There were a few rather defining moments throughout my days as a P.A. at MTV, and this one definitely left a rock n' roll imprint on my brain. It was March 1, 1991, and Oliver Stone's much anticipated and controversial biopic, The Doors, was about to hit the big screen. That night we were shooting the premiere party for the film from the world-famous Whisky a Go-Go on the fabled Sunset Strip. MTV was airing the much-publicized event as a live special.

Performing for the show was none other than rock n' roll rebel Billy Idol. I was, as I said at the time, “jacked up beyond belief” to be working the show. I mean, to be inside the historic Whisky, which just oozed rock n' roll folklore, and to see Billy Idol perform was a pretty decent night's work.

My job description for the evening was as follows: Take $200 petty cash, go a block away to the liquor store, and buy enough adult beverages to make Billy Idol, Billy “Fucking” Idol. Then prep his dressing room with all of the goodies. Didn't seem so hard, but it turned out to be a bit more difficult than I anticipated. I mean, what do rock stars really drink? I was 22 and on a tight budget. I had no clue what to get. At the time I was drinking 40s of Schlitz with the occasional shot of Jåeger when I felt like splurging. Billy was British and just didn't really strike me as a malt liquor kind of guy. So I bought what I thought a millionaire rock star would drink: two cases of Heineken and as much champagne as the petty cash would allow.

When I went to pay, the guy working behind the counter asked me what the occasion was, so I told him the truth. “I'm buying drinks for Billy Idol.” He side-eyed me for a second, then said, “Well, if I were you, I'd trade out a lot of that champagne for vodka.” He spoke with such conviction that even through his thick accent, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. So, I agreed and made the vodka swap, plus I threw in a couple bags of potato chips, some M&M's (because supposedly rock stars like them in their dressing rooms), and a can of mixed nuts, just in case he was feeling posh.

When I got back to the Whisky, I hurried upstairs and did my best to get Billy's dressing room rock-star ready. Oddly enough, I remember being really proud of myself for including the mixed nuts—why wouldn't I be? I mean, nothing says “crazy and classy” all at once quite like mixed nuts. Once his room was good to go, I received my marching orders from downstairs via my walkie talkie. “Just wait for Billy. When he gets here, do whatever he needs you to do and get him anything he asks for.”

So, I followed my orders and literally sat on a folding chair to the left of the dressing room door, anxiously waiting for Billy Idol to arrive. Trust me, if social media would have existed at the time, my Insta feed would have been blowing up with obnoxious pre-Idol-waiting selfies. But it didn't, so it was just me sitting there alone, sweating my ass off in this tiny little hallway with the smell of cigarettes and booze oozing from the pores of the wooden floors.

I could hear the buzz from the excited crowd downstairs as they filed in and began to party. At least that's what it sounded like from my rather solitary vantage point. Truthfully, I couldn't even feel my legs, thanks to the shitty old folding chair cutting off the blood circulation from my ass to my feet. So I very easily could have been hallucinating.

After what seemed like an eternity, I got the call on my walkie, “They're here, Billy's heading up!” Holy shit! I was nervous as hell! How do I make the intro and let him know what I'm doing here? More importantly, how do I regain feeling in my legs? I heard the backdoor downstairs swing open, and the sounds and energy to follow were only similar to what I experienced when I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

What seemed to be like a hundred boot-covered feet started hustling up the creaking wooden steps, people were cheering, girls giggling, guys somehow laughing and yelling profanities simultaneously. Was there a ventriloquist with him, how do they do that? As they got closer to me, I did my best to stand up so I could introduce myself. I still couldn't see anyone, but it felt like their pace was rapidly picking up. The tingling in my legs from the blood returning to them was almost painful. I was trying to shake them out before everyone reached me, because God forbid they got there as I was doing it and the first impression Billy Idol had of me was me doing the fucking Hokey Pokey outside of his dressing room door.

Then the flood gates finally opened. As they reached the top of the steps, the entourage began pouring in. The first one I saw was a behemoth of a tattooed man, followed by a pack of skinny rocker-type guys with cigarettes dangling from their lips, and mixed throughout—almost as if for an 80s rock video—was a plethora of scantily clad girls that very easily could have been the mainstage all-stars at the Body Shop. Surrounded by a separate individual harem of girls and followed by a tiny Hollywood-looking agent type in a suit was Billy Idol. The crew was then bookended with another fucking huge tattooed guy. (Sorry, I just felt it wasn't really appropriate to use behemoth twice, since the last time was the first time I've ever used it.)

In the midst of this Flesh for Fantasy stampede, I tried to get out the words, “Hi, I'm Dan with MTV. Let me know if you need anything.” The truth of the matter being, I think all I got out was, “Oh sorry, my bad. Let me get out of the way.” Once everyone was inside, the door to the dressing room slammed behind them with an echo acting as a do-not-disturb exclamation point. Just like that, I was alone again in the tiny hallway, only now not only did I hear music and the crowd partying downstairs, but I could also hear the good time of Billy and The Idolettes muffled right behind the door next to me. It was almost like I was on some sort of game show and I had to figure out what was going on behind Door Number One.

As showtime rapidly approached, I received numerous calls on my walkie from the important people in charge downstairs inquiring how everything was going. Trying to keep it together, I'd reply with lame quips like, “We're all cool up here,” with the hopes that my coworkers on the other end of the walkie would believe I was somehow letting my freak flag fly with Billy and his posse.

Then I heard something from inside the dressing room. I wasn't sure at first, but it sounded like someone with a British accent was screaming, “MTV!” Then it happened again, over and over, “MTV! MTV!” I wasn't sure what to do. Were they calling me, or was this some kind of preshow drinking game that rock stars do? For example, if he were performing in London, would they be screaming “BBC! BBC!”?

Next thing I knew, the door to the dressing room flew open and scared the shit out of me so badly that it almost scared the shit out of me! I immediately jumped up, and just as quickly my legs started to tingle again. I think all of the blood rushing to them was leaving my head, because it was accompanied by that combination of muffled hearing and high-pitched ringing you get right before you pass out.

One of the giant guys was standing there looking down on me like I was a Keebler elf. He barked, “MTV, we've been calling you!” I'm pretty sure my response was something close to a Beavis and Butthead-esque “uhhhh 'kay.” He lifted his giant hands, put them to my chest, each one was holding a bottle of the bubbly, and bellowed, “Billy doesn't drink champagne.”

The door slammed behind him before I could reply with another rousing rendition of “uhhh 'kay.” As I sat back down I remember thinking how cool it all was. I mean, sure I wasn't partying with Billy Idol, but was this a potential ice breaker? In my mind, I was on the threshold of potentially getting called in for a drink at any second. Believe me when I say, for a kid who was shining shoes in Pittsburgh a few years earlier, this was like winning the lottery. Yep, I was just putting that positivity out into the Universe. Glass half full and champagne bottle totally full.

Lost in the thoughts of all of my unrealistic expectations, I got another call on my walkie, “We go live in two minutes. Let Billy know.” “Copy that.” I took a deep breath, got up from my chair, straightened my MTV t-shirt, briefly hesitated, then knocked on Billy's dressing room door. Looking back, it was probably more of a light tap than a knock. There was no response from inside. All I heard was that laughter and profanity mixture, girls squealing, and a lot of “Oh my God's.”

A shouting voice on the other end of the walkie “Ninety seconds, how's he doing?” I shouted back, “He's ready to rock!” Not sure why I said that, but it sounded kind of appropriate under the circumstances. Then right before I knocked again, I heard the band on stage downstairs starting to play the opening organ lick of The Doors, “Touch Me.” The drunken crowd began losing their minds in anticipation of Billy taking the stage any second. So my knock this time was a bit more assertive, followed by a quasi-authoritative “Live in 90 seconds.” As those words were leaving my lips my walkie simultaneously screamed “One minute, one minute and we are live!” To which I raised my voice outside the door saying “One minute!” Unfortunately, when it came out it sounded more like a prepubescent teen doing a poor Saved by the Bell Screech imitation.

The organ “Touch Me” lick was playing over and over, seemingly getting louder with every loop. Over the walkie, “Where the hell is Billy? Is everything okay?” to which I responded, “On his way!” I finally girded my loins, knocked like a man, and said, “This is MTV! We go live in less than a minute!”

The response I got was not shocking because there was none. It was at this moment I did what anyone in my situation would do, I decided to check the sweat stains under my arms. As I raised my arm to check the stains, my hand hit my walkie knocking it off of my belt, sending it crashing to the floor.

The music and crowd noise from downstairs both kept increasing in volume. I felt like I was in the middle of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. By the time I clipped my walkie back on my belt and picked up my earpiece, all I heard was what sounded like a hundred people screaming, “WE ARE LIVE, WE ARE LIVE! WHERE'S BILLY?” Off of those words, with one fluid motion, I opened the dressing room door, being sure to keep my eyes to the floor and yelled, “WE ARE LIVE!” Then I quickly closed the door and listened closely, kind of like when someone who cracks a safe combination does.

Seconds later, the dressing room door flew open and out ran the rocker-type dudes and the girls, followed by one of the giant guys. It was madness. I proudly yelled into my walkie, “Billy's on his way to stage!” The only problem was, the door slammed closed behind the big guy, and no Billy. The band kept getting louder downstairs. At this point, apparently, my walkie had been rendered useless, because someone screamed from the bottom of the steps, “Dan! We've been live, where the fuck is Billy?!” In my mind, I responded, “I know! Now shut the fuck up, you tool!” But the rock n' roll gods were smiling down on me and I didn't need to respond. Because at that moment the dressing room door swung open and out rolled the other huge guy followed by Billy. As he walked by, in badass rock-star fashion, he backhanded me to the chest, gave me his patented sneer, and said “MTV!” Hopefully my swoon wasn't audible, but it was official, me and Billy were buds.

Then he hustled down the steps to the stage, not because he knew we'd been live—I think he enjoyed that part—but because he was just amped and ready to go. Billy reached the stage, the crowd went apeshit, and he seemlessly picked up his cue from the band and sang, “Come on, come on, come on, come on and FUCK me baby!” Amazing how changing one word in a song on live television sends a network into mayhem.

I knew my job was more or less done until the end of the show, so I took one of the bottles of champagne from under my chair, went halfway down the stairs, sat down, popped the cork, and watched Billy Idol crush it.

As the show was coming to an end, I went back up to my position by the dressing room. With the band still playing and the crowd going crazy, Billy ran up the steps with one of the girls in tow and as they ran past me, like a true rock star, he snagged the champagne bottle from my hand, kicked the back door open, and they left.

Over my walkie I heard someone yelling, “Does anyone have eyes on Billy?” I ran to the back door of the Whisky and opened it just in time to see Billy pulling away on his Harley. His girl was on the back—she was holding him tight with one hand and slamming champagne with the other.

Then in one of the coolest rock-star moments of my life, I stood alone at the backdoor and proceeded to watch him peel tire out of the parking lot and turn left down Sunset Boulevard. As he drove out of sight, I could still hear the muffler in the distance and I remember thinking, I guess I did my job, because the guy who's rolling down Sunset Boulevard right now is, without a doubt, Billy “Fucking” Idol.