Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs by Dave Holmes

Author:Dave Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music, Gay, Biography, Humour
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Published: 2016-06-27T05:00:00+00:00

MTV’s first Wanna Be a VJ audition was an event that fundamentally changed the course of my life, and what haunts me about it now is how close I came to not going.

A few days before, I had been dicking around at my desk on a Thursday morning that was probably a busy one for whoever was doing what was supposed to be my job, when I clicked over to Billboard.com to check the charts, a weekly habit at the time. (K-Ci & JoJo had just leapt to #1 on the Hot 100 in an impressive two weeks with “All My Life,” while Robbie Williams’s “Let Me Entertain You” debuted at #4 on the UK charts; as ever, the Brits knew what was up.) And there, on the news feed down the right side of the screen, was the headline: MTV TO HOLD OPEN CALL FOR NEW VJ. I remember saying, in full voice: “Hel-lo.” For months, I’d been thinking I needed to make a lateral move to some other industry. I was living in New York City, working at a job I hated, and doing it terribly; I could do that in St. Louis and live like a king. If I was going to live in the hardest, most-expensive, most-stressful city in the country, I might as well do something I liked and wasn’t lousy at; it seemed a simple gift I could give myself. But I had no idea how to do that, and showing up at an open call was as good an idea as any I’d had. (If you have read this book in order, you will have noticed that my ideas were generally not very good.)

The audition was to be held at the brand-new MTV studio at 1515 Broadway, just down the road from my agency, the next Monday, April 13. I circled the date in my day planner and made a note on my PalmPilot: call in sick.

I tried not to imagine that I would actually pass through this audition and get anywhere. I told myself: This is a way to meet people. This is a networking opportunity. But of course, my mind went there. A lot. Like, what if they hire me and I end up on-air? Would I be friends with Duff? Would I get a muffin basket from Martha Quinn? How often does the society of current and former VJs get together? Is it a potluck kind of situation?

Sunday, April 12, was Easter, and my friends and I were too broke to spend it with our families or get a decent brunch anywhere, so we did our budget version of a Circle Line tour, also known as taking the Staten Island Ferry there and back. We celebrated the risen Christ with Budweiser tallboys and ham sandwiches. We wore pastels. We stayed up late. I didn’t tell anybody what I was doing, because what I was doing was ridiculous. I was a twenty-seven-year-old man, with bills in my name and a job that people would give an arm for.

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