I can remember the very first video I ever saw on MTV. I don't think my hometown got the channel until maybe 1984, but my first taste of the music channel was Bruce Springsteen's ass against an American flag in "Born in the USA." Mom and Dad were entertaining friends, playing cards, and my older brother and I were in our pajamas enjoying the fact that we weren't being yelled at because we were up past our bedtime. As we flipped through the channels (no remote) my brother noticed a channel that had moveable images, but was still fuzzy. He turned a couple knobs and viola! Bruce Springsteen's ass. We hooted and hollered and acted like lunatics! It was the most exciting day of our lives! We. Had MTV...
Fast forward 29 years and MTV, which no longer means Music Television, isn't even remotely close to the network I fell in love with that fateful night. Reality TV has taken over. And it's not going away. I guess maybe I'm guilty of buying into the hype. I watched The Real World for the first nine years! But after awhile, even that started to feel dirty.
After reading a book penned by the original five VJs, I actually missed MTV. To be fair, when MTV first started out I liked most of the music videos they aired. I am not sure I could say the same if the network still played videos of artists in 2013. But one of the cool things about getting older is that you get to cling to all the wonderful things from your childhood and for me, that includes an MTV that played videos 24/7.
