The Barryfest Chronicles

It is no secret that I have a pretty expansive taste when it comes to television shows.  It’s not like I exclusively watch unusual documentary programming or mediocre sitcoms, it’s just that with the advent of DVR and Cox cable’s surprisingly large selection of specialty HD channels, I consume huge amounts of TV on a weekly basis.  I say the line-up here in New Orleans is “surprisingly” large because it is a surprise when any utility, public good or service down here functions as it should.  This is the type of place where three consecutive days of mail service is cause for celebration, so while we may not actually get more HD channels than any typical metro area, it sure feels that way considering we have to pay to recycle and landline phone service has been know to go out for a few hours at a time on a sunny day.

Anyways. The point I am trying to make it is that I watch almost all of the typical TV shows that most people watch, but even after making time for those and surfing around MLB Extra Innings each evening, I somehow still have plenty of room on my schedule to watch a bunch of weird shit.

One of the shows that has caught my attention over the past few years is the docu-fuckscene that is Intervention on A&E (and now A&E HD!).  For a long time, I was pretty sure that:

1. I was the only one who watched it
2. At least half of that shit was completely scripted.

I enjoyed it nonetheless, but those two things prevented me from mentioning it during typical “Watch anything good lately?” water cooler bullshit sessions.  Add to that the fact it is about horrific drug and alcohol abuse, and I figured it is much safer to just keep nodding and act like I, too, closely followed the drama of Brothers & Sisters.  So I really never had any idea of the fanbase a weird, depressing, scary show like this could pull.

But then I read this article about a particular episode I had just watched, an episode that blew my fucking mind.  And then this same episode came up over Dixie Beers at Ms. Mae’s last night, and almost everyone I was with had also seen it.  So I guess I was wrong about thinking no one else watched A&E under any circumstances.

The show that we were talking about focused on Allison, an anorexic cutter who rips through 10 cans of duster a day.  It was some of the most over-the-top, fucked up shit I have ever seen.  I thought the show had reached a pinnacle last year when it featured a kid who robotripped by day and stiffed prostitutes by night.  But that dude had nothing on this batshit wonder.  Here is a hilarious highlight reel of her performance:

She acted like an ancillary character from an episode of South Park.  In every scene – at lunch with her mom, driving home from Wal-Mart, in the FUCKING CLOSE-UP STUDIO INTERVIEW SHOTS – she was sucking down canned air.  Even when they were just using her audio for a voice-over you could hear the whizzing of the Dust-Off in the background.

At first, I laughed so hard I cried.  Then, I cried so hard I laughed.  Then, about half way through the episode, I really thought I was going to puke.  I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I still haven’t figured out if her exaggerated and borderline comical antics made the whole thing “too crazy to be fake” or “too crazy to be real.”

So after talking about this episode (and a few others) with some friends, I found it interesting that the show actually has a pretty decent following,  but I am a still bit skeptical on the legitimacy of the stories.  I just do not understand how they get people to agree to have a film crew follow them around and document their drug use, regardless of the fake story they are being fed by the producers of the show.  I mean, I don’t even like getting my picture taken when I happen to have a cig hanging out of my mouth, let alone being videotaped when I’m hiding in my parent’s garage doing speedballs.

And moreover, what type of drug dealer would go through with a house call to an apartment with a huge white production van parked outside and boom mics rigged throughout the property?  And they are actually willing to let a camera person ride shotgun as someone who is all types of fucked up tries to pilot an automobile?  For me, it’s a tough sell, to say the least.

I’m also surprised people haven’t caught on to the grave turn the old “fake-documentary-about-one-thing-as-a-cover-for-another-thing-that-we-are-going-to-surprise-you-with-on-camera-at-the-end-of-the-show” ruse has taken.  It was all fun and games back when you would return home from vacation to find your spare bedroom transformed into a sick home office by Evan Farmer and the rest of the nice folks from While You Were Out.  But that innocuous program was canceled a while ago, and with it went reality show on-air plot twists that were lighthearted and well received by those involved.

So of all the lessons you can take from a show like Intervention, the most important one may be this:  These days, if a camera crew wants to document your life for any reason, it is probably going to end poorly.  Chances are your family is about to repossess your car, call your sugar daddy’s wife and disown you.

Either that, or Bobby Flay is about to challenge you to a throwdown.