A Hacker-Turned-‘Road Rules’-Star Comes to Cuesta College to Settle Down

BY JEN STEVENSON

Abe Ingersoll looks like any other college kid in San Luis Obispo. But the Cuesta student is immediately recognizable to millions of MTV fans as "the guy who got that girl kicked off the show."

The swarthy, dark-haired 19-year-old shared his life with the nation last year as a cast member of MTV’s popular "Road Rules: Latin America."

The 15-week show, a voyeur’s dream, tosses six young adults into a Winnebago, places them in an exotic location, gives them "missions" to complete each week, adds a bevy of cameramen to record their every movement and emotion, and voilà–instant melodrama.

To viewers, it appeared that Ingersoll spent his 22 and a half minutes of fame each week antagonizing his fellow cast members, a shadow he claims MTV purposefully cast on him to make him fit a ratings-friendly "bad guy" mold.

In the fateful episode that sealed his reputation as the cast’s black sheep, motorhomemate Gladys relentlessly criticized Ingersoll’s one-night love interest Susie (former cast member of "Road Rules: Australia"). Verbal sparring ensued, and Gladys quickly reached boiling point. Spewing obscenities, she got up in his face, and the scene unfolded as dramatically as in any soap opera.

"Abe, I should take you out in the street and beat you like your mother never did," she yelled.

"That’s what it always has to degrade to with you, isn’t it," he answered.

Apparently, the answer to that question was a resounding yes. And when Ingersoll informed Gladys that he felt she was a "psychotic bitch," it was all over.

"Call me a bitch again! Call me a bitch again!" Gladys shrieked.

Ingersoll complied, and before he knew it, Gladys had planted a fist square in the middle of his face and pulled him down in a headlock. Ingersoll struggled to wrestle free as she pummeled him with her fists, and after a pretty solid beating another cast member managed to pry Gladys’ talons off of him, but not before she got in a few good kicks, too.

A slightly disheveled Ingersoll told Gladys she was "out of here," and threatened to "call in the federales" to deal with the matter.

"They wanted to see me act ghetto, I’m acting ghetto," said Gladys a few moments later, still fuming. "They" are the show’s producers, who urge the cast members to fulfill their preselected billing. Nevertheless, for violating the "no physical violence" clause in the show’s contract, she got the official boot from MTV shortly thereafter, and Ingersoll’s already-soiled reputation as a troublemaker was firmly cemented.

"I was vilified in the hearts and minds of so many kids. And girls...they go, ‘Oh, you’re the one that got that girl kicked off the show,’ but it wasn’t like that...there were a lot of other issues involved," he said.

But with this onerous reputation a year behind him and fading fast, Ingersoll is putting a tumultuous past behind him, moving on with life, going to college. MTV’s former "bad guy" is growing up, and he’s choosing to do this in San Luis Obispo.

Ingersoll doesn’t seem like a villain. A little cocky, maybe, perhaps stemming from the fact that at 19 years of age, when many young adults are just cutting their teeth on the real world (life, not the TV show), Ingersoll’s already seen quite a lot.

He’s ready to talk, and the way he cooperatively spews out his biography at a moment’s notice suggests Ingersoll has done this before. Of course, this is a guy who allowed the whole world to examine every detail of his life for almost four months. His easy candor isn’t really surprising, considering one of the main demands that "Road Rules" and its sister show "Real World" put on their "stars" is the ability to dish out emotional verbiage like it's Halloween candy.

He’s used to being under a microscope, a human specimen.

"Do you want to meet somewhere or do you want to come and see me in my native environment?" he asks matter-of-factly when contacted for an interview.

He rattles off personal information in a smooth stream. He has six siblings–five brothers, one sister–of which he’s the second youngest. He grew up in Peoria, Ill., and moved to Los Angeles when he was 16.

But the devil is in the details, and those come forth shortly.

"My mom was a lesbian," he says pointedly, out of nowhere.

At a request to repeat himself, he switches explanatory tactics. "She’s a switch-hitter."

Thus begins the bigger picture.

Ingersoll was born in Twisp, Wash., and moved to a little town outside Peoria when he was 3.

"We lived in a big farmhouse in, like, Hicksville," he said.

He spent several years of his early youth in a Mennonite commune, and then when he was in first grade his mom "haphazardly" decided to divorce his father, opting for an alternate lifestyle.

"Within a year and a half she was involved in a full-time same-sex relationship with Aunt Kathy," he said. "That’s what we call her, Aunt Kathy."

He’s not quite sure how growing up in the conservative Midwest in a lesbian household affected him.

"I don’t know," he said with a laugh. "I’m taking a psychology class right now, so maybe I’ll be able to figure it out."

When he was in eighth grade Ingersoll moved in with his dad for a while, another less than "Leave It to Beaver" environment.

"When I lived with my dad I would get rides and I’d have to give directions like, ‘down the alley, at the second beer sign turn right.’ We lived above a bar. It ‘built character,’ my dad would always say."

When he was 13 his dad brought home an old IBM laptop, and soon Ingersoll was immersed in the world of computers. Back then–"pre-Internet," as its known today–he was a pioneer of electronic communication, spending hours every day interacting with people by posting messages on bulletin-board systems, the ancestors of modern-day chat rooms.

It wasn’t long before he discovered he had a knack for manipulating the technical abilities of computers, particularly when it came to hacking into systems he shouldn’t be exploring.

He shrugs when reflecting on his intrusive hobby, which he claims to have outgrown.

"It was at the age when you’re trying to deviate from authority anyways, like skipping school. Essentially it was a way to circumvent authority, but it ended up getting me in trouble."

Ingersoll was actually convicted of seven class 4A felonies at age 15, to which he pleaded no contest. They were eventually expunged from his record.

Then when he was 16 Ingersoll decided it was time to get out of Illinois. He relocated to Los Angeles, not with the intentions of being a TV star but to go to a better high school. He settled in Venice with an uncle who had a beach house and a spare room, enrolled in high school, and loaded up on advanced placement classes to challenge himself.

It wasn’t long before Ingersoll decided high school wasn’t for him. Utilizing his finely honed hacking abilities, he easily slipped into the school’s computer system and essentially deleted himself. He opted instead to apply for a position as a full-time computer systems analyst for a private company, which he landed, he says, without even submitting a résumé.

Two years later Ingersoll's life took another wild turn when he decided to join thousands of other extroverted hopefuls in trying out for "Road Rules: Latin America."

MTV picked up on the hacker aspect of Ingersoll’s past character and exploited it in the show, giving him a reputation as a "punk hacker kid." He had lived up to that rep already, hacking into the producer’s computer system to glean out information about what went on behind the scenes at "Road Rules." He saw how characters were framed to project a certain image, how producers would use search engines to scan the endless hours of tape, seeking out incendiary situations or juicy conversations to focus on.

"I was leveling the playing field," he said. "MTV was about to go in and totally invade my life, and I thought it was a perfect way to even the score and cover my own ass. I think it's kind of ingenious, to go in and see how they put the show together and know exactly what you’re getting into."

He nailed the spot and consequently filled a vital role for the show, "the bad guy," fitting nicely into the program’s successful equation for high ratings, which Ingersoll says is very fundamental: sex plus conflict. Between being portrayed by MTV as a brooding, difficult bunkmate and naturally possessing characteristics of a randy 18-year-old, Ingersoll was kind enough to provide both.

"They had promotional commercials where they would flash a scene of me and then flash the title ‘bad guy.’ I was the bad young maverick of the group," he said. "I knew it all along that that’s how I’d be cast; I just didn’t know the extent to which they would exploit it. But I wasn’t surprised. I expected I’d be an essential point of conflict in the show. I was on the trip to have a blast and get in trouble with anything I could. No one else wanted to step on any toes."

Ingersoll, on the other hand, didn’t have a problem treading on a few tootsies.

Dissension abounded. Castmate Sarah confided that she felt Ingersoll was "the kind of guy who would read your diary." Brian was quite irritated when Ingersoll taped a very personal phone conversation in which he broke up with his girlfriend to pursue a Latin love. Holly couldn’t decide if she loved Ingersoll, who at one point confessed he felt he was in love with her, or hated him.

"I taped Brian’s phone conversation with his girlfriend and they made a big deal of it," he scoffed. "Like we weren’t all being taped 24 hours a day."

"Personally I don’t think the things I did were that bad," he said. "People have so recovered from them."

These days, Ingersoll said, he has solid relationships with his former cast members.

"After the fact, Brian told me his favorite cast member on the show was me, that I had the most integrity of any of them, which was funny," he said. "And I’m totally friends with Gladys. The first time we saw each other after the fight we were, like, whatever. To this day we still relate better than anyone else. Granted, I won’t call her a bitch ever again."

Despite the absence of lingering animosity in the wake of the show, the overall outcome of his time on "Road Rules" was not what Ingersoll had in mind when he auditioned.

"I wanted to be reconnected to my generation, but that’s the furthest thing from what happened," Ingersoll said.

These days Ingersoll seems to be reconnecting with his generation just fine.

After he finished taping "Road Rules," Ingersoll returned to Los Angeles, where his old job awaited him. As he tells it, life was pretty good. He worked for a year, making a $45,000 salary, living in his own studio, at a mere 19 years of age. Then his hacker ways came back to haunt him.

"The company I worked for was about to go public and they were worried about having this teenager with this national reputation for having hacker background in the company," he said.

Some higher-ups who were concerned about his future gave Ingersoll some sage advice that he couldn’t ignore.

"They told me to get out of L.A., be with your peers, learn and make mistakes in an environment where it won’t cost a company millions of dollars. I took their advice to a ‘T.’"

He decided to check out San Luis Obispo since its central location seemed ideal.

"I drove up here and looked at the city. It was good, detached but not too in the sticks."

He started Cuesta College full time in the fall, and within weeks of beginning class he found himself involved with the college’s student government as finance director. He’s also writing for Cuesta’s newspaper, the Cuestonian, has a radio show in the works, does guest speaking engagements (he spoke at Cal Poly’s Week of Welcome), and, oh yes, he’s trying to get a website for the paper up and running within the week.

Ingersoll also seems to have other aspects of the college lifestyle down pat. He lives with three Cal Poly engineering majors in a dilapidated house in San Luis Obispo, the first place he looked at when searching for housing.

Inside the house things are arranged college-style, with mismatched couches and lamps made from bowling pins. A waist-high ceramic statue of a well-endowed and scantily clothed maiden sits in the kitchen. Next to a huge Cal Poly Crew banner, a collection of "Road Rules" tapes sits on a shelf in the living room.

"I don’t feel so great today," Ingersoll said wearily. "The guys down the street came over last night and said, ‘Hey, we got a keg of Samuel Adams, are you coming over?’" He assumes a helpless look, as if to say "what’s a guy supposed to do?"

His room is simply furnished, decorated with pictures and drawings of model airplanes. His snowboard and surfboard share a ceiling rack, and tucked into one corner are a few makeshift bookshelves heavy with thick computer manuals. "I taught myself out of those," he said.

A sleek new iMac computer (flavor: blueberry) graces his desk, and he explains that it was a promotional gift, a perk of participating in "Road Rules." So was the car, he says, pointing out the window at a shiny new canary-yellow Volkswagen bug sitting alongside the curb. Every cast member received one as part of the show’s "Handsome Reward."

"I’ve gotten hooked up with so much free stuff," he said.

Besides the videos, his only real tribute to his time spent on "Road Rules" is a collage of pictures above his bed, a small wooden ball from the show’s first mission, and a little stuffed Chihuahua, a reminder of the cast’s mascot, Menudo.

Ingersoll’s roommate, Tim Wilkinson, a Cal Poly materials engineering senior, said he and his two roommates interviewed around 20 people before selecting Ingersoll from the lot.

It wasn’t that he was a former TV personality.

"None of us really watched the show," Wilkinson admitted.

It was just that Ingersoll came off as a cool guy.

"He seemed like an easygoing guy, like he’d be easy to live with," Wilkinson said.

The worst offense MTV’s "bad boy" has committed so far, Wilkinson said, hasn’t yet led to any knock-down-drag-out fights.

"I guess not washing his dishes is about it," Wilkinson said thoughtfully. "But we all do that."

Wilkinson and roomies can’t say they weren’t warned about Ingersoll’s evil ways, however.

"We had a bunch of people who watched the show who were telling us that we shouldn’t live with him because they watched him on MTV," Wilkinson said. "But you can’t get impressions off MTV."

Since Ingersoll has left his stormy past behind and settled into the groove of the life of a "normal" teenage college student, it’s a good time to find out what life is like post-cameras. Living in a population made up of thousands in MTV’s age demographic (13 to 24) there must be plenty who consider Ingersoll a familiar face.

"It’s been a long time since the show was on," he said, referring to the summer of last year. "So these days there aren’t too many people who really recognize me. I look familiar to some people and they’ll come up and say, ‘Hey aren’t you that water polo coach from Monterey,’ or something like that they don’t connect me to ‘Road Rules.’"

He gets varied reactions when people do recognize him.

"Most are completely indifferent; some people freak out," he said. "They’re like, ‘Oh my God, I saw you on TV!’"

Sometimes his former fame does have its benefits.

"Doors are open, people are more receptive to you, because people have seen you; they have some inkling of who you are. The ice is already broken," he said.

And he gets the chicks.

"Oh no, I don’t date at all," he said with a straight face, followed by a quick. "I’m being facetious."

The pickings aren’t slim, either.

"Only in certain circumstances, the show’s a good reason to talk to someone; it’s an easy pickup line. But I don’t really use it. Girls pick me up."

Having forsaken the television cameras for the pursuit of higher education, Ingersoll’s seriously thinking about what the future holds. Maybe USC, Berkeley, or Stanford.

"Wherever I can get a scholarship," he said.

And as his interests have shifted from computer science to journalism, more time behind the cameras may be in order someday. He said it has actually been the experience of writing for the Cuestonian, not his time on MTV, that has led him to become increasingly interested in documenting the lives of others. He’s not too concerned about the details right now, however.

"Whether I’m an H.L. Menken or Tom Brokaw, I don’t care. But I’m going to end up being somebody." Æ

Staff writer Jen Stevenson is somebody.