{Hacking toward
Bethlehem}
Abe
Ingersoll, a former punk hacker
and
infamous "Road Rules" cast member,
reflects
on his ill-fated 15 minutes.
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- - - - - - - - - - -
By
Jonathan Vankin
July
21, 1999
|Abe Ingersoll is not the type to hit a lady -- even if
she is kicking his ass on national television. So when a tiny woman named
Gladys smacked him with a roundhouse left hook, Abe reacted stoically.
The punch landed squarely on his jaw, sending him sprawling. Gladys then
pounced, raining blow after blow on his back and shoulders. The entire
beating unfolded before rolling MTV video cameras, for later viewing by
an audience of millions. But Abe did nothing to defend himself other than
ball up and yell at her to knock it off.
Abe, a compact,
spiffy-looking 18-year-old, was a cast member of "Road Rules: Latin America"
-- a 15-week-long installment of MTV's peripatetic spinoff from the rusty
but reliable documentary show, "The Real World." (Abe's "Road Rules" episodes,
which first aired earlier this year, will likely be rerun in the fall.)
When the self-professed "punk hacker kid" decided to audition for the show,
it occurred to him that he might upgrade his odds of making the cast by
hacking into the network of the show's production company, Bunim/Murray.
He was right. Included in his haul were transcripts of previous interviews
with prospective cast members, which gave him an inside track on what the
producers were looking for.
"Actually it's
not even hacking because it's so straightforward," Abe tells me as we sit
in his Venice, Calif., apartment, several months after the fact. A well-scuffed
surfboard leans against the wall beside Abe's home-built, Linux-loaded
PC. "They had this information shared to the world. Anybody could just
come and find it. Cheap production company, cheap T-1 connecting a LAN
network to the Internet; what could possibly be at the other end of that?"
A whole mess
of trouble, as it turns out. In short, Abe uncovered biographical insights
on cast members from previous "Road Rules" excursions, several of whom
dropped by for a "spontaneous" on-air visit during the Latin America shoot.
He then used said info for nefarious purposes that inadvertently aroused
the wrath of Gladys. So she beat him up. All in all, a pretty embarrassing
15 minutes of fame for a kid from Peoria.
For those not
part of MTV's crucial yearning-adolescent demographic, here's the high
concept behind "Road Rules": Find six attractive, outspoken, go-for-it
young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, set them up inside an RV, put
them on the road in an exotic locale, and then sit back and let the zaniness
begin. It's so stupid it's perfect. A camera crew and production staff
follow the young people around day and night, videotaping their every nervous
tic, angst-ridden confessional and shouting match.
Abe's hack
was a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost. Partners Jon Murray
and Mary-Ellis Bunim's shows are carefully stocked with sexy, flamboyant
and ever-so-slightly dysfunctional post-adolescents. The archetype is Puck
from "The Real World," an abrasive loudmouth whose temporary "family" gave
him the boot. The "Road Rules" producers knew they were getting another
bad-boy specimen with Abe -- they even labeled him "The Bad Guy" in on-air
promo spots -- but he turned out to be more trouble than they'd counted
on.
"We knew we
were taking a certain risk in choosing someone like Abe," says Murray,
who learned of Abe's attack after the show had wrapped. "To some extent,
that's what Abe is about." "Abe has tremendous charisma and he has unique
experience," adds Bunim. "When we met him, we were excited that his back
story didn't duplicate anyone else's. We didn't think a whole lot about
the danger of casting someone like Abe. Maybe we should have. It's unnerving
to feel that completely vulnerable."
And what does
Abe have to say for himself? He doesn't offer any excuses. But as we become
acquainted, he does tell me that he saw "Road Rules" as an opportunity
for useful peer-group therapy in the wake of his rather turbulent upbringing.
The show was a means, he says, "to be reconnected with my generation."
"As we see,"
he now admits, "that did not happen at all."
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"Ferris
Bueller" meets "The Truman Show"
