3/ On this day: – Clinton still in office – The Chicago Bulls dynasty is still intact. Their Last Dance (97/98 season) is not official – Nasdaq booming – No "major" wars – school shootings weren't a thing – Few worried about bin Laden – "Kosovo" meant nothing – The internet superhighway was magic
4/ But also - within days to weeks later – The Kosovo insurgency was escalating – The KLA was arming – Bin Laden declares war on the U.S. – Linda Tripp was taping Lewinsky – The Bulls were starting their Last Damce – Dot-com stocks were priced like dreams Cracks start forming immediately
5/ In the next 18 months: – Clinton impeached – Bulls "Last Dance" ends in a final championship – Columbine – Kosovo bombed – Dot-coms start collapsing – Al-Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies – Woodstock ‘99 devolves into fire and sexual violence on pay-per-view
6/ The Dance is not just the return of a Boomer rock band (which also set the monetization model of bands "returning") It’s the moment (in retrospect) when the cultural triumph of the postwar Western arc of peace, profit, and (pop) music hit its peak. The apex of the American Project.
7/ This is THE moment before Columbine, before Bush v. Gore, before 9/11. I could go on. Yet our current future was silently in motion. But on August 19, 1997, there was no reason to believe anything would change anytime soon. The past was done, the present was profitable, the future frictionless.
8/ Anyway, this is it. The date of death for the American century, our short lived "post-history" American and western cultural, economic, and political hegemony writ large.
9/ Its August 19, 1997. A beautiful summer day. You return to school soon. Your parents are listening to their new Fleetwood Mac CD, driving home from Camelot Music at the mall. You're thinking maybe some of your parents music isn't so lame after all (not that you'd tell them). Life Is Good.
10/addendum #1: A friend also pointed this out to me: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones seminal performance of The Impression That I Get on SNL (hosted by Chris Farley!!!) happened two minths later, on October 25th.
11/addendum #2: You didn't ask for it, but here's a hastily generated visual timeline
Best song!
It should be noted that Chris Farley OD'd a few weeks after this episode. Its really hard to find anything online from it but for the Bosstones performance.
Yeah I remember when that happened. Devastating.
And then Chris Farley died on December 18, 1997. I have all sorts of intel on the goings on backstage during that SNL, thanks to my secret ska lore. It was not pretty.