Party of One

by Dave Holmes

  You know how sometimes you go through an old photo album and you see a picture of yourself from high school, and you say, What could I possibly have been thinking fifteen years ago when I wore those clothes and did my hair that way, but you have enough distance to be able to laugh about it and maybe even post it online on Throwback Thursday? When you change up your look on television, by, say, growing out your hair and flat-ironing it and bleaching it so that it looks like you have just come out of some kind of hayride situation, and then you pair that up with the finest in 1999 Chandler Bing bowling shirts and baggy jeans, you get to have the Throwback Thursday experience right away. It was mortifying and even with the best style team on the planet—they tried, they really did—I simply couldn’t bring myself to like the way I looked.

  Falling in love with pop music all over again soothed the body shame. About a week after I got to MTV, the teen pop explosion happened, and even though I was fifteen years too old and 100 percent too male for its intended demographic, I genuinely loved it. We all did. To be in that studio, at the center of the pop universe, with all the screaming kids inside, and all the hundreds more screaming kids outside, as “I Want It That Way” played and everyone sang along, nobody could deny the power.

  There is a name for this, and as best I can figure, it refers to Max Martin’s Swedish heritage: Stockholm syndrome.

  From the Buggles to whichever reality show featuring pregnant nine-year-olds having fistfights they’re airing now, repetition has always been a big part of the MTV experience. If you seem to like something, they will give it to you again and again, and then ten times more. I have the first four seasons of The Real World committed to memory from all the Saturday afternoon marathons they would run in the early to mid 1990s. All you need to say to me is “If you from the Bronx, and you trying to go to college,” and I will follow up immediately with: “You either trying to shoot that jumper, or you buggin’.” It is etched on my soul.

  Wanna Be a VJ ended up being the same way. Viewers seemed to enjoy the drama of it, or just liked watching Jesse in the moment. It’s hard to say. But MTV aired it repeatedly, and people on the street just started to yell the words “Jesse” and/or “MTV” at me. It was their way of saying: “I recognize you from that time you lost a contest on live television.” It was weird. The very morning after Wanna Be, when I went to have brunch with my friends, people started to whisper and stare and point. I don’t know whether I was in shock or denial about what I’d just been through or whether I was just too dumb to understand how television worked, but I instinctively checked my zipper. I still do, if people seem to be looking at me. That’s what mild television fame is like: it’s like walking through the world with your fly down.

  The thing about being on television is that on some level, people kind of think you’re always on television, even when you’re standing right in front of them. Even when you’re right there, they still think you’re a fictional character, or at the very least a person who won’t have the reaction human beings have when strangers point at them. So they’ll point at you. This almost exclusively happens when you are hungover or looking terrible or standing in line alone at Nobody Beats the Wiz, usually all three. They’ll go: Look. It’s that guy. And their friend will go: What guy? And they’ll go: That guy from MTV. The fat guy. And their friend will go: Where? And they’ll go: There. And they’ll point some more. Right in your face! So close that your eyelashes will brush against the tip of their finger when you blink, which you will do involuntarily because there’s a stranger’s finger in your eye.

  HIM. THIS GUY RIGHT HERE.

  And it doesn’t feel exactly right to speak to them, because they’re not really speaking to you, they are speaking about you in the third person right in front of you. They are, in essence, watching you on television, which is probably enjoyable for them, but your problem is that you are a person existing in real life. If they would say hello, you would say hello back and have a nice chat and maybe begin a lifelong friendship, but they’re talking about you like you’re not there, and it’s the ’90s so you don’t even have an iPhone to pretend to check. So you look around for things to be fascinated by: What are those over there—composite video cables? For $9.99? That’s real savings. And then their friend will study you for a good long second and say: Yeah, no, I don’t know who that guy is.

  This is the best-case scenario.

  Often what people do is tell you that they don’t care who you are, as though you assumed that they were starstruck, as though it were an American custom to go up to strangers and tell them that you don’t care who they are. Generally, it goes this way: you are out with your friends somewhere, having some beers and some laughs, and another group of people two tables over will notice you. And you’ll notice them noticing you, because people tend to be louder than they think they are, and also when someone tells their friends DON’T LOOK, what will happen is that everyone will look, and then the initial noticer will say STOP STOP STOP much louder than they think they are saying it. And everyone will start secretly looking, but people’s secret looks are also much less secret than they want them to be. You can feel when someone’s eyes are on you; everyone can. You notice, because this is what your life is now. It is a new thing that happened to you all at once, like a fast-acting virus. And again, there’s not much you can do about it, because nobody is actually addressing you.

  But it’s happening—the whisper orchestra is playing its overture and the show is about to start. And here’s how it usually reaches its crescendo: the person in the group who cares the least about whatever it is you do you will approach your table and just start talking, regardless of whether you or one of your actual friends is already in the middle of saying something. And this is what they will say: “OKAY LISTEN I DON’T OWN A TV SO I DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE BUT MY FRIENDS THINK YOU’RE FAMOUS SO WHAT’S THE DEAL, ARE YOU?”

  And if they truly don’t own a television, and they really don’t know who you are, which ends up being the case fairly often—as it should be, because who cares—they end up saying it to your handsomest friend, the person who looks the most like someone who would be on television. And behind them, the table who sent this person over will be wildly but silently waving their hands or making the hand-across-the-neck ABORT motion, or just pointing at you more forcefully than before. Again, you’re not supposed to notice this, but it’s happening right in your field of vision: arms flailing, like Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids every time they heard something funny. And then your friends have to go: “No, it’s him. Over there.” And the person says “OH.” And you say “YEAH. HI.” And you wave over to the other table—HI! HOW ARE YOU?!—and you all realize at the same time that Carson Daly would probably know exactly how to handle this, but you sure don’t.

  My favorite example of this kind of public recognition came in Las Vegas, when I was at a blackjack table. There was a large group of drunk strangers in my peripheral vision having the grand debate over who was going to determine whether I was me (and also who exactly “me” was). And I wasn’t going to solve it for them, because I was right in the middle of losing my money. And they weren’t, either, because they were loaded. I could hear that they had narrowed my job down to MTV or VH1, which was a start. Finally, they deputized a tiny Long Island woman to be their spokesperson and she tottered over to me, just as I was about to ask the dealer to hit me, and asked “ARE YOU THE ONE WITH THE BALD HAIR?”

  Am I the one with the bald hair? Let’s break that one down together: I am sitting four inches in front of this person, with a full and luxurious head of hair. So, first of all: no. The one with the bald hair—and we have similar builds, I will grant you this—is named Matt Pinfield. Also, bald hair is not a thing. Otherwise, great job, stranger. (I’m still a little bit angry at this woman a full decade later.)

  And then sometimes people will just actively heckle you. I lived in the East Village for most of my tenure at MTV. The East Village was at the beginning of its gentrificati
on process at the time; the junkies definitely had the edge on the strollers for the moment. The kids who would roam the streets of Alphabet City were the children of the locals, the sons and daughters of the hearty souls who saw the movie Kids and said, “Well, that doesn’t seem so bad.” These children had never heard of being polite; they would say anything, and say it right to your face. Another word for this kind of person is “asshole.” Anyway: there was a kid who would haunt the streets of my hood in the afternoons, just as I’d be walking home from the subway. I’d be minding my own business, a block or two from home, and from a window or storefront I could never find would come a cry:

  DAVE HOLMES YOU’RE FAT.

  And he’d laugh the menacing howl of a coyote who has cornered a beagle. And his friends would laugh. I tried to imagine that his friends’ laughter was the nervous kind. Like: Hey, Coltrane (this kid is named Coltrane in my mind, because he was being raised by unimaginative East Village jazz people), cut it out! But probably they were laughing because to teenagers it’s funny to be awful.

  HA HA DAVE HOLMES YOU’RE FAT. And they’d always be hidden. Were they in the frozen yogurt shop? At the counter at Pommes Frites? Up in an apartment waiting for me at the window? I never did get a look at Coltrane or his friends. And it certainly wasn’t because my eyes weren’t frantically looking for something to focus on.

  Once, I was walking through St. Mark’s, looking in all the predictably punk store windows and beholding all the young Jesses in their identical Mohawks and army jackets, when I heard my name: DAVE HOLMES. My core temperature dropped below freezing, yet I also began to sweat. Not today, Coltrane. Not today. I started walking faster. DAVE. DAVE HOLMES. By First Avenue I was in a full sprint. I reached Avenue A and started looking for a place to duck in for a snack and a beer, and to hide, when the source of the hollering revealed himself: it was my friend Matthew. Just a friend, trying to say hi. A friend I had a little bit of a crush on, honestly. “Hi Dave,” he said. “Are you okay?” I couldn’t bear to tell them I was being bullied by high school kids at age twenty-eight.*

  The most alarming development in my first year at MTV was the degree to which my fame went to my mother’s head. Immediately after I started getting regular on-air spots, she began approaching strangers who appeared to be in the MTV demographic, telling them she’s my mother and asking whether they’d like a signed picture. (They always declined. This did not stop her.) That first Christmas after Wanna Be a VJ, I went home to St. Louis for Christmas, and I was barely in the door before my mom said: “Okay, when do you want to go to the mall for the annual Picking Out of the Gifts?” I generally do not let an opportunity for free things pass me by, so we hopped in the car and went. And what several years in New York had made me forget about malls is that they’re full of teenagers, traveling in packs. My mother walked a couple of paces behind me, and I began to notice that if a group of teenagers looked my way and lowered their voices, she would wave to get their attention, nod slyly, and mouth the words: “That’s him.” And then I remembered: we have never actually done an annual Picking Out of the Gifts. She just wanted to get my face out into the public. I’d been used. I should have been angry, but it was sweet, and also I was actively soliciting ideas on how to handle the newfound attention.

  But over time, I got used to it. I started to learn the things to say, the way to hold a conversation with a stranger, the proper methods for starting and ending an encounter. A couple of years in, I was feeling like a pro. And for the third Wanna Be a VJ, we ended up going coast to coast: Los Angeles, Charlotte, and St. Louis. My hometown! We set up stations down at Union Station, by then a thriving mall and a hub for the new light-rail system everyone was afraid to take, and I worked the crowd like the conquering hero I felt myself to be. Maybe the next VJ will come out of this crowd, I thought to myself. And maybe we’ll relate to each other and be friends and I’ll finally be able to say: “Isn’t this weird?” to someone and have them get it.

  And then I got an idea. We’d have ninety minutes off for lunch, and Priory was only a twenty-minute drive away. We could go there with a camera crew and me holding a microphone with an MTV cube on it, and just break into the middle of a school day on a hot afternoon at the end of the spring semester. The kids will go bananas, I thought. I will be carried on the shoulders of students and faculty alike. It will be great television.

  I called the headmaster’s office and spoke to his assistant: “Hey! It’s me, Dave Holmes!” (Pause.) “Class of ’89!” (Pause.) “Anyway, may I speak with Father Gregory?” She connected me, and I spoke with Father Gregory and told him what we’re planning on doing, and he seemed enthusiastic—but I might just have been projecting. He told me Father Paul was teaching Honors Calculus, and I said “Perfect, we will break in on Father Paul’s Honors Calculus class. This is going to be amazing.” We showed up on campus, loaded the cameras, and stealthily mic’d me up in the parking lot. Then I led the crew into the main building and up to the second floor, right to where I used to take Father Paul’s classes, and I busted in, yelling “WHAT’S UP, PRIORY?!?”

  The kids looked at me, and then back at Father Paul, and then back at me, and they said: “Oh. Hi.” And then they turned back to Father Paul, who was in the middle of explaining some calculus thing. It was not the enthusiastic welcome I was expecting, but then I remembered the Honors kids from my class were kind of wallflowers, so I kept going classroom-to-classroom, and kept getting the same response. It might actually have been great television, but for none of the reasons I was picturing, and I thank God we didn’t do any of it live.

  We didn’t end up getting anyone to pretend they were happy to see me, and I tried desperately to put a good face on it, my smile beaming like I’d just had a wonderful time, as the camera guys unloaded and the sound guy took my mic off my shirt. Just then, Mr. Gleich, my old Dean of Students, came out of the building: “Dave! Dave Holmes!” He came toward me, and I gave him a huge hug, because I’d always liked him and also because I needed a hug. “It’s good to see you,” he told me as he hugged back. And then he whispered, right into my ear: “Check your zipper.”

  Sometimes mild television fame actually is walking through the world with your fly down.

  Eventually, I got over my self-consciousness and was ready to mingle with my public. One afternoon, two women outside the studio approached me and said, “We’re sorry to bother you, but would you mind taking a picture?” “Sure,” I answered with a smirk. Of course they want a picture with you, I thought. You’re on TV and they like you. Relax and enjoy it, Dave Holmes. You’re a star.

  The two women squared themselves up with the TRL studio right behind them, fixed their hair, and handed me the camera.

  * * *

  * I did a lot of thinking about whether to include that story. I thought: Isn’t that giving him what he wants? Won’t it satisfy him to know he’s still inside my head after all these years? But then I thought: Maybe he’s dead, and the thought gave me such comfort.

  10. “Nookie”—Limp Bizkit

  This is a song and a video that are significant because they are terrible, yet the kids ate them both up. The deal with TRL around the turn of the millennium was this: the girls tuned in for the boybands, and the boys repped for whatever wasn’t that. Sometimes whatever wasn’t that was Sugar Ray. Sometimes whatever wasn’t that was Dr. Dre. But mostly, the official opposition party to the teen pop explosion was the noise Korn and Limp Bizkit made. It was sludgy and dumb and the young girls hated it, which made the young boys love it all the more. It was never dumber than in “Nookie,” in which Fred Durst invites you to put cookies in your ass for reasons that are never fully explained. It hung around on the charts forever. Nobody ever went broke overestimating teenage boys’ needs to upset their little sisters.

  9. “Say My Name”—Destiny’s Child

  This video happened right when Matthew Knowles got in there and started making some personnel changes. Just as we were starting to learn the names
of the ones who were not Beyoncé, suddenly there were two brand-new Benoncés, no explanation given. None was needed. Here—put “Say My Name” on right now. Have you immediately launched into a series of dramatic poses on the nearest couch? If not, who hurt you?

  8. “The Dolphin’s Cry”—Live

  Sometimes videos got onto the countdown because of actual grassroots fan support. Other times, labels were more actively involved; it was a good way to generate buzz for a new or struggling act. I don’t know if the big labels had interns call and make requests, or whether it was just strongly suggested that if we wanted continued access to Everclear or whomever, we might want to play what they told us to. Sometimes one appearance on the countdown was all it took; once the kids saw it, maybe they’d like it and start voting for real. And then there was the case of Live, in which we were asked to accept the fantasy that actual kids would pick up their telephones and ask us to play a long, proggy ecology song from a band whose previous hit came out when our average viewer was 7. (This one spent one day at #8. Absurd.)

  7. “My Name Is”—Eminem

  Eminem made his first chart appearance the same way Live did. When “My Name Is” debuted, none of us had heard of it, and we were in the nerve center. But this one took off, and I understand it, because it is a teenage tantrum in commercial-jingle form. It’s abrasive and petulant, just like Eminem himself, and it still gets lodged in my head some terrible days. Em always seemed like a little bit of a jerk, which I guess we can chalk up to the drugs, but to me his worst crime is inspiring a nation of wayward youth to bleach their hair without first treating it with a rinse, causing the entire middle section of our country to be carpeted with orange Caesar haircuts in 1999.