I want my MTV!

Tonight I was treated to a delicious flashback to my childhood, in Brooklyn of all places (the flashback, not my childhood), thanks to Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn, the four original MTV VJs.  Ahh, MTV.  Who can forget the halcyon days of music television, when Madonna was still like a virgin, when Michael Jackson was still black, and when gender benders like Annie Lennox and Boy George resonated in the mind of a young gay boy in a small town who knew he didn't fit in but couldn't figure out why?  I remember going to my friend Sandy Lehr's house to watch hours of videos because my parents were too cheap to get cable at the time.  Pat Benatar, all voice and leotard hotness, Duran Duran taking me on exotic trips to far off lands, Billy Idol....ah Billy Idol!  We watched those videos like they were religion, and in Fredonia, New York in the early 80's they were.  And who can forget Live Aid, the 17 hour concert to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia?  MTV broadcast all 17 hours, and I would have been glued to the television set for every minute if I didn't have to go to my cousin Ruthie's high school graduation party in Cheektowaga.  I mean really?  Who schedules their graduation party on the same day as Live Aid?  MTV was my childhood, and I am thankful to Martha, Nina, Mark, Alan and Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn for giving me a chance to reminisce with them in their new book VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave.