Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs - Dave Holmes Page 0,75

was a big deal, and my friend Tracy Grandstaff (the voice of Daria!) was the head writer. I’d never written for an awards show, and I thought it would be a good feather to stick in my cap, so I joined the writing staff. As the event drew closer, I kept getting pulled away to do events or live promos for the show, so I kept having to pass on the things I was assigned to write, such as podium banter for Gavin Rossdale and Susan Sarandon as they gave Best Female Video to Lauryn Hill, or for Buddy Hackett and the cast of The Blair Witch Project before they handed the Best Direction award to the Torrance Community Dance Group for Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.” But there was one assignment I refused to give up: Johnny Depp was introducing Nine Inch Nails, who hadn’t performed together in some significant amount of time that we were supposed to make a big deal about. It would be epic. Depp and Reznor: legends coming together, kind of. I was determined to make it great.

I spent time on this intro. Like, a lot of time. I incorporated song and album titles and lyrics (“They caught us all in their DOWNWARD SPIRAL and brought us CLOSER TO GOD,” etc. God almighty). I did a ten-, a twenty-, and a thirty-second version, just so Johnny would have options. Tracy looked over my work, thanked me, and we were off. I called my roommates, my immediate circle of friends, and my parents, and said: “I stayed up all night writing the words that Johnny Depp is going to say on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House when he introduces Nine Inch Nails. Please watch.” Sitting in the audience that night, I watched Johnny Depp come on stage, and I looked to the back of the house to see my words in the teleprompter—they went with the twenty-second version, okay, cool. And then I turned as Johnny Depp hit his mark, looked at all of the words he was supposed to read, gave a dismissive shake of his head, and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, Nine Inch Nails.”

My consolation was that literally everyone I had told to watch watched and still called to congratulate me on a job well done.

Puff Daddy and Dream

At some magazine party—I want to say the reception for the “Hot Summer Music” cover of Teen People—I ran into Puff Daddy, who knows everyone’s name and is always at work. “Dave Holmes,” he said, “come with me.” I like an adventure, so I went with him. He made the high-sign to a group of teenage girls in matching halter tops as we walked, and they fell in step as he led us into a stairwell. He closed the door behind us, snapped, and said: “Dream, sing.” The girls sang a bit of a new song I guessed was called “He Loves You Not,” a pretty decent song with some interesting harmonies, and then they all looked at me for a reaction. “That’s Dream,” Puffy said. “That’s my new shit.” “Great,” I said. “That was really good!” But what I was really thinking was How awesome would it be if the door locked from the outside and we were stuck here together all night, like in a sitcom episode? Puffy’s new shit actually did pretty well: “He Loves U Not” and “This Is Me” both made the countdown, and then they vanished a year or so later. Everything Puffy touched briefly turned to gold that year.

Lance Bass and Dream

Lance Bass had his Y2K New Year’s Eve party at the Hammerstein Ballroom just a few blocks up from the studios, and I was to broadcast from there. The guest list was a real who’s who: Jamie Lynn Sigler, Chris Kirkpatrick, various members of third-string Lou Pearlman boy bands, and girl groups who identified themselves by name and name of group, like members of some kind of pop military—“Hi, Mandy, Innosense.”

Lance worked the room in a gold and black top, the spitting image of the Gordon Gartrelle shirt Theo Huxtable wanted, and billowing black satin pants that gathered at the waist and then again at the ankle, with massive slits along the sides revealing bare legs. It was the kind of outfit that made you say: I am looking at a future gay astronaut.

The décor was what you would expect from a guy who got famous in an Orlando boy band: potted palms and paper lanterns. And