VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave
Page 21
Alan:
The five of us started jockeying not to be sent out to do contests, except for Martha, who loved it all. Mark was the biggest curmudgeon.
Mark:
We had this campaign going to get more people to enter all of our contests: The promos would show various winners and say, “People really win on MTV.” But a lot of people who won, well, they weren’t cool like the people in the videos, or even like the people you’d see now on reality TV. They were just regular people: a little overweight, not the best dressers, and a lot of the girls had “mall bangs.” So the behind-the-scenes phrase at MTV was “Losers really win on MTV.”
Martha:
I never got tapped to do that many contests—I don’t know why, it was always fun. I went to Mount Clemens, Michigan, with J. J. to do the first MTV House Party in May 1982. The winner was this sweet fifteen-year-old kid, Rob Kettenburg. We gave him a party for thirty of his friends with Huey Lewis playing, a wide-screen TV, and a year’s supply of Pepsi. I sat on his hearth, talking to him. I’m sure he was psyched, but he didn’t seem overwhelmed; I think he was rolling with the whole situation. At that point in time, MTV wasn’t what it later became. Even Huey Lewis wasn’t that big a deal in 1982—it was before the Sports album, so his big hits were “Do You Believe in Love” and “Workin’ for a Livin’.” I wasn’t thinking, “Oh my God! Huey Lewis is here!”
Mark:
The craziest promo I did was “Asia in Asia,” where you went to see the band Asia play at the Budokan arena in Japan. It was a very, very long flight to Tokyo, and I was sitting next to the winner, this girl from somewhere in the middle of America, who I hooked up with in the bathroom. When I traveled around the country and went to shows, sometimes I would see a good-looking girl, and I could see she was the prettiest girl at her high school, and there was something really charming about that—an innocence that wasn’t there with girls from New York or L.A. This girl was like that: She was cute, she was funny. I got to know her for a couple of hours, and I’m sure a lot of alcohol was involved. We were in first class, so we got free drinks and felt like we were getting crazy, like the rock stars. I said, “Why don’t you go back in the bathroom, and I’ll meet you back there.”
We casually slipped into the bathroom—at least, I think we were casual—and started to grope and unbutton and unzip. We tried to have sex, but our balance sucked, and we kept bonking our heads on mirrors and getting leg cramps. It was kind of fun, but incredibly uncomfortable. The mile-high club is great in theory, but not in practice.
That was just the beginning of the insanity. We stayed at the Akasaka Prince hotel, which was beautiful. But nobody in Tokyo spoke English, and all the signs were in Japanese, so I felt even more disconnected, like I had wandered into a scene from Lost in Translation. I was there with the MTV crew and executives—the A&R guy from the label knew a geisha house in the Kawasaki district. They said it was the one that the mayor of Tokyo would go to. I wanted to go—not necessarily because I wanted to get laid, but because I wanted to have the experience of a geisha house. And at the end, an executive put the whole thing on his card, which was a great joy to me. MTV picked up the tab for my first hooker!
We were there for five or six days, running around to different neighborhoods and being a foot and a half taller than everybody else walking on the street. The trip was one of the high points of my life. It was crazy to see what the concert hall at Budokan was selling: You could buy octopus from a vending machine.
The band was fighting with John Wetton, the lead singer. Carl Palmer was the drummer, so for this one show, they brought in Greg Lake to do vocals—they had been in Emerson, Lake and Palmer together. The concert was broadcast live, and I had a little thing that I needed to say onstage: “I’m Mark Goodman and right now you are all live on MTV in America.” Somebody translated it into Japanese for me and wrote it out phonetically. I wanted to say something else, but the translator convinced me it wouldn’t translate, so he wrote something that would make sense to a Japanese audience: “Are you ready to rock? Let’s rock! Asia!”
When I delivered my spiel onstage, the audience was looking at me like I couldn’t speak. Is this guy all right? Does he have a speech impediment? But they cheered at the appropriate moment—apparently “let’s rock” is a universal sentiment.
Nina:
One time we had Zippy the Chimp come in the studio to pick the winning postcard. Zippy had been on The Ed Sullivan Show and was a big star down in South America. I love animals, so I wanted to work with Zippy. Alan got to do the segment—I was really envious.
Alan:
I think it was a contest where we gave away a Pac-Man machine. The tension was thick because, legally, this was a real drawing, so we could do it only once. No retakes. The lawyers in the studio were hovering nervously. I was introduced to the famous Zippy by his handler, like Zippy was a little kid who could understand that my name was Alan. Then he said, “Just get to know Zippy a little bit,” and walked off. Zippy was larger than I expected—he came up to my chin—and he wanted to play, but his favorite game was to jump on somebody and do back flips. The handler hadn’t told me this, and this crazy monkey kept trying to communicate that he wanted me to grab his arms and flip him over. What the fuck?
I looked around for the trainer, but he was hobnobbing with the VIPs on the other side of the studio. It was like being at a party at the neighbor’s house where the dog starts humping your leg. Zippy kept jumping on me—I bent over awkwardly to catch him and I jacked my back. We finally started the drawing, with me in no small amount of pain, and Zippy kept messing with the barrel full of postcards. The lawyers were about to lose their minds, and I jumped in to save the event: “Gimme the dang card, Zippy.” I’ve had a bad back ever since then, because of Zippy the Fucking Chimp.
34
I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me
Celebrity and Its Consequences
Martha:
Anytime MTV got mentioned in the outside world, we would go bonkers. The lyrics of the first Asia record name-checked us: “The evening comes, we sit and watch the VJs.” We were ecstatic about that. And then, when Dire Straits released “Money for Nothing,” all about MTV, we were out of our gourds.
Mark:
I bumped into Mark Knopfler’s manager at a concert; he said Dire Straits had just recorded a song about MTV. I was shocked, but excited and proud. “What’s it called?” I asked.
“Money for Nothing.”
I was not happy. I believed in what we were doing, and felt like I was part of something that was important in the growth of music. It hurt my feelings that the only people who loved us were the audience members. The national music critics really disliked us, and apparently by this time, the musicians had a love/hate relationship with MTV.
Alan:
We had this weird middle-ground celebrity. We weren’t superstars, and we didn’t have the money or the trappings or the safety that came along with that, but we were in everybody’s life all the time.
Mark:
People would tell me, “I lost my virginity with you playing on the TV, and you were a great night-light. I don’t know what you were saying, because the volume was down.” Okay, I’ll take it. Apparently, I looked sincere.
Nina:
Being celebrities snuck up on all of us. It wasn’t something I thought about, but I got used to getting invitations everywhere. I was so busy working, I didn’t have time to go to most of them. I admit it was nice to get a better table at a restaurant.
Alan:
Nina is one of those beautiful women who sits in the corner like royalty and waits for everyone to come around. She always ended up with the best seat at concerts—everyone catered to her, with Nina acting innocent: “Oh, am I in the best seat? How’d that happen?”
Nina:
I was lucky that during our time in the public eye, it wasn’t like it is today with all the cameras and TMZ. I wouldn’t have survived that.
Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper released a rockabilly song called “Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin,” which combined a lewd expression of desire for Martha Quinn with an anti-MTV rant: “Music television / Should be covered in jism.” Despite this deeply held belief, Nixon later recorded PSAs for MTV and hosted their pregame show for the 1988 Super Bowl.
Martha:
At the beginning, I was bummed about that song. Rosanna Arquette got “Rosanna,” and I got “Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin”? But I was a little flattered, too. When Saturday Night Live parodied Nina, we were all so jealous—I thought, “Damn, she’s lucky.”
Nina:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus put on a blonde wig and did an impression of me. I didn’t see it live—somebody brought in a tape. Her big schtick was that she kept saying things were “hottttt, hotttt.” My first thought was that I didn’t say “hot”! And I didn’t realize I bopped my head all the time, but I actually did do that. I had no idea until she did her bit, though—nobody ever said anything to me. Why didn’t someone stop me?
I was a little taken aback by the sketch, and I had to be convinced it was a compliment. Then I realized you’ve really made it when somebody imitates you. I thought she was really funny, and she’s an amazingly talented comedic actress. If I ever meet her, I’d like to thank her.
From the Saturday Night Live of April 7, 1984 (Michael Douglas hosting, Deniece Williams performing), Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Nina Blackwood, delivering the music news:
“Following the success of our ‘Lost Weekend with Van Halen’ contest, MTV has plans for a ‘Lost Weekend with ZZ Top’— all right! —where some lucky viewer gets to spend two wild days vacationing in one of the band’s beards.”
Nina:
Years later, I was hired to do some TV rock ’n’ roll show, and they wanted me to say “hotttt.” They had it on the cue cards, and the director was saying, “Just say it the way you used to say it.” I told him, “That was Julia, not me!”
Mark:
Rich Hall did me on SNL one night. Not well, in my opinion. He was wearing an army jacket—not my style.
Alan:
I thought I was going to strike up a friendship with Kevin Bacon after he did a guest VJ spot; he hung around the studio after his taping. We connected with some similar life stories, but mostly, we talked about our hair—really—and what kind of mousse we used.
He said, “My hair is really flat.”
I said, “I know what you mean, man.”
“I use this foam stuff.”
“Really? I need to use that too.”
Slow day for both of us, I guess.
Nina:
A pal of mine, Jon Bendis, was friends with Cubby Broccoli, who produced all the James Bond movies. Jon said he wanted to introduce me to Cubby: “We’re going to be doing a new James Bond film and you’d be a great Bond girl.”
We went over to a gorgeous brownstone on the east side of Manhattan. Somebody told me that it cost a million dollars to build—in the 1800s. We waited for Cubby for a long time, and when he showed up, we just talked; I didn’t have to read a script or anything. But I didn’t get to be a Bond girl—whatever he was looking for, I wasn’t it. I was fine with that; I was no Ursula Andress or Halle Berry. If I had gotten the part, I suppose my Bond girl name would have been “Nina Givewood.”
Alan:
Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the J. Geils Band, did a guest VJ spot. Afterward, he followed me into my humble dressing room and started giving me tips on how to handle the MTV executives. He didn’t have an axe to grind, but you could tell he didn’t think much of authority. He told me, “Man, I really appreciate what you do—you don’t realize that we’re watching.” He used to be a DJ himself, so maybe he was coming at it from that angle.
I asked him what it had been like being married to Faye Dunaway—they were together in the ’70s. I thought that had been the oddest pairing ever, although I didn’t say that. He said, “Man, she was tall.”
Nina:
My team in L.A. (my agents, Vicki Light and Eric Gold, and my manager, Danny) started to field some nice offers. Danny lined up a distribution deal for a Nina Blackwood poster: That would have been good money and exposure, but MTV nixed the idea. Universal TV approached Vicki about doing a sitcom—I nixed that one, because it would have meant leaving MTV. Agents are about getting you jobs, and mine were growing frustrated turning down all these moneymakers. My team constantly warned me about the possibility of being typecast.
Then an offer came up that even I couldn’t refuse. Merv Griffin Productions was putting together a music TV show called Hollywood Palace—named after a landmark theater owned by Merv—and wanted me to host. I would be able to shoot MTV during the week, and then fly out to L.A. on weekends to tape the weekly show. Danny contacted Les Garland and got the okay to shoot the pilot.
The night of the taping was a dream: Searchlights in front of the theater and my name on the marquee. I sat in my dressing room, surrounded by flowers (courtesy of Merv), and thought, “Judy Garland might have sat in this very spot!” What I didn’t know while I was shooting the pilot: Danny and my agents were taking calls from MTV, who had decided that they didn’t want me to do the show.
When I got back to New York, I was called into a meeting with all the executives. They gave me an ultimatum: It was MTV or Hollywood Palace. I asked Bob Pittman, “Can you please open that window so I can jump out?” I don’t like reneging on contracts, but I chose to stay at MTV. Merv could have sued us all, but he was decent about it. In hindsight, staying probably wasn’t the best career decision, but I felt like MTV was my family.
35
What a Pity You Don’t Understand
The VJs Versus MTV Management
Mark:
Ken Ceizler became the executive producer, taking over for Julian Goldberg. We all liked Kenny. He had a quick sense of humor and knew what his job was supposed to be.
Martha:
He’s still our friend today.
Mark:
But at work, Ken was just a bastard. He had his own way of doing things and he did not care what you thought. You didn’t argue with him, because you weren’t going to win. He was the one who gave me a hard time with the Paul McCartney interview, telling me that I couldn’t ask him questions about John Lennon. And he acted the same way with Bruce Springsteen. I got an interview with Bruce, which was a very big deal. Carol was friendly with him—she helped me bring that one in.
Kenny micromanaged me on all the questions I was going to ask, and then made the decision that I wouldn’t be on camera for the interview: just Springsteen sitting against a cinder-block wall, backstage at the Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey. I was furious: “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m the reason you have this interview.” The whole MTV thing was kind of peripheral to Bruce—he wouldn’t even have appeared in his own videos if his relatives hadn’t talked him into it.
So I wasn’t appearing on camera, my questions had all been reworded and reworked and reordered, and I wasn’t supposed to ask follow-up questions. I said, “Well, Kenny, why don’t you sit down and do the interview? What’s the point of my being there?” I was furious. That interview was a big deal for me, but he wanted it that way and that was the way I had to do it.
Alan:
The summer of 1984, they told us, “By the way, we’re going to have a Video Music Awards show, and it’s going to be at Radio City Music Hall.” We all thought, “My God! That’s fabulous!” It was a huge indication that MTV had arrived. We assumed that the VJs would be hosting the show, but then we found out it was going to be Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd. That’s neat—we’ve got major stars hosting our little awards show. Okay, what’s our role? In preproduction, they handed us the scripts.
Martha:
We all flipped through, looking for our spots.
Alan:
We quickly discovered that there wasn’t a lot to use the yellow highlighter on. I think I had exactly one solo segment, up in the balcony, th
rowing to a commercial. Together onstage, we introduced one segment and introduced one award.
Nina:
We felt shortchanged. I don’t know what the thinking was, but we were the faces of the channel the rest of the year—and then on this night, we weren’t cool enough. We sat in the audience, watching something that we weren’t really part of.
Mark:
When we found out how little we had to do with the show, it was a huge slap in the face. It underscored how the executives didn’t think we were credible. J. J. was particularly upset about it. It felt like we were being dragged down.
I think the overall attitude toward the VJs was formed by the way Bob Pittman regarded talent: Keep them down, because it’ll keep our costs down. He couldn’t see the wisdom of giving us things to do that would enhance our reputations. He made a point of saying to me, “MTV will be the star, and because of that, you’ll be a star too.”
Still, they hired J. J. and me. There were plenty of people who knew as much or more than either of us, but they weren’t TV friendly. Like the old saying goes, they had faces made for radio. The five of us original VJs are forever intertwined, and the whole is greater than the parts. Some days I’m fine with that, and other days it frustrates me.