Typical: A Gen X Microcast

you look up from the podium during your reading and see the actress molly ringwald cutting through the crowd finding a place in the corner after the reading you’re relieved to find your editor in the back of the room though your interaction with him is a bit awkward before you can launch into an apology about the whole thing and explain your side molly ringwald appears and it’s clear they are a couple and all else is washed away in...

you feel strongly that whoever wrote the review should have to sign his or her name to it that publishers weekly shouldn’t be publishing anonymous reviews if someone feels strongly about a book one way or the other shouldn’t do so behind a curtain also the review mentions bret easton ellis twice which makes you suspect he’s the real target of the reviewer’s disdain you immediately recall an episode at harold ober where the editor o...

the rapper eminem and his wife reconcile the magazine editor at shout who ran your piece on the rapper tupac shakur invites you to a party in chelsea thrown for a new magazine edited by the daughter of the rolling stones guitarist keith richards neither of you knowing in advance that keith richards is going to be at the party the magazine editor says oh my god when he spots the recognizable silhouette of the legendary guitarist you...

a pop culture magazine called shout publishes an early excerpt of we’re so famous by arrangement with bloomsbury usa and the magazine editor asks if you want to contribute nonfiction and you pitch an article about how the rapper tupac shakur’s fans believe he isn’t really dead and will rise again on a date in the future you’re not much of a rap fan so you consult your youngest brother who is to get the facts straight shout loves th...

an agent in the midst of a divorce rents an empty office at harold ober and you ask him to represent the oral biography of bret easton ellis and he agrees to send it around for you the rapper eminem records a song wherein he describes killing his estranged wife eminem’s estranged wife attends his concert on his promise that he won’t perform the song he wrote about her but he does anyway and she leaves distraught getting in a car wr...

there’s some question as to whether or not the millionaire from the reality show is actually a millionaire and it comes to light that the millionaire is using a fake name and his former girlfriend had to file a restraining order against him when she ended their relationship all the police officers who riddled the immigrant reaching for his wallet with forty-one bullets are acquitted the rapper puff daddy pleads not guilty to charge...

as the clock counts down to the year 2000 the overzealous wait with bated breath for the end of times but when the calendar turns to january all that really happens is a couple of credit card machines refuse to process sales and a bank of slot machines at a casino in delaware all quit working the rapper puff daddy is charged in the incident in the nightclub with jennifer lopez the band rage against the machine plays a concert on wa...

no one can figure out for sure if the movie the blair witch project is real or not you see it even though you don’t really like horror films and you can’t tell but think the marketing campaign is to blame for the confusion which is the filmmaker’s intention and everyone proclaims the use of the internet in this way as genius the government pays the heirs of abraham zapruder tens of millions of dollars rather than relinquish the foo...

doctor jack kevorkian the euthanasia booster present at a number of suicides over the years is arrested when he actually helps someone commit suicide the magician david blaine is buried in a plastic coffin under a tank of water for a week across the street from trump plaza everyone stopping by to have their picture taken with the entombed magician the rapper puff daddy is arrested for assaulting the manager of another rapper over a...

michael jordan retires for the last time and for good the televangelist jerry falwell warns parents that one of the teletubbies the one called tinky winky is really gay and bad for children a twenty-two-year-old immigrant from guinea is shot forty-one times on the landing of his apartment in the bronx by four police officers who mistake him for a rape suspect and further mistake his reaching for his wallet as him reaching for a gun...

the woman who previously stalked late-night host david letterman stealing his porsche and sleeping near the tennis courts of his home in connecticut kneels in front of a train in colorado the house of representatives authorizes an impeachment inquiry against president clinton sportscaster marv albert’s criminal record is wiped clean after a year of good behavior two teens in wyoming pretend to be gay and lure an openly gay kid to a...

president clinton is subpoenaed in the lewinsky matter a few days later lewinsky meets with kenneth starr and admits to a sexual encounter with the president the very next day lewinsky is granted immunity president clinton agrees to testify voluntarily lewinsky hands over one of her dresses which rumor has it contains some of the president’s dna on it the little kid from diff’rent strokes everyone loved is arrested for punching a w...

drinks with friends at minetta’s for your birthday and you’re standing at the crowded bar trying to get the bar manager’s attention and when you look in the mirror behind the bar you see the actor who played ferris bueller is standing next to you and it takes everything you have not to turn to him and tell him how much you loved ferris and fancied that you were him when you were in high school and when you wake in the morning with ...

monica lewinsky wants immunity from kenneth starr who is leading the investigation of president clinton and his alleged misdeeds a white male in his thirties is arrested at sky harbor airport in phoenix for verbally abusing an airport employee and it turns out to be axl rose the front man of guns n’ roses that no one has seen in years the rumor is he lives in a mansion by the ocean in california and never leaves it just rehearsing ...

sonny from sonny and cher dies when he hits a tree while skiing in nevada the teacher in washington state impregnated by her twelve-year-old student is released from prison early and told to stay away from the student monica lewinsky files an affidavit in the paula jones lawsuit denying she had a sexual relationship with president clinton and a week or so later president clinton gives similar testimony someone named matt drudge run...

when you pack for the trip back to belgium at christmas you let your friend in connecticut know you won’t return and you’re not sure if that means just to her apartment or if it means something more you’re welcomed like a long-lost son-in-law by the au pair’s family when you return but outside of a nice christmas dinner at their house you don’t see them your old high school friend from phoenix flies to london and you and the au pai...

the lead singer of the band inxs which you saw all those years ago in high school hangs himself in a hotel room maybe it’s an accident maybe it’s something else even a scurrilous rumor about autoerotic sex gone awry the actor chris farley is found dead in his chicago apartment from a drug overdose paula jones’s lawyers subpoena a former white house intern in jones’s ongoing sexual harassment suit against the president the director ...

the singer john denver is killed when the plane he is flying runs out of gas you go to see the writer denis johnson read from his new book at the new school and wonder if he remembers a time in the not-too-distant past when he visited the university of arizona and you asked him a couple of questions raising your hand when no one else would out of nervousness or whatever a girl you meet who works for george plimpton the legendary wr...

marv albert goes on trial for sodomizing and biting a women he’d known for years the tabloids full of details like a woman grabbing albert’s toupee only for it to come off after four days of testimony albert pleads guilty to a lesser charge the promise keepers a christian organization for men founded by a former college football coach march on washington some suspect the group uses the bible to assert men’s superiority over women e...