"You must be older than the war crimes of Slobodan Milosevic to drink in this establishment."

The period of the indictment under which he was charged covered events from 1 August 1991 to late 1992. I don't know at what point it started to attract American attention; presumably much later than this.

It must have been doubly confusing if you thought Top Gun was already a satire

"You must be older than Hot Shots! (part une) to drink in this establishment."

"You must be older than Widespread Panic[fn1] to drink in this establishment."

fn1:  The album, not the band.  Their debut was actually a couple years earlier, and I actually have zero notion when I possible would have heard of them the first time.  

Dunh-nunhah-nah-nunh

"You must be older than...."

"... older than..."

"... than..."

"... older than...:"

"No explanation needed.  If you only 'kind of' know what this is about, you ain't old enough to drink here.  If you remember the first time you saw this video... well, mate, you probably lookin' about as good as the old guy, ain'cha?"

If they forgot your present, it's probably 'cause they didn't expect you to make it this long

"Now, see, it's not usually unusual for someone to be conceived during a graveyard shift."

"But being conceived during The Graveyard Shift...?  Little bit less usual."

"I'm guessing alcohol was involved, yeah?  Well, chances are if your brain's shrunk enough to repeat your folks' mistake, your balls are probably shrunk enough to obviate any chance of success, so here---21st birthday drink's on me."

"You must be older than Pee Wee Herman's porn theater arrest to drink in this establishment."

I'd love to have a punchline for this thing.... but c'mon.  How do you improve on what's already there?  

"You must be older than 'Love... Thy Will Be Done' to drink in this establishment."

... uh, yeah.  I remember "Toy Soldiers," in fact quite well, but this one kind of gets lost in the shuffle of Tori Amos, Sophie B. Hawkins, Suzanne Vega, and the rest.

More geekery -- comparative economic indicators edition

"You must be older than the modern Indian economy in order to drink in this establishment.

I love the duality in the picture above (source); there are, indeed, many contradictions here.  On the one hand, for nearly a generation it has been the second-fastest growing economy in the world, after only China---and India, not China, ultimately will be the world's largest, or anyway is expected to.  On the other, still the greatest population of people living in poverty---on $2 a day or less---is found in India, not in Africa.

Here, for example, is a sample of economies that were about the size of India's in 1990; since then, India has fast outstripped them all, both the mature Northern economies and the dynamic Southern one:

(Programming note:  I would have included other countries to provide more thorough basis of comparison, but Google's public data charts get really flat when you include countries too far out of scale, such as China and the U.S.)  

But as much as that highlights the total growth of the Indian economy, it obscures the significant fact of India's 1.3 billion population.  That makes a huge difference when you compare how the larger economy actually translates into real people's living standards.  Here's the same basket of national economies, this time divided by population to show per-capita share (note the longer time frame along the bottom axis; again, Google public data editor flattens the data unattractively if I were to correct that error):

And there you have it.  India still has the fastest growth rate over this time series, but ... well, just look at it.  The effects are as hard to see on the ground as it is in the flattened graph above.  Even this remarkable rate economic growth, after more than two decades, still has yet to deliver modern living standards, or at least has yet to deliver them beyond India's new rich (more than 125,000 millionaires, and the fourth-most billionaires, with 55).  The growth is impressive---since 1990, India increased its per-capita economic activity 167%, from $1,200 to $3,200, where even the frenetic pace in Switzerland falls short of 50%.  But at the end of that period, the European countries have converged on the $40,000 figure that marks the world's rich countries, while even Mexico ($12,800) exceeds the worldwide per-human average of $9,000 of annual economic activity.  India is currently at about one-third that per-human average, and its economy generates nine dollars per Indian, per day, of total economic activity.  

You didn't phone when you said you would; do you lie, do you try to keep in touch, you know you could

If today's your 21st birthday, you might have been conceived to this song:

"Get it? Not enough 'head' room!"

"You must be older than jokes about Milwaukee cannibalism to drink in this establishment."

"Listen, we're about to close up... 's'been a long day.  Anyway, gimme yer ID; you gotta ha' been born before the end of The Hogan Family to drink here."

For a video, I don't have one from the eventual title, so let's go with "Valerie" instead:

"I didn't say 'oops.'  Meant to do that.  Hic."

Pudge

"You must be older than the Ivan Rodriguez era to drink in this establishment."

"Oh, you like to wiggle and grunt---me too"

"You must be older than Dutch to drink in this establishment."

... and happy birthday, George!

Lollapalooza

"You must be older than Lollapalooza in order to drink in this establishment."

So much to say....  Obviously the legacy of Lollapalooza looks rather mixed in the fullness of time.  It inspired countless imitators---I recall Area One and Smoking Grooves, and to the extent that it was inspired by Ferrell's show, Lilith Fair, although there were almost certainly dozens of series on precisely this model in the 90s to mid 00s.  Some of these were actually pretty good, a lot were horrid... all of them seemed far, far too big to be enjoyable, but de gustibus non est disputandum.

At the time, though---and especially this was so to one not yet really old enough to get to go spend one's summer job money on this sort of thing---the idea of a days-long concert series involving not just one's favorite bands but possibly all of the favorite bands, or at least all of 'em 'cept The Talking Heads or something, and who knows they might even show up for next year's... the whole thing was Too Big in entirely a different way.  Something you simply couldn't believe was really happening (although, of course, that you were going to miss it was entirely too credible a circumstance).

I know it sounds silly, but as trivial as this blog gets, I am really trying to accomplish profundity with it, at times at least.  The temptation, therefore, is to wrap up Lollapalooza along with the Clinton administration and Microsoft and all the other touchstones of the 90s into some great narrative of "things we didn't know it yet, but were in the process of defining the era of a self-indulgent sense of security."  To be honest, though, I really don't know what it meant.

I mean, the whole thing was a farewell swan song for Jane's Addiction that metastasized into a firehose of alternative music, and they even got back together again.  If that's not a warning sign about the plasticity of meaning and symbolism, I mean, man....

"Ten bucks says it's the guy who looks like Kenny G who rhymed 'adore' with 'amor'"

"You must be older than this bit of... let's call it music, for simplicity's sake, to drink in this establishment."

Why do I doubt my own premise on this one?

Happy 21st birthday, kid conceived to Bona Drag!

"November might've spawned a monster, but October spawned something gorgeous!  Mwah!"

Uhh...

"Older than 'Pregnant for the Last Time' to drink here?"

"Does this schtick even make sense anymore?  Oh, wait---look what's coming."

Simply...

Happy 21st birthday, first kid conceived to "The Best" (Tina Turner's version)!

"You must be older than the phrase 'Roseanne Barr, published author' in order to drink in this establishment."

Yeah... you know what? nothing from me on this one.  When I think about her show, yeah, most of it seems goofy and hokey and pretty much like everything my parents' generation was supposed to like---that is, largely excruciating by way of emotional association---but dammit, there was a time in this country when it wasn't a felony to air a show about the way working poor people lived.  So that's how bad this country has gotten:  One of the signs of how bad, exactly, is "we can't have nice things.  You know.  Like Roseanne.'

Dewey

"You must be older than... whoa...."

"You gonna jump or jerk off?"

"You must be older than Point Break to drink in this establishment."

The lawyer turns out to be a scumbag. That's what we in Hollywood call a 'surprise twist'

"You must be older than Regarding Henry to drink in this establishment."

"The name is Styles... Furious Styles"

"You must be older than Boyz in the Hood to drink in this establishment."

"You must be Xtapolapocetl in this establishment."

Full video available (for the time being, pending Fox copyright lawyers getting back from break) http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v3920810ce6.  

Detta är olidlig smörja som utarbetats!

"You must be older than Swedish death metal in order to drink here."

Ah, good to get back to the office... oh dear god, what is this waiting for me?

Whoops---sorry to my regular readers, as I've taken something of a break this past week.  No particular excuses, although it definitely seems like after T-2 everything just took a break.

But, umm... huh.  Let's see.  Gotta be older than email for Windows to drink here?  (Date available this page.)

Okay, let's hope next week in history was busier.  See you again soon.

Wanna buy Madonna's pap smear?

"You must be older than Slacker to drink in this establishment."

I actually tried to watch this movie, once---I don't recall if it was after I'd seen Days & Confused or whether my alt-slash-weird friend just heard it was cool.  Our endurance got us through what might charitably be called "act three" or so, but it lasted no further.  We switched off the screen and, having rented no other movies from Hastings that particular weekend, went outside and looked at a tree or something.  No broader lessons were learned.  No growth was experienced.  The only consequence of it was this:  I hated that movie, and I couldn't forget that I had just spent an hour of my teenage life giving it a chance that it was never going to justify.

Sigh.

Anyway, happy Fourth of July, everyone.

Here's the story of a lovely lady who no not really I didn't ever watch the show. Why, did I get that wrong?

Happy 21st birthday, last kids conceived before the Beverly Hills 90210 era!

Times like these, I'm just relieved to know there's no way my existence dates to seconds before my dad made a post-coitus joke involving the phrase "the peach pit."

... or calling his testicles "Brendon and Brenda."
--------
.... I almost feel bad using this post to welcome my nephew Sawyer into the world.  Happy zeroth birthday, kid!

In Mexico, his line was "Sayonara, baby"

"You must be older than Terminator 2 to drink in this establishment."

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

Happy 21st birthday, last kids conceived in East Germany!

(pic)

"You must be older than Heavy D's 'Now that We Found Love' to drink in this establishment."

"You must be older than Hey Stoopid to drink in this establishment."