Weekly Geeks #5: I've Got A Story

This week, Weekly Geeks asks what other forms of storytelling we enjoy. I'm all over bruises because my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm, who's a real snob, tried to block my every keystroke on this post. Whose effing blog is this, anyway? Mellow out, T&CIB. I've got a story:

I really don't remember much about 1983. That was the year my first husband and I moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and we got cable television. For the time, there was a nice selection of programming, but as far as we were concerned there was only one channel: MTV! Seeing our songs performed or acted out was wonderful stuff; no matter how many times our favorites came on, we stared just as slack jawed as the first time. Maybe it was my imagination, but my husband seemed to sit up a little straighter and smooth his unruly hair when VJ Martha Quinn was onscreen.

1983: Madonna's lime-green socks in Borderline. Cyndi Lauper arguing with that wrestler that played her father in Girls Just Want To Have Fun. Waifish Eileen running around in overalls in Come On Eileen. The chorus line of janitresses with mops at the end of the Kinks' Come Dancing. Tracey Ullman's boyfriend Paul becoming Paul McCartney at the end of They Don't Know. The beautiful animal video of Talk Talk's It's My Life. The extreme joy we both felt when ANY Elvis Costello video was played. One time, the Waitresses' I Know What Boys Like came on, and I screamed and jumped up and down so much I gave myself a nosebleed.

Some days I wanted to be a Go-Go. Usually I wanted to be Chrissie Hynde looking so cool and tough while telling some guy to Stop Your Sobbing. And my husband...well, he had Martha Quinn to sigh over. My own sighing would come a few years later in 1987, when I watched Madonna's La Isla Bonita over and over and dreamed aloud of being hair-whipped by the guitar player. Then there was Bono. Oh, dear.

I don't know who invented youtube, but I like to think that the Universe sat down one day, chin in hand and asked itself: What can I come up with that would make Susan Jackson Bybee deliriously happy? Nice job, Universe...My thank-you note's in the cosmic mail.

What videos do I watch these days? Banned commercials. Every Arrogant Worms video I can find, because they're so much fun. Hey Ya and Ms. Jackson, both by Outkast. Fever by Peggy Lee. Istanbul Not Constantinople by They Might Be Giants. A bunch of Dylan stuff, old and new. A LOT of Johnny Cash videos. A bit of Dwight Yoakam. Tom Petty. I Touch Myself by The DiVinyls, because Mr. Bybee finds the song unseemly and it's fun to embarrass him.

Let's see...what else? Samson, Fidelity, and Apres Moi all by Regina Spektor. I really like Fidelity with that delectably crisp all-black-and-white setting, Regina's black fingernails and that life-sized rag-doll suitor that becomes A Real Boy towards the end and helps Regina scatter a rainbow of powdered paints all over themselves and the set. My very favorite right now is Kickin' It In Geumchon by EV Boyz, a good-natured Beastie Boys-type song about the expat experience in Korea.

Oh hell. Maybe I should re-title this blog. Call it Naked Without Music Videos!