[00:17] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking The '80s. I am Meg.

[00:21] Jessica: I'm Jessica, and Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We went to middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:29] Meg: And where we are currently podcasting about New York City in the 80's. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:36] Jessica: And I handle pop culture.

[00:41] Meg: So, Jessica, before we get started, I wanted to share with you an email that I got from a good friend of mine. And this is feedback from one of our episodes, the one about Leona Helmsley.

[00:56] Jessica: Ah Leona, I'm excited to hear it.

[00:58] Meg: As it turns out, my friend Lawrence Stern, who now lives in West Hollywood, but I went to Brown University with him, and his grandfather was Theodore Reade Nathan, who wrote a book, a well regarded book called Hotelmanship: A Guide to Hospitality Industry Marketing and Management, and it had a chapter on Leona Helmsley.

[01:22] Jessica: Oh, heaven.

[01:23] Meg: I know. I'm going to put some of this stuff on Instagram because it's awesome. His mother took some pictures from the book and everything. So this is from Lawrence. I call him Larry. There is a chapter in the book that features a lovely lengthy interview with Leona Helmsley as he interviewed her over tea at The Helmsley Palace. They got along great. This is Lawrence's grandfather? Yes. And in the section about her, he referred to her as The Queen was in the parlor. He also made it quite clear that she was in charge of every single detail at her hotel. She liked this Queen image so much that she used the Queen metaphor in most of her subsequent ad campaigns, as in The Queen is in her palace. But she didn't like hiring or paying people. And as you guessed, that ad campaign you quoted was most likely done by herself, as she used ideas from my grandfather and many other professionals and then just created her own version instead. Isn't that wild?

[02:32] Jessica: It's just so freaking predictable. That's the worst thing. As someone who is in the word business, I got to say, the ripping off is to be expected. But it's interesting that he can trace the whole Queen thing and subsequently The Queen of Mean to his grandfather. So that's pretty awesome. The provenance of the name. If I asked you to call me Empress, would you? I know that you actually took a moment. I'm trying to say, yes, she had a bad day. Do.

[03:11] Meg: I did have a bad day.

[03:12] Jessica: I did have a bad day.

[03:14] Meg: But you know what?

[03:15] Jessica: Tell me.

[03:16] Meg: You did good things this day and it was very difficult for you, but you managed to get through it. And here we are together and I'm very proud of you for all the things that you did on this difficult day.

[03:28] Jessica: Everyone should have a friend like Meg to affirm them under all circumstances, because you even give me affirmations when everything's my fault. And I am deeply grateful for that.

[03:44] Meg: I don't know if that's true, but, I think that's a good thing to do every once in a while.

[03:46] Jessica: No, I'm overstating the case. But thank you. You are the sweetest. Did you notice that we have a guest in the studio already today?

[03:55] Meg: Are you talking about dear Alfie?

[03:57] Jessica: No, the fly.

[03:59] Meg: Okay, I am not going to pay attention to the fly.

[04:03] Jessica: I can't help it. This is the loudest fly that has ever lived. I don't even know how it got in here. Oh, I know how. It's 81 degrees in New York today.

[04:13] Meg: Very warm today.

[04:15] Jessica: They hatched.

[04:17] Meg: Well, I hope that my story is so scintillating that it will drown out whatever distractions this fly is causing.

[04:25] Jessica: It will knock it right off the wall.

[04:27] Meg: All right.

[04:28] Jessica: I'm very excited. Yay, Meg.

[04:30] Meg: Okay, are you ready for your engagement question?

[04:32] Jessica: Oh, I love this. Yes.

[04:35] Meg: I'm wondering what your favorite mafia movie is. Do you have one? Do you enjoy that kind of cinema?

[04:41] Jessica: Well, I do, but, you know, it's really weird because, of course, I'm thinking

Goodfellas, and that's my personal favorite. Yeah. Or even The Untouchables, stuff like that. But do you know what the first one was that really jumped into my head? What? Johnny Dangerously. Oh, there was one guy who did that to me once. Remember? That was a Joe Piscopo vehicle. Anyway, so that's very 80s, Johnny Dangerously. But, yes, I like the genre generally.

[05:17] Meg: I love the genre. And I definitely went through a huge The Godfather phase where I just felt like all this this is so romantic and dangerous.

[05:27] Jessica: What was that terrible mob movie with Christian Slater and, like, Richard Grieco. Richard Grieco, who has even spoken of him decades? How did that come to me? Do you know what I'm talking about? It was called something like Mobsters. Sorry. No, digression, digression.

[05:48] Meg: Okay. So it will not surprise you that today's story, today's offering, is about the mafia.

[05:57] Jessica: All right? The Italian specific mafia. Not the Russians?

[06:01] Meg: The specifically Italian Mafia.

[06:04] Jessica: Very good.

[06:05] Meg: All right, so my sources are The New York Times article from 1985, New York Post from 1985, New York Daily News, 2002, and this fantastic documentary called The Last Gangster on Amazon Prime and Fear City: New York vs The Mafia. Netflix. Just before 5:30, on December 16, 1985, mob boss Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family, stepped out of a limo in front of Sparks Steak House on 46th and 3rd and was gunned down by four assassins dressed in trench coats and Russian fur hats.

[06:47] Jessica: That is such a great visual.

[06:51] Meg: They have pictures, too.

[06:53] Jessica: Nice.

[06:53] Meg: John Gotti, the man who arranged the hit, sat in a car across the street with his right hand man, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. And within days, John Gotti had taken the reins of the Gambino family. The Gambino crime family, along with the Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Colombo families, made up what's known as The Commission, which facilitated illegal activity across all five boroughs of New York. In its heyday, 70's and 80's. The mafia controlled the labor unions, construction and real estate. All New Yorkers were in the sense paying taxes to the mafia because of its stranglehold on so many industries. Bank robberies, hijackings, drugs, murder, extortion, loan sharking, gambling, you name it. Organized crime controlled virtually everything you can think of. Isn't that interesting?

[07:50] Jessica: That is fascinating.

[07:52] Meg: And each mafia family was structured in a way to evade law enforcement. Actual crimes were committed by soldiers who would kick the money up to the higher ups. Omerta - the code of silence is what kept everyone in line. Omerta is an extreme form of loyalty and solidarity in the face of authority. And one of its absolute tenets is that it is deeply demeaning and shameful to betray even one's deadliest enemy to the authorities. And no one knew that better than Sammy the Bull Gravano. He grew up in Bensonhurst. Where everybody knew each other's business, but looked the other way when they had to remember in episode two, Tragedy In Brooklyn, when Sammy was a made man, he arranged for the Bensonhurst community to give up Yusef Hawkins shooter at a meeting at Tali's Bar, which was his regular social club. They all had their own favorite social clubs, but anyway, so when Sammy was a younger kid in Bensonhurst, Bensonhurst was like a campus for future gangsters. And the mafia was revered and romanticized. So guys walked around with rolls of cash and were treated like kings, just like in Goodfellas. And Sammy could have become a police officer or a fireman or gone into construction, but being a gangster just looked way more attractive. He started as a member of a gang with petty crimes and loan sharking and gradually worked his way up the food chain until he was working hand in hand with John Gotti. With Castellano's assassination Gotti broke the first of many time honored mafia rules. I will list the few that he brol

[09:36] Jessica: That Gotti broke.

[09:37] Meg: Gotti broke these. No murder until it's approved by the boss. No drugs, keep your mouth shut and keep a low profile. Gotti threw all of that out.

[09:48] Jessica: He was The Dapper Don.

[09:50] Meg: Yes. He preened around and custom $2,000 wool double breasted black pinstripe suits. He got a blow dry and a barber snipped the hairs in his nose and ears every morning because he wanted to look perfect for the paparazzi, really. Sammy, in the meantime, was doing all of Gotti's dirty work. He was the go to guy for murdering family and friends. Apparently. You would just never see it coming. I'm thinking like if he asks me out for dinner, I might see it coming.

[10:26] Jessica: Not a good idea.

[10:29] Meg: But that was his specialty and he was treated like a celebrity.

[10:32] Jessica: It was a good life. Sorry for the moitas. The murders.

[10:36] Meg: Yes, exactly. But yeah, I mean people knew that was him in specialty. Everyone knew that was his specialty. And his boss, John Gotti kept getting off. Gotti was found not guilty in three high profile trials, earning him the additional moniker. You said The Dapper Don. Do you know the other moniker?

[10:55] Jessica: The Teflon Don.

[10:56] Meg: Thank you very much. Why was he getting off, you may ask? As it turned out, Sammy had been paying off the jurors in each of these trials.

[11:04] Jessica: Well, Sammy is like a Swiss army knife of a man. It's rather amazing.

[11:10] Meg: Good to have in your front pocket. So John Gotti couldn't keep his mouth shut at The Ravenite Social Club at 247 Mulberry Street in Little Italy. Gotti was caught on tape blabbing about all kinds of murders and bad things. He was also caught on tape throwing Sammy under the bus. When the feds played the tapes for Sammy, he realized that Gotti was setting him up to be hit. So Sammy turned government's witness and spilled the beans on everything.

[11:42] Jessica: He didn't care that snitches get stitches or dead, but go ahead.

[11:48] Meg: Well, but he's the guy who's doing it.

[11:50] Jessica: He figured it out.

[11:52] Meg: And he was the first underboss of a New York crime family to turn informer. He was a trailblazer.

[11:58] Jessica: He was making history.

[12:01] Meg: He testified for nine days.

[12:03] Jessica: I remember that.

[12:04] Meg: Against Gotti. Revealing tales of racketeering and murder, confessing to literally pulling the trigger on 19 murders himself, including his brother in law, whose body was never found, they would find his hand. Sorry. An annoying rival club owner. Apparently this guy was really annoying. Who he shot once in both eyeballs as a warning to others to not be annoying. And his best friend, Louie Milito, who he shot in the back of the head during dinner.

[12:49] Jessica: It's just so impolite. What would Miss Manners say?

[12:53] Meg: I mean, it does make you think, like, just don't accept an invitation. Gotti was sentenced to life and died in 2002. Sammy went into witness protection in Arizona, but then he got caught trafficking ecstasy.

[13:10] Jessica: Really?

[13:11] Meg: Went to prison, was released in December 2020, and now has a YouTube channel.

[13:19] Jessica: No, he does not. You made that up.

[13:20] Meg: And a podcast called Our Thing with Sammy The Bull.

[13:25] Jessica: Oh, my God. Well, here's the big question. What has changed in New York with the Mafia that would make it not dangerous for him to be so high profile and out of the witness protection?

[13:40] Meg: As a result of what he did, all the bosses in all the different crime families came tumbling down. He was the first domino, and it just destroyed their control over all of this stuff. I mean, obviously, I'm sure there's still some sort of organized crime happening in the city, but the Mafia that we know from The Godfather and really what John Gotti was representing just doesn't exist in that way anymore.

[14:10] Jessica: Wow. A podcast, you say? Yes. We should really get them.

[14:14] Meg: Should we do cross promotion?

[14:16] Jessica: Yes, I think so. It's a very small studio.

[14:19] Meg: I talked to my mom today. I thought you might think this is funny. I asked her if she remembered or what she thought about the Mafia before The Godfather came out. How did she think about it? Did The Godfather kind of make it all public? And she said, actually, in a sense, yeah. I mean, everyone knew about the Mafia from Prohibition and Frank Sinatra. She said, Daddy didn't like Frank Sinatra. My grandfather didn't want to say why he didn't like Frank Sinatra while his daughters were swooning over this man, but clearly he had a distaste for the shady connections Frank had.

[15:04] Jessica: Fascinating.

[15:04] Meg: And she said something else. She said, after Paul Castellano was gunned down at the steakhouse, when you went out to dinner in New York, you knew to always sit facing the door as though that's going down.

[15:17] Jessica: I don't know. You dive under the table before you.

[15:20] Meg: You can see it coming.

[15:22] Jessica: Well, if it's Sammy The Bull, I guess, or you see the out, someone's carrying a violin case.

[15:30] Meg: I just love that all these New Yorkers are like, still going to go out to dinner, but they're going to face the door.

[15:38] Jessica: Do you know how I remember the trial and coverage of Gotti and all of that? In my mind's eye, it's the court, the artists. I just remember what they looked like from those drawings and the white hair, obviously, I remember what it looked like in real life. But the first thing that pops into my head, those drawings. And those were kind of like, are they not a big deal anymore? I guess because cameras are allowed..

[16:06] Meg: Not always. They are not always allowed in the courtroom. And Ghislaine Maxwell, oh, yes, I've got to send you this. It's amazing. She was being sketched by a courtroom sketch artist, and so she started sketching the artist. So the artist has a sketch of her sketching him.

[16:25] Jessica: Creepy. A little. A little. Well, she's already pretty high on the creep scale, so I guess unsurprising. Although a hidden talent. Who knew? Sex trafficking, little chalk drawing. Who knew? Well, that is fascinating. And it certainly brought up some fond, fond memories of days of yore. Remember what they also did? You know what that just reminded me of? Some of the fashions were kind of hilarious. Do you remember that all of those guys had those huge overcoats that they only wore, like, capes?

[16:56] Meg: The other thing I wanted to bring up was in Bensonhurst when John Gotti got released these three times during these three high profile trials, which, by the way, I mean, they were like, for beating up a guy in a parking lot. I mean, total thug stuff, right? When he was released, don't tell me they threw a parade? Fireworks in Bensonhurst. He was their hero. It was really a bubble.

[17:21] Jessica: That is just amazing.

[17:22] Meg: It's really interesting. And last week we were talking a little bit about bubbles, and you can sort of lose perspective, right, about what's right and wrong when you just don't go outside your bubble. And Bensonhurst was for sure a bubble.

[17:33] Jessica: Interesting. And really a bygone piece of New York history. Although I'm sure that there are many people who are already climbing new ranks that we have no knowledge of.

[17:43] Meg: If they're being smart about it, they're not being flashy about it. Like Dapper Don.

[17:47] Jessica: Dear Dapper Don. Okay, I don't think we're going to do better than that. Let's close out on Dear Dapper Don.

[17:56] Jessica: Okay Meg. Yes? I'm trying to think of a really good engagement question for you. What was the first Broadway play you ever went to?

[18:04] Meg: Oh, Lord. I'm going to say I don't know if this is true, but I did see For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf on Broadway, and I remember that really vividly because it was a harrowing play for a very young child to see.

[18:21] Jessica: I mean, you didn't start with Annie like a normal person. What's wrong with you?

[18:27] Meg: Talk to my dad.

[18:28] Jessica: All right, good point. Okay. I think the first Broadway play I ever saw was it was either Annie or A Chorus Line.

[18:38] Meg: I saw both of those, too.

[18:39] Jessica: And I remember seeing A Chorus Line with my grandparents, my mom's parents, and I was just old enough to be horrified with the sex talk and sitting next to my grandparents as though they had no idea.

[18:55] Meg: I think it just went over my head.

[18:57] Jessica: I don't think you can have it go over your head when the song is DANCE: TEN, LOOKS: THREE/ TITS AND ASS

[19:01] Meg: Oh, that's true.

[19:02] Jessica: Yeah, that's kind of true. They're kind of right out there. And even more cringy. I guess with your grandparents. Was the young man who's talking about I think he's talking about realizing that he's gay. And I was just like, I just want to faint right now. Thank you. But my topic today is one of the reasons that everyone goes to New York, which is Broadway. And I'm bringing this up because one of our listeners, also one of our dear friends, Georgina from school, asked me to tell a particular story.

[19:39] Meg: I think she lets us say her name.

[19:41] Jessica: Oh, does she? Yeah. Oh, thank God, because that was just cumbersome. Regina has asked me to tell this very particular story.

[19:51] Meg: Great. I can't wait.

[19:52] Jessica: Okay. And I'm going to tell it in chronological order. So we're going to talk about some plays and musicals that were the hits of the 80s. So what I noticed when I was going through each year, you can see what some of the social concerns or trends at the time were by what was being presented on Broadway. So we're going to start with 1980, and I'm going to rattle through a whole list. Okay. 42nd Street, Amadeus, Barnum, Brigadoon, Camelot, Children of a Lesser God, Fifth of July, Whose Life Is It Anyway? And Your Arms Too Short to Box With God.

[20:32] Meg: Is there a theme there?

[20:33] Jessica: Well, I think that the first. Let's see, the first group the first group is pure fantasy, nostalgia and for very specifically for another time.

[20:43] Meg: Sure. Right.

[20:44] Jessica: So major escapist. But they were all like, really....Oh, my God, I remember seeing Barnum with my mother. I hated it. Well, I liked the musical, but here's what I hated about it. They had clowns in the audience, and when you first came out, there was interaction, and I was like, oh, my God, get them away from me.

[21:06] Meg: Some people are scared of clowns.

[21:08] Jessica: No, it wasn't that they were clowns. It was you're here to act, I'm here to watch. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to engage. Just let me be. Not unlike when my father hears this, I think he's going to die laughing. I must have been ten. It was my birthday, and my parents took me to Windows on the World, which was in the World Trade Center, World Trade Center. It was really fancy, and it was this big outing and it was great. And we had this dinner, my family, and then at the end, as you do with people and children in particular, there was a birthday cake that came with sparklers and candles and a giant production number, and I acknowledged that they were there and they put the cake down. And when the staff, the restaurant left, I turned to my mother, I'm ten, with wide open eyes and tight lips like this, and said, don't you ever do that to me again. So I was, I'm not an interaction, at least at that point in my life kind of person.

[22:12] Meg: Note taken.

[22:13] Jessica: Yeah, Barnum was disturbing for me and then the others. What do you think? Children of a Lesser God. Whose Life Is It Anyway? Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. I see those as social dilemma. So that was 1980. Now, other than Barnum, did you see any of those, do you recall?

[22:33] Meg: Yeah, I saw most of the ones that you said at the beginning. I don't think I saw Children of a Lesser God. That is not in my memory. But Amadeus.

[22:41] Jessica: Yeah. You saw 42nd Street. Sure. I had the album and my poor parents, I would sing and dance in my room. It's a good..1981. Dreamgirls, Fiddler on the Roof, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, Woman of the Year, The Pirates of Penzance and Sophisticated Ladies. Do you see any themes here?

[23:02] Meg: Well, there are more plays about people of color and women.

[23:06] Jessica: Yes. And the outlier here The Pirates of Penzance. Did you see that?

[23:10] Meg: I did not. With Linda Ronstadt.

[23:12] Jessica: It was Kevin Kline as the pirate king. And was it Linda Ronstadt? She was in the movie with Rex Smith. Was she also on Broadway? We're going to have to look it up. But I remember seeing Kevin Kline and even at the age of eleven being like, I will break me off a piece of that. Thank you. And here's another little New York theater story. I went with a friend years and years ago to see some Shakespeare in the Park. I can't remember what it was. And we were talking several times on this podcast about how Central Park is dangerous and has been dangerous. And so one of the disturbing elements of going to the amazing Shakespeare in the Park productions was getting out. How do you walk out? So I always had a policy that if I wasn't with someone, I tried to find a guy who looked really benevolent, like he might save me. And I would walk right behind him trying to make it look like I was part of a party. Like, oh, look, I want this person. Whatever. It was a tactic. And one time I was going out and I saw someone who, he was walking by himself. So by trailing him, it wasn't, like, obvious that he wasn't talking to me, but was talking to the person next to him. And I'm like, God, this person really makes me feel safe and secure. I wonder why that is. And as we're walking and walking, walking, I follow him. We both go up Fifth Avenue. And then when he turns into his building, I realized it was Kevin Kline.

[24:47] Meg: Oh, my goodness.

[24:47] Jessica: And that was why I felt so safe. I was like, the pirate king is here to take care of me. 1982, Agnes of God. Now, here's where here's where Broadway starts to become the Broadway that people know. Now, I'm going to say the name of of a musical and tell me if you can remember the tagline from the advertisement. Ready? Cats. Now and forever at the Winter Garden Theater. Yes. Well done. So Agnes of God, Cats, Torch Song Trilogy, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. So that was a big year for.

[25:23] Meg: Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

[25:25] Jessica: The musical Nine and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And so 1982, it was a little more risque. I don't know if you recall this, but Joseph was actually, there are a lot of sex jokes in that musical.

[25:38] Meg: My brother was in a student production at Collegiate.

[25:40] Jessica: Which I saw. Small world. My God, I cannot believe it.

[25:51] Meg: which was probably in 1983. I mean, it wouldn't have been the same year as, how were they able to do that? That's so crazy of them.

[25:56] Jessica: I don't know.

[25:57] Meg: Maybe they didn't pay the rights.

[25:58] Jessica: Anyway, I guarantee you they did not pay the rights. And Torch Song Trilogy showing up there as Harvey Fierstein's magnum opus. You know, that's 1982. That's just as AIDS is beginning. And Harvey Fierstein has this amazing play. If anyone doesn't know what it is, you can find it streaming. He made a movie of it later that was also very good about a man coming out during that period and how really traumatizing that was to deal with not only, you know, general public consensus, but his mother's judgment. 83. night, Mother, American Buffalo, Brighton Beach Memoirs and La Cage aux Folles, more gay. And then night, Mother and American Buffalo, just go home and put your head in the oven. Well, literally with night, Mother, I suppose. 84. It's one of my other big theater memories. But tell me what you if you remember any of this. Doug Henning & His World of Magic.

[26:58] Meg: I missed that.

[26:59] Jessica: You really did? Glengarry Glen Ross original production.

[27:04] Meg: I did not see that.

[27:05] Jessica: Which was, by the way, the second production for David Mamet. 83, 84, whatever you think of David Mamet, which I'm quite sure is not positive. Not much. Hurlyburly. Patti LaBelle on Broadway. Shirley Maclaine on Broadway. Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway.

[27:21] Meg: I wonder if that's all to save money because these are inexpensive productions when you just got one lady up there singing her heart out.

[27:31] Jessica: And all ladies again, interesting. The one play that I remember here's another weird story. So in 1984, the big show that was not a musical was The Real Thing. Tom Stoppard. I loved that. 14, and I think it was my last year as a camper at summer camp before being like, oh, I'm a CIT now. Big stuff. But there was a counselor who was like, a college student who came to, like everyone wrote letters after camp. And this guy contacted me. He's like, I'm going to be in New York from Texas. He's like, let me take you out to a play. And I told my parents, and they were like, what? And as a reminder, I mean, you have posted what I looked like at 14 online. It was not a sexy look. I was a young 14. Well, he took me on a full on date, which was so weird. But the best part, and my parents were like, well, he has to come to the apartment first so we can just see that he's not 40. Exactly. And it was very nice, but it was hilarious because my parents just like, you know when a dog cocks its head and just looks puzzled? That was how both of my parents were like, you want to take her on a date?

[28:58] Meg: And he took you to see The Real Thing.

[28:59] Jessica: And he took me to see The Real Thing. And there was and oh my God, do you know who is in the audience?

[29:05] Meg: Who?

[29:06] Jessica: Tim Matheson. That's exactly, not only in the audience, but he was next to us at the at the little bar. And I was like, OOH, Animal House. We're now coming up to the Regina story. Okay, so in 1985, the big shows and there weren't a lot, but Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, Tango Argentino, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Lily Tomlin, one woman show and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. So the young actor who ruled the 80s was Matthew Broderick, WarGames.

[29:40] Meg: Do you want to play a game?

[29:41] Jessica: Do you want to play a game? He was in Max Dugan Returns. He was in I mean, he was in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but much later, he was like an entity. He was doing, like, after school specials and stuff like that, but he was a known entity, but he wasn't like, a star yet. This was his big breakout Broadway performance, to the best of my knowledge. So I was obsessed. Not wholesome. Like, really, as only a teenager in a full hormonal cauldron stewing in your own psychotic juices can be obsessed. And Regina found this very entertaining. And I think she also thought he was cute, but I don't know if she was humoring me or what, but we came up with this elaborate plan to kidnap him. At the stage door. He's not tall.

[30:41] Meg: Regina was probably taller.

[30:42] Jessica: There's no question that Regina was taller than he was. And he was slight at the time. He's a little burlier now, but you know.

[30:49] Meg: You could probably take him.

[30:51] Jessica: I don't know.

[30:53] Meg: It didn't come to that.

[30:55] Jessica: But I think the problem lay in the plan, really, because the plan soon became known to us at school as we passed notes in Mrs. Alvarez's geometry class. The Matthew Broderick Garbage Bag Plan. And the plan was simply to accost him with a Hefty bag outside the stage door and somehow put it over his head and then somehow get him off his feet and drag him off in a Hefty, I swear.

[31:29] Meg: Oh come on, you're smart girls.

[31:30] Jessica: But I'm just saying that that was as far as we got. And at one point, we actually did genuinely consider going to the stage door. And then we were such chickens that we didn't even and you wouldn't even go to the stage door? No, we didn't even go to get an autograph. No, nothing. And years, years later, I actually met Sarah Jessica Parker at her production offices. A normal person would be like, Sarah Jessica Parker. I was like, you're married to the Matthew Broderick Garbage Bag Plan. Apparently you feel the same way I do. We have so much in common and you should option my book. So that was 1985 in a nutshell. And moving on from there, I think you made a really good point about how cheap it is to do a one person show, because 86 was Jackie Mason The World According to Me! By the way, I don't know if you recall this, but there was a craze in our all girls school where everyone started talking like Jackie Mason. Do you remember that? Little bit. And I don't know what it was, but all of these Waspy kids were walking around like, hey, what's going on? I don't understand. It's okay. I'm Jackie Mason. Weird. Loot, Robert Klein on Broadway, The House of Blue Leaves. And here's another Broadway anomaly, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

[32:53] Meg: Oh, God. That was so good.

[32:54] Jessica: It was so good. But do you remember that it was two performances? Well, because it's it was like 800 years long. Yes, but I had never been to a show where you had to go back the next day. So that was kind of it. Was like taking the SAT. It was like taking the LSATs. It was like taking the Bar Exam.

[33:12] Meg: That was life changing for me, that show.

[33:14] Jessica: Really? Why?

[33:15] Meg: Just the staging of it was brilliant. All these people playing all these different characters. And I love Charles Dickens, so that didn't hurt.

[33:22] Jessica: 1987. Anything Goes, a revival of Cabaret, Burn This, Fences and Safe Sex. Have you ever heard of that?

[33:33] Meg: Never heard of that.

[33:34] Jessica: It's like a public service announcement on Broadway.

[33:36] Meg: What's occurring to me, though, in every single year, there are lots of, there's at least one or two or three dark, very dark play on Broadway. I feel like Broadway right now.

[33:48] Jessica: I feel like right now Broadway is.

[33:51] Meg: Very song and dance.

[33:52] Jessica: 1987 was also the year that Le Miserables came to Broadway as well as Starlight Express.

[34:00] Meg: I would have loved to have seen Starlight Express.

[34:02] Jessica: Can you imagine? For those who don't know, Starlight Express was what's his name?

[34:05] Meg: Andrew Lloyd Webber

[34:06] Jessica: Andrew Lloyd Webber's big flop. Which was, if I remember correctly, it was about like a train. And the actors were all on roller skating.

[34:15] Meg: They were all on roller skates going.

[34:17] Jessica: In a circle around the audience. Something completely ficochta and insane.

[34:22] Meg: It's immersive and amazing.

[34:24] Jessica: What were you going to say? That there's something dark. Oh, Les Miserables is dark, but it's also triumphant.

[34:29] Meg: Exactly. Yeah. So it's a little bit different. You know, they're opening lots of roller skating rinks in the city. Skating is coming back.

[34:37] Jessica: Heard about that.

[34:38] Meg: I'm really excited.

[34:39] Jessica: Some influencer on Instagram. No, no, that's not true. It was a fashion magazine, and she was wearing neon yellow roller skates. Old school.

[34:50] Meg: I've got old school roller skates.

[34:52] Jessica: And you know what else? Cynthia Rowley put out old school roller skates with the boot is pink with flowers all over it.

[34:58] Meg: Cute.

[35:00] Jessica: I know.

[35:01] Meg: So maybe, I would go in a heartbeat.

[35:04] Jessica: Did you ever try rollerblading did you have roller blades? I did. It was one of those things that was a really great example of how I insisted on doing things that I didn't like at all because I had total FOMO, like the worst FOMO ever. And I remember careening around Central Park riding the brake on the heel all the way. It's terrifying. So just to wrap up the 80s as if you could ever wrap up the 80s. Another Andrew Lloyd Webber flop that I forgot about. Chess.

[35:37] Meg: Oh, great music, though.

[35:38] Jessica: Yes, very good. Ain't Misbehavin' and M. Butterfly. And 1989, "You can't handle the truth." A Few Good Men. Okay. Yeah. Jerome Robbins' Broadway and weirdly, Joan Jett and the Black Hearts on Broadway.

[35:54] Meg: What were they doing?

[35:55] Jessica: I have no idea. And now I have to find it. And if there is a soundtrack, we're getting it. Which also makes me think of Joan Jett's big film moment with do you remember? With Michael J. Fox.

[36:08] Meg: I just saw a picture of it.

[36:10] Jessica: Light of Day. Yeah, Light of Day.

[36:13] Meg: Where he's got a guitar and she's got a guitar.

[36:15] Jessica: He's, like, awkwardly holding a guitar, and.[

[36:17] Meg: He's a very good guitar player, actually. Michael J. Fox

[36:20] Meg: But the poster is awkward. True. And it's neon.

[36:23] Jessica: The fact that they were cast as siblings is one of the funniest things.

[36:27] Meg: I was like, what am I looking at? I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be getting from this.

[36:31] Jessica: From each of them, but there's a cognitive dissonance happening. And my favorite closing out The Heidi Chronicles. Wendy Wasserstein. Did you see that?

[36:44] Meg: I did not see that.

[36:46] Jessica: Well, for those who enjoy good theater, Reading The Heidi Chronicles is worth it. If you want to know where and how and what women were thinking and and and just the the trials and tribulations of womanhood in the 80's. The Heidi Chronicles is the best. And this is my last Jessica anecdote I used to do Aerobics, talk about the 80s. Wow. At a place, at a place on 79th street called. Are you ready? You're not ready for what?

[37:23] Meg: It's, I'm preparing myself.

[37:24] Jessica: I don't think you're ready. Body Design by Gilda. Oh, my God. I went there, too. No, you did not. I had blocked it out. Body Design by Gilda. Why we were going to aerobics? We were in college.

[37:45] Meg: I must have done it for a summer or something.

[37:48] Jessica: Well, there was one other woman in the class who was as uncoordinated and schlumpy as I was, and I kind of stalked her in the dressing room. I was like, who is this person who I identify with? And lo and behold, it was Wendy Wasserstein. So my great love for her has many facets. So that's a quick tour of 80s Broadway. I will say that the ones that stick with me the most are the ones from when I was very young, the musicals from when I was very, very young. And that was when the spectacle of Broadway was the first time I ever saw it. And it was just overwhelming.

[38:29] Meg: Yeah. I mean, I think certainly of the ones that you mentioned, I mean, The Real Thing, the way that it switches, it's the storytelling for me. I mean, the same thing with For Colored Girls... I never even thought about telling a story, the way that that show was structured A Chorus Line, for that matter, it was all very unique. To see theater doing what only theater can do.

[38:49] Jessica: I think it's also you know what it is in the 80's New Yorkers went to the theater, you could afford it. It wasn't corporate entertainment. It wasn't Disney. It was absolutely a night out. And you could take your family for a night out.

[39:06] Meg: It wasn't this prohibitive $1,000 tickets thing that's happening.

[39:11] Jessica: It was a normal part of life.

[39:13] Meg: Yeah. And what I was going to say is, later on with Andrew Lloyd Webber, you started to see the big spectacle, but with a lot of the shows that you were talking about early on. It's just about telling a good story. It is not about lights and moving platforms and spinning things.

[39:31] Jessica: None of them did that. When I say the spectacle of, like, 42nd Street when I was ten, it's rows and rows and rows of people doing the same thing. And the noise, like, just of the tap dancing.

[39:43] Meg: Well, on 42nd Street, though, they did have the big dime that they danced on. Remember. Jerry Orbach, yeah.

[39:52] Jessica: It was the Busby Berkeley moment. Well, anyway, this is reinvigorating.

[39:59] Meg: So, Jessica, does the name Three Finger Brown ring a bell?

[40:05] Jessica: Is that anything like a dirty Sanchez? You don't know what that is? No, I'll tell you.

[40:15] Meg: Whisper it to me later.

[40:16] Jessica: All right. You can look it up in Urban Dictionary. Yeah, it's very disturbing, but it's like, on the really tame spectrum of disturbing, but okay, so Three Finger Brown, it sounds like it's either a sex act or, you know, gangster, that's the word I'm looking for.

[40:32] Meg: It's some kind of guy who your father had to deal with in some way, and he was wondering why he only had why he was called Three Finger Brown. And my mother was like, perhaps in the name.

[40:53] Jessica: Well, I know a story about so my dad grew up in Brownsville, which was where the Jewish Mafia was Murder Incorporated. One of the family stories is that my grandfather, who was a very good pool player, was playing pool in the neighborhood. And I don't know. It was Louis Lepke. One of the big guys was there with his henchmen, and one of the henchmen kept tapping my grandfather's pool cue. To fuck him up. Exactly. And then eventually, my grandfather, without any warning, turned the pool cue around and went to smack them upside the head. And the guy was pulling out a gun.

[41:35] Meg: Oh, my God.

[41:35] Jessica: And the mob boss was like, no, you were wrong. Stop it. Go back and play.

[41:41] Meg: Thank God.

[41:42] Jessica: No kidding. Mean streets of Brownsville, man.

[41:45] Meg: Gritty story.

[41:46] Jessica: Yeah, well, and have a good weekend.

[41:50] Meg: See you next time.

[41:51] Jessica: Bye.

[41:52] Meg: Rate and Review if you have a chance.

[41:54] Jessica: Or Three Finger Brown will come and get you.