Sax-xxing it Up

A few weekends ago, I went with the ladies to see Music and Lyrics. This Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore vehicle follows Grant's character, a former 80s popstar, as he capitalizes on what's left of his cultural cache. The movie opens with a video from the band Pop!, and, let me tell you, it brought back 80s memories. One of those memories had to do with the saxophone. I think that the saxophone was to the 80s what the moog synthesizer was to the 70s, which is to say "ubiquitous." Remember how many important and pressing things the saxophone had to tell us? I think the top five would read something like this:

5) I still believe! (even if this belief, i.e., "fighting that fight" and "[something, something] war," entails a belief in vampires.)

4) We all have wings/but some of us don't know wh-ha-ha-hiiiie!

3) The first one in line was the the last to remember her name (only applies to those who look good in pink.)

2) Guilty feet have got no rhythm (which, at the time, I sang as "guilty feeling that I've been given.")

1) The heat is on/On the street (Precient warning about global warming? You be the judge.)

At any rate, if I were to peg what ultimately led to the demise of the sax, I'd have to cite two people: Bill Clinton and Kenny G. Bill Clinton brought out the sax on The Arsenio Hall show in 1992, and you could have predicted then that he wasn't the only one who'd be doing the blowing. If you know what I mean. Say what you will, Clinton's sexy. Kenny G, on the other hand. Man, Kenny G, do you have to go blowing on that weirdo—what? tenor sax?—I don't even know. Just do us a favor, and put it down. No rational person every got hot listening to that infernal whine.

Ok, ok, I know the 80s are over. But I think that, if you look back, you'll see some persuasive reasons to value the complete and overwhelming garishness that marked our aesthetic liberty. Call me crazy, but I still ascribe to the belief that, if these guys don't like it, it's just not cool. Now where did I put my half-naked Rob Lowe poster?