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EVERY TIME there's been a "Survivor," there's been at least one tribe member who hails from the New York metropolitan area.
First there was Dr. Sean Kenniff, the handsome-but- nerdy neurologist from Massapequa. Then, who could forget Kimmi Kappenberg, the outspoken bartender from Ronkonkoma on "Survivor: Australian Outback"? Or her fellow castaways, Alicia Calaway, the personal trainer, and Jeff Varner, the hunky Internet project manager, both from Manhattan? And, when "SurvivorAfrica" kicks off tomorrow night, we'll meet Kim Johnson, a retired elementary school teacher from Oyster Bay, and Ethan Zohn, a professional soccer player living in the city.
It's just a "coincidence" that so many tribespeople live in our area, insists Michelle Hooper, CBS spokeswoman for the mega-hit show. And yet, she does admit that we do have a certain, well, something. "I don't know what it is, but it makes for good television," Hooper says.
Maybe we're just all hams, so used to being part of a huge crowd that we have to make ourselves stand out to survive day to day. So there's bound to be one of us - again - among the 16 tribe members in "Survivor IV." CBS is in the process of casting the next members now.
Newsday asked readers who have applied to CBS to send us a copy of their required three-minute audition videos. What lengths have these wannabes gone to, hoping to make themselves one of the chosen from the more than 60,000 audition videos CBS has received? And which of our neighbors might be next? Could it be Ivan Goodstein, the
special education teacher who lives in Hewlett? Joan Weiss, the neophyte boxer from Jericho?
Or Jeff Stembokas, the harmonica-playing construction worker from Miller Place?
Takea look, and you decide.
ED SCHNEIDER
A FEW YEARS ago, Ed Schneider bought a powder-puff pink fairy costume, complete with wings, to wear on Halloween. The 6-foot-2, 215- pound Schneider donned it for his "Survivor IV" audition tape, turning himself into the "Hairy Fairy," sitting on a couch playing a set of bongo drums. "I just wanted to do something a little different just to catch your attention. Hopefully my bongo playing did the trick for you," he deadpans.
Schneider, a 38-year- old New York union bricklayer from...