I’d love to make this a post that turns a quality song lyric into a discourse on how much of a dick I am. But there’s actually a totally different intent with this title – lately I’ve been jonesing for some quality 90’s nostalgia. Yes, I haven’t turned 24 yet and yes, I was 11 when Clueless came out, but it doesn’t mean that I was oblivious when I was in elementary or middle school or that I don’t appreciate the best decade to ever exist. For some reason, people tend to blow me off in DC because they think of me as young. In fact, I know a shit ton of things about how awesome the 90’s were.
Jagged Little Pill was the first album I ever bought. My mom was hesitant about it because she was convinced that the title was a reference to birth control. I was eleven when the album was released in the summer of 1995. It sold an unbelievable amount of copies, around 28 to 30 million, depending on who you ask, and was in the top ten for over year.
Reality Bites is one of my favorites movies of all time. Since Lisa Loeb lived across the hall from Ethan Hawke, they became quick friends and Ethan handed some of her music over to Ben Stiller, the director of the movie. Once they decided to use “Stay,” it quickly shot to #1 on Billboard and Lisa became the first person ever to get a number one single without ever signing a record deal.
But I’m not gonna write a post where I just list things I know about the 90’s. Odds are, as someone who was lining up for lunch in the sixth grade when the OJ verdict went down, I still know a shit ton more about the 90’s than most people who went through their 30’s in the same time span. Despite my obnoxious and arrogant posturing, all I really wanted to talk about was the fact that I desperately want to watch Scream. Or Can’t Hardly Wait. Or She’s All That. Unfortunately, I’d probably have to settle for The Craft since I don’t own the other movies….yet.
I want full 90’s nostalgia time, a Saved By the Bell marathon, a repeat viewing of Single White Female, an embrace of Winona Ryder in every way/shape/form, making fun of 90210 and following up with watching Daria or Real World: Boston. I fully admit that I grew up in the Real World generation, can name every single person who was ever on the show (all 19 seasons), and desperately wanted to be on Road Rules as a kid. I remember Flora breaking the window in Miami when she tried to watch Mike and Melissa’s threesome, I remember David dragging Tammy through the house in LA, I remember Montana getting fired in Boston for letting the kids taste wine, I remember when that piece of shit Stephen slapped Irene in Seattle.
So as I sit here and rock out to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tracy Chapman, Duncan Sheik, and Hootie and the Blowfish, I remember a more innocent time. A decade when Oasis became the best band in the world, when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair injected real hope back into politics, when that new fangled concept of the Internet started to take hold, when Lilith Fair started to redefine feminism.
I miss that time. I miss that decade. Is it too much to ask to just live that decade over again?
Cheat to Win 