I Wanna Be Free

I was going to write a post about the books I like and expound on them, starting with the first book I read on my own without pictures, but something happened this AM, so that post will wait till later. 

When I was 13, I spent a lot of time watching VH1. Now, today, this might make sense, as from what I can tell, VH1 is exactly like MTV, only it claims to be different. When I was 13, they were VASTLY different. MTV was aimed at teenagers, cool people, the "with it" people. They played music videos for radio stations that all the popular music played. Yes, when I was 13, MTV still played music videos. Not as often as I'd like, but they did. When I was 13, the whole "reality TV" show thing was just starting, with The Real World and Road Rules. (Aside: My all time favorite season of "Road Rules" was aired when I was 13/14. I don't remember much other than there was a guy with a guitar named Noah.)

VH1 played a hell of a lot more music videos and they played more music I liked, which was the soft rock, because even at 13, I was ancient at heart. I viewed soft rock as more of my modern tastes as well, due to the fact my heart at 13 was still stuck in the 1960s. The summer I was 13, while still obsessing about the Beatles, I discovered The Monkees, via VH1.

I guess programmers decided to capitalized on the still super popular Beatles revival and they began to run The Monkees TV show. I managed to catch the show playing during a two hour block and by the end of the two hour block, I was obsessed. I devoured all things Monkee. I planned my week/day/time around being on hand to watch the show and I felt like the world was ending if I missed one. To this day, I have no idea if I've seen the entire run of the show, but that summer, I obsessed. I bought CDs,  listened to them on repeat (the only way I listen to music), and I ate up anything my parents had left over from when they were kids. I don't think my mom had anything to give me like she did when I went through my Beatles obsession (she had a biography from 1965/1964 that I carried EVERYWHERE with me to the point IT FELL APART). My dad gave me a magazine, though. On the Monkees. I'm pretty sure I read the thing cover to cover. Multiple times.

By the end of the summer I was 13, VH1 stopped running The Monkees. I also grew while I was in eighth grade. This was tragic to me for a very big reason: I was no longer five foot three.

Why did I want to be five foot three?

Davy Jones was five foot three. I did not want to be taller than Davy Jones, as he was my favorite Monkee. (Hey, he had the accent and even at 13, I was a sucker for an accent.)

Today, when I read via Facebook that Davy Jones had died, all I could think about was my sorrow when I found out I had grown an inch and was no longer five foot three. I remember thinking when walking out of a Stake 'N' Shake in O'Fallon, IL, I did not want to grow and being five foot three inches was perfect.

I grew two more inches before I finally stopped growing.

Today, I headed into the guest room and hunted out my Monkees CDs. I own two. At the time, the only CDs that were for sale were greatest hits sorts of CDs, not the ones the group released back in the 1960s. I've got two Greatest Hits CDs. And while I picked out Davy Jones as my favorite, my favorite songs are all sung by Micky Dolenz. Kind of like the fact I adore George Harrison, yet my favorite songs are all sung by Paul McCartney. Go figure, right? Just another screwy Ireland thing, more than likely.

I think my parents might have enjoyed the time I was obsessed with music from their childhoods, because as I hit 14 and worked my way into high school, I started to get with the times and I liked boy bands ('N Sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, etc.) and I played those CDs on repeat, loudly, to the point my own father knows every single song on Millennium. It got to the point that no one in the house could stand the 'N Sync Christmas CD, so they bought me the 98 Degrees one. (I'm sure they still all cringe if they hear 'N Sync at Christmas.)

I've now uploaded the Monkee CD that failed to be all ready in my iTunes library. While I work my way through A's rewrite, I'll listen to the Monkees, which if I'm honest, I haven't listened to in a long while. And I'll hit repeat and no one will care, as it doesn't seem to bother Basil. (Basil hates Bon Jovi and the Backstreet Boys. BSB actually makes her bark like a crying baby makes her bark. Odd, right?)