JimFormation

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment … You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. ~ George Orwell, 1984

The year was 1984. I was 20-years-old and wore my hair in what is now called a mullet. I wasn’t going for the mullet-look; I wanted my hair to look like Bono’s (see below).

U2′s Bono Vox (circa 1984)

My Nan was 70-years-old.

MTV was 3-years-old, and still played music. Seeing musicians playing their music on television all day long was still a bit of a novelty — before MTV you could only see live music on things like: Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert or Saturday Night Live or American Bandstand or Night Flight.

I loved MTV and always had it on.

From the landing between our upstairs and our downstairs, you could see the living room television. But you couldn’t see who was in the living room watching it.

One afternoon I bounded down the stairs, turned the corner at the stair landing, and could see that MTV was on. Ratt, a prototypical 1980′s heavy metal band — all spandex, pouty lips, and hairspray — was sexing up the video for their hit, Round and Round.

Round and round
With love we’ll find a way just give it time
Round and round
What comes around goes around
I’ll tell you why

“I must not have turned the television off,” I said to myself. And skipped abruptly into the living room.

Where Nan, leaning forward and mesmerized by the sweaty boys wrapped in their skin tight Halloween costumes, panicked. She fumbled for the remote and did her best not to sound like a befuddled Ralph Kramden, “Hum-in-uh, hum-in-uh, hum-in-uh. I, umm, was, uh, just turning it off.”

I was not then, nor am I now, very mature. I broke out into song:

Nanny and Pearcy (Ratt’s lead singer) sitting in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love …

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop right there.”

I know what’s good for me. I stopped. But poor Nan will be forever linked to Ratt because of one misstep when she let her guard down in 1984.

In Nan’s honor, I bring you Ratt performing their hit, Round and Round: