Party like it's 1994

Friday, March 2, 2007
On an ideal day, I get up, and workout to ER for an hour or so. It passes the workout time, and I get the bonus of seeing Chicago on tv. ER was one of my favorite tv shows--I used to watch it so faithfully when it premiered in 1994. It was the perfect show at the perfect time—Amy and I had just moved to Chicago, and it was on Thursdays, after Seinfeld and Friends. I remember the early days of friends, too. One time, they had George Clooney and Carter on Friends as two NY doctors that Rachel and Monica tried to date. Another time, all the Thursday night sitcoms set in NY had a cross-show black-out episode. That seemed CRAZY to me at the time—this idea of all shows sharing a thematic link, but doing their own twist on it. That’s the same fall that Pulp Fiction came out, and I remember people being very excited about that, too. Everyone always would talk about how long-form improv was influencing pop culture, and cite Pulp Fiction as the example. I don’t know if that’s true—but I did see the parallels in the styles, and it was really hip for everyone to try to do long-forms like Pulp Fiction, or that other movie that follows a dollar around. Also, swing music and rockabilly was back in style, and the Smashing Pumpkins were very popular, too. Billy Corgan bought a huge-hugeVictorian house on Bosworth or Greenview, west of Southport, in Wrigleyville. My cool friend Sara and I used to walk by and try to see glimpses of him in the window.

I was in love with my city, and in love with my life in the mid-90s. I was young, working in advertising, taking classes at Second City and eventually, IO and just happy to be where I was, and Clinton was the president, so that was GREAT.

Watching ER is a reminder of that time period so I try to get up in time to work out to it during the week.