My Year Of Everything

Per the midnight phonecall by talent executive Amanda Schatz (who warned me right at the top of the call that I was not going to believe why she was calling, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right on the money), I reported to the MTV studios at a shade before 10am Wednesday morning. I was greeted by Caryn and brought into the green room where the other nine finalists were to assemble. We were a Benetton ad, a Real World cast, a spectrum of ages, colors and styles: charming, pixieish actress Kiele. Stonery red-head Ducci. Other Dave, clerk at the record store on St. Mark’s Place. Five other people who were much more fashionable than me whose names I don’t remember. And last, at the very stroke of 10, the messy-haired gamine in the denim jacket and the snakeskin pants, who turned out to be a young man by the name of Jesse. 

Not one of us, not even Jesse was one second late. 

Have you ever gone skydiving? There’s a moment the first time you skydive, when you look out the window of the plane, and you’re incredibly high up in the air, and you think: “Wait, it doesn’t make sense that I’m about to jump out into that. I’m not supposed to be out there, I’m supposed to be on the ground.” But you can’t turn around, you’re already attached to the jumpmaster, and your friends are watching, and you know it’s going to be fun, but right now your brain can’t process it because it’s nothing like the reality you’re used to. Five minutes ago life was normal, and five minutes from now you’re either going to fly or your parachute won’t deploy and you’ll die. One of those two outcomes has been fast-pitched right at you and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you’ve never been this high up.

And then you look at your altimeter and you’re at 4,000 feet, and you’re jumping out at 13,000.

That’s what this week was like.

Everyone felt it; as we went around the room and introduced ourselves, the bravado of the audition days had burned away. Not one of us could believe where we were. 

And then Jesse introduced himself, with his malapropisms and Claymation voice, and we all looked at each other and shrugged. Either this guy will lock himself out of the building by lunch or he’ll run away with the whole thing. 

The first part of the competition would cut the field from 10 to 5, and it was to take place on that afternoon’s “MTV Live,” a 90-minute afternoon embryonic “TRL” hosted by Carson, Ananda Lewis and Toby Amies. We’d tape some interview segments in the early afternoon that would be interspersed through the show, then we’d go through some challenges for a panel of judges that included John Norris, Kennedy and Chris Kattan, and, oh, also there’s a musical guest on today’s show: some new New Kids on the Block-type of thing from Orlando. In Sync? Something. They’re big in Germany. 

The one thing that sticks with me from this day is the enthusiasm. I’d spent the last five years in an office, trying to muster up some excitement for my job, and here these people were- moving faster, doing more, and genuinely enjoying it. It shouldn’t have seemed to foreign to me, and it upsets me that it did, but it did. 

And it’s not hard to see why they loved it. This was a place where a whole bunch of people who loved music and television could just get on the air and play for 90 minutes. You can’t do that anywhere anymore, not even there.

Anyway, the show started, and the plane continued its climb. We took turns pretending to interview a pretend-belligerent Chris Kattan. We talked music with Carson and Matt Pinfield. I said my favorite song was Ben Folds Five’s “Philosophy.” N’Sync waved to the four German girls in Times Square with “ICH LIEBE NSYNC” signs, and did backflips in their performance of “I Want You Back.” Justin Timberlake’s hair looked like Gary Spivey’s and Chris Kirkpatrick’s was worse. We lined up by the window during the final commercial break. I waved to the German girls. The VJs called the names of the five finalists: Jesse, then Kiele, then Ducci, then a gorgeous African-American woman whose name I can’t remember, then- after an endless pause that existed only in my head- me. 

Geronimo.