My personal version of “I Love the 90s” continues...

1992

The year started with my seeing the movie “JFK” and becoming utterly convinced that Kennedy was killed in a coup de tat orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson. I even read a poem that I wrote about it aloud to my English class. And for this high school freshman, thus began my political career. It was followed by my election to the position of “Sophomore Senator” for the next year. I beat an Asian kid who could barely speak English by a very significant margin! I also entered the working world, doing a summer internship for Chuck Schumer. But the best political news for me was seeing Bill Clinton get elected President. To see a Democrat win the White House for the first time in my life was euphoric. And speaking of euphoria, I fell absolutely head over heels for this girl who sat next to me in English class, named Joslyn. I would carry a serious thing for her throughout my four years in high school. Quite an interesting history there. Elsewhere in 1992, I went on my last family vacation to California. This time we visited San Diego as well as L.A.

1993

After interning for Chuck Schumer in 1992, and being one out of a gazillion interns in the office, I decided to go somewhere where I could be of more use. So in the summer of ’93 I began working for then-Councilman (now Congressman) Anthony Weiner. Having just been elected to the City Council, I was Weiner’s very first intern and would continue to go back for many exciting summers to come. Back at school, I decided to prematurely run for President of the Student Alliance. It was an ambitious and, in hindsight, stupid move to run against an upperclassman and I got my ass handed to me. Bitter till the end, I decided to become a little revolutionary. Since student government has no power anyway, I banded all of the other election losers together and we formed our own little counter-government, challenging the real one’s legitimacy at every turn. Such fun! Since I had some free time I decided to enter the world of drama. I auditioned for my school’s production of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and came in second for the lead role of Eugene Jerome. Although disappointed, I went on to audition for the next musical “Hello, Dolly!” and this time was casted. I played a dancing waiter, the court clerk and several other ensemble roles. Clearly I was casted for acting skills though, and not because of singing or dancing! But most importantly in 1993, the family finally got cable TV.

Stay tuned tomorrow for 1994 and, the most significant year of the decade for me, 1995.