I want my MTV!

Early on a Saturday morning, a little 7 year old girl sits in front of her TV set, anticipating the launch of what is going to become one of her favorite channels for the next 10 or more years of her life.
The date: August 1, 1981
The little girl: me
The channel: MTV
I can’t believe it has been 25 years already!
Back in 1981 I was lucky enough to have one of the VPs of then Telecable Nacional (today Telecable de Tricom) living a block away from home, which is why our neighborhood was one of the first, if not the first, to have the Telecable service installed. Don’t ask me how I knew anything back then; remember there was no internet or anything, but I knew that MTV was going to launch that day and I was psyched about it.
I remember sitting on a green beanie in the family room in front of our TV (yes, it was a color TV, but with no remote, and a betamax next to it (it later became a VHS, which had a remote, but with a wire)). I do remember that there were other TV sets at home, but they were all B&W (yes dammit, I’m that old). The TV had a little white box attached to it. In order to see cable, I had to put the TV on U and then turn the channels on the white box. Anyways, I was staring into the TV set, awaiting that moment. If memory serves me right, it was scheduled to appear on channel 18. There was some sort of image on the screen, I think it was that cool sketch of Neil Armstrong walking and jumping around on the moon with different colors, the MTV logo or something of that sort, but my memory is not that good. Suddenly, the countdown started. The spaceship was about to launch. Then, finally, the words came out: “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!"

After introducing the Vjs, the first video ever to be broadcast on MTV, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by "The Buggles" came on.

And I never looked at music the same way again... All day, all night, in stereo...
It was a love affair made in heaven.
After that moment, there was nothing that could come between my MTV and me. All I did was watch MTV, all I did was talk about MTV, all I could think of was MTV.
Nina Blackwood, Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman" and J.J. Jackson, the original VJs, were the coolest people on Earth. As time passed, they introduced me to the world of music (I once wanted to be a VJ or a DJ just because of them). Then came the shows: the Video Music Awards, the Movie Awards, Remote Control ("Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", "Hit the Road Jack, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more"), Club MTV (with Downtown Julie Brown as host; I still have the original 4 Club MTV Party To Go CDs). It was so fun!
I remember seeing my Diva for the first time on MTV. I also remember watching Wacko Jacko’s "Thriller" there for the first time as well.
All I needed to know I learned from watching MTV. There was no "Friends" back then, only MTV.
After a while, MTV started turning towards rap music, a genre I don’t really like, so I started watching less and less. Then they started playing too many shows, especially reality TV. I watched the first few episodes of "The Real World" and realized that I just didn’t "dig" it, so once again I started watching less and less. Of course, some of the shows I did like. I remember watching Aeon Flux, specifically the episode where the chick was making out with someone and you could see the way her tongue moved inside the other person’s mouth until finally she reached a molar, unlatched it and deposited or retrieved something from it. I was so surreal!
Then there was Beavis and Butthead. So many laughs, so many stupid things…. I got a kick out of them. I laughed as well when watching "Celebrity Deathmatch" I loved all the carnage!
The last shows I watched on MTV were "The Osbournes" and recently a few "Punk’d" episodes, by then I just tuned in to watch them and after they were over I immediately tuned in another channel.
For me, sadly MTV has lost its original essence. All they do right now is play a bunch of shows that just don’t appeal to me. I long for the days where the only thing on my TV was MTV. I can’t even remember the last time I even saw MTV.
Now, and since I’m definitely an 80’s child, I sometimes go to VH1 to enjoy some good old music videos (and to think that back then only old people watched VH1... does me watching it mean that I have turned old??).
No, I ain’t old. I’m just a young person with lots of experience.
I want my MTV!!!