1999 was a weird time to be a thirteen year old in America. The year began with Columbine and ended with Y2K, so yeah, there was quite a bit of fear-mongering going on in that 365 day epoch. The thing is, when I reminisce on the year, it may very well be the most innocuous time period of my life; at the time, I thought things were going pretty smooth, and looking back now, I definitely consider 1999 to be one of the better years of my being.

I was a fairly confident kid at the time frame; I really did not feel the necessity to engage in prolific social discourse to make myself feel vaunted and significant, and I spent a majority of my time locked away in my room, reading, writing, catching old horror movies on VHS and of course, playing Dreamcast as if the next day it was to be outlawed. That isolation, for whatever reason, made me a happier and more confident soul; whereas the spring and summer of that year had been sort of a transitional phase, it really was not until fall of that year that I realized just how much I had changed.




There was something. . . different about the new school year, and no, it was not the notion that we were forced by mandate to sport tucked in shirts at all times (thanks a lot, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, you Doom-playing jerk offs). For some reason, girls actually talked to me, and instead of being called a weird little freak, I found myself in league with the quote en quote cool kids on campus. The thing is, I had no realization of my newfound popularity for the longest time. It was not until I went to a local big box store and was hugged by two of my classmates that I realized, holy crap, maybe I am not as much of a loser to the general populace as I thought I was.

This was but just one of many boons of the time frame; whilst I no longer had to fear societal scorn or analogue gender ridicule, I was still the same person as I was before: I still had the same taste in music, I still had the same taste in video games, and every week, I proudly dropped $1.98 plus tax upon the local video store to envision the absolute best bad horror movies the 1980s had to offer.

Simply put, if you were a pop cultural kind of guy in 1999, you were basically in heaven. I think that, of all the years I have encountered, 1999 may have been the most rewarding in regards to entertainment influence and impact. Seriously, I could sit down and watch NOTHING but commercials from the year on an endless loop and never tire of them; this was sort of the awkward transitional bottleneck of the economically sound 90s and oh-god-why-why-so-much misery new millennium.

1999 is a really unique time to explore, because it is virtually in betwixt my adolescent recollections and my blossoming into adulthood, the very bridge between that which is retro and that which is modern day. As the big 2-0-0-0 approached, the totality of the world was on edge; we were in for some BIG changes in the next decade, so this was basically our last year to enjoy a non-sucky existence. Although the planet was rightfully on edge (you know, that whole computer crash sending us back to the dark ages cloud that hung overhead and what-not), I was, well distracted by seemingly lesser things.




Remember when that one daytrader guy went crazy in Atlanta and shot a whole bunch of people? Well, I do not, because I was too busy trying to convince my mom to let me install astro-turf in my bedroom. If I am not mistaken, that was the same afternoon in which I ate eighteen dollars worth of Taco Bell produce and watched Near Dark for the first time. Looking back on it, that was a pretty cool day.

Hey, remember the establishment of the European Union? Well, me, not so much. You see, the local Winn-Dixie began selling Playstation games, and that royally screwed with my mind. What the hell, being able to buy video games at a grocery store? What is next, being able to watch movies over the Internet?




God, it is amazing just how much trite and meaningless stuff I recall from that epoch. I cannot recall my childhood phone number, but boy oh boy, do I have fond recollections of coming home from school each day and cracking open a Dr. Chek cola, jamming a wad of cotton candy Bubble Yum into my maw and watching two straight hours of The Match Game on The Game Show Network. I have virtually no remembrance of the JFK Jr. plane crash, but that one time I made same really kick ass spaghetti while watching Louie Anderson on the new iteration of Family Feud? The aromas are just as vivid in my nostrils as it was when it occurred.




The last three months were really memorable. Of course, we are all aware of my Dreamcast forays, so I shant reheat that dish. Around Halloween time, I began noticing these funny little CDs in stores, only instead of playing music, they played, get this, feature length movies! What a weird ass concept. It will never take off, I say.

So anyway, one day, I'm sitting down at my word processor (capable of rendering both black AND orange characters), and I cram the final row of, oddly, black and orange Oreos down my gullet. The New Addams Family just went off (in case you were wondering, yeah, crappy show), and I saw an ad for a special edition DVD set containing ALL SEVEN Nightmare on Elm Street movies. At was at this point that I officially surmised that the future had arrived. I mean, screw rocket cars and interstellar travel, every single Freddy Krueger movie ever made on one compilation, in vivid, crystal clear digital quality? I would have butchered to have gotten my hands on that set, but alas, the newfangled DVD technology was a bit out of my price range, as the player itself was priced around 400 bucks and the Ultimate Nightmare collection cost a cool Benjamin. Perhaps as a sign of just how much reality can change in only ten years time, you could have strolled into a dying Circuit City retailer and picked up both that set AND a brand new player for under forty bucks. That does not exactly make me smile, either.




So anyway, Halloween was awesome. In the interim, I went to two local fairs, which is practically thirteen year old heaven. Let us see, you have free rides, nonstop Alice in Chains and AC/DC tunes, and enough fried junk food to kill several porpoises PLUS all of the girls from school are traipsing across the fair grounds while dressed like total and complete skanks. Yeah, those were good times all right, even if the Halloween spook houses I attended that season were fairly lackluster. That being said, nobody could slight my costume: Whilst wearing a knock-off (glow in the dark, even!) Jason Voorhees mask and an even cheaper Hawaiian shirt, one colleague of mine declared that I resembled the bastard amalgamation of Weird Al Yankovich and Michael Myers. At 120 pounds, soaking wet with bricks in my pockets, I kind of felt more of a resemblance to Chunk from "The Goonies" and Leatherface, but hey, opinions are opinions.




I spent the 30th of October watching Halloween 5, The Blair Witch Project, and The Mutilator. I have no qualms with the book-ends there, but as I proudly proclaimed then and promulgate to this day, man, did The Blair Witch ever suck. I immediately cleansed my pallet the next day with a special showing of Childs Play 2 and Phantasm on Monster Vision (alongside seeing The Misfits video for Dig Up Her Bones about a million times on The Box), which while not as eventful as my previous years shindig (wink, wink http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/5899/), it was still pretty gosh darned enjoyable. Do they still make those peanut butter rice paper Frankenstein chocolate bars, by the way?

Anyhoo, October comes and goes, and here comes Thanksgiving. Never really been a fan of the holiday, but meh, it is a few days off from school, so no complaints from me. This really was a good time to be alive; I mean, NHL games on ESPN on a nightly basis, ECW wrestling on TWICE a week, and although Id never admit it publicly, wow, did ABC Family have a really good afternoon TV lineup. The Three Friends And Jerry ruled.




It really was not until the last two weeks of 99 that I realized just how screwy things had become. I mean, yeah, it was kind of telling when Woodstock turned into a scene from the Ray Liota box office disaster No Escape, but by the time my parents started freaking out, I mean REALLY freaking out about Y2K, I kind of felt a little on edge, too. Still, I had my world, for only a couple of more days, anyway. Things were, for all intents and purposes, good.

One of the all time great SWERVES of my childhood occurred on Christmas Eve. I had spent all summer breaking my back and sweating like a roasted hog to pony up enough cash to purchase a Dreamcast, and what do my parents go out and do for Christmas? That is right, they go out and buy me a god damn Playstation. In a weird way, it is almost as if they WANTED to slight me for my individualistic propulsion, to kind of say yeah, well, we are still in control, so nyah. Still, as far as comeuppances go, that one is a pretty beneficial one. Here I was, thinking that I was just going to get that one electric paintball handheld game and a Sabu action figure, and before me is a brand new video game apparatus. Sometimes, surprises can be awesome, you know?




I was actually kind of indifferent to the new millennium, to be honest. To me, the extent of its impact on my current lot in life is that Leonard Nimoy was now making survival videos and every drug store in town was hawking teddy bears that counted down to the year 2000. Even then, I kind of wondered what in the hell a supplier does with that kind of instantly dated surplus.

One of the neat addendums to the household at the time was a kitchen television. The very first time I made utilization of it was for a midnight screening of Red Dawn; even now, I look back on that momentous occasion, of chowing down on a turkey sandwich whilst scribbling pro wrestling related notes and watching Patrick Swayze tell kids to piss in radiators and feel a bizarre sense of futurism at work. It did not take a lot to wow thirteen year old me, and perhaps it takes even less to stir my spirits today. Improvement?




I had NO clue as to what my plans where for New Years Eve. It was a Friday night, so my options were kind of limited to watching Millennium on Fox or hearing that Wanna Be A Balla, Shot Calla song on the radio for the gajillionth and fifth time. Truth be told, I really was not looking forward to either.

To the best of my recollection, this is how I spent the last day of the 20th Century:

8:23 am

I awaken to the smell of microwave sausage patties. You know, those frozen little discs that were sold in oblong bags that had the ringing endorsement of RESTAURANT QUALITY stamped upon the label. Although I am now a proud vegetarian, I had to admit, those things were quite delectable. As a health-oriented youngster, I elected only eat five of them for breakfast that morn, before washing it down with a pot of Folgers.

9:01 am




I stare at my bedroom television for about five wasted minutes. For some reason, it is just otherworldly to be the owner of TWO current consoles simultaneously. In a way, I almost feel like a polygamist. Of course, I was about twenty eight undefeated games deep in NFL 2K, but since that shimmering PS1 was situated directly underneath the display cabinet, I could not help but give it primacy over my self-bought console.

Of course, my folks did not buy any games to go along with the new machine, so the only thing I had to play was a two year old demo disc that featured snippets of Metal Gear Solid, Medievil, Fighting Force and Intelligent Qube. Now, those are all fine and dandy games in their own right, but it really was not until spring of the next year that I really uncovered a cache of stellar games for the system, so for just an hour or so, it is me snapping necks and avoiding deadly rectangles (I call them death-tangles). Enjoyable enough, I suppose.




10:14 am

I waltz by the kitchen TV. It suddenly dawns on me that if the Y2K end-of-civilization thing comes to fruition, this may very well be the last time I EVER see Montel Williams face. Suddenly, as many a contemporary was fond of spouting, shit got real.




11:15 am

READING TIME! I have always been a huge bookworm, and since I love horror movies so, I was positively delighted to receive two huge ass books of genre film reviews for Christmas. That being said, I kind of have to disagree with the reviewer in one of them. According to the so-called expert, Dr. Giggles is a better movie than Re-Animator. To riposte, I merely state "horse feces".




12:04 pm

So anyway, I am flipping through the channels when I land on that one Christian network. These guys are absolutely playing up the whole humanity-is-going-to-end card, going as far as to advise viewers to load up on firearms (!), withdraw their life savings from the bank (!!), and place it all in GOLD (!!!). Man, I wish I would have taped that, you know, just as proof that the people that run the network are kind of retards.




1:01 pm

If it ever comes up, do not put your dial on ESPN 2 on a weekday afternoon. When you are reduced to showing cheerleading and sumo wrestling, you know that there is not anything going on in the sports world. Now, cheerleaders sumo wrestling, or sumo wrestlers cheerleading on the other hand. . .




2:53 pm




Eight minutes until Braceface comes on. I pass the time by staring at a recently purchased lava lamp.

3:42 pm

I finally stop staring at the lava lamp. Sorry, man, but that thing is HYPNOTIC!

4:05 pm

Great, a rerun of the Feud. I prop my feet on my old, candle wax stained coffee table and flip through some VHS and ECW catalogs. Why in the hell I felt the need to prominently display a canister of dillweed seasoning upon the mantle is one of the few quirks of my early teens that I cannot fully rationalize a decade later.

5:01 pm