Boston.com / 1999 Year in Review


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Ins/Outs of 1999

By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff, 12/30/1999

o it ends, and not a nanosecond too soon. The Second Millennium (Early Edition). Nine hundred and 99 years of conquest, inquest, calamity, celebrity, heroism, despotism, genius, meanness, sin, spin, and Regis Philbin. Yee haw.

With the calendar ready to roll over to

Y-2-0-0-0 tomorrow night, the gods must be asking: Is that your final answer?

Yeaaahhh baby! And if the power doesn't go out, we'll plug in a year that can hold a candle to any of 'em, too.

''Blue's Clues'' in! Booze cruise out! Feng shui in! Dung art out! E-tailing in! Retailing out!

''Toy Story 2'' in! ''West Side Story'' out! Dixie Chicks in! Two Chicks Dishing out! Mini-Me in! ''Leprechauns'' out!

Slightly fictionalized presidential biographies in! Possibly fictionalzed presidential-hopeful biographies out!

Y'all had to live through it to believe it. And even then, 1999 was a bigger mystery than George W. Bush's ''young and irresponsible'' years.

Pokemon-mania was in, and Tinky Winky was outed. Chet and Nat were on the outs, but Bruce and the E Street Band were back in tune. Woodstock '99ers took out their lighters and torched the whole peace-and-love thing. US bombers took out a Chinese embassy not listed on Hertz's map of downtown Belgrade. Conversely, Chinese ideograms were explosively in So was Rage Against the Machine, although road rage was h\ opefully out.

This was some fun-filled fin de siecle, huh? Hannibal (The Cannibal) Lecter dined in style, again. Harry Potter invaded the nation's bookshelves. Carly Fiorina was installed in Hewlett-Packard's executive suite. Norman Rockwell and Carlos Santana were surprisingly back in fashion. Martha Stewart was in the money after her handsomely accessorized public offering. Marv Albert was back, but not back-biting, in the broadcast booth.

Zero had a numerically super- in annum. Ditto for cargo (pants), video (digital), Crespo (Elvis), Sopranos (HBO's), and techno. O, behave!

The New Sincerity was in. And we really, really mean that.

On the flip side, two Mars space probes faded out of radio contact. Talk magazine ran out of buzz. Minority characters were left out of too many network shows. Stephen King and Tom Gordon ran out of good karma, both landing on the disabled list. Dan (The Man) Quayle dropped out of the presidential race. Dr. C. Everett Koop dropped out of the sainthood sweepstakes. The Imus Book Awards went out of business, and the I-Man's s how got broomed out of WEEI's line-up. In its stead: guy radio, TV morning-show wars, and (yawn) ''Later Today.''

''Peanuts'' is bowing out after 50 years on the comics page. Aarrggh! Bill Gates took out ads explaining how Microsoft really, really did not mean to crush its competitors like cockroaches. John Martorano ratted out his former cronies. Good luck to you and the ex, John!

As if heads weren't spinning fast enough already, the planet welcomed in its 6 billionth citizen in 1999. Other Earthlings enjoying in -type years were gadfly historian Howard Zinn, la vida loca hunk Ricky Martin, dot.com mogul Jeff Bezos, tennis star Serena Williams, novelist Ha Jin, filmmaker Spike Jonze, cyber-heroine Lara Croft, designer Stella McCartney, actress Julianne Moore, columnist Gail Collins, bicyclist Lance Armstrong, essayist Jedediah Purdy, media don Mel Karmazin, supermodel Giselle, Red Sox manager Jimy Williams, opera singer Andrea Bocelli, and deceased comedian Andy Kaufman, untombed in two separate forms of biography.

Out to pasture, meanwhile, were councilor at large Albert (Dapper) O' eil, columnist A.M. Rosenthal, Hollywood memoirist Eddie Fisher, designer Bill Bl ass, CBS sportscaster Sean McDonough, tennis star Steffi Graf, WHDH-TV news director Mark Berryhill, Atlantic editor William Whitworth, ''Firing Line'' host William F. Buckley Jr., Howard Stern's marriage, the Beanie Babies craze, the New England Patriots' offense, the keys to the Panama Canal, the Celtics' parquet floor, and Pamela Anderson Lee's breast implants.

Just in from the travel desk: Chappaqua in, Chechnya, out.

In the winner's circle this year were a pair of talented Duncans, hoop star Tim and ''Green Mile'' actor Michael Clarke. The Rocks were more like in(comedian Chris and the WWF guy) and out(rapper Kid). Ditto for a couple of motor-mouth Lauras (Ingraham in, Schlessinger out). The US Women's World Cup squad was tops (and, on occasion, topless) in our heart s, and Pedro Martinez should have been tops in the AL MVP voting. But no sports drama was as incredible as the Ryder Cup finish.

To get your props in 1999, you might have tried one or more of these:day trading, pashmina wearing, carbo-dieting, dancing on Wepa! Wednesday, swallow ing SAMe, eating tubular yogurt, creating a millennial Web site, toting a Fendi baguette, undergoing a Naomi Wolf personality makeover, constructing a safe room, growing heirloom tomatoes, playing cover-two defense, converting to Linux, moving to Chelsea, dining at No. 9 Park, or claiming solidarity with Generation N.

Out activities, on the other hand, included most any of the following: championing creationism, running Reebok, curating a Museum of Fine Arts department, downloading porn on your Harvard computer, catching the West Nile virus, giving generously to Hillsdale College, investing in Planet Hollywood, serving underage drinkers at the Paradise Club, bidding on a supermodel egg, preferring Garth Brooks as a rock singer, predicting ''Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo'' had Oscar potential, shilling over erectile dysfunction, conducting a listening tour of upstate New York, or dating Michael Douglas on the pretext that he's ''younger than Kirk.''

In the deepening millennial twilight, we light one last candle for some great ones who passed away this year: William Alfred, Doug Sahm, George V. Higgins, Joseph Heller, George C. Scott, Quentin Crisp, Art Farmer, Gene Siskel, Mel Torme, Joe Williams, Rick Danko, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Bowles, Mario Puzo, Saul Steinberg, Iris Murdoch, Yehudi Menuhin, Horst, Dusty Springfield, Hoyt Axton, Al Hirt, Jose Quintero, Curtis Mayfield, Meg Greenfield, Shel Silverstein, Madeline Kahn, Andre Dubus, John F. Kennedy Jr., and Leonard Zakim.

May your memories glow on, in total Y2K-compliance.