VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave
Page 9
Martha:
When I hosted a show with Zappa years later, he was a doll. Maybe he liked that I could quote from the Mothers’ Fillmore album, or maybe he was comfortable because we were shooting at his house up in the Hollywood Hills. I’m sure if he met Nina in different circumstances, they would have gotten along great.
Alan:
It wasn’t a fair match. Afterward, J. J. said, “He’s a beast for anybody.”
I was a big Zappa fan, but when I interviewed him, a few years later, he was a total jerk. “Yes.” “No.” “Why would you ask that, Alan?” “Well, that’s a stupid question.” Two weeks later, he came back to the studio with his daughter, Moon Unit Zappa. She was doing a guest VJ spot and she told him he owed me an apology. He said, “I was just feeling ornery that day.”
Mark:
When Nina was hired, she was the video vamp, she was a hottie, and she was going to be the number one jock. She was perfect for what they had in mind, and they gave her a great time slot. That Zappa show was a big black mark on her record, and after that, she was on from 4 A.M. to 8 A.M. Everyone else had longer shifts and better times. They really kicked her hard for it. She was so insecure after that, and I don’t think she ever really fully recovered from it.
Alan:
We all felt really bad about Nina’s fall from grace.
Nina:
Years later, Mark told me about how it affected my career at MTV, but I was blissfully unaware of it at the time. Nobody in management ever said anything about it to me. Nobody ever said, “Well, next time, if you run into somebody like that, you should do this.” Not that there was anybody else quite as obnoxious as that.
I just knew it was a fiasco. I had never been publicly humiliated like that, and it undermined my confidence. I wanted to hide forever. I wish there had been somebody there to support me, or a producer to slap him around. What were they doing? Because I know I was running into the bathroom by myself.
10
Here in My Car, I Feel Safest Of All
Rental Cars and Limousines
Martha:
All five of us used to go to concerts together at the Brendan Byrne Arena, which was part of the Meadowlands complex in New Jersey. MTV had just started, and they weren’t paying for limousines, but they’d spring for a rental car. I would always volunteer to drive: I’d go to Hertz, then drive all over Manhattan, picking up the VJs. I didn’t care that it took an extra hour—I felt privileged that I was spending time with the other VJs. I was in heaven.
First, I’d get Mark—he lived at 3333 Henry Hudson Parkway, in Riverdale in the Bronx, and I would drive all the way up there. Then Nina from her apartment in Midtown, Al from his transient hotel/apartment building, and J. J. from his pad in the West Village. I wish I could go back and eavesdrop on one of those rides.
When we got to the parking lot of the Brendan Byrne and climbed out, people would freak, because New Jersey cable had MTV.
Nina:
It was like we were getting out of a clownmobile. We used to go see a lot of concerts at the Brendan Byrne, but after a while, we were getting mobbed in our seats, so we had to sit in private boxes.
Alan:
Early on, I didn’t care if they were toting us around town in cars or not. But J. J. got incensed about it. He would say, “It’s bullshit that they don’t give us car service.” I was still taking the subway, and I was glad to have five tokens in my pocket, unlike the year before, when I was broke. But he got me pumped up about the issue, and then I became relentless.
Mark:
I took the position with the MTV executives that it was bad image management, not only for the five of us, but also for the company, for us to show up at these concerts in a rented Ford. I said, “We should be in a limo.” Much to my surprise, they went for it.
Alan:
Once we had car service, we totally abused it. They gave us a big stack of vouchers and told us to go for it. I got arrogant about it. Literally, if I had five blocks to walk, I would call the service and wait ten minutes for the car to show. My perspective got really skewed. When the first bill came in, it was humongous, but they didn’t tell us to lay off.
Martha:
I took the subway everywhere, even after MTV gave us cars. If it was raining, I knew I’d get to the studio faster if I just grabbed the subway at Astor Place.
Excerpts from a Mark Goodman letter to the XYZ cab company, dated December 28, 1981:
On the morning of December 24, 1981, an incident occurred between myself and the driver of cab number 46.
I called XYZ that morning and rushed out of the house, late for the television studio where I work. As we began heading for 503 West 33rd Street, I realized I had left my home on West 72nd Street without a voucher. I told the driver that I had made this mistake and began to suggest the obvious alternative: Deliver me to my destination, leave the meter running, and allow me to go into the studio and obtain a voucher.
The driver raised his voice immediately, not even letting me finish my sentence, saying, as he began to swerve toward the curb, that he would have to have a voucher. He threatened (loudly) at this point to take me back to West 72nd Street. When I protested, he radioed for instructions. The instruction from the base was to ask me to pay the $3.50 over the meter. The driver, refusing to hear any logical alternative, or suggest that to the dispatcher, told me what he had been instructed to do. All the while, his manner was loud, rude, and threatening.
As we approached the studio on West 33rd Street, I pulled out my wallet and realized that I did not have as much cash as I thought. I began to say that I didn’t think I could pay the fare plus the $3.50 and have any money to make it through the rest of the day. I had not gotten more than half of the sentence out when this driver wildly stamped on the gas pedal, hurling me back against the seat. He locked the doors and began shouting, as we passed my destination, that he was taking me back to West 72nd Street. He was screaming that he would not let me out of the cab until I paid.
As we raced along 33rd Street, I tried desperately to make him understand my problem, raising my voice myself to try and be heard. By the time we reached a stoplight at the end of the block, he was threatening to kill me, poking a screwdriver at me over the seat back.
By this time, I was trying to get out of the cab—not to escape paying, that idea is obviously ludicrous in this situation—but to protect myself. Finally, when it became clear to me that this driver was incapable of any reasonable discourse, or any logical thought, I threw $20.00 on the front seat, trying to avoid the screwdriver. Cursing at me as he counted my change (the wrong change—it was $1.00 short), the driver continued to act not just unreasonably, but uncontrollably and irrationally—he seemed truly dangerous. I am thankful that this driver did not have a gun. Indeed, I wonder whether a man like this should be permitted to drive.
Please let me know in writing how you have dealt with this situation.
Sincerely,
Mark Goodman
Mark:
I didn’t even live that far from the studio.
11
I Hope That When This Issue’s Gone, I’ll See You When Your Clothes Are On
Nude Photographs
Mark:
Never in my life was I able to pick up a girl in a bar, just walk up to somebody and be that macho dude. But once MTV started, pretty girls started coming on to me. Alan and I were getting pictures in the mail, and we started having a contest.
Alan:
In the beginning, our fan mail came in dribs and drabs. Nina got lots of it, and Martha had a lot too, and I had a scant few envelopes. But it didn’t take long until the mail started to stream in from Middle America, and I didn’t have anything more important to do than to read it. So Mark and I had a contest as to who would get the first naked picture—because we could feel that they were coming.
One day I got a fat envelope that smelled of perfume. I opened it up—Mark was there with me—and there was a five-page letter and a p
icture: a buxom naked woman built like a brick house. I was celebrating: “Yes, I’m the winner!” So I read the letter: “Dear Alan, I love MTV. I love watching you—you’re so sexy.” Sweet, this is great. “But my biggest fantasies are for Journey—they’re the best band ever. I’ve given you this picture hoping that you can get it to Steve Perry.”
Mark was shouting, “You don’t win! That’s not for you! You can’t be a pass-through!” We were making up the rules as we went along. I argued for a little while, but honestly, it was deflating. It emphasized that we weren’t actually stars—we were just the conduits.
Mark:
If you ask me, I was the winner. I got one card—a beautiful personal note with a wax seal on the back. It didn’t have a picture attached, but it was very feminine. I opened it up and it said, in lovely cursive handwriting, “Wanna meet a girl who can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch?” And there was a P.S.: “If you can’t come, send Al.”
Alan:
We had heard that Nina had posed for Playboy, and we were all curious to scope it out, but nobody had a copy. Then I was doing a personal appearance for the channel, and when I was signing autographs, some guy came up to me with a copy of the magazine. I couldn’t really react in the middle of a thousand people, but I checked it out as discreetly as I could. I came back and told Mark, “I saw the mother lode, man.” And then I looked at Nina sideways for the next two weeks.
Nina:
After high school, I signed up with a modeling agency—I did some photography, but I was too short for the runway. I also modeled for art classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I was taking my clothes off for painting classes, but I wasn’t thinking of it as being sexual. I loved the artistic atmosphere of the art school, even the smell of the turpentine and paint. As lame and corny as it sounds, I did it because I was inspiring artists. I couldn’t draw, but I always enjoyed hanging out at museums.
Playboy came to Ohio in 1978 to scout for a feature on “Girls in the Office,” and Danny, my boyfriend and manager, heard about it. He said, “You really should do this.” My modeling agent said, “You really should do this.” My friends all said, “You really should do this.” The money was decent. I don’t remember the exact figure—but I believe if you did the centerfold, that was a hundred grand.
I didn’t have to send in naked photographs. I actually submitted my senior picture from high school. For some reason, I had posed for that picture in a curly ringlet wig. It was a very Victorian vibe—I sent that in instead of a bikini shot. They looked at me for the centerfold, but according to Hugh Hefner, my chest wasn’t big enough. That was fine—I never thought I had a voluptuous build. They treated me well, the money was good, the photographer was wonderful. I did a lot of yoga, so I could hold poses like there was no tomorrow.
From “The Girls in the Office”:
It’s a fact that the world is run by secretaries. Without them, thousands of seemingly important men would spend most of their time hunting down pieces of paper and punching out letters on the typewriter with two fingers. And, as anyone who has one knows, a secretary who’s not only skilled but pretty is more than valuable; she’s priceless—far better than coffee to get one’s eyes open in the A.M. . . . Nina Blackwood, who works for an Ohio music publisher, also plays the harp and does voice-overs for commercials.
Nina:
After it came out, this guy Gary, one of Danny’s friends, came up to me and said, “Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of stuck-together pages, huh huh huh.” I didn’t understand what he meant. Honestly, on my life, I had no clue how guys related to Playboy. That’s how dumb and naïve I was.
Not long after that, Danny and I moved to Sewanee, Tennessee—he was playing with the country singer David Allan Coe. It was a little town, but the University of Southern Tennessee was there. And I thought, while Danny was out on the road, that I’d do some modeling for a sculpture class. I lasted one day—I couldn’t do it anymore. The whole thing felt tainted.
After MTV launched, Playboy reprinted the photos. I was mad. They don’t ask you if it’s okay—they just do it. Executive producer Julian Goldberg called me into his office and asked, “So how are we going to handle this?” I said, “I don’t know—I didn’t put it out.” I don’t know if it was real or just in my mind, but after that, I always felt like the executives saw me as the bad sister of the VJ gang. It wasn’t pleasant to be called into the principal’s office. I’m left of center in a lot of ways and I have a rebellious streak, but intrinsically I really am a good girl.
Alan:
Nina was embarrassed by my bringing it up, and I got frustrated because I thought she was being coy. False modesty is annoying—you posed for Playboy, so why do you disown that now? I had the stereotypical man’s opinion: A woman who poses nude is secure in her body and sexually easy. Now I know Nina better and I know she wasn’t being disingenuous.
Nina:
I have very few regrets in my life, but posing for Playboy is probably my biggest. For over thirty years, I’ve had to put up with a preconceived notion that I’m something that I never was. And I still have to talk about it all the time, because almost every interview I do, especially with male radio jocks, they love to bring it up. It pisses me off, because I have to explain it so much and it’s the antithesis of who I really am. Sometimes after one of those interviews, I’ll call up Danny and say, “I’m still talking about that darn thing!”
Guys just won’t let it go. If I cured cancer, they’d probably touch on that: “Oh, you cured cancer, but let’s talk about how you posed in Playboy!” And when I complain about it, they say, “Well, you should be honored.” You know what? I’m not.
12
I’m a Cool Rocking Daddy in the U.S.A. Now
The Mighty J. J. Jackson
Mark:
J. J. was a big name-dropper. But he didn’t come off like a putz—I loved hearing about him and Rod Stewart or him and Freddie Mercury, because he was a great storyteller. He used to go to Rod’s house in Bel Air, and he always called him “the Duke of Bel Air” on the air. And one of J. J.’s big claims to fame was that he was the first person in the United States to play Led Zeppelin on the radio. He was genuinely close with those guys—he called Robert Plant “Percy.” And nobody called him Percy except the guys in the band, and Peter Grant, their manager. J. J. talked about hanging with the guys in Led Zeppelin at the “Riot House”—the famous rock ’n’ roll Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. He told me that he introduced the band to some girls that he knew.
Martha:
Robert Plant wouldn’t talk to anybody at MTV except J. J. Same with Roger Daltrey.
Mark:
We all quickly came to love J. J. That said, he was a little pompous and he acted like he was royalty. There were times when I thought, J. J., just reel it in. Please, not another story about you and the Duke of Bel Air. Over the years, I realized he was one of the most secure people I ever knew. He was smart and honest, he had diverse interests, and he was totally comfortable with himself.
Martha:
I didn’t realize at the time how much weight J. J. carried. He wasn’t some kid off the street, the way I was. Only later did I hear some of the stories about the things he did, like introducing Jimi Hendrix onstage in Boston, or showing all the guys in Led Zeppelin around Boston in his station wagon. Can you imagine? Plus, I was young and self-involved. Okay, he broke Led Zeppelin in the United States, fine, I have to go worry about my boyfriend.
Alan:
Sometimes stories would roll out of J. J.’s mouth that we’d never heard before. He’d say, “I was a marine,” and I’d expect the sentence to finish with “on the sands of Iwo Jima.”
Nina:
He didn’t talk about the marines much. I know he was a seagoing marine and he worked in air traffic control while he was in the service.
Mark:
In retrospect, he kept certain things to himself. He would tell these stories, and he liked to present a particula
r profile, but he only let us know a certain amount.
Nina:
He didn’t like the way Rod Stewart had changed in his career from being a rock ’n’ roller to the spandex-wearing disco stuff. I guess he told Rod that once, because they had a bit of a falling-out.
Alan:
I loved Howard Jones and I was surprised that J. J. liked HoJo too. J. J. and I had interesting overlaps in our musical tastes.
Asked toward the end of his MTV tenure to name his top ten albums of all time, J. J. compiled this list:
1. Roxy Music, Avalon
2. U2, The Unforgettable Fire
3. Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti
4. The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed
5. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland
6. The Beatles (aka “The White Album”)
7. The Who, Who’s Next
8. The Pretenders
9. Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain