Concord's reality-television star, Mike "Boogie" Malin, has outlasted 12 competitors in Big Brother All-Stars. To get there, he's lived on slop, a concoction of water, oats and protein powder. He's been called a punk. He's even entered into a "showmance," a relationship with another contestant formed to further their standing.

Tonight, when he gets his shot at $500,000, his family will be watching and hoping here in Concord.

"I think he deserves to win, said his 75-year-old grandaunt Pat Britton, who said she watches more football and Dr. Phil than reality television. "I don't think he's hurt anyone deliberately. I just think it's a fun show. Every one of them has, you know, their own way of trying to win, whether everybody thinks it's proper or not."

Malin, 36, a Concord High School graduate, is one of two competitors left on Big Brother All-Stars, airing tonight at 8 on CBS. For nearly two months, he and the rest of the Big Brothercast have been locked in a house, cut off from contact with the outside world and filmed. The defeated housemates will vote to give the grand prize to Malin or his showmance partner, Erika Landin, a 36-year-old Pilates instructor from Chicago.

From Big Brother All-Stars, Malin has already won $15,000, a trip to Aruba and a Pontiac Solstice convertible, which he said he would give to his mother.

When Malin appeared on his first reality show, Big Brother 2 in 2001, his housemates kicked him out four weeks into the 10-week show.

"I think he played the game better," said Bonnie Malin, his mom, when asked how her son has turned his fortunes around. "He thought of himself more. He wasn't so focused on other people." In Big Brother 2, Malin romanced a competitor, Krista, who later had a knife held to her throat by housemate Justin.

Marie Cheney, his 78-year-old grandaunt, said she usually watches reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show. But she's watched the show this year and plans to watch tonight's episode at Cheers on Depot Street, with the rest of her relatives.

"I certainly hope Mike wins and not her," she said. "I don't think she did as much showmanship as Janelle"- another competitor -"did. I didn't care for her."

Cheney said she's not sure why Malin did better this time.

"Maybe he lied a little more,"she said. "Isn't that what the show is all about? But he's a good boy."

Malin's grandma, 76-year-old Ruth Barasso, said she's proud of him. "Oh, I'll just be tickled to death if he wins," she said.

She said Malin, part of a group that owns four restaurants in Los Angeles and has four more planned, visits her at least once a year and has sent her on trips to Florida and Mexico. Before he entered the Big Brother house, he sent her a check for $500 so she could have her 10-year-old Mercury Topaz fixed, she said. (The gas pedal was sticking to the floor, she said.)

"Life is good to him, and he's good to everyone else," Barasso said.

Her feelings are more ambivalent toward showmancer Landin.

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