June 11, 2003
This week's Bulletin was written by Tom Sayer
THIS WEEK’S MEETING – Announcements
Well, we didn’t have either our editor or our writer at the meeting, today, so we’re going to wing it. No doubt Gary started the meeting with some pontification and I am sure someone led the pledge followed by a stirring invocation and an inspiring rendition of a patriotic song. In the absence of actual announcements, the following will be reported as “virtual announcements” (taken verbatim from the future week’s Bulletin):
Ø Ron Erbetta reminded the membership of the upcoming Operation Stand Down scheduled for July 11th, 12th, 13th at San Diego High School. This is an event started by our club, which has expanded nationwide. Please let Ron know if you are interested.
Ø Gary Green reminded all of the upcoming Demotion Party at the San Diego Yacht Club.
Ø Tana Cleaves reminded all to search for blankets for the Neil Good Day Center blanket and men's clothing drive. Members can bring used articles to the July 9th meeting and Tana and Dan will transport over to the Center that day. Besides blankets, they are in desperate need of men's jeans, underwear, socks, shoes.....(all can be used!). The day center provides the clothing free to San Diego's homeless in need..
Ø Jennifer Grebing provided flyers for the First Annual Summer Family Bar-B-Q. It is scheduled for Sunday July 20, 2003 at the Model Yacht Pond on Vacation Isle in Pacific Beach. Price $10 for adults and $5 for kids 6 – 12, 5 and under free. Sign up by Thursday, July 17th.
Guest SpeakeR
Thanks to the quick thinking of Jennifer Cusick, I have the benefit of an article in the November 2002 issue of Ranch & Cove Magazine on our guest speaker, Dr. Richard Levak. Dr. Levak is a Del Mar psychologist specializing in
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Dr. Richard Levak |
personality testing and a consultant for Survivor. He had his own Survivor experience on April 27, 2000 when he hopped off the gondola at Dave’s Run in Mammoth and skied down what he thought was the ski run but was, in actuality, quite off the beaten track.
While the castaways on the TV reality show "Survivor" were busy scheming against each other last spring, one of their advisers ----- a Del Mar psychiatrist ---- was alone, lost and near-frozen in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada.
As he fought to stay alive, Dr. Levak reflected on the 16 men and women marooned on an island 8,000 miles away. "I did think of the irony of it," Levak said. "I had just done the show, and now I was out in the wilderness surviving."
Levak, of course, hadn't planned on starring in his own personal endurance drama. He had gone to Mammoth to take a vacation and went off a trail during a solo skiing expedition. He ended up nearly five miles downhill from civilization.
He tried to walk but couldn't make his way through the deep snow and came to realize he wasn't going anywhere.
"I knew enough to build a shelter and eat snow, but I only had a sweater to wear during 20-degree temperatures at night," he recalled.
Levak, 50, spent two days in the cold as searchers tried in vain to find him. "I built a circle out of wood and they still didn't see me," he recalled.
The searchers were nearly ready to give up when a helicopter pilot finally spotted him. Relieved and more than a little embarrassed, Levak went back to civilization and his role as counselor to the castaways.
Levak said he had some doubts when he was first approached by colleague Gene Ondrusek of San Diego about assisting the producers of "Survivor." The work was unprecedented and could be controversial.
The inspiration for "Survivor" was a Swedish show called "Expedition Robinson." The first contestant banished from that show later killed himself, and so-called "reality shows" ---- including CBS's "Big Brother" ---- have been careful to hire psychologists since then.
"I was concerned but fascinated by the prospect of seeing what kind of dynamics would play out," Levak said.
He ultimately agreed to become involved with the show, thinking that he could help make sure that no unprepared people got onto the island. He and Ondrusek were charged with making sure contestants would be able to handle the rigors of the contest and the challenges of its aftermath.
Six thousand people applied to be on the show, and producers whittled that number down to 50. Then, over 10 days of interviews, the psychologists helped the producers narrow them to 16
"We tried very hard to make sure that these were resilient people," Levak said, and he feels they succeeded. "These are not ordinary people; these are exceptional people."
Levak and Ondrusek sometimes disagreed during the screening process. "We had lively discussions," Ondrusek said, including a spirited debate over whether to allow one person onto the island. (The person ultimately made the cut.)
Last spring, the contestants flew to a remote island in the South China Sea, near Vietnam and the Philippines. They formed two tribes, coped with a wildlife menu that included rats, and soon began voting each other off the island in a quest for $1 million.
Ondrusek traveled to the island to advise the producers and the contestants. Levak stayed in Del Mar and was available to counsel them by phone.
"The producers genuinely cared about the (castaways)," Levak said. "They formed really strong bonds with them and are very protective of them."
"Survivor" premiered on May 31, and over the next 13 weeks, millions of viewers became entranced by the game. The quest for $1 million in prize money became a contest of cunning, full of shifting alliances and cutthroat politics.
Several of the castaways have said publicly that they expected the game would be more of a physical contest than it turned out to be. "It's very difficult for people to know what's going to happen before they get involved with something that's so unusual," Levak said. "It's outside their realm of experience."
But Levak knew from the beginning that the real challenges of "Survivor" would be mental. He figured that out by pondering the dynamics of the game itself.
"I knew it would be extreme. That's part of what concerned me," he said.
Levak declined to talk about the individual castaways in order to protect their confidences. But he did say people can learn from the victory of winner Richard Hatch, a gay corporate trainer from Rhode Island who liked to parade around naked.
Hatch, a master manipulator and schemer, won even though he had alienated many other castaways, seven of whom got to choose the winner.
"Rich seemed surprised that people didn't want him to win," Levak said. "People ought to really observe how others view them. The lesson is that we should be more aware of how we come across."
Levak and Ondrusek continue to counsel the castaways when needed, although they won't say whether they've been consulted recently.
Levak might have made a good "Survivor" contestant himself. An athletic native of England, he surfs several times a week and retains the strength he developed while working as a construction worker in Leucadia for two years.
Levak, who arrived in the U.S. in 1974, mainly counsels married couples. He gives personality tests to spouses and uses the results to understand the differences between them.
While opposites may attract, they don't always get along after marriage, he said. "People don't know how to communicate, so they judge or blame each other."
Levak's own marriage track record isn't too shabby. He's been happily married for 15 years and has a 10-year-old daughter, he said.
That's the kind of survival that really counts.
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