We're a decade that doesn't know what to call itself, coming after
a decade that would call itself anything. In the confusion our
thirty-somethings grab for what they know best. They were too young
at the time to know how unstable it actually was.
The economy has crashed and burned. We know it will rise anew,
fattened up by unhealthy government spending and tax cuts, forced
measures to sate ill-informed voters and malevolent corporations. We
know, also, that it will eventually crash and burn again, shed all
this excess, leaving us farther behind than before.
We all have lawyers.
Oil's back in style, glorious rich black oil, so easy to use for
energy and materials, so inexpensive to summon forth from the ground.
It is now and always has been the nation's life-blood, despite
pride's claims to the contrary. Surely it will last forever.
We have a republican president; he and his advisors are at war:
a silent, secret war; a war that promises to be long; a war against
not a country, but a concept. A cold war.
2001 has come and gone.
Music is going bad, we're trading all of our new ideas for worn
tired arena rock and tuneful empty sugar pop.
Primary colors are back, and fishnet hose; yesterday I saw a girl
wearing polka-dots in public. Counterculture girls want sharp
curves and tall-ass boots, counterculture boys want good cologne and
the color black.
Cocaine is fashionable too, cheaper and purer than one might guess.
We're getting all the new media we could ask for: Scooby Doo,
Star Wars, Dukes of Hazard, Super Mario, He-Man, ALF. Any way
to sell our kids more toys, injection molds dusted off out of
storage. Hulk Hogan still gets paychecks in the mail.
Our malls are only getting larger.
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