[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

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

[00:33] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: Jessica, this is our 50th episode. I mean, that's crazy.

[00:38] Jessica: I am so proud of us.

[00:43] Meg: I know, my heart just started beating really fast. I'm like, that's a big deal.

[00:46] Jessica: It is a really big deal. And, you know, that follow through is not always my strong suit. So this is really, really exciting.

[00:53] Meg: I remember when we first started. The first three episodes came out on our opening night, opening day, and I was with my mom in Sunnyside and she was like, so how many of these do you think you're going to do? Like ten? I was like, I think we have more than that in us.

[01:11] Jessica: 50. Little did she know it would become an obsession.

[01:18] Meg: And because it's been a hot minute since we have been together, I have a few things that I would like to say.

[01:26] Jessica: I am riveted.

[01:29] Meg: First of all, Irene Cara, her death was announced. Her cause of death Yeah, sorry.

[01:36] Jessica: Oh her cause of death.

[01:37] Meg: Irene Cara's cause of death was announced.

[01:40] Jessica: And it was

[01:41] Meg: High blood pressure.

[01:43] Jessica: Everyone get checked.

[01:44] Meg: Yeah. Hardening of the arteries and stress on her heart as a result of high blood pressure.

[01:50] Jessica: Very sad.

[01:51] Meg: Yes. But I'm glad it wasn't something more violent.

[01:54] Jessica: Oh, you thought that she met a violent end?

[01:57] Meg: Like she was a hermit. Because of Covid. Yeah. Her last days, months, years were not social.

[02:09] Jessica: I don't know why that's funny, but the way you put it amused me. I do not mean to offend. Go ahead.

[02:15] Meg: Okay. And our last episode, you spoke about the bridle path. And I have discovered something from all of our BFFs. People care about horses a lot. We got so much response because of that episode.

[02:33] Jessica: Did I get a whole lot of hate mail?

[02:34] Meg: No, not at all. People were delighted and reliving their horse days.

[02:40] Jessica: Oh, yeah. Yes. Well, that I was hoping for. Yeah. I thought that it was going to be like, you ride those poor animals and carriage horses. That doesn't sound very BFF. One of our BFFs did come back to us saying that the carriage horses were actually really well kept and that it's a myth.

[02:59] Meg: I know. That's crazy. We actually need to do a story on that because that is huge. Dibs. Yes. Also, I'm going to call out Barbara Goodwin because she sends in the best stories. She is my secret weapon.

[03:14] Jessica: Oh, my goodness.

[03:15] Meg: I know.

[03:16] Jessica: Hi, Barbara.

[03:17] Meg: And I'm going to give you some of her suggestions, too. And my last little thing before we get started.

[03:23] Jessica: Yes.

[03:24] Meg: I already told you this, so you know this, but I just have to tell this to everybody. Okay, who did I run into in the lobby of my father's building?

[03:32] Jessica: Who Meg?

[03:32] Meg: Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas.

[03:38] Jessica: Eeee! Did you feel free to be you and me?

[03:40] Meg: My jaw was on the floor. My eyes were popping out of my head. He was so charming. She was so sweet. I was like, this has made my day.

[03:53] Jessica: Marlo Thomas will always and forever be, like, the kind and gentle voice of our generation.

[03:59] Meg: And Phil Donahue, too.

[04:01] Jessica: Well, Phil Donahue yes, but he's louder and he was in a very gentle, avuncular way. He was trying to be more provocative. Like, did you ever see this is actually hilarious. In the early '90s on his show, he had the quote, club kids from The Limelight. He had Richie Rich, Michael Alig. So I just love that he would trot them out and then talk to them like their bemused uncle, like, so why do you have this melted wax on your head, kiddo? What's going on with that look?

[04:49] Jessica: Before you even begin, I'm so sorry. Do we want to address the fact that we did not have a podcast last week because I was at death's doorstep.

[04:57] Meg: Yeah.

[04:57] Jessica: That's all I have to say. Okay.

[04:59] Meg: I'm so glad you're feeling better.

[05:00] Jessica: Thank you. Me too. It was panic inducing not meeting, A and B, not delivering. So to all of you who were wondering, hey, WTF ladies, I apologize.

[05:16] Meg: Well, the most important thing is that you are feeling better.

[05:19] Jessica: I am, but I may sniff a bit during this, so I apologize for that as well.

[05:23] Meg: My engagement question Jessica. Have you ever been to a fight?

[05:28] Jessica: Yes, actually, I have.

[05:31] Meg: Really? I did not think you were going to say that.

[05:33] Jessica: Yes. In the early aughts, my friend Katrine, who was always the one who brought me to craziness, brought me to an underground boxing match that was in the basement of a church.

[05:48] Meg: What?

[05:48] Jessica: Yes. It was crazy, and it was all like, folding chairs and no one could smoke at that point inside. But it was like something out of a movie that it was like this kind of dark, close environment, people just beating the tar out of each other.

[06:05] Meg: I mean, my only association is, like, movies like Rocky, but yeah, it's a big deal. Boxing is a big deal. And it's a big deal in New York City.

[06:17] Jessica: Yes, and I'll note that that boxing match was here in New York on the West Side. But I know that you have another engagement question for me, and I'm going to be piggish and ask for both.

[06:31] Meg: Which one I was going to do. My other engagement question was, have you ever been in a fight?

[06:36] Jessica: Yes, I have. You hit someone? Twice. I did, but I was a child for both. The first one was I couldn't have been more than seven. Nicolas Shabinad on the bus said that girls weren't as good as boys. And without even thinking, I popped out of my seat and punched him in the face. Wow.

[07:05] Meg: Did you get in trouble?

[07:06] Jessica: No, it was on the school bus. No rules. Exactly. No rules on the school bus. The other one was either the same year or the next year and my brother and I were at Fleming together at the same time. And there is a boy who now is like, I think, like an incredibly successful lawyer or producer or something. His name is David Zabel. And David was standing and he was in my brother's class, and they were standing with a bunch of people, and my brother was, like, kind of on the outskirts of the conversation. And David, in my mind, my seven or eight year old mind, was being mean to my brother, but he might have been teasing him. I don't know what it was, but he was mean. And without thinking, my little hand flew out, and I punched him in the eye. Wow. And, like, you don't talk that way about my brother. I punched him in the eye. And I was so shocked at what I did, I started crying. Oh. I also got into a fight in college. This woman, Vonnie Lynn and I were in a feminist theory class, and I said that Adrienne Rich and other separatist feminists were full of shit. And she said, that was bullshit. We got into this big argument, and then she actually said to me, I'm going to meet you outside. And I was like, yeah, bring it, mind you. She's 5'10", and I'm 5'2". I had no reach. I had nothing on Vannie. And my friends were like, OOH, you're gonna get it. It's like the ultimate in, I go to a liberal arts school, and we have very special concerns. It was like, maybe 1990, 1989. Yeah, I went berserk because you don't have anything else to do in the middle of Ohio. So getting scrappy over separatist feminist theory seemed normal.

[09:02] Meg: Oh, my God.

[09:04] Jessica: Those are my three. That was great. You deliver. Yeah. Well, see, I'm glad that you were okay with my asking for the more incendiary question.

[09:13] Meg: All right. My sources are Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and a documentary. It's called Assault in the Ring. I do not recommend it. I feel like the person who made this documentary was really manipulative. So I just need to say I'm not a fan of it, but it was informative.

[09:32] Jessica: Okay.

[09:33] Meg: On Thursday, June 16, 1983. It was a sold out crowd at Madison Square Garden. World Junior Middleweight Champion Davey Moore was defending his title against veteran former champion Roberto Duran.

[09:50] Jessica: Oh, he's famous.

[09:53] Meg: Is he? Did I pronounce that right, Roberto? Who knows?

[09:55] Jessica: Yeah, yes you did.

[09:57] Meg: It was a pretty big deal, it was a big deal.

[09:58] Jessica: Uh huh.

[10:00] Meg: 21,061 people packed the Garden, the largest turnout in ten years. Gangsters and their girlfriends, dressed in full length furs in the middle of the summer, mingled with movie stars, chomping cigars. Like what you were describing, on a bigger scale.

[10:15] Jessica: Can I interrupt you for a second? Full length for coats. Did I ever tell you? And it's boxing relevant.

[10:24] Meg: Okay.

[10:24] Jessica: Did I ever tell you I was on the 79th street crosstown going from west to east and you know how it loops over on Amsterdam?

[10:31] Meg: Yes.

[10:32] Jessica: And then goes down 81st street? Yeah. Okay, so between 79th and 81st on Amsterdam, I look out the window this is in the '90s, believe. I look out the window and there's a giant Cadillac, a big green Cadillac. The trunk is open and someone is selling furs, fur coats out of the back. And you know who one of the people in the group was? Who? Mike Tyson. Wow. Not making it up. And I did that like he was buying. Yeah. You rub your eyes in the cartoons, it goes like squeak, squeak, blink, blink. It was definitely him. There was no question. And he was, like, wearing a full suit that was very flashy and he was with a woman in a full length coat. And he was getting a full length fur coat.

[11:18] Meg: From the trunk of a.

[11:20] Jessica: From the trunk of a green Cadillac.

[11:22] Meg: Great. Many boxing enthusiasts had tired of the heavyweight fights dominated by Larry Holmes and the dancing and weaving and strategy of middleweight contenders was trending. Sugar Ray Leonard, he's a good example, was the commentator for CBS and the fight was being broadcast live on closed circuit and pay per view. The fight was on Duran's 32nd birthday and Moore was a five to two favorite to win. Most of the crowd wasn't paying too much attention to the undercard. Do you know what an undercard is? I do. I will tell you. It's like the warm up fight.

[12:01] Jessica: Oh, interesting.

[12:02] Meg: Billy Ray Collins (Billy Collins Jr.) was going up against Luis Resto. This was Billy Ray's big break. Billy Ray grew up in Antioch, 10 miles south of Nashville in a three room dirt floor shack.

[12:16] Jessica: Oh, my goodness.

[12:17] Meg: His father was a boxer and a truck driver and ultimately trained pit bulls to fight. And he trained Billy Ray. Billy Ray was up at 05:00 A.M., running 5 miles, going to school, and coming home to train with his father every day since he was a little boy. And he was really good. In 1981, he had his professional debut in Atlantic City. And by the time of the Resto fight, he was the 21 year old undefeated up and comer known as Irish.

[12:47] Jessica: Interesting.

[12:47] Meg: Resto, by contrast, had grown up in the Bronx. His mother and two sisters moved from Puerto Rico when he was nine. And when Luis was in the 8th grade, his teacher at P. S. 133 yelled at him for talking and grabbed his arm. Luis smashed his elbow in the teacher's face and was promptly expelled and then sent to a Bronx hospital that had a rehabilitation center for the mentally disturbed.

[13:17] Jessica: Oh, dear.

[13:18] Meg: I know this is not a happy story. Every day there he was plied with pills and shots. Quote, "I was there for six months of hell. It messes you up good. Finally, my mother took me out." When he got home, his uncle signed him up for boxing lessons at a gym, and he took to it. Quote, "They never really said I was good. They said I was tough." And he won three New York Golden Gloves titles.

[13:47] Jessica: Wow.

[13:48] Meg: I know. Success story. He was a smart fighter, not a hard hitter. By the time of the Collins fight, he was 27 and ranked 10th in the world, but no one really knew him outside of New York. He was considered a journeyman. Fighters on the rise had to prove themselves against him. The Collins fight would be his biggest payday, $10,000, but it was really arranged as a showcase for Billy Ray, who was strongly favored to win. Billy Ray's dad was his trainer and his corner man. The legendary trainer Panama Lewis was in charge of Resto's corner. Panama Lewis, the trainer for Resto, he was larger than life. Imagine sort of a Don King character. He was charismatic and demanding and knew everyone. Mike Tyson has said that Lewis was the best trainer around, but there had been a bit of a scandal in 1982, HBO, which was broadcasting the Pryor vs Arguello fight, had footage of Panama Lewis screaming at an assistant who was trying to give Pryor water. Panama Lewis screamed, "not that one. The special one I mixed." Yeah. And that was caught on camera. Then Pryor had a sudden surge of energy and won the fight. It was suspicious and there were whispers, but nothing was ever proven. So a year later, on June 16, 1983, the stakes were high for both Billy Ray and Resto. But no one in the Garden was really paying close attention to the fight until about the third round. Resto wasn't known for having a powerful punch, and Billy Ray never backed up, but in this fight, Billy Ray was driven back on his heels by the onslaught of Resto's shots to his head. Back in his corner, Billy Ray said to his dad, quote, "It feels like he's got rocks in his gloves." His dad told him to go back out and fight like a man. For the next four rounds, Billy Ray tried to put up a fight, but he was no match for Resto. And the skin below both his eyes began to swell and turn purple. In the middle of round seven, the cut under his left eye began to leak. It was hard to imagine how he could see, his face was so swollen. I've watched the fight. It's insane.

[16:24] Jessica: Oh, this sounds really gruesome.

[16:26] Meg: It is. But somehow he stayed on his feet. Now the crowd was fixated on the fight, and they roared for Resto, the hometown boy every time he landed a punch. Resto was known for body shots, but in this fight, he put all his energy into Billy Ray's face. The two fighters finished the ten rounds without a knockout, and the judges unanimously called the fight for Resto. It was a huge victory for Resto, and the crowd was going wild. After the fight, Resto went over to Billy Ray's corner, which is customary. But when Billy Ray's dad shook Resto's right glove, he grabbed it and wouldn't let go. He called out, hey, "all the padding is out of the damn gloves. It's all out." Resto tried to pull away and looked over to Panama Lewis for help that Billy Ray's dad wouldn't let go. Commissioner. Commissioner. No padding. There's no damn padding. And it was true. A three quarter inch hole was found at the base of each of the gloves, and a third of the padding had been removed. Some remnants of the horse hair lining was later discovered near the wash basin in Resto's locker room. I'm going to talk about gloves for a second.

[17:42] Jessica: I am sitting here in shock with my jaw hanging down.

[17:46] Meg: I mean, and it's all on camera. People were watching this live in Madison Square Garden, but they were also watching it on HBO pay per view.

[17:56] Jessica: Right.

[17:57] Meg: So, boxing gloves are designed to protect the head and the hands of the fighters. You are 184 times more likely to be killed in a bare knuckle fight than a gloved fight. And imagine being in a fight with pillows on your hands while your opponent has bare fists. Not a fair fight. Billy Ray Collins face was seven shades of purple, and his eyes were so swollen he couldn't see. His face was double its normal size. He looked like something out of a horror movie. And within a few weeks of the fight, it was determined that his eyes were too damaged to ever fight again.

[18:34] Jessica: Could he still see?

[18:35] Meg: He could see, but one of his eyes it was all blurry. On July 1, the boxing commission determined that the gloves had intentionally been tampered with, and they revised the outcome of the fight to no contest. And in 1986, Panama Lewis and Louis Resto were convicted of assault, conspiracy, and criminal possession of a deadly weapon, Resto's fists.

[19:04] Jessica: Wow.

[19:05] Meg: And both spent two and a half years in jail.

[19:08] Jessica: Good.

[19:09] Meg: The Collins family sued Resto, Lewis, both the inspectors who were supposed to check the gloves, the promoters of the fight, and Everlast Sporting Goods for $65 million. But nine months after the fight, Billy Ray Collins, who had been deeply depressed and drinking heavily, drove his car into a ditch and died. Because they couldn't connect his death directly to the fight, the lawsuit, which was based on loss of future earnings, became moot and was dismissed.

[19:41] Jessica: Oh, no.

[19:42] Meg: When Luis Resto got out of jail, he could no longer fight. He'd been banned for cheating. A Bronx gym hired him to sweep up and let him live in the basement.

[19:53] Jessica: Oh, God.

[19:55] Meg: Panama Lewis was no longer allowed to work the corner, but he made a lot of money training fighters in Las Vegas. He just couldn't show up for the fight, but he could train them. For 25 years, Resto denied knowing that Lewis had tampered with the gloves. But in 2007, he was interviewed for a documentary, the one I was talking about and admitted that not only did he know the padding had been removed, brace yourself, Lewis had soaked his handwraps in Plaster of Paris, which hardened.

[20:32] Jessica: I am speechless.

[20:34] Meg: Also, his water bottle was spiked with asthma medication that gave him greater lung capacity. He said he did not protest at the time, even though he knew it was wrong. Quote "At the time, I was young. I went along." This is also in the documentary. I don't know if he always seemed a little off, or maybe it's a result of having a career in boxing, but this is not a sharp guy. He was manipulated his entire life, in my humble opinion.

[21:09] Jessica: Okay.

[21:10] Meg: He also claimed that Panama Lewis met with a cocaine trafficker.

[21:14] Jessica: I was going to ask about the water. I was convinced that it was spiked with coke. The water from the other fight. A guy suddenly was like, I'm superhuman.

[21:23] Meg: Well, the reason that Panama Lewis met with a cocaine trafficker was because he wanted to put a big bet on the fight. And remember, Resto.

[21:33] Jessica: What a garbage person. Wow. How can he get lower than he's now subterranean?

[21:42] Meg: And they met at Victor's, a Cuban restaurant in the Bronx, 16 days before the fight. Panama Lewis died a rich, influential man in September 2020. Luis Resto lives hand to mouth in the Bronx. Billy Ray's father told The New York Times in 1984, right after his death, quote, "When Billy Ray's baby was born last August, he was disappointed, it was a girl told me, Daddy, I wanted a boy so that he could be a fighter like us. I told him you crazy. I fought for my family to get you out of this. I failed. But if you make it, you let your kid be a doctor or lawyer. You make it, you get out of this hellhole. Anybody comes to me and asks to be a boxer, I tell him, what for? So you can have your brain scrambled and your face cut and somebody else gets the money? You are nobody but a piece of meat until you become famous, all you hear about is getting a fighter's family out of the ghetto. But only about one in a thousand do it. Boxing never did nothing but hurt me and my son and every fight it's like facing the electric chair"

[22:53] Jessica: Not exaggerating chills. That is the most tragic and eloquent statement. That's a horrible story.

[23:04] Meg: I know. It's like, okay, so the dad right. One of the things he does for a living is he fights pit bulls. Horrible, buut it's just such a fine line difference between these pit bulls and human beings.

[23:18] Jessica: I think that is how he sees it from what you've described, I have never understood watching and enjoying boxing. The one little underground thing that I went to, no one was landing punches that were hard enough to really mess someone up for life. But when I was a kid, my dad would sometimes watch boxing, and I just couldn't wrap my head around, like, where's the sport? Like, I know you have to be really strong, and I know you have to be really fit, and I know you have to be really fast and hand eye coordination and strategy and all of that, but the real point is to beat the stuffing out of another person.

[24:03] Meg: To knock them out.

[24:04] Jessica: Yeah. Which is so, I've never been able to understand it at all.

[24:10] Meg: Me neither.

[24:11] Jessica: No, it's gross. It's super gross.

[24:13] Meg: And yeah, that these two young men who were really good at what they did. They were athletic, they were disciplined, they were just used, just used up.

[24:25] Jessica: Well, I mean, in a way, isn't that the story of so many people in entertainment? The people who can put the deal together, the people who can get it in front of other people, they're the ones who get the money. They get the door. That's it.

[24:43] Meg: And all those guys. I mean, I imagine, as I'm sure you can too. Madison Square Garden and Trump and Don King and Al Sharpton. Like, all those guys, they loved boxing.

[24:55] Jessica: Well, I mean, people it was people used to go really dressed up to the fights, like in the '50s and '60s, isn't that the case? That they were like, really, they were see and be seen events at the Garden. It wasn't a bunch of guys chomping cigars with, like, throwing singles down and throwing dice.

[25:16] Meg: And who were the movie stars? I mean, like, Jack Nicholson? Am I just making this stuff up?

[25:21] Jessica: I honestly have no idea. So I couldn't say either way. I just remember again from childhood, seeing that it was celebrities were being named by the announcers, so the devastation isn't surprising.

[25:37] Meg: Plaster of Paris.

[25:39] Jessica: Yes.

[25:39] Meg: He was being hit with rocks.

[25:42] Jessica: The other thing, though, is this, and here's my big question, is if he felt that something was wrong, his dad said, go out there and be a man. I understand that hindsight is 20/20. I really get that. But if if someone is saying there's something amiss, like, why did dad not stop the fight? Yes. Or or he he didn't demand it, and his dad didn't demand like, there there could have been an intervention. I understand that it takes a huge amount of wherewithal to do that, and it's no joke. And I know that this is supposed to be.

[26:21] Meg: The dad said it never even crossed his mind.

[26:28] Jessica: Even when his kid's face was double the normal size and he's still in the ring. I'm not trying to say, well, there's a reason that everything went so poorly, and it was his dad's fault. That's not it. I'm just saying that when you see that someone is now in an unusual situation and it's the same thing with well.

[26:52] Meg: The commentators, if you watch the whole fight, everyone was seeing the same thing. Anyone could have stopped it. I mean, there was something about it that wasn't right, but it wasn't so crazy that it was actionable. It wasn't until I mean, in the comment, the commentators I mean, you hear Sugar Ray Leonard or whatever going like, gosh, I mean, I don't think that Billy Ray is going to win this. At some point, you just got to give up because he was such a tough fighter that he didn't get knocked out. If he had been less tough, he might have been knocked out earlier on, and then it wouldn't have gotten as bad as it did. But he stayed on his feet.

[27:31] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, you can't rewrite history. It's tragic. It's horrible.

[27:36] Meg: But yeah, in front of I mean, this horrible thing happened in front of all these people.

[27:42] Jessica: Well, I was just mentioning before with football, that now everyone's like, oh, if you take too many hits to the head, it's bad for you. Back to your point about who becomes a rich person. It's not a mystery. None of this is a mystery. You see someone getting their knees knocked out from under them. You see someone landing on their head. You see someone landing with their neck at a funny angle. That happens in football all the time. Why is it that it's only in the last five to ten years that they're like, gee, you know, we think and it's because maybe they figured out how to keep the money flowing so they can be more careful with their players. Who knows? But as they say in conspiracy theory movies, follow the money. Meg, I'm going to take a page from your book now. I'm going to give you an engagement question.

[28:51] Meg: Okay.

[28:52] Jessica: Do you like award shows?

[28:54] Meg: No.

[28:55] Jessica: Tell me why.

[28:58] Meg: They're boring and everyone so, it's all self congratulatory. I can't stand award shows.

[29:06] Jessica: Fascinating. When we were much, much younger, did you ever watch them for the wacky fashions that people wore? I remember Cher and her Bob Mackie years.

[29:21] Meg: Maybe the red carpet.

[29:22] Jessica: That's what I mean.

[29:24] Meg: Sure, but I definitely turn the channel when the actual show starts.

[29:30] Jessica: Yeah. I enjoyed until, I don't know, maybe ten years ago, when everything became what designer is just trotting out their latest collection on the red carpet. But when people were really doing weird, weird, crazy, the Cher thing, I thought that was fun.

[29:50] Meg: And people were making huge missteps with their outfits.

[29:56] Jessica: That was the age of Mr. Blackwell with like, the worst dress list and all of that. That was really fun. But I'm like you, I would get very bored with the actual award ceremony. And I never understood why people would be interested in knowing what the film industry was giving itself.

[30:12] Meg: Right?

[30:12] Jessica: Like, who cares about you? You know, it's funny of all of the award shows that I've sort of snoozed through, there's only one person whose acceptance speech stuck with me. That was Alan Alda and I don't know if it was an Emmy or an Oscar, I don't remember what it was, but he got up and he said, I think that it's a real waste of time for me to just say thank you to everybody. So instead I'm going to give you my grandmother's spaghetti sauce recipe. And that's what he did. And I was like, Alan, we just love you. What a charmer. But the reason I'm asking is because the Grammy's just happened, which I hear, yeah, I didn't watch it at all. And I've seen because the minute you get online, they're popping up Bonnie Raitt. Woohoo. Yeah. And that all of these young people are like little known blues woman. I know this is really sacrilegious, but that's being like, Jesus Christ, little known carpenter. Yeah. And I thought, like, Lizzo is in some kind of an orange outfit. I thought it was fabulous. I saw that she was in an orange cocoon.

[31:27] Meg: An orange furry cocoon.

[31:29] Jessica: Well, you love a onesie and you've now converted me to loving a onesie. So maybe Lizzo's in the onesie club.

[31:36] Meg: Yeah, I took one look at that and I was like, yes, I approve.

[31:40] Jessica: That is fine. And I saw that Elle Fanning was wearing something that looked shredded, like a bunch of squirrels had gotten to. It was very odd. Well, I would have understood it if it was on Helena Bonham Carter, who I love more than anything, and anyone who says they don't, that she just decided at some point I can't be A Room With a View for another flipping second and she was just like, I'm going to style my hair with an egg beater and I'm going to wear shredded nonsense and that's it. But she is now I think she's like the head of the London Library.

[32:24] Meg: Oh, she's very impressive and she's a wonderful actress.

[32:26] Jessica: I do love her. But yes. I thought Elle Fanning's dress was really Helena Bonham Carter's dress if she had gone. But anyway.

[32:34] Meg: I'll look that up.

[32:36] Jessica: So the one thing that I've seen a lot of, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, is the outcry over Madonna's appearance.

[32:46] Meg: I've heard rumor of it. I saw a glimpse of it. I have to say that I had been assuming that all of her Instagram's were filters. Well, they are, but this, that's what it looks like. It looks like a filter.

[33:01] Jessica: Yeah, it it does look rather extreme. And then today I was looking at some I don't know if it was Facebook or Instagram or something like that, but someone posted a photo of Madonna when she was just first on the scene and then a photo of her maybe in the '90s and then a current photo from the Grammy's, bizarrely, I know you're going to fight me on this, but the point this person was making, and I agree with her, is that she's still recognizable. And there are so many people who have had work done where you're like, I genuinely don't know who you are. Like you could get on the red carpet and it's an 80s show, so Jennifer Grey being the perfect example of one false snip and no one knows who you are.

[33:50] Meg: People might not know that story. You should tell the Jennifer Grey story.

[33:53] Jessica: Oh, Jennifer Grey, whose career was really hot, starting, I think, with Red Dawn, daughter of Joel Grey, Joel Grey legendary song and dance man, the MC in the film of Cabaret.

[34:10] Meg: Her biggest movie, obviously

[34:13] Jessica: Was Dirty Dancing, but she was the sister in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. She was in Red Dawn. These are all big funny and big '80s movies, right? And soon after succumbed to the same pressure that very clearly her dad did because Joel Grey basically looks like Voldemort. The poor man. I don't think anyone ever saw him pre nose job, but he really removed his nose entirely. She got a little standard issue, now you look like a shiksa and it ruined her career.

[34:47] Meg: She did look completely different.

[34:50] Jessica: Well, and looking the way that she did with her original nose was part of why people loved Jennifer Grey. It was that she wasn't perfect and she was this, but still sexy and pretty.

[35:01] Meg: Yeah, that's what it was. Like after the nose job, it's like you wouldn't even notice her.

[35:05] Jessica: There was nothing distinctive about her and she was adorable and sexy and pretty.

[35:09] Meg: And it was. Kind of an ethnic face. And I remember people getting kind of annoyed with her that she would do that, too, that it felt why would you do that? Spat in our face and we loved you and stood by you during all those years.

[35:23] Jessica: There was even a sitcom not that long ago that did not move forward, but I think that the premise of it was Jennifer Grey trying to get her career back. I'm going to look it up. But it was a comedy where it's like, no, really, I'm Jennifer Grey.

[35:41] Meg: No, you're not.

[35:43] Jessica: No. So anyway, I was looking at these three photos of Madonna, and the point that this woman was making is, yes, she is altered, but you still know exactly who she is. And her features, the basic shape of her features has not changed that dramatically. It's mostly the size of her face and the cheekbones. Also, this is not cosmetic surgery. She's removed her eyebrows, which doesn't help to frame a face.

[36:15] Meg: I don't understand.

[36:17] Jessica: I don't know this trend either bleaching them or removing them, shaving them. I don't know. I don't know what that's about. I understand wanting to look edgy. Really. No one. There's an actress named Mia Goth who's a big thing right now. She, I think, naturally doesn't have eyebrows. I find it so hard to look at her, very difficult, and I'm sure she's a marvelous actress, but I just look at her and all I can think is, no eyebrows. No eyebrows, no eyebrows. So it's extraordinarily distractment.

[36:56] Meg: I remember when Nicold Kidman did that.

[36:57] Jessica: It was so weird.

[36:58] Meg: That was ages ago, though. That was like, in the '90s.

[37:00] Jessica: Yeah. When everyone was plucking their eyebrows down to, like, a pencil thin 1930s.

[37:05] Meg: Again, not a good look.

[37:06] Jessica: Remember when people did it? They plucked them, but they also made a shape that was an arch that went from where an eyebrow normally begins and then ends halfway through where their eyebrow would end. So they looked both surprised and misshapen. It was so weird. It was truly bananas.

[37:27] Meg: I mean, speaking of '80s or whatever, Brooke Shields eyebrows. Perfect.

[37:31] Jessica: Perfection. And she never got rid of them.

[37:35] Meg: To this day. She never plucked them. Thank God.

[37:37] Jessica: Bless her. But anyway, I think that the whole thing about Madonna, I was going to say and her hairdo was really tragic because it was just it forget being too young for her or whatever. It was just ugly.

[37:56] Meg: I have to look this up.

[37:58] Jessica: It was very thin braids that were looped up around her head. It had sort of do you remember in The Fifth Element there was the opera singer who was like the big blue thing with the tentacles for hair?

[38:11] Meg: No.

[38:11] Jessica: How can you not know?

[38:13] Meg: Because I have no idea what The Fifth Element is.

[38:15] Jessica: Are you kidding me right now? It's a very good movie. Please watch it.

[38:20] Meg: Okay, I will. I promise.

[38:21] Jessica: Anyway, that's what she looked like to me. But she dyed her hair kind of weird combination of brown, orange, and yellow, and it's all just it's not good. It's like, you know what? In a way, the braids are kind of like the worst of the 1830s when women would have braids like their hair is back, and then they have braids, and they're like they're literally loops under their ears and then across their head. It's just flat out really bad. Anyway, so she actually said something to the press in the press was quoted saying, very bluntly, "I got fat." Now, who amongst us during COVID have not gained a few extra pounds? We're used to seeing Madonna as this otherworldly waif, right?

[39:10] Meg: And she famously worked out 2 hours a day, every day.

[39:14] Jessica: Right. And now she looks a little chubby.

[39:18] Meg: Okay.

[39:19] Jessica: And that has added to the look. So, anyway, I was looking at this and I was thinking, like, is this fair? And even if she looked really, really awful, there's so much plastic surgery that, to my mind looks awful, but people applaud all the time. Like, I can't believe what Kylie Jenner has done to her face. All of the Jenner's. But Kylie Jenner is like, they do not look like who they once were. And plastic surgery?

[39:46] Meg: Isn't she, like, 19 or something?

[39:49] Jessica: No, I think she's in her 20s, late 20s now, and she's got like 15 children, but no, not 15 kids, like two or three. But anyway, that's my perspective on children. Anything over one is too many, except for yours. So anyway, I was looking at all of this and I was like, so is it fair? And then I got really into it and I started looking at more and more comments about her. And the thing that really tipped me over the edge was that she was compared to Jocelyn Wildenstein.

[40:20] Meg: Oh, that's not nice.

[40:21] Jessica: Right? And I thought, first off, just not accurate. Like not true. Because Jocelyn Wildenstein, her face, and I'll give a quick history of Jocelyn Wildenstein, she simply does not look even remotely well, first, like the person she started out as, and secondly, not human.

[40:46] Meg: Not human.

[40:47] Jessica: She and the Bogdanoff twins in France, brothers who once looked normal and are now totally in her camp. But you were going to say something.

[40:55] Meg: I saw a recent picture of her where it looked like she couldn't even close her mouth because it's been pulled back so much.

[41:05] Jessica: Agreed. So for those who are not in the know, Jocelyn Wildenstein was a socialite. Not even, she was a normal middle class, I think, Swiss woman who somehow got mixed up into the world of socialites.

[41:19] Meg: I think she was introduced to her husband by Khashoggi.

[41:22] Jessica: She was, thanks for stealing that thunder, Meg. Sorry, I researched it and everything.

[41:28] Meg: Sorry! I was at an event where Khashoggi was. I know.

[41:32] Jessica: Really? Did you take a photo with Khashoggi?

[41:34] Meg: No, I did not.

[41:35] Jessica: Oh, okay.

[41:36] Meg: Well that was a little creepy.

[41:38] Jessica: Anyway, so she was running around in that world and she was introduced to her soon to be husband, Alec Wildenstein, who is an art dealer, but from a family of wildly wealthy art dealers. And soon after they married, they got his and hers facelifts. So she was in her late thirty's at the time, I think because she was born in 1940, so she's like 38 when she got her first facelift. Like a lot of people who we don't know because they're not famous, but if you walk around the Upper East Side long enough, or Rodeo Drive, you'll see them. There are a lot of women of a certain vintage who just okay, did you see the movie Brazil?

[42:21] Meg: They have an affected face lifts?

[42:24] Jessica: Well, it was stretch. It was cut and stretch. Did you see Brazil?

[42:28] Meg: And that doesn't age well. Yes, of course.

[42:30] Jessica: Okay, so 1980s film, Terry Gilliam, Brazil. There's the famous Katherine Helmond getting her face stretched with the Saran wrap and that really is the look. They all had the same nose, stretched and then every time the face gets stretched, the skin gets compromised. So then the skin starts to look. First my friend Bronwyn said because you look leathery, she said they look like leathery survivors. And then it goes into crazy town of just like it doesn't look like skin, it looks like putty.

[43:02] Meg: But it's true. I mean, my mother has not had anything done. No, she looks great. And she looks normal. She looks like a human being. And it is interesting when you walk up and down Madison Avenue and you see people who got those surgeries in, like, the '70s and the '80s and it just didn't age.

[43:20] Jessica: You know what I just saw last night? I started watching the show on Apple Shrinking Jason Segel and yeah oh, my God Harrison Ford's show and Christa Miller, who's a really fun comedic actress. I think she was in Cougar Town. She's been in a whole bunch of things. She's in it. And I always noticed that she had started to get work done, and now she's so tight that she has lines that go from the corners of her mouth just back towards her ears. She's starting to look like a puppet. Like, remember Waylon Jennings and Madam. And of course she's starting to look like a Waylon.

[43:59] Meg: So many things that are going to be fun to post.

[44:01] Jessica: Okay. Delighted, Madame. Only the '70s could spawn a super gay, super successful ventriloquist with his anti Mame wackadoo puppet named Madame. And no one said anything. No, that was Paul Lynde, but he was a square. He and Madame had a square. Paul Lynde. I mean, isn't it interesting?

[44:26] Meg: Do people know what we're talking about?

[44:28] Jessica: I hope. Well, they can look it up or we're all have to do a thing on game shows. Just the proliferation because I love all things gay, as we know, the proliferation of incredibly camp gay men all over TV.

[44:44] Meg: Charles Nelson Reilly.

[44:49] Jessica: Rip, what was his name? Rip Taylor with the confetti and the The $1.98 Beauty Show where he gave the, you know, carrots instead of a bouquet. It was so campy. And no one was like, gee, that's a lot of gay men out there. They were just like, oh, it's like in early '80s, Too Close for Comfort.

[45:08] Meg: Oh, my God.

[45:08] Jessica: And that the upstairs neighbor. Monroe was just silly, right? And it was like, Monroe and they lived in San Francisco. It was like, Monroe, gay, gay, gay.

[45:19] Meg: My friend Tim Murphy interviewed him.

[45:22] Jessica: Shut up right there.

[45:24] Meg: For his, it's not a podcast. It's a blog called Caftan

[45:28] Jessica: Is Jim J Bullock still alive?

[45:30] Meg: Yes. Shut up. And he tells incredible stories to Tim Murphy on Caftan Chronicles.

[45:36] Jessica: Okay.

[45:36] Meg: First off, I will, of course have a link.

[45:38] Jessica: So many points to Tim Murphy for the title Caftan Chronicles, because I can't with that. Speaking of it's, maybe a good time to mention that I went as Mrs. Roper for Halloween most recently. And the frightening thing. In my mother's phone. Yes. And the frightening thing was that I didn't have to buy any accessories or outfits. I will not post that. I don't. It's so bad. I couldn't believe your mother took it.

[46:02] Meg: She's just not good at taking pictures. It's not you.

[46:05] Jessica: It's not well, it's partly me, but I can't picture it's astonishing. And I couldn't believe that she sent it to me, like, look, something to commemorate the events and I was like, I'd sooner die a thousand deaths than commemorate anything with that photo.

[46:23] Meg: She was blind because she cares about you so much.

[46:26] Jessica: And I love her, but I can.

[46:28] Meg: But she couldn't tell that that was an awful picture?

[46:31] Jessica: I should have been like high above the Macy's Day Parade in that photo. It was shocking. I was like, I know I gained some weight, but whoa, that's really bad. Admittedly, sitting there in my caftan/tent didn't help to accentuate my figure, but it was B-A-D bad. Yeah, it was really wretched. Anyway, yes, Jim J. Bullock, aka Monroe, aka just another silly person who's wacky and crazy. So how did we get on this? Oh, yes, all the way from Jocelyn Wildenstein to Christa Miller to Madame, to gay men to gay men in the '80s on game shows in '70s and '80s, just being completely out and camp, so back to Jocelyn Wildenstein. So she was really a fixture on the socialite scene in the '80s with her husband Alec, and we're talking in the '80s, billions and billions of dollars. Just crazy, cuckoo money. And she started getting more and more and more plastic surgeries. And as I described, the more you stretch the skin, the more it looks like it's not skin. But she was a pioneer in the world of implants, silicone implants. And here's when. No, the cheekbones. Yes, here's when you tip over from I want to look better, to I'm crazy. She had a pet lynx I think, some kind of panther, and she wanted to look like that and so she kept on having her cheekbones enhanced and her jaw changed and her eye shape changed so that.

[48:20] Meg: That sounds like facial dysmorphia or something.

[48:22] Jessica: So her plastic surgery addiction was so intense that she got the nickname the Bride of Wildenstein. Harsh. Also Catwoman, less harsh, but all of it cuckoo crazy. Crazy. And I have to admit, I cannot remember if this was in the late '80s or the '90s, but I got my hair cut in Trump Tower. It was not where I usually went. Like, someone who had normally cut my hair moved to a salon in Trump Tower. And okay, so I got my haircut there and I was leaving the building and hailing a cab. And it was, as always, difficult to get a cab. You don't just raise your hand and something appears. But on that day, I raised my hand up into the air and a cab slid right in front of me, right on the side. I was like, it's my lucky day because as usual, I was running late. And I reach for the car door to open it because I didn't realize that it was occupied.

[49:31] Meg: Okay, got it.

[49:32] Jessica: So I open it, but I'm looking away. And then I turn my head, as one does, to look where one is going. And I came face to face with Jocelyn Wildenstein. And to my infinite shame, I went like this. Oh, my God. I know. I actually audibly gasped. She eventually divorced Alec Wildenstein or he divorced her. And this is 1990 or something 1999, I think. Anyway, she got $4 billion, which she invested in further plastic surgeries, so she's still at it. And now, honestly, there was a joke also running around that she looked like, here's another '80s reference Ron Perlman in the TV show Beauty and the Beast. For those of you who are not familiar with this Hellboy was the beast in a TV show with Linda Hamilton what? Of Terminator fame. So she is still at it and she is with a man who is 55. She is 82. And I say, good for you, except who's going to be like, I want to break off a piece of that action because it's so scary. Also, she looks a bit like I hate to say it, I think this is an '80s, not '90s reference. Do you recall the film Mask?

[50:59] Meg: Yes.

[51:02] Jessica: Right, exactly. I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong.

[51:05] Meg: Like I said, it doesn't age well. There's something, it doesn't settle.

[51:12] Jessica: Like to look like an animal, and this is the animal I would like to look like. Please begin slicing and dicing. And julienning like, no. By the way, Mask tour de force for Cher and Eric Stoltz, for those of you who have not seen it, see it. So anyway, that is Jocelyn Wildenstein. That is my story. It's one of my specials. Like, I took you on a tour of the inside of my head, but that's my feelings about Madonna. Madonna, '80s. Jocelyn Wildenstein, '80s. Monroe, the '80s. This was an '80s a go-go.

[52:01] Meg: So what's our tie in for our 50th episode?

[52:05] Jessica: You had a boxer whose face was disfigured.

[52:08] Meg: Oh my God. You just did that.

[52:09] Jessica: I did.

[52:10] Meg: The top of your head.

[52:11] Jessica: I did.

[52:11] Meg: Oh my God. And you know, I'm going to post that picture of him.

[52:17] Jessica: That might be a trigger warning.

[52:19] Meg: Boxing happens. It's a thing.

[52:21] Jessica: I agree with you. You know what? Why don't you do Jocelyn side by side with the boxer? Oh, God. Okay. Because that's the tie in for 50. And that's how we're going to represent ourselves for our 50th episode. Carnage. Facial carnage. Okay. Woohoo.