My mama and Axl

When I was growing up, I used to watch Friday Night Videos eight inches from the television and at very low volume, so as not to wake up my Sainted Southern Mother. We didn't have MTV then, and the new wave music I adored irritated my James Brown and Elvis-loving mother to no end. Much like my 17-year-old stepson's Scandinavian "love metal" makes me want to vomit from my eyeballs and drive ice picks into my eardrums. But I digress...

While I was in college, my hometown got MTV, and my younger sisters got to go through high school with it, though they had to wait for the parents to relinquish control of the television and go to sleep before they could rock out to music videos. Just like I did. Yes, videos... MTV used to play them.

I came home for a visit the year after I graduated from college and, as I was used to heading out to the club at midnight, stayed up later than my parents. So, after they went to bed, I started watching MTV.

It was a treat for me, as my roommate and I were barely scraping by and couldn't afford cable. I sat on the floor, eight inches from the television with the sound turned down just as I'd done seven years before, trying not to wake my mother.

The "November Rain" video that I'd heard so much about came on, and I perked up with excitement. Two minutes into it, my mother, in her nightgown and unable to sleep from the noise, walked in. I was diving for the volume button when my sainted Southern mother saw what I was watching and said, "It's so sad when she dies at the end."

My mother, my Sainted Southern Mother, spoiled the end of the video for me. But we sat together watching it, and as we did, I wondered what other hair bands my mama was into and what other secrets she might be hiding.