Salon Arts & Entertainment | Hacking toward Bethlehem

Hacking toward Bethlehem | page 1, 2, 3, 4

As the Latin America road trip got under way, Abe almost immediately filled the role of black sheep. The show portrayed him as a gadfly and a cad, whose idea of fun is to electronically eavesdrop on another cast member's intimate phone call to a girlfriend back home, while coolly plotting to seduce any female who catches his fancy.

Abe wasn't secretive about his plans. On MTV's Web site, he's quoted reflecting on his experience: "If there was one thing that I was really 18 about, I said that I would get with all three girls ... but in the same respect I'm kind of, you know, what else is a horny young 18-year-old dude gonna do?"

"The degree of that surprised me," says Abe's uncle, Jon Burdick, who guided Abe's move to California. "I knew he'd want to come across as the wild one. But he doesn't ever really mean to hurt anybody and he's surprised when he does. I think it's just the way Bunim/Murray wants to cut it, for the sake of ratings."

Which brings us to the part of Abe's saga that connects his "Road Rules" hack to the now infamous fight with Gladys. While beetling through the casting interviews from "Road Rules: Australia," Abe found interviews with "Susie," an 18-year-old blond from Pittsburgh. What Abe did not know as he perused her personal effusions was that he would encounter Susie during the trip through Latin America. As one in a series of contrivances known as "missions" ("Go deep sea fishing!" "Fight a bull!"), the producers arranged for the Australia cast to appear and "challenge" the Latin America cast to a jet-ski competition. When Abe glimpsed Susie in her wet suit, he felt an instant connection. "A new way to meet girls in the '90s!" Abe laughs. "Beat them at their own game. Know them better than they know themselves."

From reading Susie's interview, Abe learned enough to get her attention. "I knew little tidbits. When I met her, it was like, 'Ha ha! I've got information on you!'" Then he made himself seem really cool by telling her about the hack: "Just imagine a girl doing this thing for the show -- and one of the kids on the show knows you work in a video store, and that you got the information off of Bunim/Murray's computer system. That's pretty impressive."

Impressive or not, it worked. Abe and Susie's affair was a highlight of the series. In one shot, we see them strolling through a balmy Mexican evening and smooching under the streetlights. The next morning, as Abe and his Winnebago-riding mates pack up for the day's adventures, the previous night's activities are, understandably, the talk of the group. Susie has already been spirited away, the Australia cast's mission accomplished. She isn't around to defend her honor. That's when Gladys loses it. A feisty native of Boston's inner-city Roxbury district, she announces that she didn't like Susie and gets going on a judgmental diatribe directed at Abe and his girlfriend-for-a-night. "She has no class!"

Gladys calls Abe a "coward" and, strangely, taunts him for his unwillingness to strike her. Abe lashes back, blasting her as a "psychotic bitch" and a "maniac." Suddenly, Gladys charges him and -- bop! pow! -- she unleashes a flurry of blows that drops Abe, who collapses onto a cot. The upshot of the fight: Abe throws a fit, not without some justification. He threatens first to call "the federales" and then, more realistically, a lawyer. The Bunim/Murray contract prohibits violence among cast members. Gladys gets a one-way ticket back to her Boston home and Abe serves time as the group pariah, particularly in the eyes of the remaining two female cast members. Apparently, the resentments lingered well beyond the end of the experience. When asked in January by a New Orleans newspaper to describe Abe, cast member Sarah Martinez dubbed him "the asshole." This was the same Sarah who, not knowing how correct she was, described Abe on the air as "the type of person who'd read your journal." Abe finds that comment offensive. "I never read anybody's journal!" he says, laughing.

The sojourn through Latin America is history, but Abe relived it every Monday night as the episodes aired on MTV. Or at least, he relived an approximation of it. "I talked to one of the other guys in the cast recently," Abe says. "He watches the show and says, 'That's not the trip I remember.'" That's the way Abe feels, too. "I had no idea that I'd be as big of a troublemaker as I ended up being," he confesses. "I expected there'd be people just as bad as me. Or just as interesting."

Abe peruses the alt.tv.road-rules newsgroup and sometimes posts there when the commentary about him gets out of hand. "I'm the one everyone likes to talk shit about," he sighs. But he's also a favorite of female viewers. One e-mail from a young lady -- offering to perform certain favors for him -- is printed out and taped to his door. To better service his fans, Abe has created a Web site, "Abecam," which features live, streamed video of his daily activities.

Abe tells me that he rarely hacks anymore. In the end, it seems he has learned a lesson from "Road Rules," just as the producers had hoped. "It's just a vast empty void out there," he says. "Like looking up somebody's asshole."
salon.com | July 21, 1999

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Jonathan Vankin is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles.
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