Santa Cruz Sentinel

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Did I need to see a lumpy 42-year-old mail carrier in a thong bathing suit?

Did I need to see a close-up of lips that looked like they came straight out of that Ebola movie where people coughed up their insides in front of your eyes?

And did I really need to see a 43-year-old telephone lineman whacking two deer antlers together like some spooky 5-year-old with a couple of action figures?

The answer was no, no — and you can see that sort of stuff on the Santa Cruz mall anytime — so no to that, too.

If Mark Burnett wanted to bore us silly with "Survivor: Africa" and most of the people on it, then he succeeded Thursday night with his rehash of the last 21 days of the show.

I was glad my Thursday was not a total loss, though, because that morning I actually got to meet Lex van den Berghe, the coolest guy on the show and a resident of our very own cool town.

And let me report this one important fact: Not only does Lex look fantastic in person, he also seems very, very happy.

Thanks to our sharp-eyed readers, I had managed to find out where Lex lives on a quiet suburban street in Santa Cruz.

So I decided to pay him a visit.

Maybe we could sit down over a warm cup of cow’s blood and milk and talk.

Maybe he would tell me if he was more scared of marauding lions or telephone lineman Frank, who makes that Kurtz guy from "Heart of Darkness" look a nice neighbor.

I have to admit, I was a little worried as I drove to Lex’s house. I mean, the week before I had heard sweet-but-deadly Kelly and "I had sex on an airplane" Teresa describe Lex as well, a little ... weird.

Then there was that teaser where our very own Lex promised to track down the two people who had voted against him and "cut their heads off."

After that, I wasn’t sure if the women meant "weird" as in crazy-ax-murderer weird or weird as in he’s-got-a-lot-of-tattoos-and-piercings-and-eats-only-uncooked-food weird — which is actually fairly normal in Santa Cruz.

Still, I hoped there wasn’t anything in my columns that had made him angry.

So I was pretty relieved when I pulled up in front of his house and saw a garden hose neatly coiled against a green lawn and even a sign that asked drivers to please slow down because there were kids in the neighborhood.

None of the ax-murderers’ houses I’ve ever been to had signs that read "Kids at Play" on their fences. They always had things like blackout curtains and weird antennas that poked out of their roofs and big starving dogs chained in the front yards.

No antennas, no starving dogs at Lex’s.

I decided to get out of the car.

Being an investigative reporter, the first thing I looked for were signs of obvious new wealth, a clue that maybe Lex knew he was headed for a million-dollar pot.

There was a new gas grill in the back yard, but I figured that was pretty easily explained if you had just spent 39 days cooking cornmeal over a smoky campfire and (if Jeff Probst is to be believed) yearning for Mountain Dew.

The rest of the house looked pretty much like your average Santa Cruz family just trying to scrape up the monthly mortgage.

No clues there.

As I neared the house, I heard the unmistakable sound of barking dogs.

Big dogs.

"Oh, elephant dung," I thought. (Well, something like that, anyway.)

Then the front door exploded open and two 60-pound balls of black-and-white fur rushed out wagging their tails with the kind of friendliness you usually get only when you’ve got Milk Bones in your pocket.

"Lucky ... Daisy," said a voice.

Then there was Lex in full tattooed, spiky-haired splendor, with a cell phone to his ear.

He looked bigger and more handsome than he did on the show, but maybe that’s because cornmeal and cow’s blood tends to make one a little gaunt on TV.

"Hello," he said and smiled, putting out his hand as I introduced myself. "Nice to meet you."

Nice to meet me?

Was Lex really as nice as he seemed?

I explained that I wanted to ask him a few questions, let Santa Cruz know the real Lex.

He actually considered the request for a few minutes, asking whoever was on the other end of the line what she thought.

Then he apologized.

Actually, he said, he would like to talk, but CBS would sue him for a bazillion dollars or something if he did.

And you could tell he felt bad about it.

Really.

He promised that when everything was done, whether he got voted off or won the whole darn thing, he’d sit down and tell Santa Cruz about his experiences.

He said he even knew who I was because he reads the paper.

He smiled, shook my hand again and called Lucky and Daisy back into the house.

As I walked away, I thought how cool and nice and normal he was. Like if Eddie Vedder or Howie Long or Wolf Blitzer were your dad.

I thought he seemed really happy — like maybe a guy would if he knew he was in the running for a million bucks.

But I also thought maybe he got voted off because his clothes and his house were pretty low-key and you’d think you’d at least buy a pair of Ugg boots for a rainy day if you thought you might win a million smackers.

So I don’t know yet if Lex won.

Or even — as one of those sleazy tabloid reporters called to ask — if Lex had gotten some scary African parasite on the show and had to be helicoptered off. (Just like that pig-hunter guy got helicoptered off before the last rehash show.)

Anyway, Lex just seemed normal and nice and glad to be alive.

Like most of us who live in Santa Cruz.

Contact Peggy Townsend atptownsend@santa-cruz.com.

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