One man's journey into married life, middle age and responsibility after completing a long and perilous trek to capture his dreams. Along the way there will be stories of travel, culture and trying to figure out what to call those things on the end of shoelaces.
Inspired by the book “I Want my MTV” I am starting a new recurring feature in which we examine some of the legendary characters of the Golden Era of MTV…
VJ’s always came in different shapes and styles. There were always the cute girl next door types or the comedian or the guy who is best known for his hair (few people know that widescreen TVs were invented solely to fully capture the glory of Adam Curry’s mane.) But only one WV existed solely to be the grunge DJ and that is our old friend, Steve Isaacs.
Featuring a look that screamed either “Seattle” or “That guy who sits in the fourth row of your English 103 class” Steve Isaacs ushered MTV into an era of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and left once we reached the era of Bush and Silverchair and completely disavowed all knowledge of the network by the time of Limp Bizkit. He was an example of 120 Minutes becoming mainstream as we no longer require a British accent to denote what was cool or not. Even if that was by having a kind of goofy, skinny guy with long hair act as the representative for an entire generation.
I have to be completely honest here, before reading I Want My MTV I could not for the life of me remember this guy and certainly not his name. But I guarantee that once people my age look at his picture we all immediately remember him. That was one of the wonders of MTV where even the minor celebrities became an integral part of our lives because they were always there. But more accurately, Steve Isaacs was probably the first VJ that I can remember who I legitimately thought that I could know in real life.
Because that really was the way a group of us were in the early 90’s. Ok, maybe I did not have the long hair and I wore less flannel but the idea of being young and really into this new type of music and having an almost childlike enthusiasm about it. We hung out at record stores at 11:55 on Monday nights just so we could get the new releases at midnight because we just had to have that new Breeders CD immediately. We made mixtapes and spent our free time rummaging through used CD racks trying to find some hidden gem. We thought we were unique but really we were just enjoying the thrill of youth and experiencing life on our own terms.
So cheers to you, Steve Isaacs. Once Pearl Jam no longer required MTV neither did you or any other member of Generation X. And who could sit through a Bush video anyway.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I’ve been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell recently. He is a former member of the Drive-By Truckers and might be one of the best songwriters around today. Give him a listen.
The second half of the top ten icons / shows / events in the 30 year history of MTV. Well, actually just the next three so there is a third half coming tomorrow.
Tabitha Soren: Since MTV is one of those constants in the life of every teenager / twentysomething over the past thirty years the network has an interesting commonality: every member of Gen X and Y had a young crush on one of the personalities. If I was a little older it would be Martha Quinn but know, Tabitha Soren is the one that stole my heart. From the moment she first appeared (as one of the girls in the party in the Beastie Boys video “You’ve got to fight for your right”) to her place at the side of Kurt Loder (making him even more of a creepy old man) she was smart, cool, hip and everything that college me wanted in a girlfriend. Yes, I fell for a news reporter who ended up marrying the guy who wrote “The Blind Side”. I was a rather troubled youth in retrospect.
MTV Animation (Liquid Television / Aeon Flux / Beavis and Butthead / Daria / The Head / The Maxx and maybe Clone High): I hate the fact that MTV now has nothing to do with music. Here are the shows that I can name that are on MTV right now: Real World, Real World / Road Rules Challenge, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant. None of those shows screams Music Television to me. Yet some of my favorite MTV shows of all time had absolutely nothing to do music. They were just really good cartoons.
It all started with Liquid Television, which was a rather bizarre show when you think about it. Airing on Sunday night it was just 30 minutes of short animated sketches some of which were pretty avant garde. They didn’t relate to music or much of anything. They existed just to be cool. The show gave us Aeon Flux, an anime type show with no dialogue and the heroine seeming to die at the end of every single statement with no explanation of what the hell was going on. It was just people being shot over and over again. Needless to say it was super cool.
It also gave us Beavis and Butthead, a show I should not even need to discuss. Even better, Beavis and Butthead gave us Daria, which was probably the smartest show on television in the late 90’s. Add in the one offs of The Head (a guilty pleasure of mine) and The Maxx (closest thing I’ve ever seen to a graphic novel on screen) and you have something that it would take Cartoon Network a decade to figure out how to do it with Adult Swim. It may have set the network on the wrong path in terms of getting away from music but it hit the mark in terms of quality entertainment.
(Oh, and bonus points for showing old Speed Racer episodes at one point in the early 90’s.)
120 Minutes / Alternative Nation: Over the past few years I’ve continually written about Gen X and alternative music, whatever that means. In reality what I am mainly focusing on is that the music that I wanted to hear in high school and what I could actually find on MTV were two completely different things. If you watched the wonderful show Dial MTV (which was Total Request Live with Adam Curry playing Carson Daly and wasn’t live) all you would see is Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Poison and Motley Crue and maybe even New Kids on the Block. I know that people have all of this nostalgic love for these bands and post on Facebook how thrilled they are to see them in concert but let’s face it: they sucked then and they suck now. That music just meant nothing to me.
But for two hours on Sunday night MTV played music that did mean something to me. Or at least I thought it should mean something to me as British guys with bad hair who were also wearing makeup for some unknown reason must have something important to say. As someone who wasn’t the popular kid in school and was never going to be I turned to music that was unique, was different, was something else. That is what drew a crowd to 120 Minutes and its genre of music.
Then Nirvana broke and the entire scene became popular and suddenly Kennedy was hosting Alternative Nation and we were forced to listen to Bush videos and I had to become a fan of old timey country music to keep my uniqueness. Sigh. Here is an old R.E.M. video, which is probably the high point of the idea of 120 Minutes and also the epitome of a band where you were pissed that the guys who beat you up in the hallways liked the same band that you did.
So MTV turned thirty years old yesterday and as someone who was seven when MTV first went on the air that makes me a) highly qualified to discuss the societal impacts of MTV and b) really freaking old. Anyway, so I’ve decided that I will list, in no particular order, the ten moments / shows / events that epitomized MTV for Gen X. Five tonight, five tomorrow. Here we go.
Live Aid: This is still the only major concert event of my lifetime that I actually remember sitting down and watching because it was “important”. It was the absolute biggest story of the summer. People were expecting to see a Beatles reunion with Julian Lennon taking the place of John. Yes, that would have been horrendous but cool nonetheless. It was the highlight of the year of charity songs from the good (“Do They Know It’s Christmastime?”) to the bad (“We are the World”) to the really, really confusing (“Ain’t going to play Sun City”, which was difficult for a 12 year old to fully grasp as playing a gig at a South African resort wasn’t on my list of regular events.)
So most people remember the event, raising money for Ethiopia and making Bob Geldof famous for something other than the “I Don’t Like Mondays” song but not for the show itself. The thing is, it was actually a pretty good concert. Status Quo opened the show, a band you know as the writers of “Matchstick Man”, which is now a Target commercial after previously being the only Camper Van Beethoven song anyone ever remembered. In England you had great sets by Queen and U2 (Bono jumping into the crowd to dance with a woman during “Bad”) and an ending with pretty much everyone in British music on stage. Philadelphia had Madonna, Tom Petty and a Led Zeppelin reunion. There has been no other time where everyone was focused on a charity concert in my lifetime and MTV was the way to see it.
Kurt Loder: Ah, the face of the network. One of the most amazing things about rock music is that the people who cover rock music are the least rocking people on the planet. As a result you end up with someone like Kurt Loder, who looked like your buddy’s kind of dorky dad, on the air twice an hour to give you updates on the release of Whitesnake’s new album. Add in an hour long “Week in Rock” (because there is so much music news it needed its own recap show) and you slowly begin to realize that Kurt Loder was the Walter Cronkite of Gen X. He was the one who told us that Kurt Cobain was dead. If Kurt Loder said it than it had to be true.
Remote Control: Dead or Canadian? No game show will ever have a better category, setup, overall concept or run than Remote Control. Hands down the best game show I’ve ever watched and if you put out a DVD of the episodes I would buy it and watch them all. Taking place in the late, great Ken Ober’s basement you have three college students sitting in Lay-Z-Boy recliners with a bowl of popcorn in their laps answering trivia questions. Sometimes they had to sing along with Colin Quinn, sometimes they had to complete a math question while a bishop raced around the studio (Beat the Bishop) and once LL Cool J came out just to help out one of the contestants. If you lost your chair went flying through a wall. Adam Sandler and Dennis Leary would play random characters. It was insane and funny and the best half hour you could spend in an afternoon in high school.
But what I really want to write about is the game’s bonus round, which is probably the most challenging thing I have ever seen on a game show. You are strapped into a Craftmatic adjustable bed and are facing nine different television screens, all of which are at different angles. Each screen has a different music video on it. To win you had to name all nine bands in thirty seconds. This was a perfect competition as you got to play along at home while the contestant has it worse because I don’t think that I could recognize a Cinderella video that was being played upside down.
Julie and Becky from The Real World (Season One): The reality show that started it all. I am not talking about the show in general as I believe it is now essentially just “throw seven people in a space and encourage them to sleep with each other in various combinations so we will have more contestants for the inevitable Road Rules / Real World challenges.” The first season, particularly Julie and Becky, is what made the show.
The first season of the Real World was the only one that was actually real. Of the seven people, six were actually from New York with Julie being the innocent girl with a nice southern accent trying to make it in the big city. Everyone looked like they belonged in NYC. You could see Becky trying to be the uber-hip artist, singer-songwriter or Andre leading a rather pathetic alternative band named Reigndance. I just finished my freshman year of college when it went on the air and if you asked me what it would be like to be living in New York after I graduated that would be precisely what I pictured.
That is what was great about the Real World. For a time period (for me it was from the first season through London) the show was precisely what you were going to. There were guys on the show that I wanted to drink with and get to know. Who wouldn’t want to hit a bar with Dominic from LA or Neil from London? There were the girls (Julie and Becky, obviously and also Kat from London) who you wanted to date. The show hit exactly what you were living. Then as I got older the show lost its meaning and I no longer knew the people by name but as “that drunk girl who is naked all the time” or “that douchebag who is going to probably end up being a congressman from Wisconsin”. Now I’m frightened to even turn the show on. Maybe it still speaks to a 20 year old. If so, I am simultaneously scared for our future and glad that I grew up when I did.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young playing “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” at the 1993 MTV Video Awards: This is my favorite performance in the history of MTV and the one that I can point to as a turning point in music. This is the end of MTV’s biggest show of the world and it features two performers that wouldn’t even have been broadcast on the network three years earlier. Hair metal was dead and grunge / alternative music was dead. As someone who never could relate to Motley Crue or Poison or any of the bands whose music seems to exist to play behind a stripper I was thrilled to finally have music that meant something to me take center stage. Even if meaning was just having the song end in a blare of feedback. Because that is what was going on in my head at the time. This song is just rebellion and strength and self preservation and everything that made the early 90’s great.
I am not sure if I should take the following news with joy or dread: MTV is bringing back Beavis and Butthead. Yes, there are going to be all new episodes and everything. One of the best shows of the 90’s will return to the airwaves and…and…well, hopefully not ruin another aspect of my youth.
Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Beavis and Butthead. I own every DVD of the show that they have ever released, watched it religiously in my dorm room and post graduation and still quote episodes pretty much verbatim. I still think it is at times the funniest thing I have ever seen and Mike Judge has gone on to prove just how much of a comic genius that he is. However, I have a bad feeling about this.
Partly this is due to the fact that MTV has become a big pile of suck. Now I completely understand that I have aged out of MTV’s target market but I would at least think that I would understand what teenagers want to watch. Jersey Shore has its moments and it was fun when you could laugh at the characters but now you laugh at them while realizing that they are millionaires, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. Shows like Teen Mom or Baby Daddy or House of Skanks don’t really make one have great faith in the network.
Then there is the fact that a huge portion of the comedy in Beavis and Butthead were the critiques of the music videos. Some of the best parts were the two of them absolutely ripping on the bands or even praising something for being surprisingly awesome. That worked because MTV was all about videos at the time and everyone had a video. Now MTV does not show videos at all and I’m not sure if bands even make them other than to put something on YouTube. I’m not sure how they recreate those moments.
But I guess what is really worrying me is that Beavis and Butthead are ultimate symbols of the 90’s and Gen X and I don’t know if they will translate well into the 2010s. You can make the argument that dumb kids are dumb kids and that the humor is pretty much universal but I think that there is a basis to the entire setup that is pure 90s. The Metallica and AC/DC t-shirts (with Stewart wearing a Winger one). The sitting around watching basic cable. The endless quest for finding something to do. There were no cel phones or internet. In a modern version of Beavis and Butthead they would be online all day, watching midget porn and insulting people in newsgroups. They’d be abusing people on Facebook. It just isn’t the same. True it is just a case of misspent youth but the time I grew up is different than the present. You just can’t drop the characters in and have them act exactly the same.
Still, if we can get an appearance from Daria I won’t complain. And I always wondered what happened to Principal Vickers.
(Given all the hype about 10/10/10 you’d think that today being 10/20/2010 would get some life. It is almost, but not quite, a palindrome, which is almost, but not quite, the alternative name for the governor’s mansion in Alaska.)
When I was writing about MTV and Jersey Shore earlier this week I forgot to bring up one important point, which is the fact that the network is promoting both Jersey Shore and Teen Mom simultaneously. Essentially they are saying “If you party, get black out drunk and hook up with everyone you meet we will give you your own television show! And if we don’t give you a show on that go around just come to us when you are pregnant with no future and we will send out the camera crew!” It seems to be a really, really bizarre message to bring.
It’s also amazing to see the difference between what people on MTV’s reality shows do now versus what they did in my time. On the first couple of seasons of the Real World none of the people hooked up with anyone, especially on camera. Even though Pam and Judd ended up getting married from the San Francisco cast you never saw any on screen action. The first that I can remember is the shower scene in Miami (which would be season 5) and then I think you would probably have to go a few years after that. Now, it would be stranger for the stars of the show to not be hooking up.
Now part of this is the fact that we have become a bit more promiscuous as a society over the past 20 years though not by much. Attractive young people tend to sleep with each other no matter what situation they find themselves in. I doubt that it is because MTV is now more eager to show this type of footage because I know people in reality TV and they pretty much kill for these types of scenes. Sex results in ratings pretty easily. No, what I think is the real cause is that the people on the show are much more willing to become exhibitionists in exchange for momentary fame.
Think about it. The cast of the Jersey Shore is not operating under any pretense that they are part of a true to life documentary. This isn’t an attempt to capture the true essence of their existence. They’ve essentially been cast to play a role in real life that is almost, but not entirely, like their actual life. So if that means being filmed in compromising situations so be it. The Situation is going to make four million dollars this year for doing just that. Good work if you can get it.
Now excuse me, I have to bang my head against the wall for the next hour after realizing that someone who calls himself “The Situation” is going to make four million dollars this year.
Wednesday Night Music Club: David Ford is probably my favorite singer that absolutely no one has ever heard of. How this guy isn’t a superstar is beyond me.
I’ll start out with the easiest joke of the day. Obama is going to appear on an episode of Mythbusters. Let’s all place bets on whether or not he brings his birth certificate.
(He is going to be on the show in an attempt to promote math and science education. Here is my suggestion to the President. If you want to promote math and science education could you know, not cut NASA’s budget to the point where we have no way to launch a human being into space. We’re spending money like it is going out of style yet we will have for the first time in 50 years no way to independently put someone into space. Insane.)
I spent much of yesterday watching a Jersey Shore marathon. I’m not sure what that says about my life at the moment but the facts are the facts. One can learn an incredible amount by watching something like six hours of MTV featuring a group of people who for some reason are a strange shade of orange. Some random thoughts…
1) Apparently MTV’s viewership is composed almost entirely of people with incredibly bad acne. Every commercial break featured at least one advertisement for highly technical skin care treatments. We have moved beyond the days of the Neutragena girl and are now into full medical treatments.
2) On that note, can someone please correct Katy Perry on the following: in her commercial she complains about her acne blemishes near her mouth because “she’s a singer and everyone is looking at the microphone.” No, Katy, I can guarantee you that when you are on stage absolutely no one is looking at your face. No one even cares if you are singing. There are only two reasons why you have any popularity at the moment and you know precisely where they are located.
3) Despite the fact that the cast is working in a gelato shop we have learned very little about the making of gelato. Or the various work schedules of the cast mates. In fact, all we know is that a) the guys use the job to get numbers and b) Snooki is too short to actually see over the top of the stand.
4) When buying a gift for a girl you met a few days ago, I would recommend not giving her a Fossil watch in a plastic Macy’s bag. Even I know better than that.
5) After watching the show for a while you begin to become amazed when the cast does anything remotely resembling that of an activity associated with human beings like cooking a meal. You seriously wonder if they would be able to correctly understand concepts like “fire” and “heat”.
6) The strangest thing I realized after watching one of the episodes? I think I know the guy who did the sound. To think that if I had played my cards right I could have been out there partying with them in Miami.
The five random CDs for the week: 1) Sheryl Crow “Sheryl Crow” 2) Peabody “Heroine” 3) Alejandro Escovedo “Bourbonitis Blues” 4) Soundtrack “Before Sunrise and Before Sunset” 5) Uncle Tupelo “Halls of Shame”
It’s September and that means that it is time for the MTV Video Music Awards which raises such pertinent questions as “Who will win Video of the Year?”, “Were there enough videos made last year to actually fill a Video of the Year category?” and “Isn’t it ironic (in the Alanis Morisette sense of the word) that a channel that does not technically show music videos presents a music video award show?” However, instead of doing my rant on how horrible MTV is, Katy Perry’s bad skin and trying to figure out just who the hell this Justin Bieber is I’ve decided to list some of my favorite VMA moments. Because at one point in time this was the show to watch.
Nirvana’s performance of “Lithium”: Three things that I will never forget from this performance. 1) The band starting off by playing the opening to “Rape Me” just to upset the MTV executives. 2) Krist Novosellic throwing his bass guitar up in the air and having it smash straight into his head, giving him a concussion and causing him to stumble offstage. And 3) Dave Grohl getting out from behind the drums while Kurt Cobain is destroying everything in sight, coming up to the microphone and saying “Hi Axl!” over and over again. One of the best trainwreck performances ever.
Christian Slater hosting the 1993 awards: I have no idea why he was the host. I don’t think he even knew why he was the host. This was a few years after Heathers and Pump Up the Volume. I’m guessing that Arsenio Hall wasn’t available that night. Though by 1993 Arsenio should have been taking any gig that he could find.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young closing the show with “Rocking in the Free World”:
This is why I don’t think I will ever be able to get into what is the best selling music today. I don’t think that we’ll ever reach a point where this type of music is so popular that it is the closing of a mainstream award show. Or that anyone would allow Neil Young on stage with those sideburns ever again. I just can’t think of anything that is out now in the mainstream that could ever touch this. Outside of MC Hammer reprising “U Can’t Touch This” of course.
Michael Stipe wearing numerous t-shirts for R.E.M.’s wins for “Losing My Religion”: Every time they won he would take the stage in a shirt with a different slogan. When they won the final one he literally went through five shirts while giving his speech. That said, the song and video really haven’t aged well. When I first saw it I thought it was one of the most amazing things ever. Now it is more of a meh moment. Contrast to Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”, which is still four minutes of pure artistic brilliance.
Garth from Wayne’s World playing drums with U2: I have this on a U2 bootleg CD somewhere in my collection. Kind of surprising that 15 years later that U2 would still be popular but Dana Carvey is, oh I don’t know, probably sleeping beneath an underpass somewhere.
Surprisingly good Best New Artists: Here are some of the acts that won over the years: Eurythmics, Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, Eminem… I mean while you can make fun of a-ha winning that might be the worst on the list. Ok, Michael Penn and Til Tuesday may not be popular but he did marry Aimee Mann so at least the entire household has awards.
Before I begin tonight I humbly request that we all join hands in a moment of silence for the latest victim of our economic downturn. I just received news that due to the layoffs at Viacom that John Norris has been let go at MTV. Yes, that John Norris. The guy who originally became a VJ in 1992. Yeah, I can’t believe he still had a job either. Given that they stopped playing music videos in about 1998 I’m not quite sure what his job has actually been. I assume it is making sure that Kurt Loder is safely entombed in his cryogenic chamber. Still, I guess this means we can officially close the era of Alternative Nation.
(Well, at least I can still find Serena Altchul on Sunday morning television. Though I miss Tabitha Soren. All news sounds more hopeful when read by Tabitha Soren.)
Oh, and the Grammy nominations were released today and…is there any award less meaningless than a Grammy? I don’t know anyone whose life dream is to win a Grammy. Christopher Cross has four of them; it’s not as though it is difficult to win them. Mainly my argument with the Grammies is that trying to judge one three minute pop song as being superior to another three minute pop song (amongst a million other three minute pop songs) is a completely frivolous task. There just is no way to create any meaningful definition of good or better so it just turns into a beauty contest. This is before we even get into the concept of comparing Coldplay and Lil Wayne on any sort of level playing field.
True, you could make this definition about any art form but it seems more endemic to music. While you still have genre issues in the Oscars (comedies never win anything unless they are indie films with a humerous bent) I at least find it easier to accept the judging of a few hundred movies with two hours of material to take into account. It still isn’t perfect but at least you can look at the nominees and feel decent that these are amongst the best films of the year. But with the Grammies you know that isn’t the case. Are the Jonas Brothers really one of the five Best New Artists? On the Disney Channel yes but in the real world that is nowhere near the case. So it makes the entire spectacle rather laughable.
Not much else to add tonight. Sorry, had to work really late tonight and I have spent much of the past hour staring at the blank screen trying to find something to discuss. Basically my mind is fried at the moment and all I want to do is sleep for a few hours before I have to make my way back to the office. I’ll try to write something for the messy room over the weekend. Specifically, in honor of The Pick Up Artist I will write one of my favorite Kansas City dating stories. The Dark Knight Returns. It is a great one, trust me.
