I remember the other kids talking about MTV when in school. I had never actually seen any music videos at that time…but I was so curious. Why would you need a video of a song? Didn’t really make much sense to be honest with you. But then I went to a friend’s house for a sleep-over. Besides having a crush on him (yes I knew when I was that young) I really wanted to see what this thing was. We watched MTV all night. They played the same videos over and over…I guess there wasn’t much out there at that time. But I didn’t care. I loved it. And I loved the songs they played and the VJs. Loved them. I watched MTV whenever I could but we didn’t have that at our house. We had basic cable, which at that time amounted to a better reception of your local channels and a few crappy channels from other cities, which I also never really cared about.

One night, however, I came upon this show called USA’s Up All Night. The show was hosted by Rhonda Shear…a completely ditzy blond chick who loved cheesy movies and had a real knack for appearing slutty and funny and lovable at the same time…not that there’s anything wrong with that. I really could care less about how she was dressed. I loved the early part of the show when she’d show music videos. And the music videos she would show were not the ones they played on MTV. These were amazing videos by the likes of Kylie Minogue and other artists that weren’t readily known in the US. One night, I saw a video from an artist named O’Chi Brown. Her song was intoxicating. I mean really, really intoxicating. Here’s a clip of the video as I probably would have taped it on our VCR:

Just so you understand something, I didn’t have my iPod like I do now. I only had a crappy Sony WalkMan and I needed to get that song so I could share it with the rest of the world. My only option was to tape it on a cassette so I could take the song with me everywhere I went…a revolutionary idea I suppose.

After I got it on tape I was elated. But I needed the video. So I would have to stay up all night waiting on that song to come on. There were never any guarantees that it would come on that particular evening. And the song would usually come on so quickly that I’d always miss the first 20 seconds of the song when trying to tape it. Ugh…technology where the hell were you at that time!?!

I spent many a night laying on the floor in front of the television with my finger on the pause button of that VCR. I missed it so many times. I’d miss the start of the video. I’d hit record too soon so then all this long ass dialogue would be recorded. So many chances lost. Then one night I hit it right on the money. I had my treasure and it was such a personal victory that I listened and watched the song every night. Then I heard Pete Burns from Dead or Alive introduce You Spin Me Round. I nearly passed out. Nobody had ever seen anything like this in little LaMarque, Texas. I wanted to shout out that there was so much out there we’d never seen before. But nobody cared. Not really. They didn’t. And I grew to believe that they didn’t care…and use it to my advantage. I soon began dressing in the craziest things you’d ever believe I’d wear including blue lipstick, jet-black hair and even a skirt over some long pants one time. My mom was furious. My teachers didn’t understand. How can this kid, who is making excellent grades and be so smart, look so crazy and infuriating? These things didn’t add up. I would watch the Dead or Alive videos and see the magic in them…the in-your-face-ness about the whole thing that seemed to inspire me for the rest of my life…little did I know at that time.

So what’s the point of this whole blog article? Partly I wanted to remind myself of the joys of laying on synthetic carpet fibers all night long to capture a video that one day would be available with a click on the internet. Partly I wish I could wear eye-liner and get away with it these days…damn I love that stuff.  And partly I wanted to share that I’m dealing with much of the same stuff in writing my blog and having it be a full expression of who I am. I’m learning about Search Engine Optimization, HTML to create these articles, embedded videos, themes, rankings, and all sorts of other crazy stuff that nobody cares about…they just want it to work. I don’t have to learn. I could just use others to do all of this for me. I could just use the software that does it for me…for a price.

I could just wait like I used to have to wait for the new music or new video or until it was ready for public consumption on a mass scale. They call people like me early adopters…people who are willing to grab the newest technology and/or products and deal with the shortcomings so that others have a better experience down the line. And maybe that’s why I’m doing all of this…although I wouldn’t consider myself anything like an early adopter with regard to this blog…lol. If anything I’m so far behind in the race. So I’ll keep learning and creating in the hopes that maybe one day it will be easier for others one day. Maybe one day I’ll write a program that will make it easy for people to share themselves and their lives in a way that we’ve never thought possible. It inspires me so much. I appreciate you reading this far.

If you like my stuff…share it please. I’m going to continue and I’d love to have you stay a part of that. In the meantime I’m going to put on some music on Spotify…funny I can have my entire music playlist anywhere in the world and not actually have the physical track in my hand. Thank God! My finger was getting tired trying to record that new song!