Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs - Dave Holmes Page 0,83
said: “Right this way, Mr. Holmes.” This had never happened before (or since, for that matter), and it could not possibly have happened in front of a better person. It was a sign. A new life really was beginning after all. And then we sat down and ordered our sushi and he told me about his girlfriend who was down the street performing in Seussical: The Musical. Even on Broadway, even doing a musical about the joys of bisexuality, I picked the straight chorus boy to have a crush on. (That chorus boy: Matthew Morrison.)
Kidnapped went through some changes, but it ran for a whole season. I went back and forth between New York and L.A., each time bringing more of my stuff west. It was the last year of my contract with MTV, and I could have tried to get another one, but I felt myself getting less and less busy. I saw the new kids getting more and more screen time, and I couldn’t bear to hear someone tell me that I was fired, so I said: “I think I’m just going to ride out the rest of my contract and then just move on,” and Rod said: “That sounds like a good idea.” A few months later the checks stopped coming and I didn’t work at MTV anymore. That’s the way it happens: your contract runs out and nobody knows it except someone in business affairs. You just kind of fade out.
I found someone to sublet my room for a while, and his temp job in the city went permanent, so he could stay as long as I needed him to. There was no work reason for me to be in New York City. Only my friends made me want to go back, and with T9 predictive texting, staying in touch with them was a snap. Everyone was pairing off and growing up anyway; where a few years before we’d been together in every spare moment, we were seeing one another once a week, then once a month, then less. We were on our way to becoming people who mean to see one another.
I had a brand new city, full of new people to meet and jobs to get; the weather was perfect every day; and most of my belongings were already in it.
I never made a decision or said goodbye to anyone. I just woke up one morning, looked around, and said: “Huh. I guess I live in Los Angeles.”
The first thing you notice when you move to Los Angeles, before the perfect weather or the traffic, is the enthusiasm. It is a happy bunch out there in L.A.; people have their little teas and go for their little hikes and they are psyched. There is nothing you can say to a guy in Los Angeles that won’t make him answer “NICE.”
“I’m going home to do laundry.”
“Nice.”
“Today is Tuesday, and tomorrow, it will be Wednesday.”
“Nice!”
“I wear shoes sometimes.”
“NOYCE.”
It is as phony as it can be, but it is inspiring in its way, because it is no less authentic than New York’s knee-jerk cynicism, and at least it makes you happy for a moment.
The hardest part about moving to Los Angeles wasn’t starting over socially; there were enough former MTV people making the move west, and I got back into the inherently social world of improv right when I got there. The hard thing was starting over professionally. MTV gives a person a decent amount of name recognition, but casting directors don’t like people with a decent amount of name recognition. Casting directors want to discover you, or they want to land a star. If you’re in between, you have a tough road. You go out for everything, and then you lose it, either to someone you don’t recognize who’s five years younger than you or to a legit celebrity—but either way you spend time in waiting rooms with Danny Bonaduce.
Along the way, you get all kinds of great advice. Producers in casting sessions will say things like: “Our audience is influencers, so keep that in mind,” or “Do it just like that, but better,” or “You’re talking like the audience is five feet away, I want you to do it like the audience is three feet away.” Those are all real, by the way, and in reply to that last one, I asked: “Am I too loud?” And the producer said, “No, it’s a relatability factor,” and I thought Oh, okay, you’re just adding more nonsense