MISCmedia for 12/30/99
Whatever Happened to the '90s?

FIRST, A LOYAL THANX to all of you who responded to yesterday's piece on the Grinch who stole New Year's.

BY NOW, you may be quite tired indeed of reviews of the century and of the millennium.

You might even have noticed a few Year-in-Review feature stories out there.

But one thing we haven't seen at all (except for Michael Wolff, MTV, and CBC) are reviews of the decade.

You know, that epoch in time long enough to seem substantial, but short enough that people old enough to go to bars have been through at least two of them.

So in our effort to always remain out-of-step with what everybody else is doing, here's MISCmedia's own Eighty-Six to the Nineties:

Positive in Concept If Not Always In Execution:

• That whole World Wide Web thang.
• "Alternative" music.
• "Indie" film.
• The "New Urbanism."
• Foreign "relief missions" (Somalia, etc.).

We'll Look Back and Laff At:

• Rush Limbaugh and co.
• Day trading.
• White rappers and "new heavies."
• "Girl Power" singers who didn't write songs or play instruments.
• "Young Country."
• Every damned band in Seattle since 1992 claiming it was the only band in Seattle that was "not-grunge."
• The Phantom Menace.
• Computer-graphic "morphing."
• "X-Treme" sports.
• Gaudy sneakers.

Our Kids Will Wonder How We Tolerated:

• The Gulf War.
• Rodney King verdict.
• Gargantuan SUVs.
• Mike Tyson.
• Newt Gingrich and co.
• Analog video.
• Planet Hollywood.

We'll Wonder How We Ever Did Without:

• DVDs.
• DSL lines.
• Digital camcorders and desktop video editing.
• BBC America, Game Show Network, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, etc.
• Streaming audio/video.

Future Nostalgia Icons of the Decade:

• The Simpsons.
• Pokemon.
• Teletubbies.
• South Park.
• Minivans.
• Cell phones.
• Telephone modems.
• Martha Stewart.
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
• Palm Pilot.

We'll Wonder What All the Fuss Was About:

• Net porn.
• Monica Lewinsky.
• Celebrity "journalism."
• Trash talk shows.
• Wrestling.
• Dot-com IPOs.
• V-chips.
• The end of Seinfeld.
• Talk and George magazines.
• Windows 95.

Sources of Hope:

• The WTO-protest coalition (greens, unions, cultural anti-imperialists, organic-foodies, etc. etc.; all joining to fight the common enemy of the corporate monoculture and to seek the right to agree to disagree in a more diverse future).
• Online organizing (political, tribal, subcultural).
• DIY cultural production/distribution.
• Greater-or-lesser progress toward freedom and/or peace in South Africa, East Timor, the Balkans, N. Ireland, Middle East, etc.
• "Instant" book printing.

Top Local Stories:

• Rise and fall of the Seattle Music Scene hype.
• Rise and fall of Cobain.
• Rise and potential fall of Microsoft.
• The mythical Seattle of Frasier comes true: Costly restaurants, condo towers, luxury malls, and stock-option tycoons as the only people who can afford to live here.
• Monumental "world class" architecture: The new art museum, symphony hall, Experience Music Project, Seattle U. chapel, and baseball stadium; and the future football stadium, library, city hall, and opera house.
• End of Kingdome, Rainier Brewing, Almost Live, Seafirst Bank, and non-millionaire housing.
• Out-of-town protesters make things inconvenient for out-of-town WTO guests; leading to local bystanders getting sprayed and (non-lethally) shot by local cops.

TOMORROW: The 14th annual MISCmedia In/Out List.

ELSEWHERE:

• Marlene Dietrich as the century's ultimate icon of Cool? I can dig it. (found by Obscure Store and Reading Room)....
• The Nation's Alternative 20th-Century History includes an odd old letter-to-the-editor on the "Sissified sex literature" of the '20s....
• From an old college classmate of David Letterman's, a solid half-hour RealAudio collection of old Top 40 radio-station promos from across the country! (Found by TV Barn)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Grinch who stole New Year's.
• Comparing punks to neo-punks.
• Retail-as-theater and theaters as retail.
• Thoughts from having lived with Christmas for two months.
• Disposable tabloid zines of highbrow literature.
• Another look at movie restaurants and what they oughta serve.
• Indie film's potential resurgence.
• Last-minute gift ideas with a twist.
• What might really be behind announced massive mass-transit cuts.
• Why digital cable TV ought to have more than just movies.
• The relics of bank merger-mania.
• Some bad beers I have known.
• Imagining life after Microsoft, and exploring the roots of the Gates personality cult.
• The first and second parts of our visit to an imagined Northwest theme park.
• Parts one, two, three, and four of our WTO protest post-mortem; a list of WTO-protest links; and the earlier preview piece.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, monfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia