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

[00:20] 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 80's. I do ripped from the headlines.

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

[00:35] Meg: We're back in your office.

[00:38] Jessica: Yes, we are. I nearly died.

[00:41] Meg: Yeah.

[00:42] Jessica: Whoever is out there and listening to this and thinking, should I wear a mask on a plane? The answer is yes, you should. I thought that it was all finished because, yes, the COVID not so much. But there I was in a tin can hurtling my way to and fro Dallas. Whatever this creeping crud is definitely happened on the plane.

[01:03] Meg: And it's not COVID.

[01:05] Jessica: It's like, I got tested three times. There is no way it's COVID.

[01:08] Meg: Right. But it's some sort of respiratory thing.

[01:10] Jessica: And there is a respiratory ailment flu going around. Of course, it's some version of an avian nightmare.

[01:18] Meg: But even before you got sick, Jessica, we did two field trips. So we have not been in your office for, like, a month.

[01:25] Jessica: Oh, my God. That's right.

[01:26] Meg: I know. It's crazy.

[01:27] Jessica: And I cleaned up before you came here.

[01:29] Meg: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[01:30] Jessica: Yes.

[01:31] Meg: And I miss you and I miss your home. And let's just get back to normal, okay?

[01:37] Jessica: Yeah. I have not been in my right mind for the last. I feel like the last month, really, personally, really good things going on, but it's been the fruit of unbelievable labor. Just. Let's just hang out. Yeah, we need to do that. And we have to go to that place. That island? Yes.

[02:01] Meg: Oh, my God. I'm so excited. What's it called?

[02:03] Jessica: Gitano.

[02:03] Meg: Gitano. It's like on Governor's Island. And I think they've made it, like Tulum.

[02:10] Jessica: Yeah.

[02:10] Meg: That's how they're marketing it.

[02:12] Jessica: Right? I think so. I know that it's beach resort/taqueria.

[02:17] Meg: I cannot wait. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's it.

[02:20] Jessica: Yeah. Okay. I'm going to wear my finest mumu.

[02:25] Meg: I want to say, because I've been thinking, because we had these two field trips in a row and dealing with the editing of those interviews and talking to Alex and talking to Beckett and getting things approved and all of that, and it just struck me how brave it is for these people to talk to us and trust us.

[02:49] Jessica: I think it's a really interesting phenomenon because we spoke about it briefly and then I thought about it some more, and I agree with you. I think it's so brave to open up and particularly, like you and I have decided we're going to be public people, right. And this is what we're going to do.

[03:08] Meg: And we're used to it, too. We've been doing it for over a year. So we're kind of used to being revealing certain parts of ourselves.

[03:16] Jessica: Correct. I think it's very brave not only to do it, but to make the decision that they have something that they really want to share and to take that look at themselves and say, you know what? I'm ready to engage with other people. I'm ready to say something that's really important to me or dear to my heart. It's not an easy thing. So I agree with you. And I think that everyone who has been so gracious as to work with us, they get a big round of applause from both of us.

[03:50] Meg: And speaking of which, our dear friend Sasha. Oh, Sasha Bosch, who we went to Nightingale with. Guess where she went before she went to Nightingale.

[04:02] Jessica: I do know that she went to Little Red School House.

[04:05] Meg: And guess who she knew when she was at Little Red School House?

[04:07] Jessica: Might that have been Beckett?

[04:08] Meg: Yes. And I got a direct message from her that said, went to Little Red School House with Beckett. Was so nice to hear his voice. Red Heart. I said, no way. What do you remember about him? And she wrote, I don't remember him being such a wild child in his younger years. I do remember he was very small and anxious, and we played ten minutes in the closet at his house.

[04:32] Jessica: I'm dead now. Get out.

[04:36] Meg: Aren't you happy I saved that?

[04:38] Jessica: I am. So, like. I knew you would love that. Of course. Sasha, I love you so much. I know you're listening to this. Bless your little heart.

[04:48] Meg: I know. And thank you so much for letting us share that on the pod.

[04:52] Jessica: Again, incredibly brave.

[05:08] Meg: So todays story, well, I kind of cheated a little bit.

[05:12] Jessica: You never cheat.

[05:14] Meg: I can. Sometimes I cheat a little bit.

[05:14] Jessica: Wow. All right. I have to rethink my entire view of you. Go ahead. What you have. I'm excited. Okay.

[05:23] Meg: Well, my engagement question is, did you like your doctors when you were growing up?

[05:29] Jessica: What an interesting question. No.

[05:31] Meg: Describe them, if you would.

[05:34] Jessica: It's not that there was anything wrong necessarily, but there was just something about him that gave me the creeps a little.

[05:43] Meg: Your pediatrician?

[05:44] Jessica: My pediatrician.

[05:45] Meg: My pediatrician was a man and also kind of gave me the creeps.

[05:48] Jessica: Yeah.

[05:49] Meg: And when I was a teenager, my mom asked why. She was, like, I clearly was uncomfortable and didn't like him, and I was like, I just want to go to someone else. And so I started going to an adolescent pediatrician. And she was a woman.

[06:08] Jessica: Yeah. I just want to be clear. He never did anything?

[06:11] Meg: No. Yeah.

[06:12] Jessica: It was just like he had a way about him that was.

[06:15] Meg: I wonder if we had the same guy.

[06:17] Jessica: I doubt it. Maybe

[06:18] Meg: Upper East Side pediatrician.

[06:21] Jessica: Did his first name. Does his last name start with a B?

[06:26] Meg: I have no idea. All right, I'm impressed. You remember your pediatrician's last name?

[06:31] Jessica: Oh, absolutely. But also, memory serves, my mom was a big one for taking us to the doctor frequently. It was not just checkups. It was like, if anything was wrong, the doctor. Although I will give him props for something. I had not yet found the gynecologist that I wound up using as my primary care physician when I first got to college.

[06:58] Meg: Okay, that was in Ohio.

[07:01] Jessica: Right. And so I came home for Christmas break, and I think I've told you guys that I had raging mono so bad that I almost missed the semester. And he actually did house calls for me. Wow. When I was that sick, and that was already past the days.

[07:17] Meg: What does that have to do with the gynecologist, though?

[07:20] Jessica: That I was still seeing a pediatrician when I was 17.

[07:23] Meg: Right. Got it.

[07:24] Jessica: Okay. That was a little weird. But my mother was frantic, and because I had known him since I was a baby, he did house calls.

[07:33] Meg: Okay. Thank you, Dr. B. Yeah.

[07:36] Jessica: So he wasn't a bad guy.

[07:38] Meg: I mean, mine wasn't a bad guy either. I just wasn't comfortable. I just wasn't comfortable.

[07:42] Jessica: Yeah.

[07:43] Meg: My sources for today, Esquire, 1976. So that's where I'm cheating. But I wrapped it into the 80's and you'll see how. New York Magazine, 1975, Linda Wolfe wrote this article. A The New York Times, various articles, and New York Post. On September 23, 1988, Roger Ebert, who had replaced Rex Reed as chief film critic of the New York Post, gave Dead Ringers a thumbs up in his review. He called it, quote, "a stylistic tour de force, but it's cold and creepy and centered on bleak despair. It's the kind of movie where you ask people how they liked it, and they say, well, it was well made. And then they wince." The movie is a psychological thriller directed by David Cronenberg, starring Jeremy Irons as twin gynecologists. It's based on the true life story of actual twins Stewart and Cyril Marcus, who were found dead and naked in Cyril's apartment at 1161 York Avenue at 63rd Street on July 17, 1975. They were 45 years old. You knew it was based on a real story?

[09:04] Jessica: No. Oh, you're so excited right now that I cannot stand it. I'm just going to sit back and let this one wash over me.

[09:15] Meg: Got it. Neighbors had been complaining for two days about the smell coming from apartment 10H, which rents now for $5,000 a month. When the super and the cops broke in, they found a foot and a half layer of garbage covering every inch of floor space with rotting chicken salad sandwiches, dozens of empty soda cans, wild cherry, vanilla cream, strawberry. I mean, just the grossest.

[09:46] Jessica: Can I just tell you something hilarious? Because of the stories that you tell when you started off with, they found a foot and a half. I'm like, they found a foot and a half a foot. Holy crap. What's going on here? Okay.

[10:03] Meg: Why these gross sodas? Cherry soda.

[10:07] Jessica: I love that you fixate, like, who drinks strawberry soda? You've got to be a psychopath to drink strawberry soda. That's the clue.

[10:15] Meg: I mean, they are doctors.

[10:17] Jessica: Yeah, but think about all the doctors who were, like, examining patients in the '50s while smoking a cigarette.

[10:22] Meg: Yes, and we will get there. Unfinished TV dinners, wrappers from Gristedes, plastic dry cleaner bags and a leather chair smeared with poop.

[10:35] Jessica: Well, now you have me.

[10:39] Meg: The bathtub and bathroom sink were stained with instant coffee powder and cans of Right Guard deodorant spray and squeeze bottles of QT Quick Tanning lotion were tossed about the bathroom.

[10:54] Jessica: This is the best forensic extravaganza you could possibly come up with.

[10:59] Meg: Can you picture the QT Tanning lotion?

[11:01] Jessica: Oh, yes.

[11:02] Meg: These are all so of a time.

[11:05] Jessica: I mean, what intrigues me is that there's the QT Tanning lotion and the coffee powder. Like, is this all part of this tinting? I don't know.

[11:18] Meg: All right. There were two twin beds in the bedroom. Stewart lay face down across the head of one of the twin beds. Cyril lay face up at the foot of the other twin bed. Stewart wore only blue striped boxers. Cyril wore only long black socks bunched at the ankles.

[11:41] Jessica: Vivid.

[11:42] Meg: The cause of their deaths was not apparent, although it was clear that Stewart had died days before Cyril. Stewart and Cyril were infertility specialists on the staff of New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College, and they had a thriving private practice. Using hormones, surgery and fertility drugs they were responsible for hundreds of miracle babies. Women who had all but given up hope of having a successful pregnancy flocked to their offices and considered them almost godlike. So imagine the shockwaves that rippled through the Upper East Side when their gaunt, decomposed bodies were found in a mound of self inflicted filth. By all accounts, they weren't people people. Okay. Quote "remote", quote "distant", and quote "icy" were words often used by those who knew them. They were born June 2, 1930, in Bayonne, New Jersey. Gemini's, high achieving. Stewart was valedictorian. Cyril was salutorian.

[12:57] Jessica: No way.

[12:58] Meg: Yeah. I don't even know what that means.

[13:00] Jessica: Really? That's the first and second in the class. Okay. Yeah.

[13:05] Meg: See, there you go. They were rarely apart. Apparently, if one of them got in trouble, both were spanked to make sure the right one was punished.

[13:14] Jessica: That's so really profoundly messed up.

[13:18] Meg: Yes. That's going to fuck with your head. Yes. And your relationship with, really, everybody and.

[13:24] Jessica: Pretty much the whole concept of boundaries.

[13:26] Meg: They went to the same college, were in the same fraternity, and the same medical school, Syracuse University. And they were in the same residency program in gynecology at Mount Sinai. It was there that Dr. Guttmacher, who was the chairman of the department, decided they should spend some time apart. Dr. Guttmacher was an expert on twins and a twin himself. And Stewart and Cyril freaked him out. He tried separating them, assigning Stewart to a program at Stanford and Cyril to New York's Joint Diseases Hospital.

[14:02] Jessica: Wait, wait, who was this doc? Guttmacher was in charge of what?

[14:06] Meg: Their residency. He was chairman of their department. Their residency program at Mount Sinai.

[14:13] Jessica: Okay, got it.

[14:14] Meg: During that time of separation, which was about three years, Cyril got married and had a child and took a position at New York Hospital. And then he arranged for Stewart to get a position there, too. And the brothers were reunited.

[14:29] Jessica: Had Stewart just been you know, stagnating while Cyril was off.

[14:35] Meg: He did not like his residency at Stanford. And then apparently, there's no record of what he did with himself. The presumption is that Cyril saved Stewart, that Stewart was languishing. Cyril's doing fine. And Cyril went like, I can get you a job. Come back home. Let's start this you know private practice together. But it's weird. He kind of went off the map.

[15:04] Jessica: Red flag.

[15:07] Meg: They had a good system. Cyril did the clinical work while Stewart did the laboratory research. And together they built a lucrative gynecological private practice. The clinical work stimulated the research, and the research birthed new ideas for infertility treatments. They published Advances in Obstetrics and Gynecology, which gave them a national reputation. And New York Hospital made them the head of the infertility clinic. For a while, they thrived in their elevated position as fashionable Park Avenue doctors. They were proud of their wealthy, well connected patients and their big egos were bolstered by their godlike skills. They made life possible. They came up in a time when doctors weren't expected to be kind or nurturing or to be good listeners. And women's healthcare notoriously suffered because most doctors were men and most men didn't listen to women. And the field of gynecology was particularly brutal due to the patriarchal doctor patient relationship that was both accepted and encouraged. Plus, the Marcus brothers were weird.

[16:20] Jessica: I'm just leaning in. Yes.

[16:23] Meg: You see this perfect storm?

[16:26] Jessica: It's looking bad. Yeah.

[16:28] Meg: Linda Wolfe, who wrote that great book about Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers. Wasted: Inside the Robert Chambers-Jennifer Levin Murder; callback episodes 28 A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE - MURDERER AMONGST US and 29 A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE PT.2 - TRIAL & AFTERMATH, was a patient of the Marcus Brothers.

[16:39] Jessica: Oh, dear.

[16:40] Meg: She describes them as, quote, "distant, remote, incapable of or unwilling to engage in discussions. She also suspected that while she was specifically Stewart's patient, Cyril would sometimes sub in for him without telling her."

[16:57] Jessica: How would she know? What was the tell?

[17:01] Meg: She just got a feeling. Well, actually, she did say she would have a conversation with Stewart, and then she thought she was still talking to Stewart, and her doctor would be acting like he'd never even heard this information before. She's like, we just talked about that. Oh, my God. You're a different person.

[17:20] Jessica: That is so severely beyond messed up.

[17:26] Meg: Another woman who was giving birth at the hospital where they were residents, said, quote, "having the Marcuses was a horrible experience. One would check with his fingers to see how far I was dilated. Then he would call his brother and have him check, too. They did this twice. It was painful and unnecessary. I finally had to have my husband demand that they stop this. It was as if one couldn't have an experience without sharing it with his brother."

[17:55] Jessica: I just threw up.

[17:57] Meg: Around the time that Cyril got a divorce and moved to the apartment on York, he started taking barbiturates and amphetamines.

[18:06] Jessica: Well, that's a fun combo, right?

[18:08] Meg: And so first, Stewart had, we assume, had some kind of issues, and Cyril was the stable one. But now Cyril has gotten a divorce and he's going off the rails, and Stewart is the stable one. Interesting, right? And then he had a stroke. Cyril did, at home, and he almost died. The super called Stewart to tell him the phone was ringing off the hook in his brother's apartment. Stewart came over, and both men entered the apartment together, where they saw Cyril had collapsed, quote, "give him artificial respiration." The super urged Stewart. Stewart responded, quote, "I can't touch my brother. You do it." Yeah. The super yelled back, "you're the doctor, you do it"

[18:53] Meg: Neither did it. But Cyril survived. He was never the same after that, though. And Stewart, who had let Cyril take on the load of their work for many years now attempted to do the work of two men. Stewart filled in as Cyril when he could. He pretended to be Cyril at, like, dinners and stuff.

[19:19] Jessica: Remember how I said the spanking would bring up some boundary issues? Yeah.

[19:26] Meg: But he struggled to keep up that scam. And the patients were catching on. The private practice was a mess, and the hospitals knew that Cyril, who was gaunt and pasty and acting erratically. Pasty. I think that's what all that self tanning stuff was about. And the coffee grounds. He was trying to look human.

[19:50] Jessica: Oh, God.

[19:51] Meg: I know. The hospitals realized that Cyril could no longer be allowed to tend to patients. A rumor spread that during a surgery, Cyril tore the anesthesia mask from the patient's face and took a huge inhale. Blue Velvet style? Around this time, Stewart appeared to be suffering from drug addiction as well. And their lives crumbled with subpoenas piling up and charges of unprofessional conduct. Stewart moved in with Cyril in mid June.

[20:25] Jessica: Do we know where Stewart had been living all this time?

[20:28] Meg: Not that far away, but a bachelor pad. But it's interesting. Why did he decide to move into his brother's gross hoarder nest?

[20:40] Jessica: Do we know that it was already a gross hoarder?

[20:43] Meg: Yes. I'll tell you why. He moved in, Stewart moved in in mid June. From the dozens of newspapers and other debris piled up in the apartment, it's clear the apartment was a disaster dating back to April. So they just did like an archaeological investigation, right?

[21:00] Jessica: They checked the layers.

[21:01] Meg: They checked the layers. And less than a month later, less than a month after he moved in, probably sometime between June 10 and June 14, Stewart died of barbiturate overdose. Now remember, Cyril was the one who had the raging problem that Stewart was trying to cover. But Stewart is the one who died first. On July 14, Cyril was spotted by the doorman lurching towards the sidewalk outside the apartment building. The doorman said he, quote, "looked like death" and offered him help, but Cyril rebuffed him and made his way back to apartment 10H. He double locked the door behind him and pushed the armchair against the door. He typed his ex-wife's address on a blank piece of paper. He did not die of an overdose like his brother did. In fact, his cause of death was never definitively determined. The best guess was malnutrition and withdrawal. New York City was shook. It was hard to choose what was freakiest. The twin factor, gynecology, the drug use, the hoarding and filth. A decade later, Dead Ringers, which featured a noteworthy performance by the almost always creepy Jeremy Irons made quite an impact. In his review, Roger Ebert wrote, quote, "I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival with several women friends who said it was harder for them to take than I, a man, could possibly imagine. But they were fascinated while it was on the screen."

[22:45] Jessica: The level of ick is so deep. And you're right. Jeremy Irons, I mean, we've already covered him in Sonny's.

[22:55] Meg: What was the name of that movie?

[22:57] Jessica: Reversal of Fortune.

[22:58] Meg: Yes, thank you.

[22:59] Jessica: Which we covered on the podcast. So there's another callback. I love that Jeremy Irons became the creepy guy because remember, in Brideshead Revisited he was just so. That's another callback. He was so like absolutely lovely and beautiful and sweet and he just really found his ick.

[23:19] Meg: I felt like I should watch Dead Ringers to do this story. And Billy said I absolutely had to watch Dead Ringers, that I couldn't possibly do the story without watching it. I got through the first 20 minutes and I said, I don't want to watch this movie. And I'm sorry and I apologize to you listeners, but I couldn't do it.

[23:42] Jessica: Do you think that you might have an easier time watching the new version with Rachel Weiss? Maybe. Because it's a woman?

[23:49] Meg: I don't know how they're going to do that. I think it is supposed to be feminist, right?

[23:56] Jessica: I have no idea. All I know is that I saw it advertised and I thought, how on earth is that going to work with a woman?

[24:03] Meg: Right? I got further than 20 minutes now that I think about it. I got maybe like halfway through, I met all the characters. I met the female character. And then Billy and I had sort of an argument about how David Cronenberg, I think is maybe a little misogynist. And he disagrees. I mean, all that stuff that happens in The Fly.

[24:24] Jessica: God, I don't remember the details of The Fly anymore. I mean, I remember the gross

[24:32] Meg: She gives birth to a larvae, yeah. So graphic. I don't know, it feels misogynist to me. Something about the graphic intimacy of it and just women being bodies.

[24:47] Jessica: But Cronenberg just loves bodies of any kind.

[24:51] Meg: That's what Billy said.

[24:52] Jessica: Being smashed up and torn and mutilated.

[24:57] Meg: Well, I've now seen two of his movies with women with their legs in stirrups and to, I'm like, what's up with that, David?

[25:08] Jessica: I mean, if his films are indeed about the vulnerability of the human body, which is definitely the case, it's not just women, I would imagine that that would really be a go to move.

[25:23] Meg: Well, you know how they say about porn like you know it when you see it? I feel a little bit like misogyny. You know it when you.

[25:32] Jessica: I'm not debating your feelings about this. And I haven't seen either movie. I've never seen Dead Ringers, and I haven't seen The Fly in so long that I'm not coming at this from an educated standpoint. But I do know that that movie Crash, that was his. Right? Yeah. I didn't think that was particularly about women. But anyway, I don't know. Maybe that's another topic for another day. Is David Cronenberg a misogynist? And if you think so, I'm sticking with you. I say yes. I've turned around entirely. You don't have to. Yes, I do. So I have a new gimmick.

[26:29] Meg: Yeah.

[26:29] Jessica: And I know I have a few gimmicks going at all times, but this is my new one.

[26:34] Meg: Okay.

[26:34] Jessica: This is On This Day in the '80s.

[26:38] Meg: Okay, nice.

[26:40] Jessica: So on this day, May 25, in 1986, a little girl named Amy Sherwood was the first in a long, long line, literally. That was the day that Hands Across America. Oh, wow. Took place.

[27:01] Meg: No, it started in NY?

[27:03] Jessica: It went from Battery Park to LA?

[27:08] Meg: What? Are you kidding me?

[27:10] Jessica: Nope.

[27:10] Meg: I don't think I saw pictures in New York. I saw pictures, like, through Nebraska or something. Explain what Hands Across America.

[27:17] Jessica: Okay, so I'm going to explain it. But what I really love. Thank you, Meg. What I really love is that in a very short period of time, from 1984 to 1986, there was an explosion of philanthropy in the music business. They went cuckoo bananas.

[27:41] Meg: Right?

[27:42] Jessica: But it all started, Feed the World? No, it started with Bob Geldof Band Aid, which was a group of musicians and performers in London getting together to sing one of the most chart topping songs of all time that Bob Geldof, I believe he penned with someone else with Midge Ure, was, Do They Know It's Christmas?

[28:11] Meg: Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

[28:15] Jessica: It's Christmas time. And of course, like that video, starving children in Ethiopia. Right? So that video was awesome. And I remember watching that and being like, and there's that person. And then there's that. And that was the beginning.

[28:28] Meg: There was like, George Michael.

[28:31] Jessica: It was a who's who. That was for famine relief in Ethiopia. And that happened in 1984. So that was released for Christmas of '84. And then Bob Geldof took that and started Live Aid. And Live Aid was the organization that wound up doing the giant concert, the concerts. Exactly. And in 1985 was the Live Aid concert also, it was everything, Live Aid, just to help anyone's memory along, took place on multiple stages around the world.

[29:10] Meg: That's right.

[29:11] Jessica: And so that was, what was amazing about it is that it was a simulcast, just global event. And Bob Geldof got knighted after that. And he went from being a Boomtown Rat, which, by the way, not a bad band, to Sir Bob Geldof. That happened in 1985, also in 1985, inspired by Band Aid and Live Aid, Harry Belafonte said, I don't know if I'm going to get it exactly correct, but he said, you know, if people were starving in Israel, the Jews in the United States would do something about it. And so the people who are starving in Ethiopia, we should do something about this. So I was like, all right, I'm not going to argue. But he put together, because he got Quincy Jones involved and they put together in 1985, USA for Africa. And the song was We Are the World. What, you don't remember that?

[30:13] Meg: I didn't realize that it was Harry Belafonte. Of course I remember that song.

[30:18] Meg: I didn't know that was Harry.

[30:19] Jessica: No.

[30:20] Meg: I thought it was Lionel Richie?

[30:21] Jessica: No. Harry Belafonte started the whole thing and.

[30:24] Meg: Then Lionel Richie wrote the song.

[30:27] Jessica: Lionel Ritchie wrote the song, Quincy Jones produced it.

[30:30] Meg: And I have to say, subpar song.

[30:33] Jessica: Well, it was hard to beat youy know, Do They Know It's Christmas? But people liked it. And it's quite a powerhouse of a song because, you know, like, Cyndi Lauper really delivered on that one.

[30:47] Meg: True. And Bob Dylan.

[30:51] Jessica: As odd as that was. Yes. And of course, Bruce really brought it. The Boss was quite The Boss. So anyway and for those of you who have never seen it, that video could not be more '80s if you tried. It's just not possible.

[31:07] Meg: And they all had to show up at like three in the morning because they were so scared that the paparazzi were going to follow them.

[31:19] Jessica: Like in London they actually, for Do They Know It's Christmas for that recording and they did a documentary. The video was just them arriving and no one was being precious about it. It was the middle of the day or the morning, and they're like, hi, we're here. We show it. Showing them just walking into the studio like normal people.

[31:37] Meg: Like normal people doing their job. No, Americans have to make it into.

[31:42] Jessica: Exactly. So, 1985 USA for Africa song We Are The World. And then here's what I didn't know. In 1986, USA for Africa produced and sponsored Hands Across America.

[31:57] Meg: Hands Across America was for Ethiopia?

[32:00] Jessica: No, it was not. What was it for? So this is what I find really interesting and confusing and deserves more of a deep dive. It was for homelessness in the United States. But there's more. So hold on.

[32:13] Meg: You know, you have to describe what Hands Across America is.

[32:16] Jessica: Why are you, like, hijacking my entire thing today? You need to back off, woman. Like, this is enough. Please.

[32:26] Meg: Just eager.

[32:27] Jessica: It's very nice that you're eager. So what also happened, by the way, before we get to Hands Across America that you so deeply need me to reveal everything about before I've even begun. 1985. Willie Nelson.

[32:43] Meg: What did he, let me guess.

[32:45] Jessica: Willie Nelson.

[32:46] Meg: That must have been farmland.

[32:47] Jessica: Can you just back the frick up? I thought it'd be fun to guess. No, I'm still in my glory of having done research this time. I'm waiting for Alex Smith to come at me and I'm going to be like, no, I looked it up. So back up, Meg. So in 1985, while USA for Africa was singing We Are the World, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John, at the time, John Cougar Mellencamp, later, John Mellencamp, originally Johnny Cougar. There's a whole story there, but they started putting together Farm Aid, and that was for farmers who were not able to pay their mortgages and were losing their farms. And as a quick pop culture reference within the reference, remember the movie Field of Dreams?

[33:39] Meg: I do.

[33:40] Jessica: And do you remember why he made the baseball field?

[33:45] Meg: No.

[33:46] Jessica: Okay, so "if you build it, they will come," was the voice of Shoeless Joe Jackson that was coming to him through the cornfields. He was trying to get people to come to watch a baseball game because he was going to lose his farm. Yeah. And the crops were messed up or, I don't know, something was. Anyway, this is all like, of a piece. Let's go back to 1986. Okay. But actually, no, we're going to go back to 1984. Okay, so we've got Bob Geldof, we've got Harry Belafonte, we've got Lionel Ritchie, we've got Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson, we've got Midge Ure, we've got all of these people. But you got to have a producer, a music producer who is going to be taking care of the song. Now, Quincy Jones was We Are The World. But he had a partner. Bob Geldof had a partner. That guy was Ken Kragan. For both of them? Ken Kragan is the link. So, you know in the Bible, X begat Y, which begat Z. Bob Geldof begat Band Aid, which begat Live Aid, which begat USA for Africa, which begat Hands Across America. But while each one of these artists was inspired by the others, they called on the same guy to come in and produce the song. He's an events coordinator, Ken Kragen. Interestingly, Farm Aid did not ask for his help at all. So Ken Kragen rose to the occasion, got involved with Hands Across America and I believe that one was his idea. So he went to his USA for Africa pals and said, this is what we're going to do for homelessness in America. It's time to look at home. When was the last time you even thought about Hands Across America.

[35:44] Meg: I can't even. That's why I think nobody knows what it is.

[35:48] Jessica: Okay, so for those of you who do not know, a group led by Ken Kragen decided that it would be a great idea to basically get the entire country involved in a stunt. And the stunt was also a fundraiser. And the stunt was to get people all across the United States to link hands at the same time. So from sea to shining sea, you would have a line of Americans of all types holding hands across the country. And to be in the line, you had to pay $10.

[36:29] Meg: Oh, I didn't know that.

[36:31] Jessica: Which eventually went by the wayside because they were like, there weren't enough people to really.

[36:34] Meg: They didn't have enough people. I do kind of remember that.

[36:37] Jessica: And so they had people holding lengths of ribbon or rope to connect them. And then there was something like, in New Mexico, there.

[36:46] Meg: Is that just because there are not enough people in New Mexico or whatever.

[36:49] Jessica: I don't know. But there's more to this. So it was not exactly a perfect execution, but it was pretty good. And people got very excited. And there were so many celebrities on that one as well. And Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin and some other just unlikely people were involved. But let's just have a quick digression to the song. The song. The backup band for the song, talk about the '80s, was Toto, as in, "I bless the reins down in Africa." So now we're going full circle again with Africa. So you've got Toto and the singers were like session musicians. It was called Hands Across America, rather predictably. But in the video, it was so many celebrities singing the song. It was like Barbra Streisand was in it and Robin Williams and all of these really notable people that I had no memory of this being like that. And the song Hands Across America, you'll remember if I sing a little, if I croak it at you, it was Hands Across America. No, you got to look it up.

[38:05] Meg: I will.

[38:06] Jessica: What's so great about it? It's so '80s because you have Crockett and Tubbs holding hands in a shot. You've got. Oh my God. You know Miami Vice. So anyway, what's so great about it is that it's the most jingoistic America first. America. America. Well meaning. It's so well meaning.

[38:28] Meg: Do they talk about homelessness at all in the song?

[38:31] Jessica: I couldn't even discern what the words were. I couldn't bring myself to get that involved. But it has, like, images of soaring eagles and talking about Lady Liberty. It is such a schmaltzfest. It is schmaltz piled on top of schmaltz with a completely, as you have proven, forgettable song, but still produced by the guy who did the other stuff. So not without merit, I'm sure. Here's a little interesting fact about Hands Across America. You know who absolutely refused to be part of it?

[39:05] Meg: Who?

[39:06] Jessica: President Reagan.

[39:07] Meg: Why?

[39:08] Jessica: Because. Great question. He refused to acknowledge that there was a significant homeless problem and poverty in America. At the last minute, he agreed.

[39:19] Meg: What a dick.

[39:20] Jessica: And he was standing on, I don't know, some grounds of the White House with Nancy and some staff members and the staff members'children, like, in a thrown together photo op. So it all started the way that it was put together with this little girl. Her name was Amy Sherwood. Little six year old who was homeless.

[39:41] Meg: Oh, my God.

[39:42] Jessica: And a mom, single mom, and I think, two siblings. Maybe it was just one other, but this little six year old moppet with cute pigtails and she know, sort of selected as, like, this is the perfect kid. And the schmaltzfest video has tons of dewy eyed children saying, like, I just want a snack. It's terrible. I'm not, like, it's that bad. She was so adorable. Once the video came out, she got a modeling contract. She was part of some promotional stuff, and she got a modeling contract. And by the time the video came out, her family was no longer homeless. They were living in Brooklyn. What? Hilariously. So I started this whole journey by watching the video, and I was looking at this little girl who was so cute, and I was like, who is that outrageous dork? Like, two down from her? What a really odd character. Who's at the front of this whole lot? Turns out that was Ken Cragen. Oh. And I was like, oh, my God. He means so well. Oh, no. So I also suggest, like, look for the guy, the tall, gangly, gawky guy in the red baseball jacket. It's quite entertaining. This is, like, a stark contrast to how things are these days. They raised, I don't know, like, $35 million, which is good. I mean, 1985 sounds like. And it cost them, like, half of that to produce the event.

[41:19] Meg: Okay.

[41:19] Jessica: So they still wound up raising, like, $17,000, $17 million. And the press went crazy that they hadn't raised enough.

[41:31] Meg: Okay.

[41:32] Jessica: And I was like, get a life. You know what? This happened at all. And it raised awareness for homelessness and children.

[41:38] Meg: And you're focusing in on the ribbons

[41:41] Jessica: Exactly. And I thought if that happened today, I would be stunned if anyone who was supposed to get any of the money got any at all. What was I looking at today? There was something that, like, a rapper something was involved in some do gooder scheme, was just revealed as a ponzi scheme. So, anyway, Band Aid, Live Aid and USA for Africa and Farm Aid and Hands Across America are all part of this dizzying desire to help between 1984 and 1986. And what I would like to bring to your attention, I did not bring up Ronald Reagan just for kicks. Why. Why was there such a need? I know trickle down economics didn't. Doesn't. Will never work.

[42:36] Meg: And he cut all the programs.

[42:39] Jessica: Yeah, he cut all of the programs and insisted that trickle down economics was going to save the middle class and lower. And guess what? It didn't. So, yeah, in the same way that he refused to admit that AIDS was happening, Ronnie wanted to insist that poverty was not happening and kids were not experiencing homelessness. And apparently saying that children weren't suffering to their faces was just a bridge too far, and he finally caved. What a dick. What a dick. So, anyway, that is it. I really recommend.

[43:17] Meg: Love that. I do have images of Hands Across America in my mind right now, and I can't wait.

[43:22] Jessica: Well, and there was a lot of swag. Like, there were a lot of T shirts that they were doing, and I'm sure that the proceeds went to the production of this thing. I also read that the way that they were able to get everything coordinated was they had some giant. Imagine this is 1985, some giant broadcasting and multiple computer systems. So these are, like, rooms filled with computers coordinating everything in Wisconsin, that was, like, the central point.

[43:51] Meg: Now, it probably wouldn't be very hard. They have things like.

[43:54] Jessica: You could do it on your phone now, for God sakes.

[43:57] Meg: Like, a guy in his basement could organize it.

[44:00] Jessica: Yeah. Well, and I'm quite sure that some 14 year old is getting the launch codes for something. So it is amazing to think, well done.

[44:09] Meg: Hands Across America.

[44:10] Jessica: He died in 2021. Ken Kagan. So let's pour one out for Ken and thank him for producing a lot of do gooder material in the mid '80s.

[44:23] Meg: Yay, philanthropy.

[44:24] Jessica: Yay, philanthropy.

[44:37] Meg: What's our tie in?

[44:38] Jessica: This is a really good question. Okay, so you.

[44:42] Meg: Gynecologists, twins.

[44:45] Jessica: Twin psycho gynecologists. And a lot of do gooders.

[44:53] Meg: A lot of do gooders.

[44:54] Jessica: Oh, I got it. Oh, I'm so happy. It's so tenuous, though. Okay. That's so tenuous. So twins are copies of each other.

[45:03] Meg: Okay.

[45:04] Jessica: And so all of these events that we talked about, they were copying each other. So they were twinning and tripletting. And that's the nicest way that I could possibly think to get something connected. I don't want to soil these nice, well meaning people with the Marcus twins, but I guess that's it, they're copying.

[45:29] Meg: Well done.

[45:30] Jessica: I try.

[45:31] Meg: You're back.

[45:32] Jessica: And better than ever. Yay. Fist bump..