HEARING AIDS

MUSIC REVIEWS
AND
COMMENTARY




MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack
... and other late night ramblings

by Lance Davis
Free Press staff writer

One night last November, my friend Tom and I were sitting on the front porch of his house, holding forth on the topic of music. As often happens with two men supplicating the same open bar, our judgments became increasingly biblical - especially when our discussion drifted toward the music/television end of the pew. After pondering the existential monkey wrench surrounding the Martha Quinn/David Lee Roth "Peel Sessions," Tom said unto me, "Lance, why do they even bother calling it MTV?"
"Well," I slurred, "I think it's because the 'M' stands for Music, and the 'TV' stands for. . ."
"Exactly!" Tom snorted, draining the rest of something that looked like hull cleaner, and surely smelled like tomorrow's hangover. "It's called MTV, but every time I get to that channel, I don't see any 'M.' Where's 'M?' All I ever see is that goddamn game show, 'Singled Out.' That's not 'M.' What's up with that?"
"Well, Tom, two good reasons immediately come to mind."
"Or if it's not that, it's the 'Real World.' Real world, my ass. No one's ever quitting a shitty job, or throwing up gin, or watching 'The Simpsons.' What kinda real world is that?" Tom said, flicking ashes out of his drink.
"It's funny cuz it's true," I Homered, stumbling toward the turntable where my used copy of Let It Bleed - purchased that day for three dollars! - had crackled and popped to a halt. After flipping the scarred hunk o' black wax over, Side One soon started up, and I sidewinded my way back outside. And there sat Tom, hunched over, unceremoniously slurping the entire face of his battered coffee table. "What the hell're you doing?" I spit out.
"I spilled my drink," Tom answered sharply. In fact, I registered genuine annoyance in his voice, irritated perhaps that I would question his consumptive methods in the face of alcohol economy. Point taken.
Done skimming his drink, Tom eased into a disagreeable posture, clearly grappling with bloody-red nausea. Fortunately, his brief haggle with the Buick salesman (as we used to call puking in the '80's) ended before it began, and he soon segued back into our conversation. "See, this is a perfect example of what's wrong with MTV," he sputtered, pointing at the speakers which coughed out the Stones' tribally apocalyptic, 'Gimme Shelter.' "Have you seen this movie - Gimme Shelter ?"
I stared.
"Well, okay," he muttered in an apologetic tone. "Anyway, why don't I ever see it on MTV? Answer me that."
"Why would MTV play Gimme Shelter ?" I asked in return.
"Because that's 'M!'" Tom huffed in a half-roar. "If you talk about 'M,' at some point you're gonna talk about the Stones. And if you talk about the Stones long enough, you'll eventually talk about 'Gimme Shelter.' And there you go. You have your 'T' and your 'V.' What's the problem?" He trailed off at that point, his eyes fixed on a stray dog ambling in our direction, it's submissive gait no doubt tethered to the wounded hope of kibbles and/or bits.
A handful of spanish-style peanuts, a couple of uneaten baked potatoes, and the harmless sigh of a resting dog later, Tom continued his inebriated rant. Mindlessly rubbing the hound's head, he charged onward. "I mean, this is the same network that played Rock 'n' Roll High School every hour on the hour in 1981, cuz they were waiting for Madonna to be invented. And now, I can't turn on that Godforsaken channel without seeing everything except music."
"What about Oasis?" I chuckled, needling my friend's long-held belief in the intrinsic wackiness of music produced by Cute English Boys, post-London Calling.
"Yeah, talk about your textbook definitions of oxymoron," he sniggered, fishing out the last gulp of his eighth, ninth, or tenth, I lost count, gin-something. "And you know what I still haven't figured out is MTV News. Who are they trynta fool? 'Yeah, okay MacNeil. Why don't you and Lehrer go rock the vote back at the boutique and leave Sarajevo to the State Department. Thanks. We'll call you up if we need a policy brief.'"
With that, Tom rose from the porch and went inside, the obedient rover beating him to the hide-a-bed. Laying comfortably in-state, with his motor skills rapidly hitchhiking south, Tom epilogued the evening. "Nope, Lance," he offered, "as far as I'm concerned, that network shouldn't be legally permitted to call itself MTV until it plays Gimme Shelter ... twice. In fact, I'm calling my congressman in the morning."
"Feeling half-right, I'm sure," I smart-mouthed, finishing the rest of my whatever it was I decided to drink, and heading for the room where the toilets are kept. When I returned, both Tom and his new best friend had slipped quietly into shuttered reverie, that place where both man and mutt can ride on the back of a dream. The world where not just cats can climb trees and birds aren't the only fliers; where the creator of the universe, wherever she may be, grades on a curve; and where MTV is hosted by the Ramones, who only play Gimme Shelter, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and more favorites from your record collection. Yes folks, it is just a shot away. Or in Tom's case, ten.

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Contents on this page were published in the April/May, 1996 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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