[00:17] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the ‘80s. I am Meg.

[00:20] Jessica: I am Jessica, and Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We met here in New York City, where we went to middle school and high school together.

[00:30] Meg: And we still live in New York City. And we are podcasting about it.

[00:33] Jessica: Yay!

[00:34] Meg: About specifically New York City and the ‘80s.

[00:36] Jessica: Even more yay. I cover Pop Culture.

[00:40] Meg: And I do Ripped from the Headlines. Before we get started, Jessica and I just wanted to do a little moment of gratitude. What lucky girls we are.

[00:50] Jessica: Oh, yippee.

[00:51] Meg: Because Alex from Flaming Pablum

[00:54] Jessica: We love Alex!

[00:57] Meg: He is sending us tips for stories and amazing blog posts that are like companion pieces to the stories that we're doing.

[01:06] Jessica: Has Alex become our producer?

[01:08] Meg: Oh, my God. Do you think he would?

[01:09] Jessica: Oh, my God. Alex, if you're listening, we desperately need you. We're not kidding. We desperately need you.

[01:16] Meg: But we are planning a play date in September.

[01:19] Jessica: Oh, yay. That'll be super excellent and super weird. It'll be like, don't cross the streams. Like worlds collide. Oh, my God. All right, well yay Alex. What has he suggested that you're bringing up today?

[01:34] Meg: I sent you a bunch of stuff.

[01:36] Jessica: We're just giving them a shout out.

[01:38] Meg: Exactly.

[01:38] Jessica: Shout out! Holla!

[01:57] Meg: So, Jessica.

[02:00] Jessica: you already have me giggling. What is it?

[02:01] Meg: Do you remember the first time that you went to Lincoln Center?

[02:02] Jessica: What a good question. Well, when we were little, didn't they do The Nutcracker?

[02:09] Meg: Oh, sure.

[02:10] Jessica: Yeah, that was it.

[02:11] Meg: But they would also take us to the opera. They took us to the ballet.

[02:15] Jessica: You mean our parents or the school? Oh, the school took us to see The Firebird. Remember that?

[02:21] Meg: Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said that.

[02:23] Jessica: Is that where you're going with this?

[02:25] Meg: My heart just started pounding a little bit.

[02:27] Jessica: Oh, my God, yay.

[02:29] Meg: Do you want me to dive in? Maybe I should just dive in because you just said Firebird.

[02:33] Jessica: Okay.

[02:34] Meg: My sources for today's story are Violinist.com, New York Times articles from 1980, Zoe Spinnet of Solved True Crime Case. She's just very good at what she does. She tells true crime stories, and I love her.

[02:51] Jessica: Okay.

[02:52] Meg: And Murderpedia.com.

[02:54] Jessica: Nice.

[02:56] Meg: On Wednesday evening, July 23, 1980, the Berlin Ballet was in town performing a program of Firebird, Five Tangos, Don Quixote, and Miss Julie at the Metropolitan Opera House. After Firebird, at around 9:30, Helen Hagnes and Thomas Suarez, who were freelance violinists performing in the pit that night, took an extended break. They weren't needed for Five Tangos, and that piece was followed by an intermission. Thomas headed to the canteen, grabbed a coffee, and hung out in the backstage area. After intermission, he returned to the pit to perform Don Quixote. Quote, we awaited the close succession of the rising, magnificent Metropolitan Opera House chandeliers, lowered lights, hushed audience, closing of the pit door, and finally, the A from the oboe. I just love that description.

[03:59] Jessica: It's beautiful.

[04:01] Meg: But Helen's seat, which was right in front of him, was empty except for her very valuable and beloved violin. After the show, Thomas assumed she must have gotten sick, so he took her violin for safekeeping. In the meantime, Helen's husband, Janis Mintiks, waited in his car outside Lincoln Center. Helen and Janis had decided it wasn't safe for her to take public transportation home after her performances. When she didn't emerge, Janis headed back to their Upper West Side apartment, figuring they had their wires crossed. But she never came home. After midnight, Janis answered the buzzer. It was Thomas with Helen's violin. Now in a panic, Janis called 911, and the police descended on the largest repertory opera house in the world: the Met. The Met is one of the most technologically advanced stages in the world, with its vast array of hydraulic elevators, motorized stages and rigging systems. When the Metropolitan Opera is on hiatus, the stage is used by the American Ballet Theater. It boasts massive storage spaces, large workshops for scenery, construction, costumes, wigs and electric equipment, as well as kitchens, offices and employee canteen and dressing room spaces, two ginormous rehearsal halls, in other words…

[05:32] Jessica: Lots of places to hide a body?

[05:34] Meg: It's huge.

[05:36] Jessica: Got it.

[05:37] Meg: Police searched the building, and at 08:30 a.m. the following morning, they found Helen's body. She had been thrown from the Met's six story roof into a ventilation shaft. Her body had fallen 30 to 45ft, and she had died sometime between 09:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. that night during Act II.

[06:02] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[06:03] Meg: She was found naked, bound and gagged.

[06:08] Jessica: A classic for freaks and creeps.

[06:12] Meg: 30 year old Helen Hagnes was born in Canada and moved to New York to go to Juilliard. She and Janis, who was a sculptor, had been married for four years. Helen's friend Alice Montoya told the police that Helen had been planning to track down Valery Panov, the Soviet born choreographer and principal dancer for the Berlin Ballet, to ask him to pose for a sculpture with Janis. Valery and his wife, Galina, had famously defected from Soviet Russia. Isn't this so ’80s?

[06:45] Jessica: It could not be more White Nights if we tried.

[06:46] Meg: So in the swirl of tabloid stories after Helen's body was found, there were implications of KGB involvement in Helen's death. As it turns out, Valery never spoke to Helen that night as he was in the audience watching his wife Galina's performance in the ballet. Under hypnosis, Laura Cutler, a ballerina in the company, recalled being in an elevator backstage during intermission with Helen and a white man with tousled hair and a tool belt. Helen had asked this man where to find Valery, and the man had said the fourth floor. But all the dancers’ dressing rooms were on the ground level. After a sketch of the man in the elevators was circulated, the police narrowed in on Craig Crimmins, a 21 year old stage hand. You know in the movie Elf when he goes down into the mailroom? It's like a Turkish prison?

[07:43] Jessica: Yes.

[07:44] Meg: That's what I picture the bowels of the Met after reading this description.

[07:52] Jessica: Wait, what was the name of the woman who did the hypnosis?

[07:55] Meg: Laura Cutler.

[07:57] Jessica: Maybe you'll get to this later. But why was she being questioned or asked to recall? Did she volunteer?

[08:04] Meg: What I gathered was she was like, I think I saw her, but I don't really remember. So they put her under hypnosis, and then she remembered a lot of details about what happened in the elevator.

[08:16] Jessica: Interesting.

[08:17] Meg: Yeah. So she thought she saw her, but she wasn't sure. The stage hands were reportedly drinking, getting high, and doing coke on the regular. When questioned, Craig claimed he was doing his job that night, but it turned out he missed his cues in the second half of the show. And the clove hitch knots used to tie Helen are used by stage hands to bind curtains. And then Craig's palm print was found on the pipe on the roof, right where she had been pushed off.

[08:52] Jessica: Well, if this was a frame up, it was excellent.

[08:56] Meg: He finally admitted that the crew had gone out drinking between the matinee and the evening shows. After the ballerina got off the elevator, and this is from Craig Crimmins confession… A lot of what I'm about to say is directly from his testimony in the trial and also his confession.

[09:17] Jessica: Is this a trigger warning?

[09:19] Meg: I find it disturbing. I will say that.

[09:21] Jessica: Okay. Trigger warning.

[09:25] Meg: Well, you’ll see. I’m interested to see whether you find it disturbing.

[09:27] Jessica: All right.

[09:28] Meg: Quote, I said something to her, Helen, and she hit me. She smacked me on the right side of my face on the ear. She said something snotty and loud. Crimmins said he then forced her off the elevator and down the stairs to an underground stairwell. She was, quote, afraid of me. I sort of talked her into fooling around. I said it wouldn't hurt, but she started freaking out on me. She tried to hit me. I grabbed her hands. That's when I took out a hammer. I just held it and told her to walk up the stairs. When she saw the hammer, she started taking off her clothes. She took them all off. Crimmins said he unsuccessfully attempted to rape Helen and then told her to, quote, get dressed and go upstairs. On their way, Helen tried to escape by tugging at a door that led into the opera house.

[10:22] Jessica: Did she put her clothes back on? Apparently not. All right, go ahead.

[10:26] Meg: Quote, I grabbed her and gave her a shove and said, keep walking upstairs. Then – they're on the roof now – he tied her up and began to walk away. Quote, I told her I would leave her and tell someone she was there. I walked away, but I heard a rattling sound. Helen had freed the rope around her feet and was running across the roof. He caught her and tied her again using rags he found in a nearby bucket. Quote, at that point, I picked her up in my arms, carried her to the ledge of the air shaft. She was talking to me, trying to be nice. He gagged her, took a knife from his belt and slashed off her clothes. So, I guess, I don't know. He's the only one who can tell us what happened, so who knows–

[11:18] Jessica: Unreliable witness.

[11:19] Meg: –when the clothes were on or off or whatever. Quote, I figured if she got loose, she wouldn't run because she might be embarrassed.

[11:23] Jessica: Interesting.

[11:24] Meg: He then said he sat near Helen thinking before deciding to leave. Quote, I heard her bouncing up and down, and that's when it happened. I went back and kicked her off. She fell to her death down the air shaft. In his trial, the defense claimed he had an IQ of 83 and that his confession had been coerced. Crimmins’ family and friends all came to his defense proclaiming he was a sweet guy, he would never have committed this crime.

[11:55] Jessica: Even though he confessed to it.

[11:57] Meg: Yes.

[11:58] Jessica: Interesting.

[12:00] Meg: But he was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 to life. Craig Crimmins has applied for parole and been denied every two years since 2000. Today he is 63 years old. He is a model inmate who earned an associate's degree in substance abuse counseling and works in the prison commissary. This is a very recent quote from him: I was drunk. She slapped me in the face and kneed me in the groin. And I don't know, something snapped in my brain. I tried to leave her, but she kept jumping up and down. Every time they turned me down for parole, it’s always about the nature of the crime, nothing about who I am now or what I've done since then. I could have cured cancer, they wouldn't care. He is still incarcerated at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster, New York.

[12:55] Jessica: I have a question that I've never asked you before.

[12:57] Meg: Sure.

[12:58] Jessica: What drew you to this story?

[13:00] Meg: Oh, you always ask me that question.

[13:01] Jessica: Do I?

[13:02] Meg: Yeah.

[13:03] Jessica: Well, apparently I have aphasia, so–

[13:07] Meg: Are you asking me why I'm telling you this story?

[13:10] Jessica: Yes. Why pick this one? I have some thoughts about it, but I want to know.

[13:14] Meg: Well, I researched a lot of stuff, and if something grabs me about something… I mean, lots of people were killed in New York.

[13:21] Jessica: Right. So what was it? The location? What was it?

[13:25] Meg: Initially it might have been the Agatha Christie-esc-ness.

[13:30] Jessica: I kept thinking Murder She Wrote through the entire telling. It’s so TV.

[13:36] Meg: Yes.

[13:36] Jessica: It's weird. Like, the characters are all larger than life, but also stock characters.

[13:42] Meg: Yes. It could be A Murder She Wrote for sure. I mean, a disappearance of the violinist in the middle of the… Yeah, definitely the location. But then as I was doing the research, I got caught up in the way this guy talks about what happened.

[14:03] Jessica: Well, is he even talking about what happened, or is this a commentary? Hold on. A commentary on the prison system and parole.

[14:15] Meg: Initially, everything… I read you stuff that he said during his confession and stuff that he said during his testimony and then later on, the stuff that he said about parole.

[14:25] Jessica: No, I know we have this full spectrum. I just mean what… because it was the parole thing that actually got me.

[14:32] Meg: Okay. I was got earlier. I thought it was striking how he first of all, as you said, unreliable witness. We only have his side of the story. And that he kept saying things like, she took off her clothes, and he convinced her to fool around. There’s this discussion that seems like he's trying to make it sound an incredibly violent attack sound somewhat consensual. And that was upsetting to me.

[15:07] Jessica: I heard the same thing. But what I heard was him trying to convince himself that it was consensual.

[15:14] Meg: Well, he's certainly trying to convince us. Also, he said she hit him and said something snotty to him. So there's a blaming happening there. He's just somehow this passive person in this event that was entirely about himself.

[15:33] Jessica: Yes.

[15:34] Meg: And his actions, and that I thought was notable.

[15:38] Jessica: Well, and that dovetails very nicely with… they don't care what I've done now.

[15:46] Meg: Again, the zero remorse.

[15:48] Jessica: Yeah.

[15:49] Meg: And that he wouldn't have killed her except she was jumping up and down.

[15:54] Jessica: I don't even know what that I can't even imagine what that was. Jumping up and down.

[15:59] Meg: I don't know. His point is I kept trying to leave her.

[16:02] Jessica: I kept trying to silence her.

[16:05] Meg: He was like, she wouldn't have died except that she did something. It was stomach churning. I mean, I had a hard time reading this asshole’s explanation.

[16:15] Jessica: Yeah, he’s a piece of shit. I also thought it was really interesting that they are saying that he had an IQ of 83 and then he earned an associate's degree in whatever..

[16:28] Meg: Oh, I think the IQ of 83 is bullshit. I think that the defense was trying to grasp at straws.

[16:34] Jessica: He sucks. Stay in jail.

[16:35] Meg: He sucks. And you were asking me why was I drawn to this. I guess I was drawn to it because – oh and to your point, too, his family and friends were like, he's such a sweet guy, he would never have done this. Well, he did do it. And at some point, you got to look at someone with clear eyes. I also have this horrible feeling that they might have been kind of blaming her, too. There was just a lot of victim blaming here.

[17:05] Jessica: Isn't there always?

[17:06] Meg: Why do you think I'm upset?

[17:09] Jessica: I'm not mystified, I’m just…

[17:13] Meg: It’s still upsetting, even though maybe because it still exists.

[17:17] Jessica: Well, yes. I mean, it's human nature. It's not me. Remember that song? Was that Shaggy? Oh, Afro Man? It wasn’t me!

[17:24] Meg: There's also a lot of misogyny, Jessica.

[17:26] Jessica: I don't know.

[17:28] Meg: I'm not blaming you for the misogyny, I swear to God. So you don't have to get all defensive on this. I'm just saying that the misogyny of this piece–

[17:37] Jessica: It’s all my fault!

[17:40] Meg: –is upsetting to me.

[17:42] Jessica: Yes, it is. It's extraordinarily upsetting. He reflects everything that you've been finding in the characters of these murderers most foul: It's not my fault, she did something to deserve it, distancing himself from the violence of his own actions, like, right down the line. Like, you love everything crime, so I assume that you watched Mindhunter.

[18:15] Meg: Of course.

[18:16] Jessica: And what was the name of the–

[18:26] Meg: John Douglas?

[18:28] Jessica: No, the guy in the mental institution who was the killer who gave them all the information about how a killer thinks?

[18:30] Meg: They talked to a lot of them, though.

[18:32] Jessica: They're like, the main guy with a mustache. The tall, big guy with another really big one.

[18:36] Meg: Oh, God, I'm going to kick myself for not remembering. Well, I'll look it up in a second. I think his first name is Ed.

[18:42] Jessica: Yes. The way that all of this is the same, in a way, kind of just makes me think about those interviews and how he can like… You can say this is profiling. The profiling is spot on every time. Like, being on the listening side, not the researching side. I'm just hearing it, and I'm like, yup.

[19:07] Meg: How about this, I got another one for you.

[19:09] Jessica: Okay.

[19:09] Meg: Because you were saying, this is so of the times. Guess who tried to do a little YouTube special or did an interview on Oxygen or something like that? Detective Struck. Do you remember Detective Struk? Kathie Durst? Yeah, he's from the Kathie Durst case. All the friends went and talked to Detective Struk, and we're like, listen to us.

[19:35] Jessica: Oh, my God. That asshole!

[19:36] Meg: That asshole did an interview for, like, Oxygen or Investigation or whatever…

[19:40] Jessica: What did he have to say?

[19:41] Meg: You know what? I saw his face, and I just turned it off. I was like, I do not need your opinion.

[19:47] Jessica: You're reclaiming your time.

[19:50] Meg: I don't give a crap what he has to say about dear Helen.

[19:56] Jessica: Barf. But yeah, yeah, interesting. Oh, he was talking about Helen?

[20:00] Meg: Yes!

[20:01] Jessica: Oh, that guy's got to go. He's got to his finger in too many pies.

[20:05] Meg: Is he gone? I can't remember if he’s dead or not.

[20:09] Jessica: I mean, I'm not advocating his death. I'm just saying he should not get airtime anymore.

[20:14] Meg: At some point, it might have been, like, ten years ago or something, but he did do an interview about Helen Hagnes, the violinist.

[20:20] Jessica: Wow. All right, well, disturbing as usual.

[20:25] Meg: You're welcome.

[20:40] Meg: Ed Kemper is the serial killer who's really tall and in Mind Hunter.

[20:49] Jessica: Yes.

[20:49] Meg: And do you want to hear a fun fact about Ed Kemper?

[20:54] Jessica: I love that you would have a fun fact about the creepiest man. Yes.

[20:59] Meg: You know, he's, like, genius.

[21:00] Jessica: Yes.

[21:03] Meg: He also… His job at the prison? He doesn't work at the commissary. He doesn't do laundry.

[21:09] Jessica: Does he do everyone's taxes or something? Oh, my God. I don't know if that was audible to our listeners. But Alfie the dog just really was relishing eating that treat. My God. Okay.

[21:24] Meg: It's a little distracting, but it's okay, I’ll get used to it.

[21:26] Jessica: Alfie, enough with the chewing. It’s so gross! Dude, we should never have let you in. Oh, my God. All right.

[21:35] Meg: Ed Kemper records audiobooks so you could be listening to the soothing sounds of Ed Kemper.

[21:46] Jessica: Oh, my God. That's creepy as hell. That's really creepy. And pretty much guarantees that if I were ever to listen to an audiobook for bedtime, now I won't. It'll be the only thing I can think of. So do you want your engagement question?

[22:02] Meg: Yes, I'm ready.

[22:04] Jessica: When you were in high school, what music was the main genre that you listened to?

[22:12] Meg: I think they ended up calling it alternative. I don't know.

[22:17] Jessica: The powers that be at Rolling Stone.

[22:19] Meg: Yeah, exactly.

[22:21] Jessica: Okay, so what, like REM?

[22:24] Meg: Yeah, REM. U2. I guess it's what we would now call pop, but at the time it wasn't called pop, it was called alternative.

[22:34] Jessica: I don't think we would call it pop now. I think now it's called oldies. So, new wave. Alternative new wave type stuff. So you were not a great listener to all things punk?

[22:50] Meg: No, I can't say I was, but my brother was.

[22:53] Jessica: Really?

[22:53] Meg: Yeah.

[22:54] Jessica: So how much older than you is Toby?

[22:57] Meg: Four years. Sex pistols…

[22:58] Jessica: Okay, so he was entering high school in 1984. No, ’83.

[23:00] Meg: I guess, yeah. You do the math.

[23:02] Jessica: No, entering high school. What am I thinking? He was graduating at that time. So it was like 1979 that he was entering high school.

[23:15] Meg: Yeah, I guess so.

[23:16] Jessica: Okay, so Sex Pistols. What else? The Clash.

[23:19] Meg: Yeah, exactly. I was going to say London calling.

[23:22] Jessica: So in my ongoing quest to figure out what were teens doing, because we were in our little rarefied world, right? And if they weren't part of the 84th Street Bombers, what were they doing? If you weren't in a gang, and you weren't on the Upper East Side, like being in a Whit Stillman movie all by yourself.

[23:47] Meg: Is there anyone in between?

[23:51] Jessica: Well, I found them. So there was an in-between. And I was really surprised because I kind of vaguely remembered that this was a thing, but I never would have been able to give any of the details. So when we were in high school and a little before, CBGB's had teen nights, basically, on Sundays.

[24:19] Meg: Really?

[24:21] Jessica: Yes. And people who were under the drinking age, their bands could go and play.

[24:23] Meg: When we were in high school?

[24:25] Jessica: 1983.

[24:26] Meg: Oh, so a little earlier.

[24:28] Jessica: A little earlier, but I think like up to ’85 or so, maybe even ’86.

[24:33] Meg: We were never given an invitation.

[24:35] Jessica: We wouldn't have known. It wasn't for us.

[24:36] Meg: Who was it for?

[24:37] Jessica: Well, I'll tell you. So who were the kids who did this, right? So I'm reading this and I'm thinking, oh, yes, like gritty kids from downtown. I'm imagining the same stuff that we talked about when we were talking about how artists and musicians were populating the Lower East Side and the East Village and super grunge, and they didn't have a toilet, they shit in a bucket, like God knows what. And I don't know how it was that I decided that this is how these teenagers were living, but… So I'm reading along and I'm like, bucket shitters, okay, whatever.

[25:25] Meg: What is your source material?

[25:26] Jessica: My head, okay, my fantasy life, because I couldn't get out of my head, like Blondie and the Talking Heads, and they're, like, cooking over a Sterno can or whatever until they made it. So these bands were actually made up of really intense kids who were super intense because they were also part of the super intense prep school world of downtown. So this is what the cool kids were doing.

[25:58] Meg: Are you talking about, like, the Beastie Boys?

[26:01] Jessica: Well, yes, but far beyond the Beastie Boys. There were tons of New Wave and genuine punk bands. I mean, the Beasties started as punk and then went into oh, my God, I just blanked.

[26:19] Meg: Rap.

[26:20] Jessica: Thank you. And the kids these days, I can't think of anything anymore. So, yes, they went to Stuyvesant.

[26:26] Meg: No, they went to St. Ann’s.

[26:27] Jessica: They did?

[26:28] Meg: Yeah, the Beasties Boys?

[26:29] Jessica: One of them went to Stuyvesant, I’m quite sure.

[26:30] Meg: One of them went to St. Ann’s, so we can split the difference.

[26:32] Jessica: I think, because Kid Ad Rock always wore a Stuyvesant T-shirt.

[26:38] Meg: We need to research this.

[26:40] Jessica: I guess we do. But they went to Stuyvesant. They went to Friends.

[26:47] Meg: So you're talking about all the cool kids went to these schools.

[26:50] Jessica: Well, they were not us. So I'm putting them in this category of cooler than us, because they were in bands and they were like, and so I was reading this thing, and they were doing their homework, like, intensely backstage or with each other and just like putting in the hours.

[27:09] Meg: Do you know about Luscious Jackson?

[27:12] Jessica: That's where they started. Okay, so thank you for bringing that up. Did you know this already?

[27:18] Meg: Well, I knew that Luscious Jackson was also in New York City at the time. Yeah.

[27:23] Jessica: Well, here's how it happened. So I'm now going to quote from this New York Times article. There's a band called the Student Teachers. Okay? If I hadn't seen The Student Teachers that fateful night, I might never have been a drummer, said Schellenbach, who helped found the Beastie Boys in 1981 and later, Luscious Jackson. Seeing Laura Davis play drums, seeing Lori Reese play bass, and how exciting the whole scene was, everything about it made me think, oh, maybe this is something I can do. She added, these people were still in high school. It seemed attainable. The timing was perfect. This was the first generation to grow up with punk as the status quo, not the exceptional rebellion. Quote, part of the call of history was that you weren't supposed to just listen and take it in. You're supposed to listen to the conversation and form a band yourself. The Student Teachers’ keyboardist Bill Arning, now a prominent gallery owner and curator said via video chat, of course you were supposed to form a band. It didn't even seem like it was an out-there idea. The key groups in the movement were the Glam Bubblegum Speedies, a high concept bunch of overachieving teens, plus two slightly older members who, quote, wanted to be the fusion of The Beatles, the Sex Pistols, and the Bassity Rollers according to the founding guitarist, Gregory Crewdson. A band called Colors was mentored by Blondie's drummer Clem Burke. And my favorite thing is that they list two other bands that were on the edge of the movement of these kid punks. One of them is the Stimulators. Okay, good. The other one cracked me up. Miller Miller Miller & Sloan. And I'm like Esquire? Is that just like your parents law firm? I'm just fascinated by this. And I loved it. And so I wound up listening to The Speedies because I was like, okay, that's all the stuff that I liked, too. And my favorite thing is that they sounded like they were from England. They were bad English accents, but they were somewhat like this. They were really leaning in to their heroes.

[29:44] Meg: A Clash kind of thing.

[29:45] Jessica: Exactly. So I listened to a bunch of them and you can find them online and we'll put them in our Instagram link today.

[29:50] Meg: For sure.

[29:51] Jessica: But I highly encourage people to listen to them because these are the proto-bands of the ‘90s that we listened to and loved. And definitely speak to our Gen X audience. And I don't know, I just kind of loved them. And I also loved that there were so many girls in this very accepting environment.

[30:15] Meg: That was a different group of kids that you are talking about. They were much cooler than we were. All those kids that went to those super, like, you had to be super smart to go to those schools.

[30:27] Jessica: Well, you had to actually get in.

[30:29] Meg: Bronx Science and Stuyvesant. I mean, St. Ann's costs money, but you had to be really smart. And St. Ann’s is very creative. And I can't say that our school was super into… being creative.

[30:44] Jessica: No, our schools were very hard to get into but they were as academic… Well, they were what they were. They were prep schools. Prep for college.

[30:49] Meg: Right. And it was very difficult to have an independent thought in our school.

[30:54] Jessica: Oh, hell, yeah.

[30:55] Meg: And at St. Ann's, my understanding is it was very much encouraged.

[31:00] Jessica: Yeah. Well, and at the public schools that had the entrance exams, Bronx Science, Stuyvesant… there was no one supervising anything.

[31:07] Meg: Huge schools.

[31:08] Jessica: So the kids were forming their own tribes and had the leeway to do, I suppose, what they wanted. So it was a really great reminder of, as we talk about our teen years, there's a ton of stuff that we already know we were suffering as teenagers about. I was gratified to see that there was yet another thing that we could gripe about in these middle-aged years that we were not allowed to be creative. Although I suppose that the proto0punks would be like, allowed? That's what's wrong with you. See, we were damaged.

[31:55] Meg: Fair enough.

[31:56] Jessica: We were so damaged. But anyway, they're great to listen to.

[32:01] Meg: No, I’m excited to look this stuff up.

[32:03] Jessica: And I was very surprised, there was another little bit in this article that warmed my heart. One of the people who came out of that scene later took on the pen name J.T. LeRoy. Do you remember that book that was supposedly written by a super abused teen from Nebraska and it was a boy and it was a hustler and all this stuff, and it turned out that it was like a privileged girl from God knows where.

[32:31] Meg: My gosh. Vaguely.

[32:33] Jessica: Laura Albert was on the scene from the age of 13. And that's who J.T. LeRoy was. That's who her real…

[32:41] Meg: Are you saying that the person who wrote that book was from New York?

[32:45] Jessica: Yes, yes, absolutely. The tie-in for literature beyond J.T. LeRoy, was that Jonathan Lethem, I never know how to pronounce his name, wrote about the Speedies and Miller Miller Miller & Sloan in his book the Fortress of Solitude. So for those of you looking for a book to pick up, who are enchanted with the topics we cover, that's another tie-in for you.

[33:14] Meg: Yeah. I hope we hear from people who actually went to these schools.

[33:18] Jessica: Yes, this is an open invitation to please broaden our horizons.

[33:25] Meg: I know kids who go there now, but at the time, I have to say I did not know… I knew one guy who went to St. Ann’s and he was super smart and he was super creative, but John, I can't remember his last name.

[33:39] Jessica: Well, that was fascinating.

[33:40] Meg: I know.

[33:40] Jessica: Thank you for sharing that.

[33:41] Meg: But I'm just saying, like, there wasn't a lot of crossover. As far as I know.

[33:46] Jessica: And that's what's so crazy. You and I have talked about how we just didn't go downtown because of the subway and all of that stuff.

[33:52] Meg: And all those schools were downtown and stuff.

[33:54] Jessica: We were really functioning, all of these teenagers in these pockets of social life. And in fact, you know, it's sort of funny and I know that you're going to want to edit this out, but I'm not going to let you. So you know that whore who ran off with my second husband?

[34:11] Meg: Yes.

[34:12] Jessica: That bitch? So she went to Friends and her perspective was always that our schools uptown were super fancy and very like the place to be. And she longed to be a Nightingale girl or a Brearley girl, as I later found as she single-white-femaled me under my very own nose. But it was a good reminder. As I was reading this, I was like, well, of course she felt that way because she grew up in the West Village and she went to Friends. So we were as mythically separate and apart for that little piece of work. I see. I'm now censoring myself with all the other words I would use, and I'm like, oh, I will not harm Meg's delicate sensibilities today.

[35:03] Meg: But your point is the grass is always greener.

[35:05] Jessica: The grass is always greener. Or in fact, the grass is always more interesting. In someone else's prep school experience.

[35:14] Meg: I think that is interesting.

[35:16] Jessica: Who knew?

[35:30] Jessica: And we're back. Hi, Meg.

[35:31] Meg: Hi, Jessica. So what's our tie-in today?

[35:34] Jessica: Well, it's clearly the performing arts, and most notably music, because we have a dead violinist and we have–

[35:40] Meg: Oh lord. She went to Juilliard.

[35:41] Jessica: –punk kids–

[35:47] Meg: Who went to Bronx Science and Stuyvesant.

[35:50] Jessica: So we've got good schools.

[35:52] Meg: Yes. And educated musicians.

[35:57] Jessica: Yes. That's our tie-in. I don't know. I can't think of anything wildly quippy about it, but I think it's plain as day.

[36:06] Meg: That's very, yeah. And we started by talking about the Met, which is a cultural center.

[36:10] Jessica: As was CBGB.

[36:11] Meg: Absolutely. Oh, I like that.

[36:18] Jessica: Maybe that's our tie-in. Cultural centers. Jinx.

[36:22] Meg: I like it. I just recently saw a whole photo array of the bathroom in CBGB.

[36:30] Jessica: Oh, it was vile.

[36:32] Meg: And these are really detailed photographs. Like, up front. In focus.

[36:36] Jessica: I think that might be something I need to do is the grossest bathrooms in New York in the clubs in the ‘80s?

[36:45] Meg: It doesn't even have to be in the clubs. It could be like when you have to pee, where do you pee in New York in the ‘80s?

[36:51] Jessica: Well, rather, where do you not pee? Because there's a place that has been used in many, many mob movies. A bar that I will talk about in our next episode.

[37:09] Meg: Yay.

[37:11] Jessica: But it had remained unchanged since it was built, I think in the ‘20s, maybe before, but not–

[37:19] Meg: I’m so excited.

[37:20] Jessica: –A single peeling piece of linoleum had changed. That bathroom was so disgusting, you had to be ready to shit your pants before you would go into that bathroom. And if someone did, everyone was just waiting, like smelling salts and like a Coke. Are you okay? You survived it.

[37:39] Meg: So this is next week.

[37:41] Jessica: I'm thinking that this might be. If not, I will just reveal more about this particular bar. And I feel like the dive bar of New York is really thin on the ground now, don't you think?

[37:58] Meg: No.

[37:59] Jessica: The dive bar as we experienced it, you think that those super grungy… well, then I love it. We're going to have a healthy debate.

[38:10] Meg: Save the dive bar!