March 2, 1990, three months shy of my UNC graduation date, I found myself in the RTVMP (radio, television, and motion picture) building sitting in a professor's office complaining about a grade for a media project I had handed in. His name not only escapes me now but always did when I was taking his course. Thanks to his uncanny appearance, I only ever referred to him as “Richard Dreyfuss” and, on occasion, “Beard Dandruff.” Therefore, for the sake of this memory, he will remain “Richard Dreyfuss.” Anyway, I didn't necessarily think my project was better than the grade I was given, but it was rumored that Richard Dreyfuss could be persuaded into a grade change if a student made an impassioned plea.

So, there I was in his office dripping melodrama. This moment was proof that scheduling my classes for two years around watching the acting on Days of Our Lives was a good idea. I finished my appeal to him with a distorted facial expression caught somewhere between a lip quiver and “the white man's overbite.” Yes, it was an awkward unrehearsed look, but I was in too deep not to commit to it. With that, Richard Dreyfuss looked down and silently opened his grade book, slowly tapped his Bic on the desk, then after a long beat and deep breath he looked up and said…nothing. In perfect Richard Dreyfuss dramatic fashion, right as he was about to speak, his phone rang. As he reached for the phone with one hand, he held up the index finger of the other, and damn it if his fingernail didn't steal the scene. I remember thinking, either he plays the flamenco guitar or Richard Dreyfuss is secretly Dracula. I was so taken aback by the nail that all I really remember of his phone conversation were a few “Yes's”, “sure's,” and an “of course.”

He finished the call, hung up the phone, closed his gradebook, and leaned back in his creaky professor chair. Then he said, “Young man,”—he probably called me young man because he didn't know my name, either. Maybe he called me “Chachi” when talking to the rest of his flamenco band—“Young man, I'm not going to change your grade, but I've got an offer for you. On the phone was a producer from MTV. Janet Jackson is in concert on campus tomorrow night and they're shooting a live special from it. They need a few gophers for the shoot—40 bucks cash, and you can put it on your resume.” Instantly, his nail didn't seem so creepy and I gladly accepted his offer with a confirming handshake. Truth is, I wanted my MTV a helluva lot more than I wanted that grade bump. While I thought my recorded audio dissection of the Parliament Funkadelic song “Knee Deep” deserved an A, I'm sure Richard Dreyfuss only understood a C+ worth of the material, so I was good with it.

The next day couldn't get there quick enough. I mean, let's be honest, it was 1990 and there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING cooler than MTV. I showed up early for work wearing a Carolina T-shirt and my ripped jeans, which I had strategically tucked into my hightop Nikes—yeah, I had it like that. The producer in charge of the shoot, Robert LaForty, quickly made me swap out the Carolina tee for an MTV one, which I happily threw on over top. The first thing that went through my mind was that if he asked for the shirt back at the end of the night, I knew I could totally outrun him. He surprisingly made no comment about the jeans tucked into my hightops, but then again, he also had curly, long red locks that would have made Kip Winger jealous, so he was probably down with the look.

The talent on the shoot was none other than Downtown Julie “Wubba, wubba, wubba” Brown. LaForty took note of my massive size, or lack thereof, and gave me my marching orders for the night. For some reason I was assigned to be Julie's bodyguard for the live shoot. We were going to be filming amongst the commoners and he chose all 6 foot, 170 pounds (on a good day) of me to keep the masses away from DTJB. I looked at this as a golden opportunity, not to get to know Julie or even to prove myself to the good people of MTV, but to get my damn face on television. Every time we went live, I made it a point to seek out someone near her and make them give Julie “some space,” then I would stand there “holding people back” with my arms outstretched and flexing so hard that I was bursting blood vessels in my eyes. I didn't care, I was willing to do whatever it took to get on camera, even if it meant fighting through partial blindness and crippling muscle cramps to do so.

In the midst of the shoot, I realized I was not only having a great time, but that this could potentially turn into an amazing opportunity for me. I mean c'mon, this was MTV! So, I was dead set on busting my ass to do the best job I possibly could. After the concert was over, I got paid my 40 bucks and was surprisingly invited back to the crew hotel for drinks with everyone. Forty dollars, an MTV t-shirt, AND beer? Pretty sure this was going on my greatest-night-ever list.

After wandering around the hotel for 15 minutes thinking I was punked, I found the MTV suite where everyone was hanging out. I was quickly greeted with the bad news—the crew wanted brew and Julie needed champagne. One problem, this was Chapel Hill, not New York City, it was past 1 a.m., the bars were closed, and room service refused to serve alcohol. I remember everyone figuring we'd have to call it a night, but I wanted my MTV and my B-E-E-R, so I said, “Let me see what I can do,” and exited the room with the confidence of David Hasselhoff in a Speedo. The truth of the matter was, I had no fucking clue what I was going to do, but I went into Old School Pittsburgh Baller mode and headed to the lobby. There was one guy working the front desk, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought it was Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard. Hell, it was North Carolina, it might have actually been Cooter.

I briefly explained our dire situation. We needed two bottles of champagne and a 12-pack of beer. Then I dropped the names Downtown Julie Brown and MTV so many times that my squat max increased by 200 pounds just picking them back up. Cooter just looked at me with the dead eyes of someone working the Embassy Suites graveyard shift. I knew there was only one solution if dropping names alone didn't work.

I had recently applied for and received a student AMEX card. Not only hadn't I used it, I hadn't even signed the back yet. I slid it on the check-in desk like someone who could actually pay the monthly bill (perception is 99% of the game). Next to the AMEX, I threw the two crisp twenties I had just received for working the night and said, “The AMEX is for the drinks, the cash is for you, and so is this.” In one fluid motion, I took off my MTV shirt, folded it, and set it down next to the cash. Thankfully, I still had on my Carolina shirt underneath or else the story would have taken an odd turn. Cooter looked at the shirt and his eyes lit up almost as if Daisy Duke had just invited him into the woodshed.

Next thing you know, the door to the MTV suite swung open (cue the slow-motion effect and wind machine) and there stood Dan-o, a 12 pack of Busch Beer in one hand and two bottles of champagne in the other. It took me six months to pay it off on my AMEX, plus late fees. But I didn't care. I got my MTV, I got my beer, and I got LaForty's business card, with an “If you're ever in New York and are looking for work…” promise attached  to it.

On that day I experienced something that I would later come to realize many times over—something that only a select few who have worked at the network know. In the 1990s, there was almost nothing more powerful than the MTV t-shirt. Trust me, an entire book could be written on that topic alone.