The M Notes, Entry No. 702

[The following is true, and is transcribed with a nod to the excellent short story "The Albertine Notes," a sample of which you can read here]

"...By the mid and late '80s I was using so much M that, some 20 years later, I still live with its irreversible effects. Of course, we're talking about MTV. Kell, McNeil and I, we called it M back in the day. Virtually unregulated in its early iterations, you could score it just about anywhere with a TV in any decent-sized suburb. Later we would casually refer to it by new sub-brands, usually "Yo!," to which we dutifully tuned in at "10 and 10 again" at the behest of Dre and Ed Lover. Through much of the drug's first decade, I used for hours at a stretch. Thank God, the new, allegedly more potent M of my post-collegiate years just simply doesn't fire my neurons, as the active ingredients have been swapped out for others designed to hook those seeking cheaper, eternally teen kicks.

Thing is, my neurons still autonomously fire at the behest of long-gone stimuli from the *old* M. Like an amputee still feels pain in his or her missing limb. These days the effect of mainlining all that pure M is a constant buzz underpinning my daily activities: walking the dog, document review, blogging -- the M is always there. And it is when my mind is at its most blank (and, ergo, most vulnerable) that the M flashbacks strike hardest, hijacking my consciousness and blasting a seemingly random song (with video accompaniment, of course) behind my eyeballs. This happens every single morning between the time I rise and the moment the hot shower hits the back of my neck. Only the songs aren't really random. In order of most-often "played," they almost always are one of the following:

Sammy Hagar -- The Two Sides Of Love -- VOA (1984) [buy it!]
.38 Special -- If I'd Been The One -- Tour De Force (1984) [buy it!]
Daryl Hall -- Dreamtime -- 3 Hearts In The Happy Ending Machine (1986) [buy it!]
Insiders -- Ghost On The Beach -- Ghost On The Beach (1987) [buy it!]
Y&T -- Summertime Girls -- Down For The Count (1985) [buy it!]

...."

[image lifted from http://www.culturaspettacolovenezia.it]