Survivor Live Internet Talk Show with Anthony Robinson
Episode 6 Survivor: Fiji  Cast-Off 
Segment 1 Transcript

DR:  Anthony, good to have you.

Anthony:  Nice to be here.  How's it going. 

DR:  Anthony, no doubt about it, you had, emotionally, a tough time out there with Rocky, especially.  We talked about this before.  It's hard enough dealing with an adverse situation in regular life but when you're out in the middle of nowhere all your emotions are so amplified.  It's so much harder to deal with stuff. 

JM:  And losing over and over.

DR:  So what was it like for you out there?

Anthony:  It was really  hard.  It was bad enough that we're dehydrated, we're hungry, we're losing every single challenge.  I've got Rocky screaming at me.  I've got Mookie giving me crap.  It's amazing.

JM:  Did he yell at everybody and we just didn't see it or did he yell at you a lot more than everybody else?

Anthony:  Rocky yelled at me a lot more but he did yell at a couple of other people. 

JM:  What about Mookie?  Did he yell at people a lot, too?  We see a slight bit of Mookie being a kind of a jerk.  Is he really like that?

Anthony:   Mookie has his moments.  He can be a really nice guy and then turn around and stab you completely in the back...a perfect gameface for Survivor.  He would kind of chill with me to my face except for Tribal Council and the rest of the time I guess he just talked behind my back. 

DR:  It can all be in the editing sometimes but last week all of a sudden it looked like you and Rocky were getting along pretty well.  All of a sudden Rita was the one on the outs and I was like, whoa, Rocky and Anthony actually seem like they're getting along.  Was there a period there where you guys where getting along better? 

Anthony:  There really was a moment where Rocky extended the olive branch because he wanted my vote to go however he wanted it to.  I guess we kind of bonded for a little bit over some pineapple. 

JM:  Food always makes people a lot nicer to each other. 

DR:  Let's go to this clip.  This is the big moment last night.  One of the most intense Tribal Councils we've seen in awhile. 

JM:  It was great.

DR:  Here it is, Rocky and Anthony going at it.  Not so great for Anthony. 

<video clip of Tribal Council>

DR:  I have a problem with that.  He says, "Stand up, fight back.  Would you please not scream in my ear."

JM:  I was also a little confused about how Jeff was handling it because I was thinking the smart thing was not yelling back.  But Jeff was like, "Dude, he's trying to give you some advice. Why are you still just sitting there?" 

DR:  That's a curve ball from Probst.  He usually takes someone to task.  Were you surprised about that? 

Anthony:  You know, the thing about Jeff, he is like the extra player on the field.  You have to take that into account.  You watch the show and you don't realize how much he actually is involved.  Sometimes Jeff can just push and push and push. 

JM:  It was almost like he was taking Rocky's side.  We saw since the whole Janu thing that he's getting more and more involved. 

Caller:  Anthony, did you like it when the tribes changed?

Anthony:  The tribal shakeup was a big curveball.  I went into that thinking it was going to be a challenge.  They switch us up and completely destroy everything I've been trying to build.  I was in the process of working out an alliance with a couple of people and I find myself stuck with two of my worst enemies and a bunch of other guys who don't know me from Adam. 

JM:  Not to mention, all guys.  You say you were building alliances.  We saw you look like you were starting to bond with Earl, who clearly is obviously the leader of the group.  He was the one who stepped forward with Edgardo.  On the other side he seems to be running the show a little bit now.  It also looked like he was maybe trying to protect you a little bit.  Is that one of the people you were working with?

Anthony:  Yeah, I was working with Earl to try to build something and kind of loosely with Michelle. 

JM:  So if you would have lost again you probably would have been safe, if the tribes had stayed the way they were?

Anthony:  Mookie's name had come up a couple of times. 

JM:  Not Rocky?

Anthony:  I kept trying to bring up Rocky's name.  Everybody was like, no.

JM:  What's their reason for no?

Anthony:  I think that people are looking at him as a sacrificial goat for later.  If you're going to be in, like, the final two, who do you want sitting next to you?  Somebody who's a really nice guy?

DR:  It seemed to me like everybody was just so happy that it wasn't them that they were happy to just go along.  Then all the women are gone and you're stuck on a tribe with...

JM:  All men.

DR:  Basically you're stuck in what almost looks like a fraternity. 

JM:  That's what I compared it to in my blog, kind of a frat guy mentality. 

Anthony:  Honestly, it was like my worst high school nightmares come to life.  

JM:  They're going to get Lisi, which we haven't even got into yet.  I can hear the gasps from Survivors at home.  "Why would you ever say that you don't want to be there?"

DR:  That's one where Probst was right on target. 

JM:  I think he slammed her with it.  I think she was being a baby.  "You take away my alliance and shelter.  I quit."  That's really going to hurt her that she said that out loud.  Were you guys thinking, 'what is this girl saying?'

Anthony:  When she said that I should have said, "I'll go to Exile Island!"  Part of me thinks that in the back of his mind Jeff was going, 'Okay, Lisi almost quit on me. It looks like Anthony is not playing the game.'  He hates quitters.  I'm not a quitter.  That wasn't what I was about.  I was about putting my best effort out, which wasn't enough, apparently.  I did what I could. 

Caller:  I was sorry to see you go and sorry it had to be at Rocky's hands.  Why didn't you at any time approach Alex, Dreamz and Edgardo and try to be their swing vote? 

Anthony:  I did spend some time with them and I went to each of them.  I talked to Dreamz.  I talked to Edgardo.  I talked to Alex.  By that point they had kind of made up their minds.  Even though they were telling me that they were waiting til TC to figure it out.  I'm pretty sure Alex had made up his mind.  I kept trying to get him to look me in the eye.  He just wouldn't look me in the eye at all. 

JM:  It seems like Alex bonded with Mookie pretty quickly from what we were shown.  Dreamz was on the outs with his other tribe.  Did he ever like tell you, "Look, I was on the outs."  Cassandra is ready to look for other options.  He went along with the people that are so willing to vote him out and be so rude to him.

DR:  They weren't so rude to him. It was the other tribe.

JM:  But clearly, he was on the outs.  Did he ever mention that?

Anthony:  He didn't mention that to me at all.  I think that was good strategy on his end. 

JM:  He's waiting for his time to strike. 

Anthony:  He's waiting for his time.

JM:  Maybe I'll make Dreamz my pick.  Not because he's a good looking man but because he's got options now. 

DR:  Too naive. 

JM:  I think he's going to make it to the final two.  I'm not saying he's going to win like you say with Earl. 

Caller:  During the March Madness intermission the Survivor message boards had a thread called Imaginary Survivor Episode.  I posted as cptndawg1 that you were really Superman and were about to enter the phone booth and change your clothes.  Why didn't you attempt to outplay, outlast the others.  It appeared that you were just there.  Period.

Anthony:  No, no, no.  That's just editing.  I'm playing the game just like everybody else.  Just because you're quiet about how you're playing the game...I do play poker.  You don't go, "Hey, look at my hand."  Keep it really close to your chest.  You play the cards as they're dealt.   I was working alliances, trying to build them.  I was lying and backstabbing.  Rita was surprised.  Rita didn't expect that.  That was an example that I was working it.  I was pressing Rocky's button.  I knew he had this great big button over there.  As soon as he said, "I can't stand her",  I was like, let me go for it. 

DR:  When everyone is saying, "Why aren't you standing up for yourself", how much of that is that you're too uncomfortable or scared to do it and how much of it was strategy, "I'm going to let this guy dig his own grave."

Anthony:  A lot of it was me just not wanting to muck up too much more dirt.  When people are already throwing around mud, you don't want to stick your face out so they can smack it.  You want to pull it back a little bit.  If you yell at Rocky, Rocky yells right back at you.  He'll keep escalating it until it evolves into what happened at Tribal Council.

JM:  Was it the editing?  It looked like he was really bossing you around to get wood, do this, do this. 

Anthony:  From my point of view, I was like, I'm just going to go along with it.  It's not bossing me around because I was just like, fine.  Go ahead and do this, play along for the time being and bide my time. 

DR:  Which comments hurt you the most? We heard "jellyfish", "girl you gotta take your skirt off".  Was there any one thing more than others that really got under your skin?

Anthony:  Trying to put me into a pigeonhole.  If one thing ticks me off my entire life, it's people trying to say, "this is who you are", without even knowing who I am.  He's really lucky that I didn't let it get to me.  I had a moment when I thought I was going to be the first Survivor to take a swing. 

JM:  I wish you would have. 

DR:  We heard him say, "You're effeminate".  Check out the split screen here.  Which one is looking a little effeminate?

<laughter>

JM: I tell you what, that chick has got abs of steel. 

Caller:  How much does it bother you watching Lisi basically beg to be taken off knowing that in this new tribe situation you are probably the next one to go?

Anthony:  It really was frustrating to watch.  I was concerned what was going to happen when I got back to Ravu.  She's there where she has the clues to the [hidden] immunity idol.  Her pat answer is, "big deal."  I would have killed to have that kind of information. 

DR:  It's a defense mechanism.  No one wants to be unpopular and she lashed out.  She said as much later. 

JM:  We didn't really see your gameplay.  Sometimes quiet can be misunderstood for someone laying low. 

DR:  We're going to take a quick break. 

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