When we moved from Tula to Mexico in August of 1985, the first thing my dad did was hire a cable TV provider that had as many NFL games as possible. He was frustrated with TV reception in Tula, and missing out games, especially from his beloved Cowboys.

Since it was still the holidays, I spent a healthy chunk of time watching tv, and part of my knowledge of the English language was because of watching so much tv at an early age.

Before MTV Latino was a blink in the eye of a producer, Cablevision had VM (as in Video Música), a channel with no VJs, no ads (except for the cable company), and a healthy rotation of music. The channel didn’t last more than 3 years, but I’ve got good memories of watching videos by bands I would rediscover later in my life, around 2011, while researching for a novel set in the late 80s.

One band did stuck and I don’t believe I stopped listening to it, and that band was Men at work. I liked the goofy videos alright, but it was the look of Overkill what got me. As I’ve mentioned several times, I’ve had bouts of insomnia since I was a kid, and the video for Overkill spoke to me. The wandering at night, aimless and frightful. The colours at night jump at you, because they are a glimmer of something else besides darkness. I’m fond of taking photos at night because of this: neon lights seem livelier, bougainvilleas lit by light are beacons, and even the half dead lights of a 7 11 are joyful.

Years later, I found out that one of my best friends, Claudia, loves this song, as it really speaks to how work headaches and tension linger. “Day after day, it reappears, night after night, my heartbeat shows the fear”.

I’ve got a weird Mandela effect with this song: I swore by the end of the song Colin Hay threw himself from the balcony and I told a lot of people, with looks of disapproval or unfathomably confusion. I’ve searched for this “alternate” but alas, I think it’s just a made up memory or just a dream.

Killer sax and guitar solo, though.

-Sam J. Valdés López