Hyper retroactive

In the ongoing procession of events that lead me to believe I don't know what the hell is going on anymore, VH1 has successfully wrapped the most recently completed decade in a shroud of accelerated nostalgia. You know and adore "I Love the '80s," you know and are baffled by "I Love the '70s." Now, prepare to know and minimally respond to "I Love the '90s!" \nFINALLY. Hey crew! Remember grunge? Wow, remember that dude Scott Weiland who used to OD then go to rehab and come back out and live it all over again like some kind of twisted modern Sisyphus? Of-freaking-course you do because it happened again earlier this year. You also "remember" Brittany Spears, Christina Alguil… Algui…X-tina, Jennifer Lopez, Kid Rock and countless other threads of late '90s occurrences that have yet to resolve and offer themselves over to nostalgia. I cannot reminisce about the Teletubbies because I just watched them with a bowl of Lucky Charms this morning.\nHow about "Sex and the City," Viagra and Monica Lewinsky? Come on, there are still late night monologue jokes about these things. They are not done being viscerally annoying yet. Give it 10 friggin' years. It's like having a show about the pop events of the past week or -- wait, you already WHAT?!\nYes, it's "The Best Week Ever," a humorous look back at the past seven days. Apparently, "I Love Thirty Minutes Ago" was thought to be a little convoluted and horrifying. Come along as we walk down memory lane to the greener days of Wednesday, or to those uncertain times of Thursday. Am I overreacting? Is this immediate evaluation and commentary a little overkill? Is it at 23 when you start having problems with movies and TV, or am I really losing my actual damn mind? \nI wouldn't be so indignant if I didn't feel some suspicion that all this demanding of fond memories for five minutes ago wasn't somehow a mass conditioning. What does it mean to the media that the public gets contemplative when we hearken back to the good ol' days of "The Sopranos" first season, looking back from the foggy distance of its fifth season? What does the corporate hydra have to gain if I get misty-eyed thinking about "Mambo #5?" \nI can't answer that question. And I can't prove that all this is really negative. And I guess it's not really all that horrifying, but how do you explain it? \nLike this: VH1 found itself with a highly successful series in "I Love the '80s" and couldn't leave well enough alone after they went back a decade for the '70s. You couldn't go further back, because the '60s are actually historic. Not to mention Michael Ian Black probably couldn't muster a snappy remark when they rolled the Zapruder tape or the Moon landing. (Or maybe he could: "Today, ich bien ein dead" or "That's one small step for man, one giant leap from my mother-in-law!" Ha, Michael, you've done it again. Or rather, I have … through you.) \nWith the route to the '60s blocked, they could either rerun both '70s and '80s series into eternity or go to the '90s and avoid over-saturation. So of course, in the current spirit of moderation, they did both. And yeah, up to about '93 or '94, some of the segments were surprising. I forgot about Color Me Bad wearing their clothes backwards. Billy Ray Cyrus didn't pack the monotonous wallop he once did (even though you have to endure the mullet jokes from the one-zinger-an-episode commentators). Then you creep into '96 or so. No Doubt? Yeah, I remember No Doubt. They just came through with another anonymous single a couple months ago. \nFrom then on, it's a game of tolerance for things that were either recently or are currently irritating. \nMaybe what frightens me most about these shows is that VH1 is actually targeting my demographic. That, frankly, scares the shit out of me. I'm youthful and vibrant. I'm on the cutting edge. Sure, I may slip sometimes, but I'm not out of it. Then again, I think I said sometime this week that today's rock isn't nearly as good as it was 10 years ago. Does that make me cranky? Also, I got winded running out to catch my ride waiting curbside. And I've been eating international cuisine and avoiding fast food! (Let's just skip the part about the receding hair line.) I can almost say I'm in my mid-twenties! Aw crap! I'm Paleolithic over here!\nSomebody get Doc Brown on the phone, we need to turn back the hands of time -- oh wait, NO! That was an '80s reference! I meant, "Hey, somebody call the … 'American Idol,' so I can … uh, be a 'Survivor' and … um, give my final answer … which is bling-bling." Did that make sense? \nP.S. Here are some more ideas for shows I found simmering in the satanic cauldron of VH1 programming: "I Love Last Night's 20/20;" "The Best Commercial Break Ever;" "I Love Making Banal Observations About Negligible Televised Events That Are So Compulsively Re-Watchable Society Will Never Spend Time Thinking of Something New and All Movies Will Be Based On Comic Books, Video Games or '70s Television Shows Which Sincere People Admit They Don't Remember." When this last show eventually gets turned into a movie, a rip in time occurs and a bizarre permutation of popular events domino onto one another. Miraculously, all that happens is Anna Nicole puts the weight back on. She is applauded for her bravery.