Decades, Part 2
1950-1959
You know what's wrong with the '50s? That people think they were somehow awesome. Well, let me clue you in to something. The 1950s sucked. Hard. And I don't even mean because of McCarthyism or segregation or a pervasive fear of impending nuclear war leading to worldwide paranoia and children having to hide under their desks as if that would save them from nuclear fallout. Nope, the reason the 1950s sucked? Have you ever seen an episode of "Leave it to Beaver?" People were fucking boring. I mean, they were getting all excited about like, glasses of milk and baseball cards and shit. And as far as I could tell, there was virtually no oral sex at all. That's bullshit. And I would go on about how "My Three Sons" was even worse, but I never was able to stay up through an entire episode. Minus 6 bullets.
1960-1969
Damn, there's just too much to even talk about, isn't there? I mean, you've got civil rights and women's lib and the best music of the century and Kubrick and Woodstock and moon landing and free love and the creation of Spider-Man. And then on the other side, you've got assassinations and Vietnam and civil unrest and Cuban missile crisis and terrible "art" films and the deaths of lots of great musicians and stupid fucking smelly hippies and that damned "Batman" TV series. It seems like for every good thing, there's an equally bad and embarrassing opposite. The sixties sure were a hell of a decade. And before you start, yes, the Adam West "Batman" TV series sucked. Don't e-mail me about it saying that it was campy or whatever. Yeah, I have a nostalgic streak for it, too, but let's face it, folks, it blew. Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith couldn't even pull that shit out of the gutter. And the less said about Vincent Price as Egghead, the better. 0 bullets.
1970-1979
A shitty president. An oil crisis. A war that just wouldn't fucking end. The Middle East exploding on itself. A terribly underperforming economy. Sound familiar? Well, the difference is that in the 70's people had the balls to deal with it. The president fucking resigned. A huge environmental movement was started. Groundbreaking treaties were drafted. And you know what else? There was fucking Zep. Led Zep. And the Allman Brothers. And Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola made awesome movies. And TV actually depicted the social climate with shows like "All in the Family." And dudes had like, kickass moustaches. Also, "Star Wars." So while, yes, the '70s kind of blew, lots of stuff that survived the 70s that I can now purchase are awesome. And that's all I really care about. Plus 4 bullets.
1980-1989
I'm tired of hearing about the goddamn '80s. Shit was kitschy! I get it! But you know what? The cartoons that were on in the 1980s were shit. The reason you liked it when you were four is that you were fucking four. I've tried going back and watching "Masters of the Universe" and "Thundercats," and beyond the simple jolt back to my past I got from seeing Prince Adam laugh the way he did in every fucking episode, they were not enjoyable. I can still get a little bit of enjoyment out of "G.I. Joe," only because of how hilariously inept Cobra Commander is, but it's still not up to the level at which I loved that garbage when I was a kid. It's the equivalent of playing with a carton of sour milk through your whole childhood and then obsessing over trying to get it back once you're in your twenties. The milk is awful! You shouldn't want it! It smells bad! Fresh milk is available to you! Fuck the '80s. Minus 7 bullets.
1990-1999
Now this was a decade. Booming economy, a really cool music scene (at least for the first half), a refreshing celebration of slackerdom, and the biggest scandal of the whole 10 years involved a dude getting a simple blowjob. Why aren't we nostalgic for the 1990s? Okay, MTV ruined television and the PlayStation ruined video games, I'll give you that. But the worst thing about our vice president was that he was simply an insufferable bore. And Seinfeld gave us the last great traditional sitcom. And the internet gave us limitless fonts of porn (not to mention the ability to watch old, terrible episodes of '80s cartoons). Shit, let's go back to the '90s. Plus 8 bullets.
2000-2009
Okay, so I can't really talk about three years of this decade since they haven't happened yet, but I think I can pretty much sum it up by saying that they will be characterized by the same things that have pervaded the first seven of the decade so far: everybody's scared. In the decade where we were supposed to be flying around anti-grav cars and living in colonies on the moon, we're instead worrying about a dude coming into the bank where we're cashing our check and blowing us into tiny pieces. It's even more low tech than the Cold War! Where are my damned rocket boots? Huh, world? Where are they? Minus 5 bullets.
Here's looking forward to 2010-2019, the Apocalypse decade. Rivers of blood and the stars falling out of the sky will be a nice change of pace after this travesty of a decade.
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