I started this retrospective at the end of the 20th century. As long as I continue to live in this one, I’ll find flaws in each decade. Here is over 120 years in review.
Most Remembered Today For
| 1900 | Fat, mustached, cigar-puffing plutocrats. |
| 1910 | “There was that war, but it was a long time ago, so it couldn’t possibly have any relevance to what is happening today.” |
| 1920 | Ah, the carefree days of raccoon coats and flappers, when young people gaily sip bootleg hootch unaware of that their meaningless lives will soon face impending doom. |
| 1930 | Unmitigated misery. |
| 1940 | “There was that war, but it was a long time ago, so it couldn’t possibly have any relevance to what is happening today.” |
| 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 | The fact that many millennials still live in that decade. |
| 2000 | 9/11. |
| 2010 | Having every dystopian novel of the last 100 years come true, but you’re cool with it. |
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. |
| 2000 | Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, texting, online gaming, and other ways to avoid being with people. |
| 2010 | Keeping your face glued to a screen for days at a time. |
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 | Living long enough to tell stories about the war to wide-eyed school children who can’t believe the elderly man with the walker and cataracts is a Marine who could still kick butt. |
| 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. |
| 2000 | Having the collapse of your marriage and/or career covered on TMZ. |
| 2010 | “The Donald” attacks you in a tweet. |
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! |
| 2000 | Fame. |
| 2010 | Getting likes on social media. |
Idea of Great Sex
| 1900 | Naughty stereographs from Paris. |
| 1910 | Invading 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… |
| 2000 | Banging mistresses on the PGA Tour. |
| 2010 | Consent. |
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… |
| 2000 | Another 9/11. |
| 2010 | Being ignored. |