The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portly Demagogue Land

Here they come to snuff the guy with high favorables in Worcester

I don’t want this to come across the wrong way—I’m as amused as I am bemused—but I gotta ask: What the holy friggin’ hell, man?

I’m as nostalgic for the go-go Clinton years as anyone, but it’s getting a little weird. Seriously, who tore the space-time continuum? Or perhaps a better question to ask would be, who’s got a cranium sufficiently outsized to tear the space-time continuum as he emerges from a wormhole? Yeah, I’m callin’ it: We’re dealing with Gingrich straight off his House ouster, not the guy who’s been aging alongside the rest of us since. Take a gander, does he look any different than he did then? Sure, you could say the same of his baby pictures, but my point stands!

He didn’t just come back from the 90s, he brought the 90s back with him. Already I see the word “house” and think of something Newt was speaker of or a kind of music you do the running-man to, not a pill-popping misanthrope who solves medical mysteries.

Me, I think it’s great (that’s “great,” not “great,” which anyone who lived through the 90s can tell you denotes sarcasm). Oh, not necessarily in the political sense—contra Jon Meacham on Charlie Rose last night, which I watched for some reason even though I knew going in that both Meacham and Matthew Dowd would be guests, I don’t buy the CW that Romney’s more electable. I’ve got absolutely nothing but gut instinct to back this up, but it seems to me that they both pose about the same electoral threat, just incorporating a different set of “swing voters”—traditional independents for Romney, whereas Gingrich appeals more to voters who like to string people up and watch ‘em swing.

No, I’m excited because I won’t feel quite so out-of-place in this retro landscape. I’ll fit right in in my not-updated-in-over-15-years wardrobe; the saggy-in-the-ass cargo pants, the canvas sneaks, the ironic T-shirts (Get it? “World’s Greatest Mom?” For I am neither a parent nor female!). I can stop feeling like maybe the earrings oughta come out and the sideburns could use some pruning. I can let go of the festering guilt over never really bothering to get up to speed on Wu-Tang solo projects. I can quit worrying there’s something creepy about flirting with the cute twentysomethings who work the register at Tunes.

Yeah, you’re right, I should probably knock that last one off regardless. I no doubt flatter my younger self with the implication that it’s any creepier to be on the receiving end of my advances now than it was then anyway.

Tell ya what, though, if Obama shows up for the SOTU tonight in a hi-top fade I will shit. If the 90s taught us anything, it’s that there are certain looks even the handsomest brother can’t pull off. Don’t believe me? Check out any given In Living Color intro segment. Better yet, don’t; without lots of neon-squiggles-over-geometric-shapes distributed throughout the wider culture to build resistance, some of Keenan Ivory Wayans’s sartorial choices could prove retina-frying. And honestly, SW1, bright red overall shorts? You look like the rest of your Tweedledee exosuit burned up on reentry. Jim Carrey as a welcome presence, though? How 90s is that.

So here’s to a hopeful retread of my generation’s golden age. Let’s look forward to a humming economy, The Simpsons as appointment television, “political correctness” as something conservatives and liberals can be annoying about, and—dare we dream—reading material written by actual authors and lovingly parsed by proofreaders and editors, not just some stupid excuse for reference-humor puked onto a blog by some nobody who peaked last century.