We’re celebrating the beginning of a “new school year” because at least one person in our home is going “back-to-school” in a few weeks. This means that the rest of us get to glom on to their excitement - purchasing our favorite pens, boxes of artisanal pencils, and the occasional odd-sized notebook that we absolutely do not need as we haven’t yet filled up last year’s notebooks with particularly compelling pencil or pen marks.

As part of this pre-academic nesting, our household shared a mutual end-of-the-summer cleaning push, pulling everything off our shelves and out of closets to sort through, culling what was needlessly stored to prepare for The New. But this exercise backfired for me, as deep in my closet I discovered a fabric IKEA box filled with poorly labeled videotapes.

Of course, the only way to get rid of them was to go straight to eBay for an old VHS player and convert them to digital format.

Of course, this procedure added even more things to the house… but only initially, as I’ve tossed about seven of the tapes so far.

This was a project I’ve wanted to tackle for many years, and the box really was a mixed bag. None of the tapes were accurately labeled, and in an effort to use the tapes to their full capacity, each ended up a crazy jumble of clashing 1990’s recordings:

* full episodes of Late Night with David Letterman

* a rehearsal tape of the southern rock band I sang with after college

* an interview with my grandfather from local television

* a performance of the song “Purple Haze” by the Kronos Quartet

* and me, singing in a talent show (1994), shot the second week of my first job in New York City: proud to say I was the audience favorite, but after the show the judges pulled me aside and told me that I couldn’t win, as that would be politically detrimental for me, as the hurt feelings of certain company veterans would quickly sandbag any career I was hoping to cultivate at the company. Instead, my new boss pulled folded cash out of his pocket and handed it to me like I was an influential head waiter at an uptown restaurant. That was my food money for a month. I didn’t even remember it had been taped. The song was actually pretty ok.

That show also opened the door for me to speak to the Big Boss at the ad agency, who at that time was James Patterson. He spoke with me for 20 minutes in his office, asking what I was into and what my plans were. When he heard that I wanted to write, he revealed that he had just that month sold his very first book, after writing for seven years at five in the morning, everyday. He soon retired from advertising. I hear he’s doing very well.

Another tape was the 30th Annual Grammy Awards (1988), live from Radio City Music Hall. I was there, actually, backstage, so my mom’s husband taped it for me in Kansas City.

My college roommate at the time was from a LA showbiz family. He had been invited to work on the show, but as it was a week-long gig at the same time as Spring midterms he thought it best to not to do it.

Somehow he offered the job to me. I did not consider Spring midterms and immediately took the train to the city, staying uptown(!) on the couch of a friend that had graduated the year before, and taking the subway to midtown(!) everyday, with no idea where any of these places were.

I worked with the dance crew, who that year were staging two numbers - the opening with Whitney Houston (my mother’s then favorite singer in the whole wide world) and a medley with George Benson (another family favorite), Cab Calloway, Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, Lou Reed, RUN-DMC, Billy Joel, and Miles Davis, who showed up to all the rehearsals just to make out with random dancers, but decided to skip the actual show.

Michael Jackson was there too, but absolutely no one was allowed to speak to him. I, in a very “me” move, got completely turned around backstage one afternoon and kind of ran right into him on his way onstage. He was very tall.

I snuck down to the house and ninja-crawled on my knees through a row of floor seats to sneakily watch his rehearsal (which no one was allowed to watch). Cautiously raising my head, I found that lots of people had snuck in to do this, including loads of celebrities. We kind of bonded, because all of us were not as famous as Michael Jackson.

But Ms. Houston was the highlight of the entire experience, her voice flawless even when sitting right next to her on a piano bench. Early on I did something that she found particularly nice, and so she was particularly nice back to me the entire week, even signing a copy of my college graduation announcement for my mother - “You must be so proud! Congratulations! Whitney.”

Out of respect for my friend I tried to show up early and stay late every night, pitching in wherever I was asked. When the other PAs headed out after rehearsals for drinks, I stayed behind and stacked things and pulled old masking tape marks off the stage.

And so I found myself all alone, center stage, at Radio City Music Hall, with a fist full of old masking tape and what I saw as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I sang the end of the national anthem, from “oh say, does that star spangled banner yet wave…”, as well as I could, and at the top of my lungs. I figured it wasn’t illegal or anything, and no one was there. Let me just tell you, the acoustics at that place are great. As my last little note echoed, someone at the back of the house clapped and yelled “Play Ball!”.

I gave a little bow and ran offstage.

Did my midterms suffer? Well, yes, obviously, but I haven’t really used my grade point average since graduation. Yet, when I began actually working in show production, I did use what I’d learned that week in New York: that if I kept my head down, and spoke politely with confidence, most folks assumed I was someone with authority, because no one is really sure of who anyone else is backstage.

That evening was my Fanciest Night, hands down: deep in the basement of music’s Downton Abbey, peeking through curtains at expensive clothes and extremely familiar faces that I’d only seen in two dimensions on little tiny screens or great big gigantic ones. The funny part is that the full show isn’t online anywhere, and since I was working, I didn’t get to watch the broadcast on TV, and never would have seen it if I hadn’t found that tape.

So I will sift though the rest of this mountain of magnetic ribbons, holding no expectation, as I’ve already found images of great historical significance on the same tapes as Milli Vanilli music videos. I’m excited to discover if I can learn anything new from this black plastic stack of Old Time.

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