georgekoumantzelis Reviews

High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell (1995 TV Movie)

The Seedier Side of Life in the Inner City !!!

[7/10 · 17 July 2009]

I swear I used to see some of those characters walking by my store on Church street in the early nineties when this film was made. ... How the heck did the filmmakers get all the people on the film to agree to being followed around like that is what I want to know. Lance Loud on steroids, indeed! Real reality-TV! ... Sadly, there are probably STILL a lot of poor people in Lowell living this kind of debauched lifestyle - degenerate, disgusting, delinquent, deranged, and despaired! So, so sad. ... I remember when this film was going to come out, some of the politicians in City Hall were speaking out against it, saying it painted a poor picture of Lowell. ... Well, it does - accurately. It paints a picture of the POOR people of Lowell and how some of them live lives of crime and hopelessness. Really troubling footage. ... How many times do you need to show someone smoking crack out of a plastic soda bottle bong with tin foil to get the point across? I guess this many! ... The scenes of Lowell are spooky when you think that I used to walk those very streets in the acre and Pawtucketville and Centerville growing up as a kid. "But those were different times," as Lou Reed says. ... The camera doesn't lie!... To be fair, they are only showing the seedy side of Lowell, and the lives of the down and out. Also, they do not focus on rich people who get high, or on the middle and upper middle class people - or the artistic and bohemian people who dabbled in it and got out. Some of those people used to come into my store for help to build their immune systems back up, their fried brains back up, and their strength back up. A lot of these street people would come to me trying to get clean, or to get help dealing with AIDS, and I would do what I could. I never sold them a million pills to rip them off and take advantage of their trust in me. I could have made a killing. I know people who did. It's all very sad. ... Also, I should mention that the Sister Willie from Catholic Charities shown in the film is the very person who helped me - even city council members and the chief of police could not help me. There was a crack house on Lawrence street across from my store. They had broken into my store twice, stole my cash at night, stole cars, broke my car window, my dad's car window, other customers car windows. stole tape decks out of cars, the usual. One day, I found a bullet hole though my store window. ... Sister Willie walked in one day with a nun suit on and asked why I looked troubled. I explained to her that my business was failing because people were afraid to park their cars to shop at my store. I told her it was people from the crack house right next to Catholic Charities. "What house is it?" she simply asked. I took her outside and pointed it out, and she said it, "I'll take care of this. I'll speak to the cardinal today." ... I swear, within ONE WEEK there were FBI, DEA, and VICE SQUAD cops swarming all over the place. It was a HUGE bust. No one ever broke into my store or cars or stole anything ever again. ... I realize that there are, indeed, legitimate reasons why people end up abusing drugs - even hard drugs - but, let's face it, if you're a healthy person, you've got to be pretty stupid or foolish to end up taking stuff like coke, crack, heroin, crystal m., PCP, angel dust, etc. just out of boredom or to have fun. It's no fun. It ruins your life. On the bright side, I've also also watched another DVD that shows a whole different story on the matter. I highly recommend it - WAITING TO INHALE. ... YOWZA! - George Koumantzelis / The Aeolian Kid