Hello. I’m Gavin Edwards, the public speaker and the New York Times-bestselling author of The Tao of Bill Murray, the ’Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy series, and Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever. If you’re interested in hiring me, click here for more information.
The ads kick off with the network’s frequently deployed spot (the seventh time on a once-per-hour schedule) for their “Big Bang ’89” program (the New Year’s Eve live program playing a few hours later). I’ve noted previously that Robert Plant had the best hair among the quick cuts of that evening’s performers–but who was wearing the best hat? We see Bret Michaels of Poison, who has selected a baseball cap with the brim flipped up. Cohost Sam Kinison is sporting a striped knit hat. But Larry Blackmon of Cameo is crowned by one of the great items of headgear in rock history: it’s white with black polka dots, and it looks like an art deco salad bowl is sitting on top of his head. I know everybody focuses on Cameo’s codpieces, and I understand why, but for my money, his hat is as good as the one Aretha Franklin wore to the presidential inauguration.
For the fourth time, we see the spot for Conductor batteries where a philosophy professor is making a lecture so boring that it sends his class to sleep–except for the maverick in a mock white turtleneck who drowns out the professor by listening to his Walkman. Wouldn’t he be better off just cutting class? I once met somebody who had lectured at West Point; he told me that by school rules, his students weren’t allowed to fall asleep in class. The accepted behavior if you found yourself nodding off was to stand up. So he always had a visual meter for the class’s level of engagement: if he was droning on, he might have a cluster of standing students, but if he cracked a joke and woke the class up, some of them would then sit down.
Budweiser runs their R&B road manager spot again (just the second time). Some of the unusual fashion choices in this ad: The lead singer is in a tuxedo, which appears to be solid pink. (That might be a trick of the stage lighting; it looks solid white in another shot, which seems more likely.) The woman in charge of the sound board is wearing a white jumpsuit. And there’s a nerdy gofer with a dark Members Only jacket over white overalls.
For the thirteenth time, MTV plays a one-minute commercial for The January Man. Toting up the time I’ve spent watching this ad, both in 1988 and while writing this countdown, I’m in serious jeopardy of getting up to the running time of the actual movie.
Our break concludes with a great “Ten Second Film,” titled “Girls.” We see two boys on bicycles, pedaling through a cold day in suburbia. The first one is in a red plaid jacket, and has a baseball glove on his handlebars. The second one, with a denim jacket and a Yankees cap, says, “Girls? You didn’t say there’d be girls!” And scene.
You may recall an article I wrote last year for Men’s Journal about Dan McLaughlin and his “Dan Plan”: at age 30, despite never having played a round of golf in his life, he decided that he would quit his job and devote 10,000 hours to remaking himself as the best golfer possible (with the ultimate goal of cracking the PGA tour). So how’s it working out for him? Men’s Journal asked me to check in with him, and I filed an update.
As part of my research for VJ, I rewatched Live Aid (or more precisely, the DVD box of it). A few aspects of the show that seemed notable twenty-eight years down the road:
1. The wittiest song selection of the day was Elvis Costello with his cover of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” Not because he charmingly introduced it as an “old northern English folk song,” but because he consciously paid homage to the Beatles’ 1967 debut of the song on Our World, the planet’s first live global television event (and hence Live Aid’s spiritual predecessor).
2. Bob Geldof fearlessly commandeered the microphone whenever he felt like it–Brits remember him cursing on-air and telling the BBC viewing audience they weren’t donating enough, but I was particularly struck by how he walked out onstage the moment Paul Young finished his set, determined to make his fundraising pitch, not caring that he was stepping on Young’s applause.
3. Career-making performance of the day: U2 with “Bad.” Watching it sent me on a major “Bad” jag–I’ll write a separate entry about it soon.
4. One of the pleasures of the day was the abundance of one-time reenactments of old collaborations: Dire Straits bringing out Sting for “Money for Nothing,” most of the lineup of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” reprising their parts. My favorite: Elton John resurrecting Kiki Dee for “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Biggest missed opportunity: Queen and David Bowie could have done “Under Pressure.”
5. I remembered Phil Collins had performed a set on each side of the Atlantic (and run into Cher on the Concorde), and played with Eric Clapton, and Sting, and Led Zeppelin, but I didn’t realize his solo sets consisted of the same two songs in both London and Philadelphia.
6. A cool early-morning collaboration I had forgotten about: David Gilmour playing guitar with Bryan Ferry.
7. For the most part, the official Live Aid DVD does a good job distilling the day. A few acts are missing (e.g., Zeppelin), and many performances are minus a song or two, but editing the day from 16 hours down to 12 is for the most part, a boon. (Or you can do the YouTube smorgasbord.)
8. Queen just stomped.
9. The day’s music included the debut of a number-one single (albeit one that wouldn’t chart until six years later): Elton John and George Michael dueting on “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
10. My favorite set: David Bowie in the British twilight. He had Thomas Dolby in keyboards, he kicked off the set with “TVC 15,” was effortlessly cool, and at the end, seamlessly transitioned into introducing a fundraising film.
Hey, Los Angelenos! I will be appearing at the Pop-Hop Bookshop tonight! It is in Highland Park, and it is filled with goodness (and books)! I will be talking with Jennifer Keishin Armstrong–she’ll be reading from Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, while I’ll do an excerpt from VJ. There will be conversation about television, Hawaii, and Donald Trump, and we’ll both be happy to sign books or body parts. This evening of quality entertainment is absolutely free: a fabulous time is guaranteed, or your money back.
The Pop-Hop Bookshop
5002 York Blvd (that’s in the Highland Park neighborhood, close to Occidental College)
LA CA 90042
Thursday, July 11, at 7 pm.
(New to the countdown? Forgotten what it’s about? Catch up here.)
A rock climber dangles from a steep cliff, pulling himself up with his left leg. To emphasize that this is a raw, elemental scene, the only soundtrack is a howling wind. The climber would not be identifiable as David Lee Roth without the block of information in the lower left hand corner. (By the way, I recently learned that the MTV credit blocks were set in the Kabel typeface, specifically a shadowed bold weight version; I had never noticed the shadow, but it’s totally there. Anyway, Kabel: designed by Rudolf Koch, released in 1927, named after the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable. Information set in Kabel would evoke simultaneous trust, nostalgia, and head-banging.)
As some big synth chords kick in, we cut to a soundstage where we see David Lee Roth with his band, all heavily backlit. Dave, arms stretched high, bends his knees and leans back in a pose halfway between yoga and the limbo. Then, in slow motion, he does a spinning roundhouse kick, blond hair whipping around with him. He’s clad in the sort of outfit I imagine him wearing on vacation when he comes out of his bungalow to get the morning paper: white socks, sandals, baggy brown vinyl pants, and a black leather vest.
Cut to guitarist Steve Vai, who’s noodling up a storm: we see him riffing away on a triple-necked guitar in the shape of a heart. He seems ecstatic, possibly because he can’t believe that this gig as an Eddie Van Halen substitute in Roth’s band has made it to a second album.
The camera rapidly pans around Diamond Dave, who gestures at it with the microphone stand. Dave has changed into another vest and harem pants outfit, this one with many more spangles and sequins. “Rockin’ steady in her daddy’s car / She got the stereo with the big guitars / And that’s all right,” he yowls. This barely makes sense, but Dave’s strutting across the stage, mugging, and pointing into the camera, exuding enough charisma for eight lead singers, so it really doesn’t matter.
Intercut: shots of Vai striking rock-star poses, having studied at the assless chaps of the master. Also intercut: Dave, scaling laterally across a sheer cliff face, hopping right over a cameraman. I want to know more about the guy who’s hanging onto a cliff with a camera on his shoulder! Another intercut: the drummer, who appears to be a blond surfer dude. Meanwhile, Dave has one hand behind his head and is doing some unsubtle pelvic thrusting. Of all the rock singers ever, he has the most Gypsy Rose Lee in him.
Dave finally plants himself in front of the drum kit, with one of the widest stances since the “Jessie’s Girl” video. Vai runs around the stage with the dark-haired bassist Billy Sheehan. Outside, we see Diamond Dave on the cliff face, where he appears to be wearing overalls and hip-waders: his climbing look is basically rock-star farmer. The cameraman zooms out, revealing that he got this shot with a bad-ass lens: we see Dave as a little dot on a vast expanse of bleached cliff, with some lush mountains behind him. Back on the soundstage, Dave shakes his midriff like somebody set his switch to “puree.”
Second verse: Vai lip-syncs, doing some very Dave gestures. He then walks across the stage and throws his wide-brimmed hat towards the camera. To stop us from getting bored, we get three seconds of oversaturated color. Then the camera spins around Dave as he pretends to look at his watch and winks. Without any warning, the drum kit is suddenly hovering eight feet in the air. I don’t know if Dave has telekinetic powers or if he’s sent the drummer up to meet the mothership, but either way, I feel like this turn of events deserves more attention than the video is giving it.
Costume change! Dave is now wearing hot-pink leggings with palomino chaps over them. There was a time when I wondered whether Dave was actually gay and blatantly flaunting his sexuality to an audience of metalhead teenage boys that was in huge denial about it, a la Freddie Mercury. (That time was before I wrote VJ with the MTV VJs and heard Mark Goodman’s stories about what went on backstage at a David Lee Roth show.)
On the cliff, Dave lopes towards a crevice and puts his left hand out to grab it. But he can’t hold his grip and slides away. Onstage, Dave does a slow-motion roundhouse pirouette, and lounges around for a couple of shots. On the cliff, we see him triumphantly standing on the summit, his left fist raised in the air. Being able to see the three safety ropes he’s tied into makes it somewhat less bad-ass.
Guitar solo. This is a good time to note that this song, while listenable enough, is basically the Splenda version of Van Halen’s pop-metal sugar, and doesn’t even have the demented energy of Dave’s previous solo album, Eat ’Em and Smile. (That record was even better in its Spanish version, Sonrisa Salvaje. I got into a heated argument with my then-roommate Dan about that album–I contended that Dave’s Spanish accent was quite good, and he pointed out that I had no way of judging, since I didn’t speak Spanish myself. Twenty-three years later, I can admit that Dan was right–but Dave’s commitment was so total, I believed in his fluency.)
Somehow, Dave has gotten into a boxing ring. He hops and struts around, wearing a bright red robe, golden trunks, and sequined boxing gloves. When men discover stripper wear, whole new fashion horizons open up. We see the drummer, who appears to be wearing a shimmery green dress (although it’s more likely just a weird lycra thing), sitting on top of his kit, beating on the drums sideways. Dave twirls his mike stand like he a drum major marching through Pasadena in the Rose Parade. Then, just in case you thought you hallucinated the whole bejazzled boxing glove thing, we cut back to the ring and Dave punches the camera with one glittery glove.
“1-800-hey hey,” Dave adlibs as we head for the outro. I recently reread his (hugely entertaining and shockingly out of print) memoirs, Crazy from the Heat. As far as I can tell, his onstage clown schtick isn’t masking any deep inner pain–but he does play down the fact that he’s crazy smart. At a certain point, David Lee Roth made a deliberate choice that he had a better time going through life as Diamond Dave.
Final image: Dave cruising away from the stage, standing on the device that the Village Voice reviewer (I no longer remember who, I’m afraid) mocked as a “surfboard with handlebars.” And that’s accurate, but awesomely, the surfboard leaves a little trail of smoke. Even better: Dave poses on top the surfboard, moving his arms around like he’s sending a semaphore message, spelling out “PARTY AT DAVE’S HOUSE.”
“Just Like Paradise” hit #6 on the Billboard charts (Dave’s last top-forty hit to date). You can watch it here.
Good people of Los Angeles and its surrounding regions: I will be at the Pop-Hop Bookshop next Thursday, July 11th. And I will not just be shopping: in the service of the bestselling VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave, I will be appearing with Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, which is an excellent new history of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (coincidentally, published on the same day as VJ). We will be discussing each other’s books and pop-culture writing in general, with various diversions including a lightning round! Good times will be had; books will be signed. Put it in your calendars now!
The Pop-Hop Bookshop
5002 York Blvd (that’s in the Highland Park neighborhood, close to Occidental College)
LA CA 90042
Thursday, July 11, at 7 pm.
Something cool about my Lonely Island feature that I didn’t mention the other day: while we were waiting in line for lunch at Doc Brown’s Chicken, we were joined in line by a blonde pixie in leather overalls and a long-haired dude. It was Robyn, the excellent Swedish pop star most famous in the States for “Dancing on My Own,”and her boyfriend, filmmaker Max Vitali. She needed to meet with the Lonely Island to discuss the video for “Go Kindergarten,” and they all agreed that Universal would be the most fun place to do it. We had lunch with “Do the Bartman” on a perpetual loop in the background. “It’s cool that it’s a girl doing the voice,” Robyn said.
This Sunday is Father’s Day–and if you haven’t gotten your dad something yet, might I suggest that he would thoroughly enjoy a copy of VJ, the New York Times bestselling memoir of the early days of MTV I wrote with original VJs Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn? Even the right-wing website for the American Spectator seems to have enjoyed it, declaring, “MTV, after all, is contagious.” Pick up a copy for Dad from Amazon,Barnes & Noble,Powell’s, or your favorite local bookseller–because he deserves it.
Budweiser runs their R&B road manager spot again (just the second time). Some of the unusual fashion choices in this ad: The lead singer is in a tuxedo, which appears to be solid pink. (That might be a trick of the stage lighting; it looks solid white in another shot, which seems more likely.) The woman in charge of the sound board is wearing a white jumpsuit. And there’s a nerdy gofer with a dark Members Only jacket over white overalls.
Our break concludes with a great “Ten Second Film,” titled “Girls.” We see two boys on bicycles, pedaling through a cold day in suburbia. The first one is in a red plaid jacket, and has a baseball glove on his handlebars. The second one, with a denim jacket and a Yankees cap, says, “Girls? You didn’t say there’d be girls!” And scene.
