Hbee Inc.

“WHERE’S UNCLE PETE?? NOBODY LOVES ME!! THERE ARE NO MEN IN THIS ROOOOOOM!!”

Just as there are friends I don’t really care for but still hang out with, so, too, are there channels programmed into the Favorites button on my cable remote that I just never get around to deleting. The Horse Race Channel, for instance. I put it in as a kind of momento mori to the sheer surreality of a channel devoted to replaying horse races. How many people would ever have cause for such a thing outside of 70-year old ex-felons and a half a dozen high school kids that just discovered Stranger Than Paradise? And why do I keep A&E? Sure, they used to show plays and concerts but that was almost twenty years ago. Does anyone remember when you could watch Mark Morris on Bravo? Or the opera set in the airport? AMC, and I’m showing my age, showed honest-to-god classic movies…unedited…without commercials. Now they play Delta Force III.

My wife and I slumped onto the couch this evening and began to flip when suddenly she shouted out to go back to A&E. I read the title of the show on the info bar – Intervention.

“Intervention?,” I asked. Five mintues earlier she bemoaned missing the 50 Most Stylish Haircuts of the Mid-90′s on VH-1 claiming she just needed to zone out. “What the hell is that?”

“You haven’t heard about this? It’s a show where they film people’s intervention.”

“Good title,” I said.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, an intervention consists of gathering the loved ones of an addict into a room and then telling the addict they’re going to…say…a surprise party. Once the addict walks through the door, the loved ones tell him/her how much their behavior hurts them. Then, with luck, the addict goes into rehab.

“It’s a little controversial,” my wife informed me, “because I guess they don’t actually tell the person that it’s gonna end in an intervention.”

NICE!

So, Kristen, this evening’s Junkie du Jour, thought she’d simply signed up for a reality show about twenty-three year old heroin-addicted, alcoholic prostitutes with children in Wisconsin when in fact she’d signed up for a reality show about a particular twenty-three year old heroin-addicted, alcoholic prostitute with a child in Wisconsin about to get her emotional ass kicked.

If I wrote the pitch for this show it would be – “Punk’d with real world consequences”.

I’ve seen some great junkie-whore documentaries.  HBO does them very well.  One camera and a boom mic operated by the filmmaker.  Nice, tight and mobile.  Intervention, however, has a budget.  Not only do they run with two cameras BUT all the participants where wireless microphones clipped onto the back of their jeans!  The sound quality is stunning.  Except, of course, when the junkie slurs their words, but that’s why god created subtitles.  Two cameras opens up the possibility of some really effective jump cutting while Kristen snorts heroin or fires up her Mountain Dew bong.  And keeping two cameras in the room while she and her sister show the cameras how they fight provides some almost Bergman like two-shots.  When Kristen’s sister flies from the room in sadness and disgust, the reality smacks you right in the uvula as the camera follows her down the stairs, through the parking lot and into her car, keeping the wireless mic in the shot the entire time.

“So,” I asked my wife, “do you think they’ll let her take it off before she starts driving, because that looks really uncomfortable to sit on.”

Still, nothing could prepare me for the supreme and pathetic irony of the intervention itself.  Kristen’s downslide began in eighth grade when her grandma died and her mom and stepfather divorced.  What happened with her real dad?  Dunno.  We flipped back and forth between this and Barcelona for the first half-hour.  The point is - she has issues with men leaving her and not taking care of her.  She stays with her boyfriend who beats her because he stands by her.  (I cannot tell you how hard I’m trying to leave that without comment)  This is where Kristen lets loose.

“WHERE’S UNCLE PETE?? NOBODY LOVES ME!! THERE ARE NO MEN IN THIS ROOOOOOM!!”

A flashy graphic appears in the bottom left hand corner of the screen informing us that Pete wouldn’t come to the intervention (waaaaait for it!) because he didn’t want to be on camera!  SCORE!

The presence of Pete might* have made the intervention run smoother but Pete (and this is pure conjecture) did not want to whore himself on national television.  Pete is my hero.  The fact that he showed up in the end does nothing to diminish that.

The Intervention website, naturally, solicts loved ones to punk their junkies, which sounds cold, but they have a nice reminder

You acknowledge that you may not receive a response from this submission. IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THE SITUATION YOU DESCRIBE BELOW REQUIRES URGENT ATTENTION, PLEASE CONTACT AN APPROPRIATE CARE PROVIDER.

Translation – If your junkie continually overdoses, please don’t wait to see if you can get on TV before trying to help him.  Yes, the ratings would go through the roof, but dead junkies do us absolutely no fucking good.  We need them alive.

In summary – we’ve reached the end times and I’m ready to jump on the bandwagon.

Here’s my reality show -

DYING TO LIVE!
Twelve terminally ill contestants all compete to see which one will be the last to die.  They all share a hospital ward (or convelescent home).  During the series, they compete in challenges.  The winner receives a bonus of an expiremental drug or extra dialysis.  The loser forfeits one day of medication or chemo.  The last one living wins.

Drug companies may reach me at hbeeinc_at_gmail_dot_com

*I need to point out that an addict cornered will do or say anything.  We’re not stupid.  She may have latched on to the no-men-in-the-room thing in a flash of self-preservational improv.

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