# Party like it's 1999



## Jon M (Feb 19, 2013)

So I've been daydreaming a little (as well as writing) about another novella/novel-length story, and I'm not the best at researching stuff, so maybe you guys can help. The situation:



The setting: Los Angeles, Bakersfield, southern California in general, possibly Arizona 
The time: 1999. 
The gist: channeling my inner _Pulp Fiction_ on this one. Ensemble cast (my favorite kind of story), lots of quirky, funny, absurd scenarios, etc. The main character is convinced he is something of a prophet, a messianic figure, chosen by God, etc. His "work" includes robbing pharmacies, spreading the Good Word, and in general being a lovable, somewhat insane, reckless, loser. The story's framework is essentially all that buzz about Y2k, the armageddon sure to come, etc. 

I just need to get a feel again for what was happening in '99. I'm interested in any historical facts, of course -- Columbine, for example -- but would also like to hear any personal anecdotes from that time, if you are comfortable sharing and wouldn't mind me, er, maybe "using".


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## Nee (Feb 19, 2013)

You can get more than you need by doing a few simple google searches.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Feb 19, 2013)

Funny, questions like this always make me realize how bad my memory is. And I'm not sure how much my memory of 1999 is just my memory of being 22. Like I remember all my friends being such purists, really focused on the local music scene and anti-corporate anything but especially in terms of music. Anything on a major label was not okay and Steve Albini was god. Knew a few people in bands and running small record labels and we'd go to shows in basements and warehouses etc., they'd sit around retracing the genealogy of every acceptable indie rock musician; boring as hell, really.

Might not be all that helpful for a southern California setting, I guess. LA was _evil_. NYC was evil, too, but at least it wasn't _plastic._ I'm pretty sure I had about ten conversations like that. Then again, people move to LA from somewhere, often Midwestern places whose paranoiac social awkwardness and sour grapes BS must be cast off. Actually I had a highschool acquaintance who moved there, and everyone said, "Well, of course it's ____, _he_ would like it," in this disparaging way, and when he did pretty well as a parody act it made perfect sense to us that he'd succeeded by being fake. We were all dead earnest about everything all the time.

Maybe a Google search would be more helpful, who knows. Anyway, down memory lane without enough coffee, what fun...


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## Bilston Blue (Feb 19, 2013)

I was in Edinburgh to see in 1999 with my then girlfriend (now my wife), an open air rock concert on Queen Street or Princes Street, I can't remember for certain. We went to see Mansun play, though there were others too.

The show was good. The weather was freezing. Everyone went home at 2am on new year's day, like the streets simply emptied. We had nowhere to stay and a seven hour wait for our coach trip home, so we walked the grounds of the castle. It was foggy, which was fun and scary at the same time. Up near the castle we sat on a bench in a small car park, empty with the exception of a single car, something big, definitely an estate, not a hatchback. We'd been drinking whiskey but weren't properly drunk. The car seemed to be moving up and down, but we weren't sure. Then we noticed the windows were misted over. We were discussing the idea of having a closer look when a naked bum appeared and pressed itself against one of the windows. We burst out laughing as a second, slimmer-but-just-as-naked bum appeared. 

We sat giggling for ages. The couple in the car were none the wiser and carried on at it for a good while. 

That's how my 1999 began. It's as close as I got to sex and drugs and rock'n'roll that year. Or since, come to think of it.


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## Kevin (Feb 19, 2013)

What with the coming rapture/ pocalyps/ y2k we sold/gave away everything and moved to the mountains. Is it ok to come out yet?


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## Lewdog (Feb 19, 2013)

I could survive in the mountains as long as I have electricity, hot water, satellite tv, high speed internet, lots of string cheese, unlimited Dr. Pepper, a microwave...pretty much everything I would have in the city.


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## Ariel (Feb 19, 2013)

My grandmother who just passed started predicting the apocalypse every year since 1999.  When she was proven wrong she'd revise it to a few months or a year down the road.  She finally gave up on making me agree/believe her when I started calling her on it.

Other than my crazy grandma I was 15 at the time and I watched my house burn down with my younger brother inside with 4 days left of the year.  For me it was like an apocalypse.  My entire life changed.


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## Kevin (Feb 19, 2013)

That is...terrible. Really terrible.


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## Ariel (Feb 19, 2013)

It was a long time ago but I understand what you mean.

Other than all of that I remember the frenzy of the Y2K.  I remember how everyone kept asking "How are they going to change the clocks over on the computers?" I remember one person saying that the local government was just going to set the clock back thirty years and deal with the problem later and that if "they" didn't then all kinds of things would happen from our sewers shutting down to computers exploding and planes falling from the sky.  I had classmates who, for one reason or another, truly believed all of that would happen.


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## Pluralized (Feb 19, 2013)

People still used pagers and tucked their t-shirts into jeans. That wretchedly brilliant show Friends was in its prime, and the economy was absolutely banging away with the surging influx of the internet. I didn't have a cell phone yet, and most of my friends that did either flipped them open or clipped them on their belts. Halcyon times, for sure. Bill Clinton smiled as the Lewinsky scandal faded from popular memory. I turned 21 at the end of '99, and promptly got a DUI. They were a lot more lax back then....

My uncle is/was a doomsday/rapture freak, and made life really uneasy there for a few years (really between mid-98 and 9/11) until i got the hell out of dodge. The Y2k party I was at -- someone flipped the breaker and we were all terrified. Until we saw the streetlights still lit up.


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## Jon M (Feb 20, 2013)

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks, guys. This has been very fun to read. Hope the discussion continues. 

(amsawtell, I cannot imagine what that kind of loss feels like. Awful ...)


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## Gumby (Feb 20, 2013)

Well, having actually lived in Bakersfield California, from the time I was 9, until last year, I am available for any city specific questions you may have.


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## Kevin (Feb 20, 2013)

Gumby said:


> Well, having actually lived in Bakersfield California, from the time I was 9, until last year, I am available for any city specific questions you may have.


 That place, in my opinion is completely underwritten about. About all I can think of is some cop killing scenario set in the 1950s. 

I have a friend who lived in Taft, in a trailer, on 'oil' land. He moved there so his kid could race/practice moto-cross. One year he dropped about 50lbs, divorced his wife and took up with his former guard (he'd been busted for selling used cars without a seller's licence and she'd taken a fancy to him. His ex had turned him in.). 10 years later he's a traveling kareoke dj in Bullhead, with a house and a new wife.


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## Nickleby (Feb 20, 2013)

Jon M said:


> I just need to get a feel again for what was happening in '99. I'm interested in any historical facts, of course -- Columbine, for example -- but would also like to hear any personal anecdotes from that time, if you are comfortable sharing and wouldn't mind me, er, maybe "using".



A good way to immerse the reader in a particular time is to mention a news headline or a cultural phenomenon. A newspaper archive would give you a great picture of what people were talking about (back when people still read newspapers). You can also get more video than you'd ever want to watch--YouTube gave me more than 1,500,000 hits for "1999." You'll want to narrow that down to a theme, a date, or possibly a network.


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## edinfresno (Feb 20, 2013)

Interesting! First, I like the premise for your story. Those things are always fun and amusing to me.

Then, as now, I was living in the Central Valley and traveling quite a bit. I was on a train bound for Denver, Colorado during the New Year's period of 1999 (I despise air travel) and there was a man on the train who kept proclaiming in no uncertain terms how the world was going to come to a horrible, fiery end because of what was known as the "Millennium Bug" which was a computer glitch which, because of a seemingly minor and overlooked software error, would cause all of the clocks in all of the computers all over the world to revert back to the date of 1912 or something like that, thus screwing everything up and which, it was supposed, would cause everything to go haywire, thus bringing the world to the aforementioned fiery and catastrophic end.

Needless to say, New Years Eve came and went without consequence or event and the poor man was left quite embarrassed and humiliated by the other passengers.

You might find this an interesting point to add to your stories as, just off the top of my head, I can imagine many quite hilarious situations that could arise from encounters your "prophet" may have with such doomsayers. 

Also, I mentioned The Central Valley since I don't live particularly far from Bakersfield but you might want to reconsider the location, perhaps make it Fresno, instead.

I suggest this because I know Fresno well (although I don't actually live in Fresno but close by) and I can tell you! That city is a huge joke, both figuratively and quite literally. First, its one of the worst run cities in California. Fresno city management makes the City Council of Bell, California look almost honorable! You may remember the City Council of Bell, California from the huge scandal they created over their exorbitant wages and the constant wage increases they gave themselves.

Finally, Fresno is just a funny place. Not so much "funny" as in humorous but more like the straight man in a two man comedy act, always being the butt of jokes.

If you have any questions about this feel free to ask me.


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## JackBrooks (Feb 22, 2013)

I remember how scary it was that people got so excited about the end of the world, and that Prince was popular that year.


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## Whisper (Feb 22, 2013)

Historical Events for Year 1999 | HistoryOrb.com

Timeline of the 90s, 1999

1999 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What Happened in 1999 inc. Pop Culture, Prices and Events

Timeline of Events That Happened in 1999 - Timelines.com

Timeline of United States military operations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biggest Events of the Year 1999 - Top Ten List

You could also google what movies were released in 1999 and what TV shows ended, were on or started.


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## genevieve (Feb 25, 2013)

Jon M said:


> The gist: channeling my inner _Pulp Fiction_ on this one. Ensemble cast (my favorite kind of story), lots of quirky, funny, absurd scenarios, etc. The main character is convinced he is something of a prophet, a messianic figure, chosen by God, etc. His "work" includes robbing pharmacies, spreading the Good Word, and in general being a lovable, somewhat insane, reckless, loser. The story's framework is essentially all that buzz about Y2k, the armageddon sure to come, etc.
> 
> I just need to get a feel again for what was happening in ...
> if you are comfortable sharing and wouldn't mind me, er, maybe "using".




:cookie:

gonna throw some thoughts out there, k?

the self-proclaimed "prophet" might also have been a government "supervisor" ?
separation of church and state ?  no, no, no ... since it's difficult to tear the dogs apart (!)

"robbing pharmacies" ?  oh yes, and lives and minds and souls ...

quite the research project you've got goin' on here ... 

 imagine is now the aftermath, far beyond 1999 ...


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## Abdul-fattah (Feb 25, 2013)

Ah '99
I was 18 back then. Dont remember much. Much of partying, glitter clothes, house music and way to much booze. Vodka-red bull, glowing in a warm and fuzzy yellow because of the blacklights. Even though everybody hated those boybands, their style pretty much reflected how I look back at parties in the ninties. Lot of show. Or maybe that's just how I remember it. Eitherway, if you want to trigger nostalgia in your readers you might want to exagerate it a bit.


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## genevieve (Feb 25, 2013)

Jon M said:


>



oh, almost forgot, little nikki said hello   :love_heart:   'bye !


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## genevieve (Feb 25, 2013)

Abdul-fattah said:


> ... if you want to trigger nostalgia in your readers you might want to exagerate it a bit.




:cookie:


no


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