Wake Up and Smell the Nineties

A Famous man once observed: "That which does not kill you will make you strong." This is precisely the way Americans should view the appalling decade that recently ended. As a people, we were assaulted during the 1980s by Nancy Reagan, herpes, Manuel Noriega, crack, the Federal deficit, a magazine called Wigwag, the pit-bull scare and two books by Lee Iacocca. It did not kill us. We were set upon by such malignancies as Charles Keating, Contras, heavy hands, Judas Priest, HDTV, James Watt, AIDS, Louis Farrakhan, supply-side economists, VH-1, fresh pasta that costs $7.98 a pound, David Crosby's autobiography, radiation from Chernobyl, Redbook jugglers, antique shops, Bon Jovi and waiters named Trent who insist on reciting the house specials—which always feature angel-hair pasta in a light but piquant pesto sauce. We survived. We found ourselves hemmed in by Ivan Boesky, angel dust, Morton Downey, Jr., junk bonds, T. Boone Pickens, Kitty Dukakis, rap music, Muammar el-Qaddafi, the New York Mets, the bow-tied Pee-wee Herman, nine Barbara Mandrell comebacks, the bow-tied Senator Paul Simon, Milli Vanilli, 437 overnight delivery services, 243 John Candy movies, Regis Philbin, tofutti, 1213 serial murderers, the Fox network, the United States Football League and Donna Rice. It only made us stronger.

It was an era of excess, to be sure, but much of the excess has now been purged, and we will not soon look upon its like again. Gone is the notion that debt is a good thing. Gone is the notion that corporate raiders are healthy for America. Gone is the notion that a man who makes Fruit of the Loom underpants for a living would make a good President of the United States. Gone is the notion that casinos shaped like garish 17th Century Indian mausoleums are just what downtown Atlantic City needs to arrest its staggering urban decay. Gone is the notion that smirking guys from Queens who build 17th Century Indian mausoleums in downtown Atlantic City with other people's money should either:

a) run for the White House,

b) run an airline,

c) run ads encouraging people to buy their god-awful books.

The nicest thing about the Nineties will be how little they will resemble (concluded on page 194) Wake Up (continued from page 109) the Eighties. In the Eighties, the word "arb" was interchangeable with the word "genius." In the Nineties, the word "arb" will be a term of pure contempt. In the Nineties, when a company says it is "restructuring," people will no longer think that this is an indication that the visionary corporation is taking bold steps to become lean and mean. They will know that the company is going under. In the Nineties, there are not going to be any more movies about Yuppie fact checkers at snooty East Coast magazines (Bright Lights, Big City), there are not going to be any movies about upwardly mobile superbartenders trying to make it to the top of the mixological universe (Cocktail), and there are not going to be any movies about the diurnal problems of callow youths named Ferris. Although there will still be plenty of people named Sting, River and Keanu, they will probably have the good sense to name or rename their children James, Karen and Shirley. Otherwise, their kids are going to get their clocks cleaned when they show up for nursery school.

Throughout the Eighties, Americans devoted an immense portion of their economic and intellectual resources to combating the spread of communism. Now that the triumph over the Soviets has been achieved, those same resources can be used in a national crusade against the next most terrifying threat to human development the United States Government. In the Nineties, our elected representatives are either going to fix the schools, fix the roads, fix the banking system and fix the environment—or we'll find other people who will.

The Nineties will be a great time to be an American, a bad time to be a foreigner. While we have rid ourselves of our worst enemy—the Soviet Union—the West Germans have just annexed East Germany, which is basically Ecuador with less pizzazz. Let's see how well that finely tuned German economic machine works now. For 2000 years the French and the English have been prevented from annihilating each other only because of the mitigating topographical barrier of the English Channel. Once the Chunnel is completed, the two ancient enemies can proceed directly to the Final Conflict. No English pedestrian will be safe once French drivers hit the roads, and the French, having survived thousands of years of eating garlic-soaked pig's intestines and the heavily marinated stomach lining from wild boars, will find themselves felled by the most cardiovascularly menacing comestible on the planet: plum puddings. Bon appétit, guys!

The Japanese will fare no better. In the Eighties, the Japanese got rich and far by selling Americans VCRs that never break, CD players that never break and cars that run for 145,000 miles without needing a lube job. So what are they going to sell us now? Americans don't need any more cheap TVs; they have six spare ones in the den. CD players cost less than a hundred bucks, and everyone already has a spare six-pack. Toyota's Previa vans will still be running smoothly the day after Armageddon.

The Nineties will be an era of immense safety: Fear will be out. With the Soviets down for the count, the Libyans down for the count, the Iraqis mostly down for the count, the Chinese down for the count, it's no wonder that Freddy Krueger has decided it's time to call it a career. Terror is out, dread of a nuclear holocaust is out, fear of the unknown is out. Carl Sagan and the rest of the boys and girls in the pop apocalypse business are going to have to find a new line of work.

The Nineties will not be an age of moping. Professional sourpusses like R.E.M., Suzanne Vega and Sinéad O'Connor will eventually go away. Books like Slaves of New York will not make it to the top of the best-seller lists. Robert Altman will not make a comeback. Neither will Ingmar Bergman. Liv Ullmann will not be welcome. The long-awaited moment when Jane Alexander will tower over the world of American drama will not come to pass. Neither will the resurrection of crooks like Dennis Levine and Mike Milken. People like Jay Leno will have an easy time of it in the Nineties. People like Ralph Nader will not.

The signs of rebirth are all around us. Farmland prices are on the rise for the first time in a decade. Madonna has stopped being Marilyn Monroe. Merrill Lynch is rehiring. Arsenio Hall just got a haircut. The United States Olympic basketball team will not be scored upon during the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona. Jim Wright is gone. The K.G.B. is finished. Law firms are laying off people left and right, hopefully leading to a wave of long-overdue suicides in the legal profession. Baseball is booming in Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Atlanta. The Dallas Cowboys have come back from the grave. The Refrigerator has reasserted himself. Sales of spinach pasta are on the decline. Performance artists and mimes are having a hard time getting Federal subsidies. No one is going to give Woody Allen $20,000,000 to make another movie like Interiors. And all across the nation, a powerful grass-roots movement is gaining momentum as harassed diners everywhere, too long cowed by legions of spindly waiters—persons named Cameron or Trish—rise from their seats and proclaim with one voice: We don't want to hear about the goddamned specials. We're ordering from the menu!

It's a great time to be alive.

Out with the old, the Glitz, the Greed, in with the new, the real, the freed, welcome a decade we desperately need!

Nineties dinner party

A-List

Camille Paglia

Robert Bly

John Singleton

Keanu Reeves

Michael Jordan

Jodie Foster

Arnold

Claudia Schiffer

Ice Cube

Your banker

•

B-LIST

Cicciolina

John Bradshaw

Spike Lee

Kevin Costner

Bo Jackson

Winona Ryder

Steven Seagal

Mariah Carey

Ice-T

Your accountant

•

Uninvited

Isiah Thomas

How we'll spend the Nineties

Nineties gym bag

Essentials for on the go

Japanese-language audio tape deodorant crystals keys to Jeep Cherokee ceramic tile with serenity prayer patch kit for Reebok Pumps AT&T Visa card

tube of Rogaine golf instruction video yohimbine extract Game Boy pocket phone canteen with tap water.

Nineties garage sale: What to thrown out from the Eighties

gelato maker sushi roller The Beemer art by Julian Schnabel mousse thin ties suspenders portable sound systems rowing machines ceiling mirrors personal Quotron books by Bret Easton Ellis get-rich-quick-in-real-estate books The Art of the Deal, by Donald Trump skates saved for skateboard parts co-dependency books nuclear freeze buttons Pictionary

neon-colored clothes Frisbees woks fur coat the space shuttle bungee cords in lengths under 100 feet baseball caps with goofy, three-dimensional animal parts granite desk accessories acid-washed jeans strategically ripped jeans New Age music L. A. Lakers jerseys ten-speed bikes tanning tables beta videos turntable debt

"The Nineties will not be an age of moping, R.E.M. and sinéad O'Connor will eventually go away."