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

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm 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.

[00:27] 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.

[00:36] Meg: So, Jessica, how did you know that everyone was going to talk about Madonna at the Grammys?

[00:40] Jessica: Look, I've had this I say this a lot in my work life. I know that despite what I'd like to think, I am not a special snowflake. And in fact, I probably represent a large demographic. So if something strikes me, the likelihood is that I'm not alone. So when I saw it and I was like, it's going on, I figured that would be it. And I noticed that it was starting to pop up on a couple of people's Facebook feeds as like, is this where we are now?

[01:15] Meg: Well, what I like that I've seen since we talked about it last week is that people are like, give her a break, she looks fine. I think she looks fine. Okay. I don't know. I guess you could say she doesn't look like she used to look, but.

[01:33] Jessica: I don't think yeah, I mean, the people who are like, you're 60 something and you should look like you're 20 can go. I was going to say a lot of dirty things, and I thought of my father listening, and I just stopped. But they could do a lot of nasty things to themselves. But some people might feel justified talking about altering your face with plastic surgery or injectables.

[01:51] Meg: Just trying to find something to complain about, because, honestly.

[01:57] Jessica: Is she the worst example of what's out there?

[01:59] Meg: Certainly not. 100% not. And how is she supposed to age exactly? Is there an acceptable way of aging? I mean, Paulina Porizkova brought up the fact that she is going, oh, natural. And people get on her for that. So everyone just get off each other's jocks. Yes, thank you.

[02:18] Jessica: Well, the other thing that I noticed about Madonna, in her chubbiness and that she was saying, I gained some weight, goddamn it, is I know that this is becoming an old saw, but Catherine Deneuve's famous statement about as you age, you pick your face or your ass, is true. And I am not above acknowledging my own chubb-horrificness, and I know that my face benefits from it. There's this article that I just read about how, you know, everyone's getting, taking these diabetes medications off brand as a way to stop themselves from eating. Do you hear about this?

[02:55] Meg: No, I did not hear about this.

[02:57] Jessica: This is a huge thing right now. And one of them, particularly I think, that's popular, the first one is called Ozempic.

[03:05] Meg: Okay.

[03:05] Jessica: And just as a side note, on the side note, I was ghost writing for a guy, a doctor, who wanted to do a diet book. And yet. I remember. Yeah. And yet refused to actually give me any peer reviewed research and instead gave me an article from Woman's Day magazine. And I was like, you, sir? He's like Dr. Nick from the Simpsons. At one point, he's in New York City. I went to his office because I just wanted to meet him and get a handle on what level of insanity I was dealing with. And while I was there, he said, you know, there's this drug that's been approved today. Like that day the FDA gave Ozempic the thumbs up. And he's like, would you like a prescription for it? I was like, number one, I'm not that fat. Number two.

[03:59] Meg: Oh, my God.

[04:00] Jessica: Number two, yes, I'd like you to write me a prescription, which I PS. I use as a bookmark. But I was like, what is this madness? And I was like, this isn't going to go any place. It's an off brand diabetes medication. It is everywhere. So on my Catherine Deneuve note, there's an article in New York Magazine or Elle, some magazine that's not only an online whatever, because I, of course, think that, print, online magazines exclusively are still fly by night, even though that's nonsense. It was about how these women have lost weight using Ozempic and then they're freaking out because their faces are falling down, and it's called Ozempic face.

[04:41] Meg: Oh, my God.

[04:44] Jessica: After taking a diabetes medication to get skinny. And what it does, it stops you from having any hunger. Yeah. And in fact, a little nauseated by the thought of food. So I was like, this is so messed up. And then after doing that, they like their asses, but they don't like their faces, which were fine before the Ozempic, so now they're getting fillers and fat injections. And one woman who is in this article was said to have spent your not like, hold on to your seat right now. $72,000 filling her face back in after Ozempic. What?

[05:26] Meg: No.

[05:26] Jessica: So to answer your question about when is it enough? And when can women be left alone with however they're aging? Answer, never.

[05:35] Meg: Certainly not today.

[05:37] Jessica: No. It's a shonda.

[05:49] Meg: So before I get into our engagement question, what's a shonda?

[05:53] Jessica: Oh, it's Yiddish for a shame.

[05:56] Meg: Can I start using that?

[05:57] Jessica: Please do. It's a shonda. And but I don't know why I have to become Harvey Fierstein to say it. It's like, mother, I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong? Yeah, a phrase that sticks in my head. I don't know if it's because someone I know said it or whatever, but it's a shonda for the goyim. Meaning, it's such a shame. Don't do it in front of the gentiles. They'll come and get us.

[06:28] Meg: All right, changing the subject. So it's a two parter. Okay, my first question is, do you remember seeing a movie, preferably in the '80s at The Beekman Theater, which, as you recall, was on 65th and 2nd.

[06:45] Jessica: I saw Platoon there.

[06:46] Meg: Oh, wow. I might have seen Platoon there, too. I remember seeing Platoon. They were leaving because they were so nauseous from watching that movie. And okay, I won't even tell you because my movie at The Beekman was less interesting.

[07:03] Jessica: Well, no, what was your movie? At The Beekman

[07:05] Meg: I think it was called Jagged Edge. It's a thriller.

[07:07] Jessica: Yes, of course, sure. Yes. That was a Michael Douglas?

[07:11] Meg: Uh huh, I think so.

[07:14] Jessica: It was either Michael Douglas or it was Glenn Close.

[07:18] Meg: I think it was Glenn Close, not Michael Douglas. And I also remember something else from The Beekman. The Beekman Theater was gorgeous, and people if you wanted to go to the movies there, if you wanted to see a movie there, you really did, if it was a Saturday night or a Friday night, you had to show up early.

[07:34] Jessica: Yeah. People don't understand lining up to go to the movies anymore, which is, of course, one of the greatest scenes in Annie Hall.

[07:41] Meg: Right. And I remember so many times you would get there early and then you'd just be hanging there for like 30 to 45 minutes, but you would meet people who were standing ahead of you or behind you. Sometimes there was a little kerfuffle, but people never cut in line.

[07:55] Jessica: Oh, they tried to, but if they did, there would be a smackdown.

[08:00] Meg: So, yes, this used to be like a really big deal that had to be like I mean, there were literally.

[08:09] Jessica: For the big theater, like Titanic, line around the block kind of thing. Sure, I remember.

[08:17] Meg: Okay.

[08:18] Jessica: All right, I'm intrigued.

[08:19] Meg: Okay. It's darker than let's go to the movies tonight.

[08:23] Jessica: Oh. From you, I never would have imagined.

[08:28] Meg: Your eyes look sort of bright and I'm like, oh, she's going to be so disappointed.

[08:29] Jessica: No, I expect murder and mayhem, but never on a movie line. So this is oh, that's a New York-ism, while we're at it, in line versus on line. Did you know this, that in New York we say you're standing online and people don't say that elsewhere. They say you stand in line. Yeah. Isn't that weird? That's very okay. All right.

[08:54] Meg: My sources are New York Magazine, The New York Times. On October 28, 1987, a Project HELP van picked up Billie Boggs on the corner of East 65th street and 2nd Avenue and drove her to Bellevue Hospital emergency room. The attending physician ordered that she be admitted. He injected her with five milligrams of Haldol. Is that how you pronounce that?

[09:21] Jessica: I believe so.

[09:22] Meg: An antipsychotic drug and two milligrams of Ativan, a tranquilizer.

[09:27] Jessica: Not to be confused, by the way, for those native New Yorkers with Bill Boggs.

[09:32] Meg: Well, we're getting there.

[09:35] Jessica: Okay.

[09:36] Meg: Yeah, not to be confused with Bill Boggs, but it's not.

[09:40] Jessica: As long as we get there, we identify we're getting there. Great.

[09:43] Meg: Billie Boggs didn't wake up until the following afternoon. HELP which stands for Homeless Emergency Liaison Project, was established by Mayor Ed Koch and in the '80s would provide food, clothing, medical and psychiatric services to homeless people in Manhattan. A team of professionals would go through the streets looking for people who, quote, "whose appearance and circumstances suggested they may be seriously ill." That's an important quote.

[10:13] Jessica: They'd scoop them up off the street I remember this vividly.

[10:16] Meg: And bring them to psychiatric hospitals. But only six in ten were admitted because the law was that unless you are a danger to yourself or others, you cannot be admitted involuntarily. And that is still the case in New York City.

[10:33] Jessica: Well, that's a good thing.

[10:34] Meg: Ed Koch thought that was ridiculous. Quote, "my staff told me that unless they are an immediate danger to themselves or somebody else, there is nothing you can do to get them help. I said, I can't believe this. That's dumb." So Koch found case law to support picking people up if they posed a threat to themselves or others, quote, "in the reasonably foreseeable future."

[10:58] Jessica: Well, wait, so what's a threat to themselves? Is that like, I'm going to kill myself or is that?

[11:04] Meg: Yes, you're holding a gun to your head.

[11:06] Jessica: Oh, for goodness sakes. Okay, you know what? He's not wrong although it's very hard.

[11:09] Meg: He sought to expand the interpretation of what we're talking about, which is the Mental Hygiene Law. And he created a special 28 bed unit at Bellevue Hospital for people who he brought in. And very early days of this, when they were putting this together, he asked Project HELP workers to show him homeless people who they believed would be committed under the new interpretation of the law. That's when Ed met Billie Boggs. Billie Boggs had been living on the corner of 64th and 2nd since just before Christmas in 1986. She sat on the ground a block from The Beekman Theater with her back up against a heating grate that was built into the wall right next to a Swensen's Ice Cream restaurant. Her given name was Joyce Patricia Brown. Sometimes she said she was Anne Smith. Most of the time she called herself Billie Boggs after the local talk show host, Bill Boggs, who she greatly admired.

[12:16] Jessica: Really? Was he a talk show host? Yeah. I thought he was like a news guy who covered entertainment, maybe, oh, six of, what, half a dozen? Yeah.

[12:28] Meg: He interviewed celebrities.

[12:29] Jessica: Yes, he certainly did. Okay.

[12:32] Meg: She wore only a cotton blouse and skirt, even in freezing weather, with socks on her feet and a sheet wrapped around her body. No shoes. She had a black umbrella that she would shake at people, she urinated and defecated in front of the Chemical Bank on the corner. The bank's maintenance man cleaned it up each morning. Every day she would go to the deli on 66th and 1st and order a chicken cutlet, a quart of milk, a pack of Newport 100's, and a pack of Wintergreen Lifesavers. The deli owner wouldn't let her inside because she smelled so badly. He would bring her order out to her and she would pay him $8 in quarters. She didn't have shoes, but would wrap the white plastic bags from the deli around her feet when it rained or snowed, people would offer her help and money. I mean, we should point out that this is a nice neighborhood. Very wealthy people live in this neighborhood for sure. Sometimes she would talk quietly and lucidly. Other times she screamed obscenities. She would become enraged if she was approached by black men in particular, quote, "come suck my dick, motherfucker. Kiss my black ass, you motherfucking n word. Come kiss my black ass."

[13:50] Jessica: Wait, was she black?

[13:52] Meg: Yes, she was.

[13:53] Jessica: Okay. I don't think I've ever heard you say any of those. Actually, yes, I'm actually a little I feel shocked.

[14:05] Meg: She asked passersby specifically for quarters. If someone gave her a dollar bill, she would set it on fire.

[14:15] Jessica: And she's not a danger to herself or others. Okay.

[14:18] Meg: One man who worked at a nearby frame store would stop and talk to her. Quote, "when I talk to you, you don't sound like there's anything wrong. But then I hear you yell at people and you sound crazy." Billie would say, quote, "I don't want to talk about that. If you want to come over and talk, okay, but don't talk about me." So she went through cycles.

[14:40] Jessica: Sure.

[14:41] Meg: Right. Project HELP had been monitoring Billie for over a year. They would try to give her food. She'd throw it back at them. They gave her pants in cold weather. She threw them into the street. The police had picked her up three times and taken her to the Metropolitan Hospital emergency room. Each time, she was diagnosed as schizophrenic, but not in immediate danger of harming herself or others, so she was released. When Project HELP brought Ed Koch to meet Billie on 65th and 2nd, he asked, quote, "how are you feeling? Do you know who I am?"

[15:16] Jessica: I'm surprised he didn't ask. How am I doing?

[15:20] Meg: Well, she would have been able to answer because she responded, quote, "I'm all right. You're edward icotch."

[15:27] Jessica: Well done, Billie.

[15:29] Meg: Ed liked what he saw. As he worked to expand the interpretation of the Mental Hygiene Law. He kept referencing, quote, "the woman by The Beekman Theater." She was just the perfect example of what he needed to change all this stuff. Right. And finally, on October 28, Billie Boggs was the first person to be picked up and evaluated under the freshly interpreted law.

[15:54] Jessica: I can't imagine she took kindly to this.

[16:00] Meg: Guess what? Not so good. The first thing Billie did when she woke up after being tranquilized at Bellevue was call the New York Civil Liberties Union. She's no dummy. I mean, she's got some issues, but she's not dumb.

[16:14] Jessica: She called the New York chapter of the ACLU.

[16:18] Meg: Exactly.

[16:19] Jessica: Wow. I'm sure they were not expecting that to happen.

[16:23] Meg: Actually, they were so excited. Norman Siegel and Robert Levy of the NYCLU were delighted. They were wary of what Ed wanted to do as soon as he had announced it and he had handed out flyers to homeless people that told them to call the NYCLU if they were involuntarily hospitalized.

[16:45] Jessica: Interesting. Yeah.

[16:47] Meg: Siegel and Levy believed that rather than trying to help the homeless, these new efforts were merely a way to clean up the streets for rich New Yorkers. And also they were upset. Like, you can't do that to somebody involuntarily because this country and really the world has a horrible history of locking people up against their wishes.

[17:08] Jessica: Did you know that? Do you ever watch American Horror Story? It's the kind of show I think you'd like.

[17:13] Meg: I hate that show. But it is the kind of show I would like. That's why I hate it, because it should be better than it is.

[17:19] Jessica: Well, we could have a whole conversation about Ryan Murphy's terrible work at another point in the near future. But you know the story of Nellie Bly, the famous journalist. I didn't know that American Horror Story: Asylum was based on Nellie Bly.

[17:35] Meg: Oh, was it?

[17:35] Jessica: Yeah. Interesting. Yes. Keeping people out of mental hospitals who have not acquiesced. Yes, but here's my question for you. If people were saying that he was trying to clean up rich neighborhoods, were they only going to affluent areas in New York or were they going all over?

[17:54] Meg: They were going all over all boroughs. They were going all over to all buroughs. Okay, so, yeah, the NYCLU thought they were overstepping and also that this was a way to hide the fact that New York was not providing adequate affordable housing. So that's part of it, too. If you get the people off the street, then nobody knows that the homeless population is actually pretty out of control and they don't go, hey, we should fight for the homeless. During the hearings that followed because Billie Boggs she's still in Bellevue, by the way.

[18:29] Jessica: Are they medicating her against her will?

[18:32] Meg: They are medicating her against her will for schizophrenia while she is in the hospital. Interesting. She was coherent and eloquent about her situation because she's being medicated for her schizophrenia, but again, against her will. She called herself a professional homeless person and attributed all of her erratic behavior with the normal effort to survive. For example, she wasn't talking to herself. She was singing. She preferred the streets because shelters were dirty. She gave false names because she was dodging her family. She destroyed money because she didn't want to be mugged for it. She used the sidewalk as a toilet because she was not allowed indoors. All just very rational reasons for behavior that looked very erratic. Well, that's what she I'm just telling you what she said in the hearings.

[19:26] Jessica: Okay? I'm just asking you, do you feel that was rational or she was presented, she was lucid, but not

[19:33] Meg: She was presenting herself as though she were simply a person who did not have a home.

[19:38] Jessica: She was making choices.

[19:39] Meg: She was homeless. That was a problem. That wasn't her only problem.

[19:42] Jessica: Got you.

[19:43] Meg: She was schizophrenic. That was also a problem. And she said she wasn't. Okay. She was clear and lucid and the judge ruled in her favor. After a couple of appeals, the city versus the NYCLU, back and forth, she ultimately prevailed and was released from Bellevue after 84 days. Then she hit the talk show circuit 60 Minutes, Donahue, People Are Talking, The Morning Show and most notably, an interview on WNYW News with anchorman John Roland.

[20:16] Jessica: Oh, John Roland.

[20:18] Meg: Yes, John Roland.

[20:19] Jessica: Did Bill Boggs get her?

[20:21] Meg: No, I think he was keeping his distance. Quite rightly. Yes. Most of the other interviews had been respectful and allowed Billie, who was now going by her given name, Joyce Brown, to describe herself as a political prisoner while she had been in Bellevue. But John Roland lived on 65th and 2nd Avenue.

[20:45] Jessica: Oh, no. Her personal toilet.

[20:46] Meg: He had seen her every day for over a year. He'd had unpleasant confrontations with her. And in the 10:00 P.M. interview, he lost his cool live on television and challenged her description of herself, calling her, quote, "a mess and a disaster." I watched the interview. He loses his shit, kind of. It's like, oh, my God, John. He's very upset.

[21:13] Jessica: I love this so much.

[21:18] Meg: So viewers called in aghast at his behavior and he was suspended for five days because if you didn't know any better, she seemed perfectly rational. There was no reason to believe that she wasn't just homeless.

[21:32] Jessica: I understand, the whole schizophrenia and it's an added element.

[21:37] Meg: The added element. That's the whole reason they couldn't pick her up against her will if she wasn't insane, the excuse for bringing her in was that she was, in fact insane. If she had simply been homeless, actually, they couldn't really bring her in.

[21:51] Jessica: Well, the thing is about schizophrenia, once that was established, that creates an underlying situation where the likelihood of being harmful to yourself and to others is extraordinarily high. And the fact that no one was saying it's harmful that you live in a world where you put plastic bags on your feet.

[22:11] Meg: That's what Ed Koch was saying, though? And the law says, no, she's allowed to do that. She is actually allowed to do that and you can't stop her.

[22:21] Jessica: So they're saying schizophrenia is a life choice.

[22:24] Meg: They're saying you can't incarcerate or hospitalize people against their will.

[22:31] Jessica: No, I know. I get it. I'm railing at you. Go ahead.

[22:36] Meg: There are not easy answers to this situation, I've got to say. So everyone's upset with John Roland because he went off on her on live TV. But then oh, and so he was suspended. And then other viewers called in upset about his suspension.

[22:51] Jessica: Were they all his neighbors? They're all like, we live on 64th and 2nd. It sucks.

[22:57] Meg: Joyce Brown's shining moment was when she was asked to speak at Harvard Law School about the homeless cris. But in spite of offers for books and movies and job offers, two weeks after the Harvard event, she started talking to herself, started singing to herself. She started laughing loudly, inappropriately. And then she became abusive to other people for no apparent reason. And soon after that, she was spotted panhandling around Port Authority. She was hospitalized two more times in 1988 and arrested with heroin. In 1991, she moved into a supervised group home. In 2000, she was receiving drug counseling, and she died in 2005 at the age of 58. Anyone who remembers Billie Boggs remembers how polarizing the case was. Some New Yorkers felt the government did not have a right to forcibly remove people from the street or medicate them against their will, while others argued that those with severe, untreated mental illness could not make decisions for themselves and that other citizens had a right to walk the city streets without having to deal with panhandling and public defecation. And assault. And assault. She had an umbrella. Yeah. In December 2022, Mayor Eric Adams directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they posed no threat to others.

[24:32] Jessica: Uhoh, Oh Eric. So is this causing a frenzy?

[24:36] Meg: Yes. People are upset. I read some articles. I listened to some podcasts from people who say they do actually know what the answer to this problem is. Lots of people disagree with each other, but really, the prevailing solution appears to be and you're not going to be shocked by this. housing. And right now what happens is you have to qualify for housing. You have to be drug free. You can't be working in the sex industry. There are all these rules for you to qualify to get housing. But what these people are saying is, like, no, it doesn't matter. Whatever they're doing, give them the housing and then they'll clean up their lives after that.

[25:20] Jessica: Well, that's absolute garbage.

[25:22] Meg: I'm not sure if that's true, Jessica.

[25:23] Jessica: No, I'm going to tell you why it's not just housing or treatment. If you take a schizophrenic person who is untreated and give them a house or housing, they're not going to magically be a good neighbor.

[25:41] Meg: But listen, it sounds counterintuitive and nevertheless, it seems to actually work. I can't remember what they said, but, like, 20% of the people who go through this kind of program, which is so much better than just leaving people.

[25:57] Jessica: Well, when you say a program, like, are they getting psychiatric help or drug treatment?

[26:02] Meg: It's not mandated. That's the thing. These people don't believe that you should mandate psychiatric treatment.

[26:09] Jessica: I have so many problems.

[26:10] Meg: I know. Look.

[26:13] Jessica: I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm saying that is my feeling. And as a New Yorker who walks the streets, I mean, I don't know if I told you, definitely a problem. Did I ever tell you about the recent assault?

[26:29] Meg: Yes. Do you want to tell our listeners?

[26:31] Jessica: The one on Lexington with the lady?

[26:33] Meg: Yeah.

[26:34] Jessica: So I was, as usual, walking with Alfie, my dog, down Lexington, actually, up Lexington. I was going from 96th uptown, and there's a CVS on the corner of 97th and Lex. So I saw like half a block away that there was a junkie, a heroin addict, nodding out in the middle of the street. And if you don't know what that looks like, the person is slowly melting. So they're upright and then just unbelievably slowest way imaginable, their knees are going and they're slowly sagging to the street down, down, down.

[27:19] Meg: When you see it, you know it.

[27:22] Jessica: Yeah. It's unmistakable. And I was just like, oh, for God's sake. And literally standing in the middle of the sidewalk, there wasn't a way to have, like, a really wide berth around him. And so I was like, oh, for God's sakes. So I grabbed the dog and I walked into the street, the road to go all the way around him. So then I'm on the other side, and your eyes in the back of your head. I was nervous, but I was aware. And then suddenly I hear running. And I'm like, no fucking way. No. I turn around, and it's not the guy. It's a woman who is older, tall woman, much taller than I am. She was running at me, being chased by the junkie.

[28:12] Meg: Oh, my God.

[28:13] Jessica: Was running after her.

[28:15] Meg: Oh, my God.

[28:16] Jessica: He looked possessed. And I have never in my life experienced a drug like, seen experience, seen anyone nodding out and then, like, springing to life. I feel like I've told this story before, but springing to life. He was coming to hurt her. And she was, of all people, coming to me for help. And I'm like, lady, I come up to your belt buckle. How am I going to be the one to help you? So all I could think was I grabbed her really roughly and I shoved her into the CVS like it has automatic doors. And I pushed her really hard in there and then fell in after her. And they were like, oh, my God, what's going on? And I told them, I go. Stay here, stay here. And then one of the guys who works at CVS sort of poked his head outside to see if the guy was still there, and he was not. So the woman was really shaken. And I was like, look, I have to go home. The CVS people were taking care of her. I was like, okay, I'm just glad she's safe. I'm out of here. And I went into my building, so that's another half block. And I said to my doorman, there are other, anyone who lives in this building, but particularly women, be aware, please tell them. And I gave a full description of the guy, and I was like, just watch out. And the next day, I came back into my building and a different doorman was like, oh, hi. I took care of that guy. And I was like, I was horrified. And I was like, what do you mean, took care of him? And here's what New York is like, people, okay, this is just a perfect example. He keeps, still does, a baseball bat in his locker, and he keeps it with him when he's at the desk. And he said, I'm not going to tell you what I did, but I found him and he's not coming back to this neighborhood. And I was like, well done, sir. Well done. So all of this preciousness about making it like, what are someone's civil rights? What are their liberties? What are they allowed to do? When it comes down to the facts, nine times out of ten, in my experience, the person who looks dangerous, because they're not in control of their behavior, they are scary. There's a reason to be scared of them. And the fact that it is not bananas for my building management that there's someone on the desk with a baseball bat says like, that's what you're dealing with.

[30:53] Meg: No doubt. What I was interested in was that these counterintuitive solutions do seem to work, and it's like you can't really have a case by case basis. That's why laws exist.

[31:12] Jessica: No, what I think is not that everyone should be chased with a baseball bat. I think that housing is a great idea, and you don't necessarily need to medicate anyone against their will, but they should be monitored like a group home. Anyone who's at that level of risk, it's going to devolve really quickly into Lord of the Flies, if you have. I mean, that's what everyone knows. You put a handful of junkies and schizophrenics in a house to get what is this, like, the worst The Real World ever?

[31:46] Meg: Well, can I give you some statistics that are.

[31:48] Jessica: I would love statistics.

[31:50] Meg: So in 1988, there were less than 30,000 homeless people in New York. Guess what it is now.

[31:58] Jessica: Tell me the number again.

[31:59] Meg: Less than 30,000. A little less than 30,000.

[32:04] Jessica: 100,000.

[32:05] Meg: 68,000. 2023. Yeah.

[32:07] Jessica: Wow.

[32:07] Meg: But it's also very difficult to take these numbers. So these are all kind of I'm sure they're roughly double.

[32:13] Jessica: Yeah.

[32:15] Meg: So as awful as it was in the it was in the '80s. And it was awful. And you know why it got so bad in the '80s?

[32:21] Jessica: Well, because there was in the '80s. In the '80s? No, I don't know why it was in the '80s.

[32:26] Meg: Well, Reagan, when he. Reagan emptied emptied the mental institution. What he did is he repealed President Carter's legislation and the Mental Health Systems Act. That's what he repealed. And that act gave money and funding to mental health. He emptied them out. Places, and he just said, no, the federal government doesn't have to give, that's a bad use of money.

[32:57] Jessica: Reagan.

[32:58] Meg: Reagan. Yeah.

[33:00] Jessica: Well, that's sobering and yet very typical. I think it's a great New York story. It's divisive. It's a little scary. Filled with color. That is a New York staple. Your local crazy person on the street. Right.

[33:19] Meg: And whenever Ed Koch was asked about Billie Boggs in the years to come, because he kind of lost that case, I mean, he tried to do this thing, and ultimately he lost. And so whenever anybody asked him about Billie Boggs, he was like, well, ask if Siegel and Levy. Maybe she's staying over at Siegel and Levy's place.

[33:41] Jessica: Good for him. Good for him. Oh, Ed. Hi.

[33:58] Meg: We're on.

[33:59] Jessica: We're on. It's hot. So my my engagement question is, have you ever been to an auction?

[34:08] Meg: Not like a Sotheby's auction or anything like that or Christie's, nothing like that. I mean, I've been to auctions at galas. What?

[34:17] Jessica: I've been to auctions at galas. No, stop.

[34:23] Meg: Okay, that sounded bad, but, I mean.

[34:25] Jessica: Like, that made my entire day because I know that's not who you are. Sort of. You were there.

[34:33] Meg: But you know that schools have galas. It's not particularly fancy. And they auction off, like yes.

[34:40] Jessica: There's a big tour of the Met, a school gala and the Met gala are two different things. Absolutely. Yes. You're not doing who is the one who was just recently covered in red crystals for, like, a oh, God, was it Doja Cat? I think it was Doja Cat. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So the reason I'm asking you is because, rather unexpectedly, I have a mild ripped from the headlines, which is that on February 15, the next week, right after Valentine's Day, Christie's is having a big auction. Yes. Of the belongings of Andre Leon Talley. Oh, wow. And I highly suggest that you check out the Christie's site and look at what the lots are. It's amazing.

[35:32] Meg: I know. He was a huge collector of just cool shit.

[35:36] Jessica: Yes. That's what's so amazing about him. And what I was going to say is that an auction will tell you a lot about a person. If it's like, essentially an estate sale, even if it's like books or whatever, you learn a lot.

[35:48] Meg: You should probably just give a little bit of background on who he is.

[35:51] Jessica: Well, I'm about he's my subject today, so, yes, I will be giving some background about him.

[35:57] Meg: You know he went to Brown University.

[35:59] Jessica: Shut up, Meg. That was one of my nuggets. I was going to say that because it's busy. Did you know that he was that he got his master's there? He did his undergraduate elsewhere.

[36:13] Meg: Really? No, I didn't know that.

[36:14] Jessica: Well, ha. You schooled me. Oh, girl. And he graduated from Brown in 1972 with a master's in French literature. God, he's so much. He is the most so anyway, this auction looks incredible, and it features things like, do you remember oh, God, what was that movie with Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman? My God, the director who's so cutesy with everything.

[36:44] Meg: Like The Tennenbaums. Am I right?

[36:46] Jessica: Yes. Who's the director?

[36:50] Meg: I'm having an old. Wes Anderson. Thank you.

[36:53] Jessica: In that movie, the Darjeeling Express or the Darjeeling Limited, he had created for those characters this luggage that was supposed to have been their dead fathers, and they each had a piece of it, and it was done to look like Louis Vuitton, but it was Wes Andersonized, and it had the father's initials painted in gold. That is exactly what Andre Leon Talley's luggage, just 3 pieces of his 22 pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage, including steamer trunks that he used. He had an Hermes bicycle. That just what sat in the storage.

[37:41] Meg: Why did Hermes make a bicycle.

[37:44] Jessica: Yes. It's marketing, of course, but you're always like, who gets that crap? Well, it's fashion editors, right. The idea of Andre Leon Talley on a bicycle is one of the funniest things in the whole world, and I will talk about that in mere moments. And it's got one of those little tiny racing seats.

[38:04] Meg: Oh, my God, he makes a mumu look elegant.

[38:07] Jessica: Well, as we were talking about aging and fat and thin and faces, I just want to say that and that we're going to talk about. There's so many things about Andre Leon Talley to discuss, but among them is that as he aged, he waged a very open war against fat. And he was like, 6'4". He was this gigantically tall man, and he just started wearing mumu's and tunics to the knee, if not full length, and he wore them like regal robes. He absolutely served I don't even know what like Pope Pious. God knows he was amazing. It's interesting that he was celebrated for his fashion icon status, because that was his world and celebrated for his bedazzled mumu's. And Madonna can't get away with a fat face. Just saying. Just saying. So who was Andre Leon Talley, and why is he of the '80s? Andre Leon Talley, born in 1948, his grandfather was a sharecropper. Whoa. He grew up not with stuff, but as a child, he would go to the library. He was a big reader, and he was brilliant, super smart man. And he discovered Vogue magazine. And so this must have been like, 1956 that he found the first Vogue magazine. And imagine how white that was. The adjective that comes to my mind is brittle, tiny white women in Christian Dior. And it was electrifying for him. And he was like, this is something that I care about. So he went to, I think, like, South Carolina something college, and then got a scholarship to Brown, which took him way north. And he became a journalist, and he worked with Andy Warhol at Interview magazine, and actually he interned at Vogue, and Diana Vreeland sent him to Andy Warhol.

[40:22] Meg: Interesting.

[40:23] Jessica: He was always brilliant and larger than life and fluent in French, and he bopped between Paris and New York and was a fashion journalist. And the reason that he's so important is that he was the first Black and male fashion director of Vogue magazine, which he was appointed to in 1988. He had a famously tumultuous relationship with Anna Wintour of love and hate and admiration, and he broke ground in so many ways that it was really amazing. And he's an example. And I think it's so interesting that he wound up at The Factory and then Interview magazine because so much of what Warhol was about was invent yourself. Right. No surprise that transvestites and transsexuals had special place at The Factory. It was the ultimate in reinvent yourself. Andre Leon Talley reinvented himself in a way that I don't think has ever been done quite so publicly before. He went from being man from humble beginnings and tall, skinny drink of water to having the most affected accent in the history of the world and it wasn't English. It wasn't American. It was 1930s Hollywood. It was like, oh, darling, why would you ever do that? Everyone was darling. So it's sort of like, imagine if Diana Vreeland got stuffed into the body of Wilt Chamberlain, who then got fat. That's who Andre Leon Talley was. He was creative director and then an editor at large. Ha ha. And then went, I think it was in 2003 or 19 something. This is me with my fact checking. But he went to work for a Russian magazine and quickly left because of the anti gay policies in Russia. And he just remained sort of this genius figure. He was really well known for actually saving the careers of many designers. He brought all of the cutting edge Japanese designers who were showing in Paris to the United States. So Isse Miyake, Andre Leon Talley.

[42:50] Meg: Okay?

[42:50] Jessica: He saved John Galliano. I was reading this description of it that Galliano was living in and I just love this word so much, living in squalor in Paris, and Andre Leon Talley, like, rallied the troops to get him his career back.

[43:08] Meg: Was this after or before Galliano?

[43:12] Jessica: This is before. He designed for Celine. And then in 1994, he lost his marbles. I'm not a big fan of Galliano because he was I mean, I feel like you could just go to a vintage store and get what he was doing.

[43:26] Meg: And also the whole Nazi thing

[43:28] Jessica: Yeah. Oh, Galliano was a Nazi. Oh, yes, that's right. Yeah. Well, poo poo fe, bad Galliano. But he was notoriously generous and also was a big proponent of getting black models into magazines. He was actually the mentor of Naomi Campbell. Nice. And then, rather hilariously, a fellow judge on America's Next Top Model with Tyra, which, of course, I watched those shows, but that's how America actually met him. The rest of America, he was amazing. I'm always interested because we're from New York, we don't even see certain things, and we take things for granted that are amazing to other people. And getting to know people who are not from New York as they come to the city is always so exciting because you get to see it through a different set of eyes that haven't glazed over. It's like, oh, yeah, that's the Met. It's in the way of the park. You're like and I think that he is the most exciting example of someone who really looked around and noticed what was happening and never grew jaded, never grew tired of it, and never grew tired of himself. I don't think he was ever seen not draped in something absolutely fabulous. So he died during COVID in 2022.

[45:01] Meg: Of COVID? I hope not.

[45:02] Jessica: Heart problems and COVID.

[45:05] Meg: Oh, dear. I didn't know that.

[45:07] Jessica: Yes. A true American original. And I have an anecdote to share. So I have a very, very good friend who is a BFF of the show, Bronwyn. And Bronwyn used to work at Comedy Central. She worked on The Daily Show and a whole bunch of other things. Bronwyn is amazing, and I hope she's listening. Among other things, she was part of Sasha Baron Cohen's first group of producers and people who work with him. So she worked with him on Ali G before anyone knew what it was. And he was busy punking all these politicians. So she knows things. She was friends with all of those dudes at Comedy Central. And that's a real frat club.

[45:49] Meg: I can imagine.

[45:50] Jessica: Yeah, it's a real boys club, frat house kind of thing. And Bronwyn is the kind of woman who, as bros will say, who can hang. So she had a million guy friends there, and one of them went away for a while and came back looking great. And it turns out he had been to the Duke University Medical Center for Obesity (Duke Lifestyle and Weight Management Center).

[46:15] Meg: Oh.

[46:15] Jessica: And it's like what they used to call a fat farm. Yeah, he went to the fat farm at Duke, which is really famous and really does amazing work. So he's a total bro. And when he came back, he was like, the best thing was my roommate. All right. Bronwyn was like, well, why? And he's like, he didn't give two shits about what anybody thought. And he was so fabulous. And she was like, you're a bro, why are you saying fabulous? And he's like, it's my new thing. And he was like he was 6'4" and he was like a mountain of a human being. And he refused to work out. And he would go to the tennis courts, perfectly done, in the white outfit that they supplied, but carrying like an Hermes throw, like a blanket. It was like a towel, rather. It was so over the top. And Bronwyn is listening to this with her jaw hanging down. And she's like, please tell me the name of this new he was like, and he's my new best friend. They were tight.

[47:15] Meg: Yeah.

[47:15] Jessica: He's like, oh, Andre. And Bronwyn was like, please tell me that you know who Andre Leon Talley is. And he was like, no. Oh, my God. That's crazy. She educated him and he was like, well, he's an awesome dude.

[47:31] Meg: She's like, yeah, we know.

[47:33] Jessica: But what I loved was that someone with his profile and his notoriety, his fame, his fabulous, his baked in fabulousness, had no issue being friends with a Comedy Central bro and was open and generous and kind and they remained friends.

[47:53] Meg: That's wonderful.

[47:54] Jessica: Yeah. So that's my connection. And you are connected via Brown. But he was a really extraordinary person who wrote two books, two memoirs. One of them is called, like, under The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir: Talley, Andre Leon or something like that, which, of course, kills me dead. I love it. He embodied camp in a way that was he still alive for the Met gala. That was camp. Yes, I think he was. I don't know if he was there. Basically, they could have just had a photo of him blown up to the size of the doors of the Met and just put it up. And there is a great portrait done of him that I think is up in the auction. He was painted in a pose and the color of what he's wearing in the background that is mimicking a famous painting of a Renaissance pope. And I was like, that's so fucking great. It's so great. But that auction is filled with things. You have to love a giant man who wore boaters without irony. He was like, a straw boater is exactly the right fashion choice. Along with his silver lizard opera pumps with red ruffled silk appliques. Help me. Help me, Lord.

[49:13] Meg: We got to get our hands on the catalog.

[49:15] Jessica: We do, actually. That's a really good idea.

[49:18] Meg: Do we know anyone?

[49:18] Jessica: Well, my brother's at Bonhams, so I'll ask John if he can ask around. We just want a copy.

[49:23] Meg: We just want to look at the pretty things.

[49:25] Jessica: I will do. In the meantime, look at it online.

[49:39] Meg: So what do we think our tie in is?

[49:42] Jessica: The only thing that I can think that these two people have in common is that New York let them let their freak flags fly.

[49:50] Meg: There you go.

[49:51] Jessica: I love that, actually. You come to New York and you are who you are, right?

[49:56] Meg: And no law is going to get reinterpreted to hold you back.