The 90s

With over 600 blog entries by now, I’m starting to get writer’s block more often.   Fortunately I managed to find a topic which I haven’t previously addressed:  the 1990s.  Not 2000-1990 BC, nor any other century.  Got it?  I’ll try to address general issues but inevitably my analysis will be centered on my own life experiences. Let’s begin. 

My Own Life.   Having been born in 1969, I turned 21 in early 1990.   I was starting my final (spring) semester at University of Maryland, College Park, which I’d finish after the first summer session, mid-July.  I spent the last two weeks of July back in Paris for the last time, as my parents moved home permanently around September 1, moving back into the same home we left in January 1979.  My buddy Phil and I tried our best to renovate the house in August for my family’s return, undoing to a limited extent the extensive abuse it suffered from various tenants over that period of time. 

Then in late August I started at George Mason University School of Law, graduating in May 1993.   I passed the July 1993 Maryland bar exam (admitted December 1993 in Annapolis) and the February 1994 Virginia bar exam (admitted in June 1994 in Richmond).  Thus my legal career got started. 

Aside from a brief interlude from March to December 1994 when I was not working for him, I spent October 1992 through May 1998 working for my first legal employer, Jerry Curran.  He was a sole practitioner who had previously worked for O'Melveny & Myers, a big firm in L.A., and the NRA in DC.  It was just the two of us, handling traffic, criminal, and divorce in Northern Virginia.  Jerry didn’t take any personal injury or bankruptcy cases.  Since he wasn’t licensed in Maryland, I was the attorney handling matters in that state.  In May 1998 Jerry got hired by a big divorce firm in Fairfax and I wound up without a job. 

The remainder, from September 1998 through October 2000, was spent doing document processing at a DOJ contractor, CACI.   Thus the majority of the 90s was spent learning how to be an attorney, an experience which was mostly positive.  I’m still on good terms with Jerry, though our paths have long diverged.

Cars.  In spring 1994, now with a surplus of free time and decision to use that time productively to learn something new, I started working on cars, first taking basic courses with Arlington Adult Education and following up with more advanced courses at NOVA Alexandria along with dealer techs.   I went from having zero clue about cars to passing ASE exams and working on my own.

The 90s also ushered in a time when I finally had a non-economy car which I chose myself.  In November 1992 I got my first new car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird (base model), black on black with t-tops and 5.0L V8.  In June 1995 I replaced that with a 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula “350” with the SLP package (290 HP).  By 1998 that had gone from blue-green metallic, its original color, to black, though I never did reinstall the decals. 

Romance.  I went on several dates during this period, but nothing substantial until October 1999, when I began dating a Brazilian woman, Leila, who I met working at CACI.  I’m still on good terms with her now, though the romantic element of that relationship ended when she moved back to Rio in December 2003.  

The Gulf War.  In August 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  After several months of back and forth with Bush’s dad, George H.W. Bush, then the President, eventually we did something.  In January 1991, around the time the Giants beat the Bills in the first of the four Super Bowls they lost, we liberated Kuwait in a campaign that lasted all of four days.  The Gulf War started our military’s love affair with desert cammo, and our political obsession with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.  “Three Kings” is an intriguing movie depiction of that war. 

Bill Clinton.  Despite the success of the Gulf War, a subsequent recession wiped all out all the political capital GHWB (41) had accumulated and ushered in the first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter:  former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.  And unlike Carter, Clinton won re-election in 1996, beating the Bob Dole-Jack Kemp ticket easily.  Clinton brought his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea, and even did this NAFTA thing.  Clinton had enough charm and humor that it was difficult to dislike him unless you were a hardcore Republican.  Even G. Gordon Liddy, who had a radio show back then, had to admit he supported Clinton’s position on NAFTA.

However, as noted, the GOP didn’t appreciate him and tried to bring him down with Monica-Gate, Paula Jones, Ken Starr, and this business of Vince Foster’s suspicious suicide.  Sadly for them, he served his full term.  He’s still around though somewhat older – possibly wiser.   

“I didn’t inhale”.  By the way – pot brownies have been around for awhile, so it’s possible Bubba got stoned without inhaling.  Speaking of which, California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, leading the nation in this regard and beginning the process by which MJ became far more potent:  4% THC in the early 1990s vs 24% THC for today’s stronger strains.   For those of you who care about these matters.

The Internet.  In 1990 most of us had no clue what the Internet was.  By 1999 most of us did.  There was Prodigy, AOL, and the Web.  At this time it was dialup, so we needed dedicated phone lines – no cable modems or DSL back then.  No Myspace or Facebook either – mostly we were on AOL back then, or for those of us on the Web, Netscape Navigator.  Nor was there streaming, but there was Napster (beginning in 1999), much to Metallica’s dismay. 

Cell Phones.   Same deal here – only snotty Gordon Gekko types had them before 1990, but by 1999 most of us had some kind, though they were flip-open types with cheesy screens and by no means “smart” – and you couldn’t get the Internet on them. 

TV Shows.  I'm neutral about TV, neither being a devoted aficionado nor a snob who refuses to watch, considering it all crap.  I'll watch some and not others as it suits my particular fancy.  Of the shows on during this time, these were my favorites that I watched the most:  

ALF, The Drew Carey Show, Frasier, Friends, Home Improvement, L.A. Law, Married...With Children, Seinfeld, and That 70s Show.  Of these, I'd list Friends, L.A. Law, and Seinfeld as my top shows, which I watched on the most regular basis.  

Movies.  Likewise with movies.  My favorites were Terminator 2, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Heat, The Big Lebowski, The Matrix, and my top favorite of many decades, Saving Private Ryan.

Grunge.  Taking care of the overindulgent metal of the 1980s was grunge, four bands in particular:  Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden, all out of Seattle.

Pearl Jam is still around and is the only band to remain continuously active.  Nirvana released Bleach (1989), Nevermind (1991), and In Utero (1993), but Kurt Cobain died in 1994 – by killing himself.  AIC’s Facelift was released in 1990, its third and final album, self-titled, in 1995, the band stopped in 1996 (though not formally disbanding), mainly due to Layne Staley’s drug use (he died in 2002).   Soundgarden were the oldest of the four, beginning in the mid 1980s, releasing Ultramega OK (1988), Louder Than Love (1989), Badmotorfinger (1991), Superunknown (1994), and Down on the Upside (1996) before disbanding.  Of the four, I didn’t like Nirvana or Pearl Jam enough to see them in concert, but I did see Soundgarden as a headlining band on the Superunknown tour in 1994 and Alice in Chains opening for Clash of the Titans (Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth) in 1990 and for Van Halen in 1991.

As you can see, I remember the 1990s.   How much do you remember?  Hopefully the same, and ideally as fondly as I do.  

Cell Phones

The other day I was in the elevator, switching background pics on my cell phone, when an older man – who can obviously remember rotary phones – remarked how we take them for granted these days.  In fact, we can’t live without them, yet they are fairly recent.

 My brother and my secretary both have iPhones, while I still have the Sharp TM150 I bought in 2005 shortly after returning from Rio, where my POS Nokia didn’t work – it was a two-band phone, not a three band phone, and of course in Rio they use the one band this phone couldn’t use.  Anyhow.  At the time it was fancy and snazzy, the most advanced phone T-Mobile sold.  Now?  I have to admit the iPhone is much nicer, but I’d have to actually own one to get used to its unique touch-screen format.  Recall Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) shrugging off somone’s iPhone when trying to reach the alarmingly absent-for-his-own-wedding Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in the “Sex & The City” movie (thanks to Miranda’s ever-so-helpful advice to him at the rehearsal dinner the night before).  For the time being I mess around with my secretary’s phone – much to her annoyance. 

 I can remember rotary phones and black and white TVs.  I first got a cell phone in 1998, some rather large Motorola thing scarcely smaller than the typical cordless phone.  At the time I still had a landline – which I’ve now gotten rid of.  I really think cell phones have made home phones obsolete, assuming you have reliable coverage with your cell; land lines are 99% reliable, so it takes an impressive cell network to beat them.

 History.  0G, 1G, 2G, 3G.  0G starts from the 1940s, with car phones using vacuum tube technology developing in the 1950s.  The 1G era began in Japan in 1981, with Motorola selling the first handheld cell phones in the US in 1983 (above second from left).  These phones were large and bulky – and certainly a novelty at that time.  2G technology dates from 1991, about which time cell phones seemed to appear with any meaningful frequency.  The 90s is when I started seeing them around in any numbers, but far from the frequency you see today.  3G dates from 1999.  

 Nowadays it seems everyone has one.  My mom has one, but she rarely brings it with her or uses it, and still relies on her landline.  My friends Dave and Ken have yet to get them.  In Ken’s case it seems to be anti-Yuppie deal, like his aversion to BMWs - in this respect he’s back in the Reagan ‘80s.

 T-Mobile.  This is my carrier.  I can’t remember why I chose them, most likely because, at the time, they had the nicest phone.  Their coverage in Europe was stunning: I had better reception in Bucharest than at Dulles Airport.  Likewise, equipped with a tri-band phone in Rio, I had no trouble.  Here the coverage stinks around Dulles Airport, in Centreville (where my brother lives), and all but the 5^th floor of the Fairfax County Courthouse.  In a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil, the only good cell phone reception is at the cemetery, of all places (!!!).  Not quite that bad, but similar issues.

 Sharp TM150.  See above, next to the Motorola dinosaur. T-Mobile no longer supports this phone.  They have their own version of the iPhone, but my impression is that it lacks many of the features of the iPhone.  Mine has a small disc drive that fits a 32 MB minidisk, a camera which takes mediocre pictures and 8 second video clips, and a very high resolution screen (something in the mexapixel range).  The ringtones are fantastic: at a time at which most cell phones had a polyphone tone, this one had real tones: actual words and lyrics (e.g. “Office Space” Bill Lumbergh: “That would be great, m’kay?”).  It’s a flip-open design very similar to the Star Trek communicators – hell, I even downloaded the appropriate ringtone for that, so I can reply, “Kirk here.  Beam me up.”

 Text Messaging.  My Romanian woman-from-hell taught me this.  I’d text her when the cab arrived in her neighborhood, and she’d get in.  So date my TM days from April 2006.  Text messaging is best for small, short, simple messages, especially when you’re in a noisy environment (e.g. a rock concert) where a normal phone call would be impractical.  It’s difficult to text while driving – not recommended! – and not well suited for elaborate discussions or phone sex.  The key is to recognize its strengths and avoid its weaknesses.

 Etiquette.  We’ve all seen idiots, assholes, and bitches yakking on their cell phones:  driving their SUVs into someone’s poor car, interrupting movies, taking calls at inappropriate moments (e.g. in the middle of a date), arguing in public, etc.  At the courthouse, assuming your phone isn’t taken from you at security, you will be warned to turn it off before court, as the judges hate them going off in court and the bailiffs are happy to oblige. The other deal is the earpiece phone, when your viewpoint is the ear WITHOUT the earpiece, so it looks as though the person is an unusually articulate schizophrenic having a conversation with an imaginary friend. 

            Aside from cell phones going off in court, the most egregious breach was when we had the Buddhist monks from Tibet (dark red robes, shaved heads, etc.) blessing our humble office.  This involved ringing bells and chanting in Tibetan for about 30 minutes.  An unidentified Vietnamese male, probably a former client, was sitting in on this, obviously hoping the blessing would include him.  And in the middle, his cell phone kept going off.  Not once.  Not twice.  But at least three times.  Instead of putting it on mute or turning it off, he simply acknowledged that it was from his (apparently difficult and jealous) wife, and let it ring.  And let it ring again when he didn’t pick up the first and second times.  I’m neither Buddhist nor Tibetan, but I at least turned my own cell phone off and respected the ceremony.   When I go to mass at the Cathedral, I leave my cell phone in the car, and to the credit of the Catholics at my church, I have NEVER heard a cell phone go off in mass.  They might sit tight and not get Communion (God knows why…literally) but they won’t take a cell phone call in church.  I have to wonder what a ceremony at a Buddhist temple must be like.