Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs - Dave Holmes Page 0,72

ready. Like, ass-full-of-water ready.

It was then that a much higher-up executive popped in. I was relieved; surely a clearer head would finally prevail.

I said, “Hey, are you aware that two guys are going to shoot water out of their asses and put out a fire on stage in just a few moments in front of a live audience?”

He said: “Are you serious?”

I said. “I am serious. In fact, it is the very first act in the show.”

“Wow.”

“I know.”

“Well, that can’t happen.”

“I know.”

“That’s our closer.” And then the boss took the show breakdown from my hand and sprinted to the control room to move the Shower Rangers from the top of the show to the very bottom.

Hosting a show like Dude, This Sucks is a difficult thing. You want to keep the energy up. You are wearing an earpiece and producers are shouting direction directly into your head while you’re shouting copy off a teleprompter and calculating scores in your head. There is a live audience that is staring right at you in silence during the inevitable and interminable production delays. If you are on a mountaintop in California in February, it is cold. It is a challenge even if you’ve done it a hundred times before. Kevin Farley had done it zero times before. And though he did a hell of a job, he still blew a few lines and missed a few cues, the way one does the first time one does a thing like this. And though our production people were the best in the business, this was the first time any of us were doing this show. We all made mistakes. We all caused slowdowns.

The result was that Cody and Other Cody were being held stage left, with asses full of hot-tub water, for the duration of a thirty-minute show that stretched into an hour, and then two.

And then three, and then more.

My final responsibility as announcer was to welcome the audience back to Dude, This Sucks at the beginning of act three, the last segment of which would be the Shower Rangers, whose performance I was now morbidly curious to watch. I stumbled a little on the intro. We had to do it again. Kevin flubbed a line or two. After what seemed like a long time to even those of us with nothing inside our asses, we reached the grand finale. Kevin called their name. The cameras cut. The marshmallow-roasters hit the center of the proscenium, and PAs brought the tiny pile of fake wood and Sterno out to the lip of the stage and tried to light it. And then tried again. And then tried again. Cody and Other Cody were so close to being allowed to release the water in their asses, yet still so far.

At last: ignition. The cameras rolled. “Fire Water Burn” played. The Shower Rangers, faces flush with a unique blend of pride, stage fright, and whatever emotion you’re feeling when you’re about to go number two in front of a live audience, approached the campers. The Shower Rangers pointed at the NO OPEN FLAMES sign and wagged their fingers no. And then the Shower Rangers tore away their pants and crouched. The fire was extinguished. The crowd rejoiced. The judges let the whole moment play out. Holy shit.

And this is where the genius of the MTV production staff comes in: the whole thing was camera-staged in such a way that the heads of the campfire people obscured the actual assholes. So you could see what was happening, but you couldn’t really see what was happening. It was theater of the mind. And it worked. A victory for the Shower Rangers.

This is when I decided to leave. I said goodbye, I got into my rental car, and I drove all the way back to Los Angeles, very quickly, without stopping. You would have, too.

So I didn’t find out until a few days later what happened.

This is what I am told happened:

By the time of their debut, what was in the asses of the Shower Rangers was no longer water. Even the most skilled of rectal sharpshooters is no match for Mother Nature, and in retrospect, nobody really knew exactly how much experience Cody had in this department. (Other Cody, we should remember, was an absolute beginner.) Also, once something is up there for as long as whatever was up there was up there, it wants out. Give it an opening, and it will take that opening by force. So while