“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 876 (Monday) – my MTV

MTV!

August 1, 1981 was the day that the spectacular cable network MTV launched in all its groundbreaking, fantastic music video glory with "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. The music. The fashion and huge hair. The makeup. It was a portal to the coolest aspects of music, fashion, and pop culture. And that brand new magical job of video jockey. I wanted to be Martha Quinn of the original veejay lineup. She had the coolest job on the planet. 

The funny part was, nine or ten years earlier, Dad, a cable installer and graduate of a local broadcasting school with dreams of being a disc jockey, had a weeknight music show on the local cable channel out of Leominster. He took his DJ skills to the screen and did some of what MTV did. He played music on TV. He talked about music in the studio. There might be a studio guest and when he needed a break from being onscreen he showed album graphics. 

Martha Quinn, original
MTV Veejay (1981).

At least once, some neighborhood friends, my brother, sister, and I were part of the studio’s Halloween costume party. I was Raggedy Andy, wearing bib front pants and a wig I had made out of bright red yarn and a friend was Raggedy Ann. My brother and I sometimes went to the studio with Dad and got to answer the request lines (534-3101 and 534-3102, but don't ask me anyone's current phone number as I have  no clue).

When the commercials came out featuring various musicians delivering the “I want my MTV” line I was hooked. They aired for what felt like forever and built the excitement of what was to come. Thanks to Dad’s cable installer job we had cable at our house, and thanks to Mummu, I had a TV in my room, but when the MTV launch date arrived, there was no MTV at our house, or for anyone in Fitchburg. Just the ongoing and infuriating commercials to taunt us. The moon man had landed, but not for us.

MTV finally arrived in the area and Leominster got it first, because everything cool seemed to land in Leominster. When Fitchburg finally got MTV I was glued to it. It couldn’t just run in the background like radio. Knowing there were images that went with the music, I had to watch it. 

It became an obsession. If I was awake and could control the TV channel, it was likely to be on MTV. There were many nights up too late in front of the TV and tardy arrivals to a lot of things for a few years while I watched “just one more video” (which I had probably already seen a gazillion times).

In the late-80s, a coworker dubbed me “The Vidiot” after one too many episodes of my passionate and incessant chatter about music videos and dispensing of music tidbits gleaned from MTV. He wasn’t wrong. 

MTV is completely different now and my vidiot days are behind me. We grew apart and finally broke up for good when the programming shifted to so-called "unscripted reality" shows. It’s all good. Life moves on. Now, instead of the steady diet of music videos, it's nightly binge watching of series on the streaming networks. Maybe I'll stream one of the MTV historic videos like "The First Four Hours of MTV Programming."