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WC Amber's Fan Club
By: Scott Tady, Times Staff
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Amber swallows a bug, survives By Scott Tady , Times Staff SURVIVOR II Amber Brkich plucked the pincers off the icky-looking bug, took a big bite and smiled. She fought back her gag reflex, finished swallowing the large grasshopper-looking critter, stuck out her tongue triumphantly then leaped into the air to celebrate. But the Brighton Township woman's joy was short-lived, as moments later, her Ogakor tribe lost a key competition in Thursday night's televised episode of "Survivor II: The Australian Outback." By losing a gross food-eating competition - in which other contestants consumed cows' brains and stomach linings, footlong worms and live larvae - Brkich and the other Ogakors were required to vote one of their members off the show. Brkich's apparent strategy, namely keep-a-low-profile, seemed to be working as none of her seven tribe members voted to give her the boot. Instead, the Ogakors overwhelmingly chose to eliminate Kel Gleason, 33, an Army intelligence officer from Texas, whom Las Vegas bookies had given the best odds for winning the $1 million prize. So, the 22-year-old Brkich lived to "survive" another episode of the CBS show, certainly to the delight of the Country Corner convenience store near her Brighton home, where a "Go Amber" message appears on the marquee. "If I was her, I would not have been able to eat that bug," said Country Corner employee April Caratelli, who watched the show on a small TV inside the store. "It made me cringe just watching her have to eat that bug," said Caratelli, who was a sophomore at Beaver Area High School when Brkich graduated from there in 1996. Caratelli said many people who entered the store this week said they'll be watching Brkich's Australian adventures. An estimated 50 million people saw at least some of "Survivor II's" debut on Sunday after the Super Bowl. Episode Two of the so-called reality show aired on Thursday, with future episodes scheduled to run at 8 p.m. each Thursday through April. For Brkich, that second episode began easily enough, with her reclining in a lazy stream, wearing a two-piece, halter-shorts swimsuit. But a few minutes later, she and the other 14 "Survivor" contestants were shown jumping off a cliff in a competition that awarded the winning tribe two blankets. Brkich looked fearless as she leapt off the cliff and into a river below. She maneuvered the river's rapids and joined her teammates at a crate, which they dragged to the finish line. Her tribe finished ahead of the competing Kucha tribe, thus winning the blankets. "Survivor" uses those types of contests in two ways: to dole out rewards and to decide which tribe must vote a member off the show. Gleason, Thursday night's banished contestant, raised the wrath of several female contestants after being spotted chewing on what they said was beef jerky, which he wasn't sharing with them. Brkich was one of three contestants shown secretly looking through his backpack for evidence. That covert investigation ticked off Maralyn "Mad Dog" Hershey, the 52-year-old retired police inspector. But Hershey later turned her back on Gleason, rebuffing his efforts to form a voting alliance. Hershey, Brkich and at least three others voted to kick Gleason and his washboard abs off the show. Bikini-clad actress Jerri Manthey also picked up a vote. Brkich arguably has kept the lowest profile of the 14 remaining contestants, with no one, so far, saying anything good or bad about her. Scott Tady can be reached online at stady@calkinsnewspapers.com. Friday, February 2, 2001
