JOCKEYING

FOR A

POSITION

Thousands want their MTV,

but MTV only wants one new VJ

 

 

 

 

BY COREY LEVITAN

PHOTO BY THOMAS MICHAEL ALLEMAN

 

      As a rule, MTV VJs plunge from national recognition to the bowels of obscurity faster than you can order that '80s album from Nina Blackwood's late-night infomercial. Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, Alan Hunter, Adam Curry, Kevin Seal, Steve Isaacs -- all are separated from Kevin Bacon by at least 20 degrees.

      Yet no one in the line of young people snaking out of the Palace in Hollywood, and winding twice around its parking lot, seems concerned about a post-VJ career this afternoon. An open slot on MTV is available, which is better than working at Subway and living in their parents' house. 

      The music video channel has made a much-hyped contest out of filling one of these slots per year. The winner -- determined by viewer voting -- receives a week's worth of video announcing (renewable if the viewers approve).

      Some have stood on Vine St. since midnight last night, in the cold rain, just for the remote chance of becoming a punchline-in-waiting. 

      And I've come to audition, too. Are you kidding? No writer for RAVE! has even made it as far as an infomercial. 

 

      2:45 p.m.: "This has been a dream of mine for the last two years," says Ryoga Vee. This 19-year-old from San Jose is the most elaborately garbed of the VJ wannabes, providing an answer to the burning fashion question, What if you pierced the old Burger King cartoon character in every visible orifice? "I don't want to sound overconfident," says his perforated highness, who has been on line for nearly 24 hours, "but I'm going straight to the top."

 

      2:52 p.m.: To describe Mike Sullivan as a VJ hopeful is stretching the truth. There is no hope for him. He is the last in a queue of more than 2,000 contestants, when MTV has distributed wristbands to only the first 1,000. (No wristband, no admission.) "But anything's possible, right?" says the 22-year-old, who arrived only five minutes ago after a six-hour drive from Kingman, Ariz.

 

      2:55 p.m.: A woman at the front of the line, who refuses to give her name, wants to know what a guy who arrived only five minutes ago has to say for himself. "I'm an idiot?" she speculates. 

      They're about to be judged for their buoyant personalities, but many here have turned vicious. They're cold, wet, and their only human contact for the past several hours -- outside of those shivering next to them on line -- has been with Jesse Camp. Last year's MTV VJ search winner, Camp is a 19-year-old rocker from rural Connecticut known for slapping high-fives and saying "Hey everybody!" during a daily MTV slot from New York's Times Square. He emerges from the Palace every half hour or so to illustrate this remarkable talent.

 

      3 p.m.: The Palace opens it doors. "Just be yourself," candidates are advised inside by a video featuring VJ Carson Daly. (The onetime KROQ DJ couldn't be in L.A. today, as he is in New York contemplating his next move: the Stridex commercial or the public-access talk show.) 

      Contestants are put through makeup, handed a microphone and scooted to one of eight stations on the dancefloor. MTV staffers videotape them as they read from cue cards and talk about their favorite videos. Off to the side of the audition stations is an area draped off by a curtain. This is where second tryouts are administered immediately, to the most promising candidates.

 

      3:20 p.m.: There will be no second tryout for Ryoga Vee. On his way "straight to the top," he crashes into the word "hiatus." Vee cannot pronounce it while reading his lines, then asks if he can start over. (Ouch!) His day gets worse, believe it or not: Following the flub, he finds that his ride has departed without him, in the car containing Vee's wallet and bus ticket home. 

 

      3:35 p.m.: Former MTV personality Pauly Shore is in the house, which makes sense. That movie career hasn't been going so well and he probably figures he can audition for his old job unrecognized.

 

      3:45 p.m.: Another high-fiving Jesse session placates the impatient crowd outside. "Ooh, he's so tall and skinny," says Amanda, a ravishing young Latino woman with voracious eyes. Camp teeters on 3" platform shoes even though he's 6'5" without them. And he looks about 75 lbs., most of which appears to be hair weight. (Can someone explain to me the appeal of a man so skinny his legs do not touch at any point along their lengths?)

 

      4:05 p.m.: Rhonda Johan Graham of Apple Valley makes a living as, she claims, California's only female auctioneer of cars and cattle. "I love it," says the 20-year-old, who has been standing on line since 3 a.m. "But being a VJ really has everything in it that I want to do -- being on stage, traveling and meeting people." Graham proceeds to demonstrate how announcing videos at auctioneer-speed could save MTV expensive air time. 

 

      4:21 p.m.: Time to start worrying about my own on-camera future. I find an MTV publicist, who escorts me to the front of the line. As a member of the press I am given special treatment, which immediately sours my favorable relationship with the line people. When I'm told I don't need any makeup, the large and angry man behind me shouts, "Yeah, because he didn't have to wait overnight in the rain like we did!" Before I can feel guilty, however, I realize that I have just cut in front of a guy who would be beating me up every day if we attended high school together. 

 

      4:50 p.m.: I realistically mull my chances over. I'm not incredibly smart or talented. For this job, however, these are both pluses. I can say "Hey everybody!" and I can even read the word "hiatus." I'm much better-looking than Carson Daly, even though I can't hold a candle to "120 Minutes" host Matt Pinfield. (But who can, really?) Still, none of this will probably matter. There are 1,000 other people being considered in L.A., and 10 more finalists from New York and Chicago to compete against next week. I take my cue from the leaders of our great nation and begin to think unethically. 

 

      5:01 p.m.: I've got it ... interview a judge for brownie points! From here on in, it's all money for nothing and chicks for free, I tell myself. I consider how to begin my resignation letter to RAVE!

 

      5:20 p.m.: "I'm looking for a passion for music, something that jumps off the screen, a confidence, some sort of a unique quality," says MTV Exec VP Dave Sirulnick, one of the judges. Telepathically I am implanting the words "me, me, me!" into his brain as we bond. To demonstrate my rapier wit, I joke about once getting a pizza delivered to me by a former MTV VJ. It is a step too far, with implications that visibly annoy Sirulnick. "There are plenty of VJs who couldn't be happier with their lives now," he says. "Carolyn Heldman (from the mid-'80s) is a general manager of a TV station in Colorado."

 

      5:29 p.m.: With the extra confidence that comes from having just ticked off the person deciding my fate, I make my way to an empty audition station.

      "Why do you want to be a VJ?" I'm asked. Good. I came prepared for that one with schtick. "Because my ultimate goal is to star in infomercials for 'Songs of the '90s,'" I say. "We all remember where we were when we heard our first Britney Spears song. How about this one from 'N Sync? These memories can all be yours for $24.99!"

      "All right," the interviewer says, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. 

      This is not going as well as I think. I'm then asked what my three favorite albums are and all wit high-tails it out of my skull. I become Cindy Brady staring at the red light on top of that TV camera. I mention "Nevermind" by Nirvana and -- for some reason I think is hysterical in the moment -- "the music of Fabio and Pee Wee Herman." Reading from a cue card follows (something about Whitney Houston) and then it's over -- the audition, my on-camera dreams, my life...

 

      5:33 p.m.: The curtained-off area is to the right. "This way, please," a gentleman says, escorting me to the left. So this is how it felt not to be invited to sit down next to Johnny Carson following your standup routine. 

 

      5:34 p.m.: Revelation: Jesse Camp does have a talent -- the ability to be so out of it he doesn't crumble under this pressure.

 

      Post-script: I'm told the names of the L.A. finalists: Laurel Stewart, 20, of Venice and Christina Mercado, 27, of Tempe, Ariz. Sirulnick tells me why they won. "Both of them just had lots of personality and that quality we like to call watchability," he says. "You really wanted to see and hear what they would say next."

      As for why I didn't win: "You know what? I don't think I got to see your audition. Somebody before me made the decision that you didn't make it to the second round. I really can't say why."

      Oh well, at least I still have my wallet and my bus ticket home.

 

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