Red necks and red lips

Today is the 30th anniversary of MTV. We're nearly speechless.

We were already grizzled newspaper editors by 1981, which only meant that we had a natural dislike for everything, especially anything new.  Showing music videos on TV was actually a cool concept, but we hardly noticed because we were working 80 hours a week and the rest of our time was spent watching sporting events, tuning into Sports Center -- which was only 2 years old -- and drinking heavily. Hey, we had reputations to uphold.

And MTV did just fine without us.  They had an instant audience for "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, which was how the network chose to pop its cherry. We don't remember the launch, much less what followed. If forced to declare our favorite MTV videos we'd settle on a couple of classics from 1985: "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" by the Georgia Satellites and Robert Palmer's exquisite  "Addicted to Love,"  which couldn't be more different.

The truth is, those are the only ones we remember.