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20th Century Wrap-Up
Well, the 20th Century is finally over! Before we leave, let's take one final
look:
Most Remembered Today For
| 1900 |
Fat, mustached,
cigar-puffing plutocrats. |
| 1910 |
All those Peanuts strips where Snoopy fights the Red
Baron. |
| 1920 |
Ah, the carefree
days of raccoon coats and flappers, where young people gaily sip bootleg
hootch unaware of that their meaningless lives will soon face impending
doom. |
| 1930 |
Unmitigated misery. |
| 1940 |
Saving Private
Ryan. |
| 1950 |
Elvis. |
| 1960 |
The fact that
many Baby Boomers still live in that decade. |
| 1970 |
History's most awful fashions. |
| 1980 |
"She's a
maniac...maniac...out on the floor. And she's dancing like she's never
danced before..." |
| 1990 |
Whining. |
Favorite Pasttime
| 1900 |
Subjugating
native populations. |
| 1910 |
Dying of pneumonia. |
| 1920 |
Dancing the
Charleston while realizing how banal their daily existence really is. |
| 1930 |
Racism. |
| 1940 |
Blowing things
up. |
| 1950 |
Paranoia. |
| 1960 |
Sex, drugs, and
rock and roll. |
| 1970 |
Lots of sex, even more drugs, and disco. |
| 1980 |
Safe sex, saying
you say no to drugs, poofy-haired British new-wave synthesizer bands. |
| 1990 |
Collecting cute, worthless crap. |
Sign That You Made It
| 1900 |
Having a mountain
in Africa named after you. |
| 1910 |
Getting first-class luxury seats on a Titanic lifeboat. |
| 1920 |
Going to Paris
and living a shallow, dissipated life of ennui, and then writing about it. |
| 1930 |
First in line at the soup kitchen. |
| 1940 |
Surviving
"The Big One" at Normandy and 50 years later being interviewed
for documentaries. |
| 1950 |
Being like everyone else. |
| 1960 |
Dying of a heroin
overdose before going on stage at the Fillmore. |
| 1970 |
A guest appearance on the Love Boat. |
| 1980 |
"The
Donald" returns your calls. |
| 1990 |
Having Elton John sing at your funeral. |
Drug of Choice
| 1900 |
Coca-Cola. |
| 1910 |
Opium, cocaine, morphine, and other over-the-counter
drugs. |
| 1920 |
Illegally
imported cognac that you sip while contemplating the emptiness of life. |
| 1930 |
Socialism. |
| 1940 |
Whisky at the O
club. |
| 1950 |
Drugs for every member of the family! Double martinis for
dad, tranquilizers for mom, sniffing glue for Junior, and catnip for
Fluffy! |
| 1960 |
All of them. |
| 1970 |
Cocaine for breakfast, Harvey Wallbangers and poppers for
lunch, pot for dinner, and Quaaludes for a nightcap. |
| 1980 |
Greed. |
| 1990 |
Drugs for every member of the family! Viagra for dad,
Prozac for mom, Ritalin for Junior, and Program for Fluffy! |
Idea of Great Sex
| 1900 |
Naughty
stereographs from Paris. |
| 1910 |
Raping nuns in Belgium. |
| 1920 |
Ripping each
other apart with rapier wit, then making desperate, empty love, unaware of
the moral, emotional morass into which you are drifting. |
| 1930 |
Invading Czechoslovakia. |
| 1940 |
Luring
exceedingly grateful French girls with chocolate bars and cigarettes. |
| 1950 |
Making out in your parents' bomb shelter. |
| 1960 |
Making out
practically anyplace. |
| 1970 |
Was too stoned to remember. |
| 1980 |
Screwing your
competitors. |
| 1990 |
After you complete HIV tests and provide each other with
exhaustive sexual histories, you first obtain written permission to go out
on an unchaperoned date. Then, you must obtain her written permission to
kiss her on the lips. You need another written permission from her to give
her a French kiss. Then... |
Greatest Fear
| 1900 |
"That
wicked, wicked jazz." |
| 1910 |
Foreigners. |
| 1920 |
Nothing they were
brave enough to express, but yet the nagging feeling that their lives were
bereft of meaning. |
| 1930 |
Fear itself. |
| 1940 |
According to all
those John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and Audie Murphy movies, nothing. |
| 1950 |
Communists, aliens from outer space who symbolize
communists, 50-foot-tall ants mutated by atomic bomb tests required
because of the communists, finely choreographed street gangs on the west
side of Manhattan who are probably influenced by communists, communists
launching little bleeping balls into earth orbit, rock 'n' roll that was
created by communists... |
| 1960 |
The Man. |
| 1970 |
Running out of gas on an "even" day when you
have an "odd" license plate. |
| 1980 |
Rocky losing to
that evil steroid-pumped Russkie, Ivan Drago. |
| 1990 |
Heart disease, breast cancer, kids finding pornography on
the Internet, getting shot at your school or work, O.J. Simpson, getting
downsized, getting rightsized, Y2K, having your favorite supermarket
merged into another one, Starbucks running out of decaf French vanilla... |
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