The Kennedy Chronicles: The Golden Age of MTV Through Rose-Colored Glasses

By Kennedy

Kennedy's off-the-wall memoir reliving the pop music and the madness as an MTV VJ in the 1990s

"I am Kennedy from MTV, and no matter where I go someone has a story to tell me about the time we grew up together."

Known to millions simply by her middle name, Kennedy helped bring the cutting edge of culture into our living rooms during the 1990s through her outrageous segments as an MTV VJ, host of Alternative Nation, and on-the-spot correspondent for MTV News. She interviewed everyone from fame-averse Seattle rock musicians to vapid celebrities and politicians, asking the taboo questions no one else would as she navigated between true artists and phony poseurs. In The Kennedy Chronicles, she gives us a backstage pass at the last golden years of the cable network that defined a generation.

As only Kennedy can, she takes us back to unforgettable moments such as Nirvana's seminal performance on MTV Unplugged, the unbridled bacchanalia of the MTV Beach House and Woodstock '94 festival, and the game-changing "Rock the Vote" campaign. We read of priceless moments—on and off set—with such performers as Bjork, Pearl Jam, Weezer, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Oasis, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And Kennedy dishes on behind-the-scenes antics with MTV colleagues including Jon Stewart, Bill Bellamy, Kurt Loder, and Tabitha Soren.

Straddling the line between witness and participant, Kennedy recounts a blitz of surreal encounters: Dragging Stewart to a strip club. Getting naked with Jenny McCarthy. Playing dice on the men's room floor with Michael Jordan. Wrestling with Trent Reznor. Taking "Puck" Rainey from The Real World to church—and living to regret it. Making out in a coffin with Dave Navarro. Dodging calls from Courtney Love. Serving as John Rzeznik's muse for the Goo Goo Dolls hit song "Name." And there was that…incident…with New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the Video Music Awards. Finally, Kennedy intersperses her riotous narrative with priceless, candid interviews with Navarro, Henry Rollins, Billy Corgan, Pat Smear of Nirvana, Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, former VJ John Sencio, and more.


In her characteristically edgy and irreverent voice, Kennedy delivers a juicy and revealing narrative perfect for Gen X and beyond—and for anyone who wants to know what really went on at MTV.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781250028723

Kennedy

At twenty years old, KENNEDY became an MTV VJ, a position she held for nearly six years interviewing a range of celebrities on MTV News and at events like the Grammys and VMAs, as well as hosted a series of specials called “How-To With Kennedy.” Featured as a pop-culture/political pundit on Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel and TV Guide Network, E! and VH1, she now hosts Music in the Morning with Kennedy on 98.7 FM, one of the biggest alternative radio station in the country, and joins Discovery's hit show "Pitchmen.”

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For Andy

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Introduction

And So It Begins …

Andy Schuon: The Man Who Changed My Life, Twice

Call Me Ann

Head Like a Butthole

Richard Patrick: The Filter Singer Loses the Filter and Takes a Nice Shot

Nice Balls, Mr. President

Hank, You!

Henry Rollins: Confessions of a Surly Old Dick

Thom Yuck

It’s Not Working, They’re All Fucking!

Lauren Levine: My Old Boss, My Dear Friend

A Stern Talking To

Sit and Spin, Doctors

Finding Dweezil, Losing Frank

A Girl Named Lisa Meets a Boy Named Goo

Johnny Rzeznik: I’ll Tell Everyone Your Name

Rock Stars Who Used Me for Drugs

Miss Teen USA: Cry, Baby!

The Second Beach House: Meet the Pussy Posse

Two Boys, One Cup

Rock Out with Your ’Stock Out

Rudy Can Fail

Have a Bagel, Gaultier!

Kurt Unplugs

Pat Smear: Wanna Make Yourself Instantly Cool? Smear Some Pat on Your Band.

Jell-O Pudding Poops as Jon Stewart Lights His Farts

Hate Me Some Love!

Billy Corgan: Courtney Love, Conquering Abs, and the Pumpkin Who Really Broke His Heart

Never a Doubt

Get the Puck Out of Here

Mt MTV: How’s Your Aspen?

Meet the VJs, and Say Hello to Cancer

John Sencio: The Guy Who Beat Cancer Gets Ready to Fight, Again

MJ and the VJ

Jenny, Is That Your Clitoris?

Naked in a Coffin with a Love Vampire

Dave Navarro: Still Shirtless, Still Rocking the Coffin, Be Still My Heart

Betting on Reading

Matt Cameron: The Dreamy Drummer Breaks It Down in Real Time

Chili Pepper, Party Pooper

MTV Invades Your Facial Disgracial

Siddhartha Soren

Seriously. Give It Up, Girl!

From a Flash to a Crash, and Finally Home

Acknowledgments

Index

Photographs

Also by Kennedy

About the Author

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

My name is Kennedy from MTV. When I started as an MTV VJ in 1992, my manager told me no matter what I did as a broadcaster, when I left MTV that it would always be my first, middle, and last name. I was a VJ from 1992 to 1997, a time when music and culture collided, alternative music became a legitimate genre, grunge was born, and music was everything. People actually bought music they loved in multiple formats, even cassingles! And they watched MTV, lots of it, and grew up with those of us lucky enough to be on the channel.

When I started at MTV I had barely turned twenty, so while my friends from high school were matriculating, I was roaming the streets of New York in men’s pajamas and combat boots interviewing rock stars and looking for trouble. I found it all: famous friends, crazy circumstances, a perspective on music I never thought possible, and access to a world where I was a delighted misfit. There was never a greater collision of culture and media, and today the few who break through fight constantly with a disjointed media, social networking, and people doing just about anything to get famous.

Our head wardrobe stylist Jimmy Hanrahan described MTV like this, In 1992 MTV was in full swing, luckily the studio was in a separate building at the time so we all flew under the radar. Crazy things like Nirvana, Keith Richards, and drinking at work were all normal behavior. That being said, the radar was not very powerful as it was a very loose job environment. Bosses breaking their wrists in stairwells, smoking pot at Christmas parties, it all was normal. On the fashion front, rising ahead of trends and keeping the on-camera talent comfortable in their own skin was not an easy task. Being yourself on TV was different than playing a character or even now being a reality star.

In 1992, Seattle musicians set the tone for notoriety: They didn’t want it. If you were looking to be famous rather than express your art you were somehow a big phony who didn’t deserve a spot on the stage. Being famous for being famous was a crime, and musicians like Donovan Leitch and artists like Sofia Coppola were at risk of being poster children who only gained notoriety by proxy. It was okay to make fun of fame, it was glorious to trivialize empty celebrities who guarded themselves with publicists and lists of taboo questions, but to be vainglorious was a crime worthy of crucifixion. I turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertisements from Kmart and Apple and Discover card and various cosmetics and eyewear companies because I feared looking like a sellout. Can you imagine the Kardashians turning down any kind of endorsement? It was a different age.

Artists were to be handled with kid gloves, but by roughing them up a little I earned a no-bullshit reputation with viewers, but I also endured their wrath. After reciting a series of love poems about hunkified Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, his lead singer Chris Cornell got in my face at the Video Music Awards and growled, Stay away from my drummer! Hey, wait, Chris. I thought you were too cool to watch MTV!

As a VJ I modeled for Jean Paul Gaultier, I played dice with Michael Jordan on the floor of the men’s room of a trendy bar, and I told Anthony Kiedis his best friend River Phoenix had ODed on heroin. I was banned from the MTV studio on the days Al Gore and Bill Clinton stopped by, and I was never allowed back to The Jon Stewart Show after I asked his guest Rod Stewart (no relation) if he’d really had a quart of male DNA pumped from his stomach. I did all these things because that’s what you do when you’re twenty and wild and living in the moment in a special universe where your future may be uncertain, but ignoring the access would be criminal.

I am writing this book for all the people who came of age during that time. Some are older than me, some are still finding their way, many of us have kids and love to look back and live in that fleeting moment of our youth. It is a time they can never take away, and it sure as hell is fun to relive those passionate, earnest moments when music mattered and time stopped. I am Kennedy from MTV, and no matter where I go someone has a story to tell me about the time we grew up together.

AND SO IT BEGINS …

My frustrated, grizzled high school guidance counselor Ed, the one who told me I had nice knees, was fed up with my bad grades and told me I would either become a star, or I’d end up broke and homeless and I’d regret squandering my precious high school potential as a strangely dressed loudmouth. Two years and two months later I was on a plane bound for New York City ready to start my job as an MTV VJ. There is no more potent force in society than a misfit with something to prove.

Transforming from an average Oregonian teenager to a late-night radio DJ to a certified TV personality waiting for my name to be etched in the annals of pop culture along with the likes of Alan Hunter and Adam Curry seemed like a clever joke that could evaporate at any minute. From 1992 to 1997 that feeling stayed with me, tucked uncomfortably inside my mental pocketbook, as if at any minute, with the wrong insult or impulsive act, it could vanish as quickly as it appeared. How did I become a VJ? Hell if I know. More important, how can YOU become a VJ? You can’t, because the job doesn’t exist anymore. Like sexual harassment in the workplace and two-martini lunches, VJs are the stuff of urban legend whose time and train have passed, but I was fortunate enough to sneak onto the express and ride it through the greatest age in MTV history. In the nineties MTV was a wonderland of musical genres where hip-hop, metal, and a burgeoning alternative rock scene mingled like shallots and fresh basil in a bubbling, cultural stew. MTV was always finding its voice, lending a megaphone to a new generation to amplify and project its immortal tastes onto a blank, waiting screen. When I arrived it was in blissful transition from metal to grunge, and having come from West Coast alternative radio I was well aware of a shift within the songs and bands I knew, and I was delighting in the domino effect music was having on every part of culture.

As the plane rolled down the LAX tarmac my new and former boss Andy Schuon looked back at me with a bug-eyed smirk that shot bolts of fear and excitement into my abdomen, searing the feeling into my memory like a calf brand. In one look he was saying, This is real. It’s happening. You were an intern at the radio station ten months ago and now you’re going to New York to work at MTV and millions of people will know your name. Now don’t fuck it up. Andy did in fact pluck me from the KROQ intern program. He was the program director at LA’s world-famous alternative radio station where at eighteen I started answering the request line, opening mail, and sorting music. One day the cherub-faced wunderkind of modern rock called me into his office and asked if I’d like to do an air shift, which meant he was going to let me talk into a microphone and broadcast my eager, nasally voice to the two million people who regularly came in contact with the station. I’ve never been short of confidence, a trait that has landed me in serendipity and shit, and I was pretty sure being a radio DJ was the greatest and easiest job in existence. But I thought either I misheard him or he’d gone insane, and his last act before they carted him out on a stretcher would be to let me hold the listeners hostage for a few uncomfortable hours.

After leaving high school with no diploma and dropping out of my required college courses to make more time for my unpaid internship, I knew enough that maybe I wasn’t the most trustworthy steward of the airwaves, but I was an ambitious fool so I took the challenge. A shaky two-night audition went well, and with my low salary and his lower expectations I became a part-time overnighter. My shift was from one to five thirty in the morning. Lots of chain-smoking and Dr Pepper double Big Gulps got me through the lonely early morning hours, as did taking irrational requests from long-haul truckers, insomniacs, and coke fiends at 4:00 A.M. Kevin and Bean was the struggling morning show that started after me, and by default I was hired as an in-studio producer, which is a fancy title for paid intern. It wasn’t my impressive radio acumen or ability to handle difficult divas, but I had a pulse and a car, so I could pull their music and fetch them Del Taco and doughnuts. They had nearly been fired for a fake on-air murder confession that landed them on Unsolved Mysteries, and I was the force charged with keeping them on track and on time. I like to think I was hired because they wanted an eyeful of this budding brick house to make their mornings smoother. In reality they were appalled by my wacky fashion sense, which involved a lot of turbans, polka dots, and granny boots, and technically I am the lesser half of a brick duplex since I only possess a ghetto booty with no attached upper deck.

Soon after I started with Kevin and Bean my life became their on-air fodder and they relentlessly made fun of me for my foul mouth, my small breasts, and my short-lived tobacco-chewing habit (I couldn’t afford the nicotine gum, so I chewed Skoal Bandits to wean myself off smoking; it totally worked). Lisa Berger, a West Coast MTV executive, heard me and called KROQ producer Maria D’Arcangelo to ask about this odd girl who was becoming a bigger part of the morning show. Maria was, in addition to Kevin and Bean’s wrangler, Adam Sandler’s manager. She had taken the baby-faced boy comic to MTV when he was nineteen, so she knew something about placing people with brown hair on MTV before their careers began. When I was Maria’s intern the highlight of my week was talking to Adam because, although he had only been on SNL for a year, he had starred on MTV’s Remote Control, my high school obsession. Maria set up a meeting with Lisa, and I bought a new pair of men’s pajamas so I could make a good impression, because nothing says Hire me! like a rehab escapee. Berger and I hit it off and she tried for months to find a place for me on the channel; she envisioned me as a correspondent on MTV’s movie show The Big Picture after she saw me harassing stars for Kevin and Bean at the first MTV Movie Awards in 1992. My next critical break came in May 1992 when Andy was hired as MTV’s new senior VP of programming. The boy wonder had transformed a stagnant radio station into a national force, so he was expected to do the same with the cable music channel. Together Andy and Lisa plotted, I wore an ill-fitting green bandage dress and some more pajamas to an official audition (not at the same time, but I wouldn’t put it past me in 1992), and assumed it went poorly and would never materialize because Andy didn’t call me five minutes afterward to beg me to move to New York. After a few weeks of regret and hand-wringing on my part Andy finally called, much like he’d done in his office nine months before. I’d like you to come work for me in New York as one of our VJs. The only thing I can compare this call to is the shock you feel when someone phones to tell you a close friend has died, without all the loss and sadness. I wanted to scream and drop the phone, but I just opened my eyes really wide to shake off the tunnel vision and tried to let the thought of holding the most coveted job in pop culture sink in to my undulating gray matter. I would be honored. Wildly unprepared and totally in over my head, but honored.

The plane touched down, we made our way to Manhattan, indulged in white pizza, and I checked into my new home for the next thirteen weeks, the Paramount Hotel in Times Square. This place was loud and modern and smelled exactly like every other Ian Schrager hotel in the world. I can’t quite describe it other than to say it smells like a cross between my utter shock and desperation, with a hint of gardenia. I called Sean, one of my best friends from LA who’d moved out to New York to work in TV production and he took me on a tour of Times Square, which in 1992 did not have a boldly lit Hello Kitty store, although I’m sure there might have been an adult theater with a similar name. We found such a theater, went in to scare up some trouble, and within minutes had a guy ask if we wanted a threesome. Sean’s response? I don’t know about her, but we just had a fivesome back at the hotel so I’m hosed! I could not keep a straight face, and though it was creepy that it happened within an hour of my touching down on the streets of Manhattan, it remains a fond memory to this day. What a sweet angel of a man trying to make friends with a pair of strangers.

Having grown up watching Late Night with David Letterman I had developed a robust and unhealthy obsession with New York City, and as a young adolescent went so far as to call random numbers in the 212 area code in the middle of the night asking people if they loved living in New York. Even at thirteen I wanted to be a part of something I had so idealized on the other side of the world, far from the madding crowd in the mean suburb of Lake Oswego, Oregon. To my surprise people would actually talk to me for a moment, before they asked me to never call them again as they hung up. In high school I visited Manhattan on a theater tour with my fellow choir nerds, and after a week of taking in musicals and bus tours I managed to talk my way onto the floor of the commodity exchange for an up-close-and-personal look at futures trading. I was trying to land a summer internship, but being sixteen my mom wasn’t as thrilled at the notion of me spending a summer shacked up with a trader in his TriBeCa loft working for free in the Big Apple. Prude. This was the same trip where I ended up in a hotel room, also in Times Square, wearing a Seton Hall men’s basketball uniform alone in a room with half the men’s basketball team. Even back in the late eighties my life themes were crystalizing. Lust, impulsivity, sports.

With a more permanent stay in mind—the backdrop to my unfolding caper—my love of New York knew no bounds. If New York were a big line of coke I would have snorted the whole thing off the Statue of Liberty’s dong, but she’s a woman. The entire time at MTV I was drug-, alcohol-, and smoke-free, a vegetarian, and a virgin. This was going to be one muted straight-edge party, but I did have one vice I was happy to indulge and MTV was my ultimate codependent: music. I had no idea how or when I’d have access to bands, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see shows and hear songs and get lost in tapes on my fancy, futuristic Walkman as I bounced around from one end of the island to another.

And then there was the actual WORK. My first MTV shift I was filling in for a vacationing Duff in prime time. Karen Duffy is, to this day, the most photogenic person I have ever seen. Light dances off her cheekbones and caresses her straight, black hair in a manner that remains unmatched. Her face literally perfects itself when she’s on camera, as the proportions of her wide eyes and tiny nose bend and soften when they meet the eye. I met her briefly at the 1992 Video Music Awards the night before I left LA; she introduced herself with a firm handshake and a disarming warmth that cannot be faked unless you’re Ted Bundy or Mary Hart. A crew showed up at my hotel bright and early Monday morning, and all had agreed to let me wear my own clothes. My fashion confidence was less serendipitous and bordered on dysmorphia. I slipped into my velour black catsuit and my best tan suede coat with the fussy fringe layered over the chest and up both sleeves, and I topped off the ensemble with my cowboy boots that had little horses painted on them. I looked like an autistic child masquerading as a stand-in for George Custer, and if I kept going in this style vein my first stand would be my last. With makeup applied, lips penciled into a perfectly matte shade of brown not unlike the color of an official NFL football, and tarantulan eyebrows plucked and tamed, Duff’s producer Angela Carbonetti led me to the bright pink lights that would hopefully lead to longevity as a video vixen and tidbit procurer for a rabid young audience. When the segment aired that night we gathered around Andy’s huge TV in his apartment and I learned a lesson I have not since forgotten: Watching yourself on TV in front of other people is like getting an unanesthetized alien anal probe. It is strange and uncomfortable, and very, very awkward. The light didn’t quite dance off my cheekbones—at a bad angle I thought I looked more like Rocky Dennis than a Degas painting. Brutal. My mom called a few days later. I was sure she was going to smother me with compliments and well wishes from the home front, but instead she sounded so concerned. Is everything okay, honey? You look so sad.

No one told me to smile, Ma!

You know who has the most beautiful smile, dear?

No, who, Mom?

Duff. She is just beautiful. This was going to be a bumpy train ride.

ANDY SCHUON

The Man Who Changed My Life, Twice

I would not have a career without Andy Schuon. He hired me to be a part-time DJ at KROQ at nineteen when I had absolutely NO radio or broadcast experience, and in another wildly unlikely lightning strike he hired me again to be a VJ at MTV. I met up with him at his office to see why on earth he’d taken a chance on a chatty misfit, and to see if he had any buyer’s remorse.

Why me? Why did you hire me as an intern to be a DJ at KROQ, and again with no TV experience at MTV?

I met you when you were in the intern pool at KROQ and I didn’t have any choice. I can remember today three interns. One was you, the other was Industrial Glenn, the third was Rob Goldklang. Industrial Glenn would wear a gas mask to work, today you would call the authorities, back then we thought it was kind of cool. You were the only intern that ever came into my office, you didn’t do it once, you would do it every day a couple times, there was no barrier of entry to you. There was no sense to you I was a big executive running the station. I’m sorry, are you doing something? Are you shaping the way America rocks? I’ll come back later! Persistence pays off in my book, I appreciate people who throw themselves at an opportunity and don’t ask for permission to do things, but essentially will them to happen. You were entertaining. I thought there was little downside to giving you a shot in the middle of the night, to do a shift, try out, and I was right.

Were you ever worried the gamble wouldn’t pay off?

No. Not even a little bit. One thing I’ve never done when I feel good about somebody’s position at some company I’ve run, I don’t overthink it. I give them the opportunity, the support, and just throw them in there. I am not someone who ever lives with regret, I’m only disappointed occasionally. In this case I never had any doubt.

Why was I always in trouble?

You were a polarizing figure. People complained about things you said a lot, so I would get a lot of feedback on you and I thought that was good, because it meant people were paying attention. I didn’t get a lot of feedback on what other MTV VJs were saying or doing. Twenty years later, when people ask me about my time at MTV, if I mention you, I can’t tell you how many times people say, Oh I hated her! I say, Can you name any other VJs from the time I was there? They can’t, I figure that’s a good thing. I actually can’t remember all of the VJs, but I know there are a number of them. People don’t remember Simon Rex and he had a sex scandal! I had to sit him down and talk about his penis. With him. People remember you and Bill Bellamy. You were a polarizing figure, that was part of your currency, people either loved you or loved to hate you, and I would use love in both instances. You elicited a strong response both positive and negative, and to me that was more good than bad.

Were there things you shielded me from where I almost got fired and didn’t know it?

I remember having to defend you more than others. But the only time that I ever really had to apologize for your behavior, or if there was a question as to whether or not it was appropriate to stay, was after the Giuliani thing at the [1994] Video Music Awards. [More on that here!]

How did you keep my job after the Giuliani incident?

I can remember three times in my time at MTV Tom [Freston, then CEO of MTV Networks] was really mad at me. That was one of the times, and I remember him being really upset because he sort of expected MTV to have more style than that, it was below our intellectual standard, which may be hard for people to imagine today in the modern MTV, the Snooki MTV. He was really disappointed. You took those chances, you pushed those buttons, you were fearless. Being unpredictable, not knowing what was going to come out of your mouth next is what made you appealing.

What was so special about our time at MTV? Why will it never happen again?

It was the singular, central point for music and pop culture in the nineties, there was no social media, there was no other place to go. It would be like opening up a browser on your computer and there being no search window, it just went to MTV. That’s all there was, it was very powerful. Also during that time down from Tom and Judy [McGrath, then president of MTV] came a requirement that the channel be a blend of a number of different things: music to fashion to social activities. So MTV, at that time, had it all. It was about music and politics and fashion and comedy and animation, all of these things, and what came out on the air seemed spontaneous, crazy, and irreverent, but behind the scenes we were hanging it all together with a fair amount of care and sophistication.

Who was the most difficult talent you had to manage?

I don’t think any of our talent was difficult to manage. There were a lot of challenges for artists; I look at that time as being a really committed group of people who loved coming to work and it was a great team. When I first got there there were transitional personalities: Adam Curry, Karen Bryant, they were on their way out, it was a change point. We were turning the channel over, I was brought in after the tenth anniversary at MTV. I had to make significant, dramatic changes, and as a result we took creative risks, we took chances, and many of them paid off.

Were the lunatics running the asylum at the Beach House?

Absolutely. I remember thinking on one visit there of the scene from Apocalypse Now when they go up the river to find Kurtz, who’d gone rogue. It had seceded from the MTV union, it was an organism that was growing faster than it could be killed.

How did the Beach House come to be?

When I first got to MTV in the late spring of 1992 I was, for a lot of the staff there, an unwelcome wellspring of fresh ideas. I was invited to a big programming meeting that was titled Summer Programming Ideas. At this point I was a VP, I’d been there a very short period of time, I was not head of music programming, I was not in charge. In the meeting people started brainstorming about things we could do to make MTV feel like summer. I remember feeling like Tom Hanks in the movie Big when he goes to work at a toy company and keeps raising his hands with ideas the proven toy execs quickly shut down, so I asked, Can we leave the studio and go outside? Everyone said Of course not, we pay rent on the studio, we can’t go over budget! I asked, Can we go on the roof of the studio and do a city-summer thing? and quickly someone had a reason we couldn’t do that, then someone suggested we put sand in the studio to make it feel like summer, and then I raised my hand one last time with the idea we should end this meeting, and schedule a meeting for next week to talk about summer of ’93, a year later. That was my last suggestion before no one would listen to me anymore for that entire meeting. From there I went back to my office and started formulating the concept of the MTV Beach House in my head. At some point in the next couple of months, I presented it to Judy, it got to Tom Freston, they loved the concept and it started to build some momentum, but there was no momentum among the rank and file at MTV. So at some point in the winter of early 1993 I took Lauren Levine out to the Hamptons, and we met a summer rental Realtor who showed us what ultimately became Beach House One, and I came back to the city, went into Judy’s office, and told her I found the Beach House for next summer, and Lauren said we could do the channel from out there. Lauren was in production and validated this; she was very excited, I went on to tell Doug Herzog, who was not pleased I had gone rogue, overstepped boundaries, and had done this on my own. He got behind it and the Beach House was born. The concept for the Beach House was that MTV played music videos as stock programming, those are three to four minutes long, it’s difficult to get ratings with short-form content versus long-form shows that carry you across a commercial break. The idea was to connect the videos with the overall Beach House theme to effectively turn short-form music videos into a long-form program. TV ratings are made of two things: how many people are watching and for how long. MTV had a lot of viewers, but they didn’t watch very long. This was an instrument to get people to watch a little longer. I remember being in my office the first day and seeing The Grind [MTV’s dance show] on the deck of the pool overlooking the ocean. It looked so incredible. Down the corridor on the twenty-third floor I heard people gasp and cheer. You could tell we were winning, I will never forget the feeling of satisfaction. I remember the ratings came in the next day, they may have doubled, with a note from Tom Freston that said, Great job.

Did you feel responsible for my well-being having hired me at such a young age?

I would definitely describe our relationship as having a lot of depth to it. We boarded a plane to go to New York City, that was your flight to New York. At that moment as you were leaving, we had already been through a pretty incredible journey, it brought us closer together, there was no way we wouldn’t somehow on the other side of this have a meaningful, lasting relationship, a family kind of connection, which we’ve always had. At this point I was twenty-six, I had enjoyed success in radio already, but like anyone I’d made a lot of big, swift decisions that had had a lot of impact, potentially positive or negative. And so having stuck my neck out with no experience in television, with no experience developing on-air TV talent, only a couple months into my job, I said, Oh, I think we should hire my intern form KROQ, Kennedy, to be a new VJ! and I can honestly say, and this is not trying to pat myself on the back, I don’t think a lot of people would have done that. Lisa Berger, who was a VJ talent scout as part of her work, had, independently of me, validated that she saw something in you as well, and that helped my case and made me feel better about it. But the night when we boarded the plane from LA to New York together, you showed up at the airport, you were wearing a cowboy hat and you might have been wearing cowboy boots too, I’m not wrong about this [no, no he’s not]. I took a look at you and I remember my reaction was, Kennedy looks like a star to me tonight. I think this is all going to work out. All night I was at peace with the notion you were going to show up in New York and everything was going to be fine.

What was your proudest/most disappointing moment watching me?

You are part of my lasting legacy at MTV, which is thought of as one that was cool, credible, authentic, smart, and fearless, and you are a lasting example of those fearless credible authentic decisions made during my time there. To take someone who is in the demographic of MTV and make it work. You may have been the only MTV on-air personality who was really, truly in the viewer demographic. You were the viewer and you were on the channel!

Also, I remember being at the Tonight Show [February 1993] in the audience and watching you come out and sit on the couch next to Jay and not being able to sort it out in my head. My brain could not do the work. I was imagining this intern from the radio station who answered request lines, then we hurlted into New York and there you were on the Tonight Show and I could not believe what I was seeing. That was wild.

As I was leaving his Beverly Hills office where he’s launching Diddy’s new all-music channel, I asked him to validate my parking. Without flinching he reached in his pocket and gave me forty dollars, knowing I didn’t have any cash. Some things, thankfully, never change.

CALL ME ANN

Without a doubt the greatest perk of being an MTV VJ—other than the constant line of potential sex partners queued next to your dressing room each morning, the mountains of cocaine at the breakfast buffet, and the on-call plastic surgeon—had to be the clothes. In the nineties MTV was silly with superstars, a sea of divas and big-name man-sharks who ruled the hallways of 1515 Broadway and 460 West Forty-second Street, home of the MTV studios. Tabitha Soren was the ginger queen of MTV News, a serious, willowy redhead whose ambition outmatched her reputation; Daisy Fuentes, the dual queen of MTV Latino and teenage boys masturbatory fantasies, had a tequila-soaked tongue and a bod for sin, and she still holds the land speed record for cursing in español; Denis Leary, the brash up-and-coming comic whose stylized black-and-white rants were eclipsing most videos for their buzzworthiness; Cindy Crawford, not only the world’s most sought-after supermodel and Pepsi spokesperson, but also the fashion face of the network as the host of MTV’s House of Style. Between them there was hardly room for polished broadcasters, hungover musicians, or similar otherworldly talent, let alone a loudmouthed, wild-haired Oregonian with more mettle than sense. I knew I would have to find my place in this palace of drama and pageantry, but with ordinary looks and a stubborn sobriety it would take more work than acquiring a nutty nickname like I had in LA radio. Somehow I’d have to be known for being more than the virgin Kennedy, my LA radio moniker (true as it was, but can you still be a virgin if you’ve doled out