Archive through May 15, 2003
TV ClubHouse: Archive: Matthew Von Ertfelda (ARCHIVE):
Archive through May 15, 2003
Squaredsc | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 07:02 pm     um spy, i already claimed him. besides im closer. |
Hermione69 | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 07:05 pm     It is so funny to think of my initial impressions af Alex and Matt pre-show. Both from the bios and the pictures, I thought Alex was absolutely adorable, down-to-earth and genuine, while Matthew seemed smirky and self-impressed and not someone I cared to get to know. My impressions have almost flipped! I don't know that I would call Matthew adorable and, down-to-earth, but I think he is a handsome, fascinating, complex and multifaceted man. Alex, however, is definitely the smirky and self-impressed one that I wouldn't care to get to know! |
Hermione69 | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 07:07 pm     Spy, I do remember Square getting a claim in quite early.... (just fanning the flames of competition because it is fun) |
Snee | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 07:21 pm     high 5 on that, hermi. |
Spygirl | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 07:47 pm     LOL - okay, okay. But I've still got Bob from the Bachelorette. And besides, I want to point out that Square already has a perfectly wonderful hubby at home, so I will protest this decision.  |
Tabbyking | Monday, May 12, 2003 - 08:25 pm     square has to share him with me, cuz i was pretty early, too**. didn't i try to talk you out of alex, hermi?...i do remember some belly aching. i mean reminding you he was an 'innie' meaning he had been inside bellys!! ** i only fell off the matt wagon once and that was when squared said, "look at the eggplant!" and i said, "where" and she pushed me. i had aubergine bruises for days. |
Hermione69 | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 04:28 am     Tabby, ROFLMAO! Spy, I understand your frustration. Square seems to get all the good men, doesn't she? What is her secret?? |
Awareinva | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 08:08 am     Y'all are a hoot! Announcing up front......I make no claims to Matt because I want to stay on MsSquare's good side! I didn't like Matt's looks at first and, like Hermione, was more in the Alex camp. But boy, did that change! Alex's personality killed that for me and Matt definitely got more interesting in a very "bad boy" kind of way as the show went on (yum...just my type! ) But WOW did he clean up nice at the reunion show!! HUBBA HUBBA! He definitely should act because he has so many looks!! Whata cutie!! |
Squaredsc | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 09:39 am     you all are hizzelarious. spy i always talk about dh but i never said perfectly wonderful, lol. tabbyk, ive never had a problem sharing my men, well maybe some of them. hermi, i have no secret, i just like to lay my claims as soon as i spot the potential. unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone interesting on tar this season. oh except the one who's hobby is sex. i need to wait and see him on the telly first before i make up my mind. but someone else can claim him right now. |
Brenda1966 | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 12:11 pm     Hmmm... did I read here long ago that Matt talked about a boyfriend? (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) Now he has a girlfriend? Call me confused. Anyway, I watched my tape of the Early Show and thought Matt looked like Matt Dillon's brother Kevin. He looked good cleaned up and not as tall as he seemed on the show. |
Alaginger | Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 02:26 pm     Brenda.........the post about a boyfriend was a mistake, and was corrected at the board it was quoted from. It's up somewhere above in all those bunches of earlier posts on this thread. See you next Season!!! |
Csnog | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 11:24 am     Co-workers wondered if he'd survive -- for real By ERIC MOSKOWITZ, Standard-Times staff writer For a week they told him he was in their prayers, the gaunt and withered colleague who had mysteriously missed almost two months of work and who, when he returned, could barely muster the strength to keep his eyes open at meetings. "We all offered our help and support, and he never said anything," said Maria Stanard, a colleague of Dartmouth-raised "Survivor: The Amazon" competitor Matthew Von Ertfelda. "He was so skinny, just bones ... and he was so weak. He didn't want to share with anybody (the reasons), and we all respected that." Then CBS announced the lineup for the sixth installment of its reality-TV meal ticket, and Mr. Von Ertfelda's coworkers at Marriott International learned the true reason for his unexplained withering and impromptu disappearance. Shortly thereafter, they became transfixed with their television sets and their ever-mild-mannered colleague, who signed countless autographs and caused a quiet corner of the Bethesda, Md., corporate headquarters to hum with activity. "There are 4,000 people in this office and every one would come by," said Ms. Stanard, a native of Brazil who serves as director of the design team in the company's Lodging, Food and Beverage division, where Mr. Von Ertfelda, 33, is chief concept designer and "brain of the group" for Marriott's restaurants. "From Mr. Marriott to the rest, everyone knows about Matthew." On a recent "take your child to work" day, she said, Mr. Von Ertfelda signed hundreds of autographs on glossy photos (posing with a tiger, as designed by Ms. Stanard, whose desk is nearest to Mr. Von Ertfelda's), gave speeches and accommodated every last question and inquiry. Considered to be the most engaging "Survivor" season since the original aired three years ago, the forebear of modern reality television once again became the stuff of office water-cooler conversations. But for all the would-be pundits and "Survivor" handicappers who analyzed the series and tried to predict its outcome -- and their ranks on the Web are thick -- rare were those office employees who could come to work and actually grill a competitor. Although Mr. Von Ertfelda was prohibited from granting media interviews -- "To many people, Matthew is still in the Amazon right now," CBS spokeswoman Colleen Sullivan said in February, explaining why the cast members could not speak publicly until after their taped selves had been voted off and they had made a requisite initial appearance on CBS' "Early Show" -- he humored his officemates' every whim, Ms. Stanard said. "This office became so alive, with so many people passing through, and every Friday morning we'd recap the show with him. Every person had an opinion," Ms. Stanard said. "And he was so patient to listen to every one of them." They rooted fiercely for their colleague, portrayed by the cameras at times as possibly unbalanced or aloof, his popularity on Internet polls lagged in the beginning but surged toward the end, knowing in real life he is "a great guy," Ms. Stanard said. "People on the show called him psycho, but that was just wrong. He is so polite. He comes from a great family -- very well brought up, a gentleman. I've never seen him in bad mood once," she said. "He is always, how do you say it, in a 'zen' mode? That's Matthew." Although he kept secret his disappearance, and then refused to spill about the show's outcome, she said that people in the office speculated he had done well, because he came back from seclusion rail-thin -- and thus, they concluded, if he had been voted off early he would have regained the weight. They were right. But, Ms. Stanard said, he deserved to win it all. "I am mourning today," she said, punctuating it with a good-natured laugh. |
Csnog | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 11:31 am     Survival skill: keeping secrets By ERIC MOSKOWITZ, Standard-Times staff writer Mr. Von Ertfelda won $100,000. Everywhere Matthew Von Ertfelda went these past few months, at work, on the street, in the store, people pressed the "Survivor: The Amazon" competitor for details about the show, trying to wheedle their way to insider tips about the outcome of the taped reality program. One fan even stooped to playing the health card, telling him she might have a heart attack if she had to withstand another stressful hour of "Survivor," outcome in doubt. That was his grandmother. "She was complaining about heart trouble," Mr. Von Ertfelda said of 91-year-old Grandma Sadie, who, his mother Kathy assures, is still plenty spry. As a matter of fact, his mother, Grandma Sadie and her sister Mabel, 86, all made the trek to New York City this past weekend, where Mr. Von Ertfelda's fate in the reality-TV program was revealed. To the end, the Dartmouth-reared Mr. Von Ertfelda remained mum on his status -- he knew he had reached the final two of 16, although the ultimate $1 million winner was not revealed until Sunday night, despite frequent attempts by people trying to "squirrel information out of me." "I felt like if I caved, it would really affect everyone's enjoyment of the game, so I kept them in the dark," he said from his cell phone in New York, sitting down to a plate of beef chow fun. Regaining the weight -- he shed about 30 pounds from his 6-foot frame during 39 days in the Amazon -- has been one of the simpler pleasures to life "out of game," as they say in Survivor-speak. Though he ranked low on viewer popularity polls in the early going, Mr. Von Ertfelda demonstrated his obvious abilities in the passing broadcasts and became the heavy favorite to win it all by the finale, when just four contestants remained. In the penultimate show, he won both the immunity and the reward challenges, taking home a new Saturn Ion and securing his place in the last episode. But in the end, he lost out, with the tribal council selecting 22-year-old swimsuit model Jenna Morasca by a 6-1 tally. "I regret that at times my strategy was not very overt. (It) was really to be a back-seat driver and get to my destination without ever touching the steering wheel," Mr. Von Ertfelda said. "I thought trying to back-stab and deceive as little as possible would give me the best shot. But given the devious nature of most members of the jury, they valued people who had a more aggressive and overt strategy than mine, which was more subtle." Still, he said, he is thrilled to have finished second. And his mother, Kathy, who added that "there's no sour grapes," explained that her son spent much of the weekend partying with his fellow competitors, and new friends, off-air. But "being his prejudiced mother, I think he should've won," she said. "What happened, happened. But as far as I'm concerned, though, he's the best, the greatest. He really played a great game." The fretting over the outcome, it seems, has been left to Internet chat rooms and the like. A Canadian-based fan club contacted his mother to share its members' outrage (some 100 e-mailed messages) over the "jury from hell." That is a sentiment also voiced by some of Mr. Von Ertfelda's friends, such as Joanella Cannell of Mattapoisett, a fellow alumnus of Friends Academy in Dartmouth. She felt that Ms. Morasca's statement to the council -- Matt "doesn't need the money. ... This is (not) a big deal for him, it's just another adventure on his list of things to do" -- was a base appeal. Kathy Von Ertfelda agreed. Because her son, a private school-educated Cornell graduate, had studied the culinary arts in France and taken real-life "Survivor" adventures (cutting his way with a machete through locales as exotic as Papua and Panama), the jury "decided that he came from some kind of privileged background, and the girl needed the money more than he did," she said. But her son, she noted, is a self-supporting 33-year-old with a used car. At least until now. Mr. Von Ertfelda has the keys to the new Saturn coupe and an extra $100,000 to his name, save for Uncle Sam's cut. "I'll probably just dump it in the bank," he said. "But I might put some of it toward a desert trek" to Ethiopia or another East African destination. He also received a bottle of Dom Perignon and a fruit basket from his boss at Marriott International, where Mr. Von Ertfelda is a valuable member of the restaurant design team. As much as it was a congratulatory gift, he said, he thinks his boss had an ulterior motive, given the speculation that Mr. Von Ertfelda might use "Survivor" as springboard to an entertainment career. "I fully intend to be back at work. It's a great job and a great company," he said. But he made no secret that he would like to bring "to fruition" his passion for screenwriting. And some of his old friends, the ones who sent him e-postcards of himself from the SurvivorHunks.com Web site, have suggested that he dabble in modeling or acting. For now, though, he is simply content to enjoy the limelight. His mother remarked on the Warholian nature of his fame, but this is actually his second brush with it. Last year, he made People Magazine's list of 50 most eligible bachelors. That was nothing, he said, just "a few people calling to congratulate me." This time, he noted, the throngs gathered on the street have been "kind of crazy," and the e-mails and calls from onetime acquaintances and good friends seeking insider tips seemed never-ending. Now the show is over, and it's about to ease up. Grandma Sadie has gone home to Utica, N.Y., and so have her questions. On Friday, Matthew Von Ertfelda will return to work. |
Seamonkey | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 03:49 pm     That's adorable about Grandma Sadie.. if that didn't get the secret out of him, nothing would |
Texannie | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 04:11 pm     Did we ever figure out who did vote for Matthew??? |
Mware | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 04:16 pm     Texannie - it was Butch. |
Texannie | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 04:26 pm     oh..ok, thanks! |
Seamonkey | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 04:32 pm     Butch is my hero |
Sia | Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 10:33 pm     I wanted Matthew to win!! I wish he had won the million dollars, but it sounds from the above article that he is already the biggest winner from that entire pack of wolves that were sent to the Amazon. What a great guy he sounds like, and how mean of the others to try and convince themselves and each other that he was psycho. Their confessionals were full of such statements. A pox on that nasty Jenna!!! |
Alaginger | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 06:00 am     Sia.........I have to agree with you. I think Jenna got the money and may get a lot of publicity out of the show for her career in modeling because with the meat back on her, she is a pretty girl. But I think both Matthew and Rob got enough mileage out of this show that it may boost their careers. The article above already said Matthew had gained more popularity out of this show than he did the People Magazine article. |
Abby7 | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 07:03 am     Can someone tell me what made Jenna say that Matt didn't need the money. Does his family have money? If so, how did Jenna find out? |
Seamonkey | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 09:45 am     I think in Jenna's mind he didn't "need" the money because he was "not Jenna". |
Mware | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 10:05 am     I think there's probably some truth to that, Sea, but there was also the rest of Jenna's comment - the part about this being just another one of Matt's adventures. Obviously, around camp, Matt had told stories of some of the adventures he had been on, and those types of trips are certainly not cheap. Also, with them being in camp with nothing else to do for weeks, each person probably told some information about where they were from, their family, where they went to school, etc., and Matt did attend private high school. Between his adventures and attending private high school, Jenna probably made the conclusion that Matt didn't need the money. |
Csnog | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 10:43 am     Mmmmmmm Should you be given the prize based on need? If that is the case then we should all just let the people who have finacial difficulty apply for the show. How poor was Jenna? That one statement out of Jenna's mouth was uncalled for. It was another of her me, me, me attitude showing. Just because your family has money doesn't mean that you do. |
Grooch | Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 10:57 am     I think Jenna made the comment because she "needs" the money to help pay for her mother's medical bills. Her mother has cancer. I'm not saying she is right or wrong in her thinking, but just posting why I think she said she needs the money and Matt doesn't. |
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