I Heart The Nineties

I woke on Thursday morning with a shiny orange cheetah-printed slap bracelet on my wrist, a Lisa Frank sticker of some puppies in a hot air balloon decorating my phone, and a mild case of craft beer flavored ennui. This state of affairs was courtesy of a conscription into attending one of a series of beer-and-food-tasting shows that are staged periodically at the brewery where I work. The theme was the 90's, my date was my twin sister, I had lots of eyeliner in my bag but no pen.

I had agreed to attend and write about the show in a paroxysm of holiday cheer back in December and then promptly forgotten all about it. When the arrangement finally resurfaced in my consciousness a few weeks later, it was attended by a host of prickly but-i-don't-wanna feelings: a fear of attention, a fear of work and social life colliding, urges to demur, urges to run. Organized fun is just not my jam--bowling, party games, icebreakers--all inspire the same middle-school type anxiety in me, a fundamental aversion to participation that I have learned to temper through avoidance, sarcasm, and looking better than I feel. But I love getting dressed up and Going To Things, and I love amateur theater, and I love beer and food, so I managed to keep a fairly positive spin on what parts of me feared was going to be an ordeal.

I spent the afternoon drinking tea and listening to music with my sister, half-heartedly folding laundry, trying to choose an outfit, and fielding a series of increasingly confusing text messages about if I would be needed to bus tables earlier in the evening. My twin and I both agreed that a philosophical approach was best. "It will be fine" and "whatever happens, happens" were our mantras as we bundled up, chose our lipstick colors, complimented each other's outfits, and drove through the darkening streets downtown.

As reliable as my particular brand of social anxiety is, so too is the truth that once I'm actually doing the feared activity, it's not so bad. Once I was inside, cheerfully greeted by my coworkers, eating deeply of the pull-and-peel twizzlers that decorated each table, I felt much better. The so-co and beer shooters upon our entrance didn't hurt, and being given a little gift from my lovely co-worker Rachel--a strawberry shaped hairpin--warmed my cynical heart. My sister and I were ushered to the "media table" that had been set up for us. As this blog is mostly about my obsession with myself, I was a little taken aback at being designated as press. I called upon the powers of imagination that have blessed me since childhood and pretended I was a fancy lady reporter covering a colorful local event, perhaps returning home to a well-appointed loft of some sort to work on my story. The vision gave me the courage to sit up straight, my sister provided a mini-notebook, a pen appeared courtesy of my coworker/comedienne/director of the show Kelli, and I was set.

The show was comprised of skits based on seven iconic nineties movies--the trailer for each projected on the screen in front of us, themed beer and food delivered as each movie was presented, and the lulls punctuated by a well-curated playlist of nineties hits. The actors mingled in between the tables as we readied ourselves for the first skit--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I held my breath, waiting for second-hand embarrassment to spike. Mini-pizzas were delivered to the table and devoured and to my delight no mortification was forthcoming. The skits were funny and well-written, the actors enthusiastic and game, the pop cultural references on-point. A large part of the success was the trappings of perfect 90's nostalgia incorporated in the experience--from gak on the tables and those skate-inspired S doodles on the menus, to thumb wars and iconic lines--draw me like one of your french girls--woven into each sketch.

My sister and I played hangman with our star table companion of the night, a woman named Katie who was researching for her role as director of a similar (if less edgy) revue. We chatted about being kids of the eighties and nineties, compared notes on correct gak deployment, and sang along with Pink wanting real love.  We agreed on the infuriating quality of the song that goes "This is the story of a girl/who cried a river that drowned the whole world/And while she looked so sad in photographs/I absolutely love her when she smiles." Clearly it should be "laughed."

 During the Wayne's World sketch,  one of the actors (Chase McNeill, incidentally an old coworker of mine at the Y and one of the most cheerful persons I have met to date) drawled to my sister, "We've got a bit of a babe on our hands here. A double babe! Baberasaurus! Babraham Lincoln! Babia Majora!"  Another favorite was a line in the Forrest Gump sketch--a movie I have always secretly loathed for its sheer sentimental hubris-- in which Forrest is taken to task with the words "just because you're stupid doesn't mean you're forgiven." Amen.

I particularly appreciated the perfect marriage of topicality with nostalgia when Kelli sent up the movie Frozen by belting "The cold never bothered me anyway" during the sketch for Titanic. I drank from Katie and Laura's beers--allergies on one hand and designated driving on the other--and floated out the door in a haze of high-gravity hilarity with the words of the Dude echoing in my head: "That's just like, your opinion, man."

That's all we writer types ever really have to offer--our opinions--and the hope that others might feel the same way we do, whether about the ridiculousness of a fight club or the silly eroticism of that hand-print-leaving climax in Titanic. We no longer live in a time when Kate Winslet's bared breasts have the power to shock or Brad Pitt's brand of anti-consumerist masculinity feels refreshing. The glow of the iphones of the photographer and her beau seated next to us were a testament in themselves to the attention-span deficit of our current decade and the cynicism such constant access to entertainment inspires. It was nice, to be taken back in time for a night. To remember what it felt like to write a note and pass it, to record a song onto a cassette because that was the only way to hear it as many times as you wanted, to slap a bracelet on your wrist with a satisfying smack. We went out into the cold, pilfered twizzlers in our pockets, heading for home and the modern comforts of instantly streaming television. Friends, in case you were wondering.  





Thank you to Kelli Cayman Cozlin for her tireless work on the Beer Dinner Series. More here: Sticky-Note Productions and a shout-out to our actors: Chase McNeill, Allan Law, and Rigal Pawlak. Y'all rocked it out.