Update: I have a master’s degree on its way to me… some how… eventually. 2 weeks paid vacation from work. Having spent the better part of four months focused and driven to finish my thesis, I feel like I have no direction and no drive. So after a pity party of one yesterday it dawned on me...
In my last stand-up routine in college I joked that all I was qualified to do with my degree was commentary on “American Culture” and for one of those I love the “whatever” shows, and well being that we only have 10 days left in the decade, I figured WHY not?
So here goes, one year a day, five categories per day for the rest of the year. It ain’t necessarily what I <3 but it sure is worth a rant.
2000
Y2k aside 2000 marked the end of my junior year in HS and start of my senior year making us the 2nd class of the new millennium– a fact which pissed us off to no end. In the fall of the next year I’d be moving to NY and starting college. But here’s what happened that year that I think is rant worthy.
Politics:
• Vermont legalizes gay marriage– and in California we pass the “defense of marriage act” which prohibits it – clearly all our granola munching hippies have retried in Vermont.
• We also pass a law known as prop 21 targeting juvenile’s and gang related offenses which in essence turned any three young people dressed alike into a gang– not so convenient given we had a dress code at school and couldn’t walk together in groups of 3 or more from that point on– cause you know a rag tag bunch of kids in white collard shirts and black pants are CLEARLY trouble.
• Bush 2’s first term. (That’s all he’s getting).
Fashion:
• Pointy toed heels are in, causing me to sort of lose it as a shoe lover. At 17 I think they look witchy yes witchy.
However, in a HUGE departure from the clunky platform shoes the 90’s had left us with it is at the least a step somewhere. A pointy-toed step somewhere.
• Nike re-releases the Air ax 90s which I’m deeply pleased
about.
• Track suits are in and while b-boys will b- boys (what’s up Mos Def!) anyone can be throw back hip with these. I cop a red and black original Adidas jacket I find in my dad’s closet that I have a hard time believing he once fit it. Velour even makes its comeback from out your uncle’s wardrobe (cause he thought it’s proximity to velvet made it appropriate for fancy occasions) onto the bods of J-lo and them. It was cool for a minute in that it kept ya warm– but really it just made people look like fuzzy sausages.
Movies:
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon makes anyone even slightly involved in martial arts think that all we need to do to learn to fly is take karate lessons, and then we can kick ass like them. That’s all that mattered. We all wanted to kick ass.
• Bring it On bestows us with a few gems of quotes such as: "She
puts the 'ass' I 'massive". And “…this is not a democracy, it's a cheerocracy. I'm sorry, but I'm
overruling you.– You are being a cheer-tator…”
It does, however sadly drop a bomb on the way over quoted “BRING IT ON!” phrase it self. Not every event merited a retort challenging your friend to bring it, but damn did it seem that was the go to phrase for a few years. I mean really, what is there to BRING and what are we putting it ON?
Other:
•Mp3s and digital music emerge becoming the go to for music. Having been computer illiterate– being too broke to have the latest (not even knowing what would happen to my world when I started downloading music and using AIM) this was beyond me.
• Tiger Woods achieves the grand slam in golf. Alls I gotta say is “Remember when?”
Music:
Ima try to keep this brief because this could EASILY be all I write about. For what it's worth, R&B and Pop DOMINATED. Clothes were bright red, shiny pleather and rhinestone covered because of the Genuwine's, Puffy's and Britney's all over the scene.
•Christina’s a genie in a bottle and Destiny’s Child wants you to say their name– especially since two of the then members would be no more by the end of the decade. Nsync and the Backstreet Boys tell us it’s gonna be them and what the shape of their heart is.
•Santana, who has always been on heavy rotation in my house, makes his comeback in late 99’ featuring Wyclef, RobThomas, as well as everyone and their mother. But 2000 does not begin without everyone woman being told that “its just like the ocean, under the moon, it’s the same as the emotion that I get from you,” or that “you remind me of a Westside story”.
• The most thrilling single, released however, had a profound impact on our lives. By our I mean two fold, we saw the resurgence of a particular clothing item: and by resurgence I mean we now knew which bitches were wearing them (yeah I said that too). And the other our, is my high school. Small though it was, we were a strange, clever, funny bunch. And 2000 was the year of our first and I mean first ever, junior prom. We’d had a knack for choosing slightly inappropriate themes for dances but a heavy contender for us that year was this single.
Recent Comments