever going to see Brandon, and I don't know how far Brandon goes, you're never going to see Brandon play that role. He's not going to be talking trash behind people's back. You're not going to see that with certain people. Lydia's not going to show that, Cindy's not going to show that. People have different personalities. That's the beautiful part about Survivor and why I wanted to be a part of it.

DR: Blake, what's going on now, what are you up to now?

BT: Everybody keeps asking me if I'm going to move to L.A. or New York and start the acting thing. I got the words of wisdom from Bobby Jon. He said, "Blake I've been in L.A. for two years and I wait tables at PF Chang's. I got on two reality shows, it's over for me. I'm 28, I'm going home to my girl and job in Alabama. For me, I'm very much a Midwest boy, I got a lot of hobbies I can do there and my family's close and that's what's important in life. So I'm going to be in Dallas and do the modeling thing. My real estate job, I've been on a sabbatical for doing Survivor. I'll probably go back to that unless...I'm really working on...a dream of mine has been the FBI. I'm working on letters of recommendation and applications. If that happens great, if it doesn't then I'll do real estate and work and have a family. I came back, I wanted to buy my girlfriend a dog, I got an English bulldog. Took my mother to New York for this. My dad and brother are going fly fishing in two weeks in North Carolina. I think everything I've taken from this game I've become a better person because of it. I got so much out of the experience.

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I don't understand the part about Brian gloating before the TC and the fact they didn't show it being a red flag. Does this make any sense to anyone?

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