It's lonely at the top, but it's a damn sight lonelier at the bottom

"You must be older than Splitting Heirs to be served in this establishment."

... and happy birthday, Robbie! (this was a bit more cheerful an occasion than the morning's announcement)

"You must be older than the Monica Seles stabbing to be served in this establishment."

Whacking Day

"You must be older than Supernintendo Chalmers to be served in this establishment."

 

"You must have drawn breath with Mick Ronson to be served in this establishment."

Okay, I actually didn't know all of the following about his career.  Here are a handful of songs---all of which you know---on which Ronson played:

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.  And then there's "Jean Genie" and some other Bowie records, including one covered by Lulu before it was covered by Nirvana ("The Man Who Sold the World"), plus he produced Your Arsenal.

(Okay, guilty as charged on that last one, which I would have taken any excuse to slide in.  Sue me; it's my blog.)

"You must have been born before women were allowed to be combat pilots to be served in this establishment."

A Woman's Worth

"You must be older than[fn1] the nineties' best example of sideboob until the movie Contact to be served here."

"What?  I was fourteen, and there wasn't really the internet back then.  Anyway, forget it---here's your IDs back.  That's two slippery nipples, coming right---"

"Oh.  Right.  A beer and a whiskey sour.  Sorry, don't know what I was... uh...."

(pic source)
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fn1:  Date extrapolated from first appearance on best sellers' list. 

We'll make great pets

"You must be older than Porno for Pyros to be served in this establishment."

No man will stand taller than you

"You must have drawn breath at the same time as Cesar Chavez to be served in this establishment."

Who's the Man?

"You must be older than the acting careers of Doctor Dre and Ed Lover to be served in this establishment."

Oh, look, here's the whole movie:

Eh, why not.  Not like I'm doing anything today. 

"You must be older than the Washington, DC Holocaust Museum to be served in this establishment."

Higher ratings than The X-Files, if anyone's wondering why the Chinese started to eat our lunch

"You must be older than Walker, Texas Ranger to be served in this establishment."

Uhhh... huh.  You know what, I think we need a different flashback:

... and happy birthday, Val!

[edit] ... and R.I.P., Hurricane Carter.

Hey Jerky!

"You must be older than the Jerky Boys to be served in this establishment."

I kissed him upside the cranium with an aluminum baseball bat

"You must be older than Pork Soda to be served in this establishment."

Depeche Mode, New Order, Duran Duran coming back---Radiohead and Frank Black starting out---holy shit, I forgot how good this year in music was.  Bill Clinton really wanted to be John Kennedy and never really got there, but for one brief shining moment, it really looked like we were over the Milli Vanilli / New Kids / Tiffany stage of music. 

Then a little while later we got the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys....[fn1]
---
fn1:  Now, if a band called GirlBoys had put out an album called Back of Spice Street, that shit probably would have been dope. 

Waco

"You must be older than the burning of the Branch Davidians' compound to be served in this establishment."

Tragic in its own right---the children who were the reason for the FBI standoff in the first place perished in the flames as well as their captors---the incident also serves as a capstone for the utter dementing of some portion of the American public, who believed their government to have murdered, deliberately slaughtered its own citizens because they believed in home-schooling and god and the second amendment (I may be misstating this theory; it was never well articulated to me). 

But the later reverberations of this can wait another year.

To protect and serve (the $#!+ out of you)

"You must be older than the second Rodney King trial to be served in this establishment."

Yeah... uh, there doesn't seem to be real footage on Youtube.  Anyway, after the Simi Valley jury of retired Irish cops decided the four LAPD cops were within their rights to beat Rodney King within an inch of his life, the feds took over and charged the four---not with attempted murder or aggravated assault, but with a civil rights violation.

The federal trial ended with two of the four acquitted and two convicted and sentenced to thirty months in prison.  Somehow, if Yakov Smirnov had a reaction, I must have missed it.

Como Agua para Chocolate

... shoot, can't believe I missed this one.  "You must be older than[fn1] Like Water for Chocolate to be served in this establishment."

fn1:  Not the movie, and not the Common album---the novel that inspired both.  And as ever, publication date is extrapolated from first appearance on the New York Times best-sellers list.

"You must be older than the Lee Smith saves record to be served in this establishment."

No, that's not the game itself.  Yes, the record has been twice broken since (Hoffman, then Rivera). 

A Coors at Coors Field...

"You must be older than Major League Baseball games in Colorado to be served in this establishment."

The woman who got Eleanor Roosevelt to leave the DAR

"You must have drawn breath at the same time as Marian Anderson to be served in this establishment."

Seriously, go read.

You're killing me, Smalls!

"You must be older than The Sandlot to be served in this establishment."

I dunno... a million sounds pretty decent to me

"You must be older than Indecent Proposal to be served in this establishment."

Why can we not be sober?

"You must be older than Tool to be served in this establishment."

Early morning, April four: A shot rings out in the Memphis sky

The 7th Guest

"You must be older than computer games that were played on CDs[fn1] to be served in this establishment."

 

-----

fn1:  Or close enough.  I can't find an authoritative source on which game was actually the first to appear exclusively on CD-ROM, but this was the first big one, although LucasArts would soon follow with Rebel Assault.  The earlier Star Wars title X Wing eventually became available that way, too, but the first release was sold on 3 1/2s---if memory serves, you had to load about twelve of them onto your hard drive before you could play the game.