[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.

[00:28] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:34] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:36] Meg: Wasn't it nice when Andrea posted that unboxing video?

[00:40] Jessica: I was so surprised. And p.s. well done on creating the box for her to unbox. And I didn't even realize that we had such amazing swag. And we do.

[00:54] Meg: We do have amazing swag.

[00:55] Jessica: Thanks to you. You know, it was lovely. It was absolutely lovely. Every time that a fan engages in some way, it's like, oh, yay.

[01:08] Meg: It's special. That came from a contest. Not really a contest, but I posted randomly a still from Clash of the Titans, and I was like, nobody knows this movie. And then I was just like, let's just see how many people know this movie. I was like, if you get the right answer, I'll send you some socks. And then I had to take it down because we got so many responses.

[01:29] Jessica: Really?

[01:31] Meg: It's like, how does everybody know this crazy movie?

[01:33] Jessica: Did it start getting aired someplace?

[01:36] Meg: No, it was just random.

[01:38] Jessica: You know why, you know why that strikes me as particularly weird today? Cause as I was getting my smoked, this is like, hi, I'm in New York. As I was getting my smoked salmon from Russ & Daughters.

[01:50] Meg: Yes.

[01:51] Jessica: On Houston today, the guy behind the counter kept saying, Help me. Help you. Hell. Anybody? Jerry Maguire. Anybody? Not a single. I, of course, privately was like, Jerry Maguire, but not a single person in the story. My favorite movie, is it? Yes. I had no idea that's your favorite movie.

[02:11] Meg: Well, it's. You know, of my two favorite movies, it is one of them.

[02:16] Jessica: Every time we do a podcast, I learn something new. So what about Jerry Maguire makes it a top? Is it just like, the triumph of the downtrodden?

[02:27] Meg: It's the struggle. Th aspiration. Yeah. The fact that he's basically at the bottom for most of the movie.

[02:36] Jessica: Tom Cruise is a bottom. Oh, that's not what you said.

[02:41] Meg: He gets fired, and then he doesn't have a job, and he has to start from the bottom.

[02:46] Jessica: Yes. No. He is totally, totally on the outs. What's the other one that you love?

[02:51] Meg: Working Girl, which I guess is sort of similar.

[02:54] Jessica: It is. We have a trend. But I love that. I mean, anyone who doesn't love Working Girl has. I don't like. I don't think you're a candidate for being a human being. You're like, you don't ex. Yeah. You're off. We're voting you off the island. You're done. Goodbye. Yeah. So Andrea knew Clash of the Titans. Good on her.

[03:18] Meg: And she won some socks.

[03:20] Jessica: And she was so thoughtful to do an unboxing.

[03:22] Meg: Yeah, that was really nice.

[03:23] Jessica: And Unboxing the '80s is such a great. I love it, just seeing those socks emerge. It was joy.

[03:44] Meg: So, my engagement question. Were you ever mugged?

[03:51] Jessica: I think I told you the story of my ridiculous mugging. I know that you were really mugged.

[03:58] Meg: Yeah.

[03:58] Jessica: I was like, you had a really bad bad scenario.

[04:00] Meg: Yeah. Gunpoint.

[04:02] Jessica: No, I think I told the story already, that I was walking on 79th Street and a juvenile tried to mug me and jumped on my back.

[04:11] Meg: What?

[04:12] Jessica: I never told you this?

[04:13] Meg: No.

[04:13] Jessica: So because I am me, I wasn't mugged like a normal person. I was with Ale and we were walking on 79th Street, coming home. I don't think we were still in high school. I think we were in college or right after, because I was wearing heels for God knows what reason, and a skirt, which meant I was wearing stocking pantyhose as well. And I felt, I heard running, and then I felt something jump on my back, and I was like, what the fuck?

[04:49] Meg: That's not an effective way to mug somebody.

[04:52] Jessica: Well, because I think he was around ten.

[04:55] Meg: What did he want from you?

[04:57] Jessica: My bag.

[04:58] Meg: Okay.

[04:59] Jessica: And so I think that this ten year old's concept was to freak me out. And as I was flailing to grab my shoulder bag, but he didn't realize that Ale with me and like something out of a Benny Hill routine, she started hitting him with her purse.

[05:17] Meg: I do not know this story.

[05:19] Jessica: Yes. And she knocked him off like he was like a lizard that had fallen on me in Miami, like some horrible little.

[05:28] Meg: What happened to him?

[05:29] Jessica: He scurried away.

[05:33] Meg: And you think he was like ten?

[05:34] Jessica: There is no question. Because he kept trying to. Well, he was a child. That's so weird. So bananas. I mean, I've been followed by people who are trying to mug me, and I can tell, and I've had to do the. And I always tell people who are new to New York this one, that yellow cab drivers are your friends. And so I knew this guy was trying to get me, whether it was for a mugging or God knows what else. And I leapt out. It was, like, around 16th Street, and I leapt out into the road in Second Avenue, and I started flagging down cabs, and I got in one. And I said, I'm being followed by a dangerous person, and I don't actually have anywhere to go. Could you let me stay in this cab? And he said yes. And I was right, because the dangerous person started banging on the taxi.

[06:26] Meg: Oh, my God. How is that gonna work?

[06:29] Jessica: I think he wanted to abduct me or do something really terrible. But what was he doing? He was angry that I had escaped his clutches. Oh, that's awful. So that's my response to you again. I can't just say yes like a human. I have these weird versions of it.

[06:49] Meg: Okay, well, my story today, my sources are the Daily News, The New York Times, Murderpedia.

[06:57] Jessica: Murderpedia.

[06:58] Meg: It's a great website.

[06:59] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[07:00] Meg: It's like Wikipedia, but it's Murderpedia.

[07:03] Jessica: That is amazing.

[07:04] Meg: And my parents.

[07:07] Jessica: Oh, my God, this is gonna be so good.

[07:10] Meg: So I hope this works. I'm gonna tell you two stories, and they're both kind of mysterious, so just hang in there, and then we'll chat about it.

[07:22] Jessica: I can't even express how excited I am. Go ahead.

[07:25] Meg: All right. At 9:30 Friday night, December 4, 1981, James Weber left the Eastside Playhouse on East 74th Street between Second and Third Avenues. He was a 42 year old actor and had just performed the role of Clarence Cassidy in the Light Opera of Manhattan's production of Babes in Toyland. That's the dad in Babes in Toyland.

[07:53] Jessica: Oh, okay.

[07:54] Meg: In addition to performing with the company, James taught music at a junior high school near his home at 549 West 123rd Street in Morningside Heights, up near Columbia University. If he had planned to walk home, it would have taken him an hour and a half, and he might have gone through the park. But at 10:00 p.m. in 1981, that would have been considered extremely dangerous. He didn't show up for the 04:00 p.m. matinee the next day. Frank Rella, another member of the company, which this is the Light Opera of Manhattan, also known as LOOM, that's their nickname; he had to read the role of Clarence from a script for that performance. At 7:30 a.m. that Saturday morning, a body of a man without a wallet or ID was discovered by someone walking his dog at the clearing in front of the Blockhouse. Have you ever heard of the Blockhouse?

[08:58] Jessica: No. What's that?

[08:59] Meg: The Blockhouse really does just look like a big old cube. It's a stone armory that was built to defend New York against the British in the War of 1812. Crazy times.

[09:12] Jessica: Yes.

[09:12] Meg: It's located in Central Park. And in fact, Central Park was constructed around it because Frederick Olmsted thought it was really cool looking. So he's like, let's keep it.

[09:23] Jessica: Oh, my God, that's amazing.

[09:24] Meg: Right?

[09:24] Jessica: Wait, where in the park is it?

[09:26] Meg: It's on the West Side near 108th Street. And it is the second oldest structure in Central Park. Do you know what the oldest is?

[09:34] Jessica: No.

[09:34] Meg: We've talked about it before on the podcast.

[09:36] Jessica: I don't remember anything.

[09:37] Meg: Cleopatra's Needle

[09:39] Jessica: Oh, very old. Oh, that's really interesting. Okay, good one.

[09:43] Meg: The man had been shot with one bullet in his head. Roberto Nieves, who was James Weber's roommate, read in the paper that an unidentified man had been found shot in the park and obviously, James wasn't home. So fearing the worst, he called the police, and the body was indeed James Weber.

[10:08] Jessica: That is heartrending.

[10:10] Meg: So sad. Roberto was shocked. Quote, "he was not a park person, not near 108th Street. It's such a dangerous area, even during the day." And James other friends agreed that they'd never heard of him entering the park at night. His 1979 Volkswagen was found parked in a traffic circle at the northwest corner of the park, at Central Park North and Central Park West. The door was open, the keys were in the ignition, and the lights were on. So he didnt walk home. He drove home. But then what happened? Crazy, right?

[10:49] Jessica: This is not adding up.

[10:51] Meg: The police reported that he was found with his pants rolled down around his knees. James Weber grew up on Long Island, went to NYU, and got his Masters in musicology and music education from City University. His whole life was devoted to music and theater, said a friend. He was a very thoughtful person, concerned, caring, and with a deep bass. A large voice, said another. He cultivated orchids on the porch of his apartment and planned to retire to Puerto Rico. So that's our first mystery. We will revisit it.

[11:27] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[11:28] Meg: This is a second mystery.

[11:30] Jessica: Okay.

[11:31] Meg: Dr. Robert Kabcenell lived on 91st Street when I was growing up. Right next to Little Dalton.

[11:37] Jessica: Right.

[11:38] Meg: He was a child psychiatrist and a good friend of my parents. He and his wife Muriel would come over when my parents had parties. I think you know this, but now everyone else will. My father was very involved with the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute, and all of his later writings used psychoanalysis to analyze Shakespearean texts. So that's what the last part of his career was. And our neighbor, who you might remember, Henriette Klein.

[12:06] Jessica: Sure. My God, yes.

[12:09] Meg: Well, she lived across the street, and she was a pioneer in the study of childhood schizophrenia. And a muckity muck at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute. And she really liked my dad. And she got him involved with that crowd. And they all socialized together, including the Kabcenell's. So Muriel and Bob Kabcenell's townhouse at 69 East 91st Street was a standout. Now, I never went, but my mother was telling me it was a very, very nice house. I mean, we lived in a townhouse, but this was like a really nice townhouse. To the point where my mother suggested there must have been some other source of funds to have that kind of a house. It had a garage. It still has a garage.

[13:02] Jessica: That's old money, girl. Right? That's inherited wealth level. Nice house in New York City.

[13:09] Meg: That is what my mother thought. That said, I talked to my dad today. And he was like, no, it's just because he was a psychoanalyst and he was charging $500 an hour. That's why he could afford that place. And I'm like, you don't think that there's another source of income now? It's just sort of interesting. It's neither here nor there.

[13:29] Jessica: Well I think anything in New York that has to do with real estate. The first question is, how on earth did you pay for that?

[13:32] Meg: Right, right. Okay. And so my mom was like, how on earth did you pay for that? And my dad was like, because he's a psychoanalyst. So who knows? Bob would see patients at the townhouse. Which is actually very common for psychoanalysts.

[13:46] Jessica: Yes, yes.

[13:47] Meg: He had a live in butler.

[13:49] Jessica: We now just graduated back to inherited wealth.

[13:52] Meg: Who would let the patients in and take them to the first floor consulting room.

[13:57] Jessica: This is like Freud. It's like Freud's setup. This is exactly the same thing.

[14:01] Meg: Yeah, a live in butler.

[14:04] Jessica: That's what I call Alfie. I strap a tray to his back with a drink.

[14:10] Meg: And my father said that he was not a large man, the butler. Just another little detail.

[14:16] Jessica: He was not a large man.

[14:18] Meg: He was not a large man, the butler.

[14:20] Jessica: Does that mean that he was a little man?

[14:23] Meg: I just. Well, I think you'll know in a second why that actually is relevant somewhat.

[14:29] Jessica: Okay.

[14:30] Meg: They were not an exceedingly close couple, Muriel and Bob. Sometimes Bob would leave the party early and leave Muriel at the party. And Muriel. A party at their house? No, no, just our place. Like, my mom was like, Muriel's still here. Where's Bob? He just went home. And Muriel had a number of alcoholic beverages. That was part of Muriel's situation. And Bob had a close friend that he would bring to the party sometimes, a bald man. My mother couldn't remember his name. My dad couldn't remember his name either. But they both remembered him being a really nice guy.

[15:14] Jessica: Nice bald man companion.

[15:17] Meg: Yes.

[15:18] Jessica: I'm putting two and two together. Possibly I'm smelling what you're cooking.

[15:23] Meg: Side note, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973. But psychoanalysts continued to describe homosexuality as a, quote, "perversion." And analysts claimed they could, quote, "cure serious character disorders of their gay patients well into the 1980s." It wasn't until 1991 when the American Psychoanalytic Association finally adopted an anti-discrimination policy.

[15:57] Jessica: Wow.

[15:58] Meg: My mother recalls Henriette saying that Bob Kabcenell was denied a prominent position at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute because there was a suspicion he was gay.

[16:12] Jessica: Really?

[16:12] Meg: Yes. And I asked my father about that just about an hour ago, and he says, I don't like to gossip about people. I said.

[16:26] Jessica: Is that true? Come now. Come on, Tom. In other words, the sentence should have been, I don't like to gossip about people, comma, today.

[16:37] Meg: Well, this is the second time I've tried to engage my father on the subject of Bob Kabcenell. And the first time he also resisted. He said, you don't want to bring up old skeletons and you don't want to tell things about people. And da da da. And I was like, yes, I do. Okay. I mean, we're just chatting.

[16:55] Jessica: I'm not going to put it on a podcast. Don't be ridiculous.

[17:01] Meg: But today I was like, it isn't gossip. I'm just asking what you remember from that time. If you know, you know. If you don't know, you don't know. But what do you recall? And he said, I thought they were more than just friends. This bald man who was very nice, who accompanied him to parties.

[17:21] Jessica: I love that that is the three part description. Nice, bald, accompanied to parties.

[17:28] Meg: Okay, now it's gonna take a turn.

[17:31] Jessica: I'm excited.

[17:32] Meg: On Tuesday, April 23, 1991. I apologize. I'm going into the '90s. But you know what?

[17:38] Jessica: We all know that, like, '90 and '91, it's still the '80s. It's pretty much the same way that '80 and '81, still the '70s. So, yeah, it grandfathers in.

[17:48] Meg: Okay, thank you. On Tuesday, April 23, 1991, Bob was headed home from the 92nd Street Y after a concert by German cellist Gustav Rivinius. He was also a cellist, Bob was. He was walking west on 91st Street, approaching Park Avenue at 10:30 p.m., a security guard said he heard a popping sound and then, quote, "I saw a guy with long black hair, sprinting away. I ran to the man on the sidewalk, and he was going into convulsions. There was blood coming out of his ears and mouth," close quote. And that was Bob. Bob's wallet was missing and his pockets were turned out, and a broken two by four lay next to him with his appointment book. The guard said the attacker was 6'3", white, thin, clean shaven, with shoulder length hair, wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and blue jeans. He'd hit Bob in the head with a 2x4 repeatedly.

[18:57] Jessica: I'm agog. Yes.

[18:59] Meg: Why was there a security guard on that block, you may ask? Several months before the attack, Bob had been severely beaten in his home.

[19:09] Jessica: What?

[19:10] Meg: Apparently, he had surprised two burglars who had entered through his unlocked garage door. Why isn't the garage door locked, Bob? And where's the butler? But my dad said, no, no, the butler was not a large man. He couldn't have protected Bob from two burglars.

[19:31] Jessica: But did he call the police, the small butler?

[19:34] Meg: I guess. All of my information, actually, my dad did not remember this part of the story, nor did my mother. I was like, your good friend Bob Kabcenell was attacked in his home and you had no memory of that? It was in the newspaper. I read it. My dad, even today, he was like, I don't think that happened. And I was like, I don't think that the paper would lie about. There were lots of details, Daddy, like the garage door. Obviously this happened. How did you not know about this? He's a good friend of yours. It's so weird. Okay. After that invasion, what do you call that home invasion? The Kapcanells and their neighbors and Little Dalton hired a private security guard for the block. Not a very good one, because then, not a few months later, Bob is killed with a 2x4 steps away from his home.

[20:27] Jessica: Where is the security guard when this happens?

[20:30] Meg: The security guard didn't see it. He heard it. He heard the popping, and then he saw from a distance and he ran and by the time he got there, it was too late. After languishing in a coma for two days, Bob died from his injuries. The Robert J. Kabcenell Memorial Lecture in Child Analysis was founded in 1992. If you google it, they're lovely. There are just so many lectures that have been funded by this. I assume Muriel set it up. Both my parents remember Bob as very sweet and kind and attractive. My mother said he was very good looking. Okay.

[21:11] Jessica: This is so weird to get hit twice.

[21:16] Meg: Crazy coincidence.

[21:17] Jessica: I don't know. Do we believe in coincidences in this certain situation. And I'm assuming that there's a tie in to the other guy, and so maybe not feeling so coincidental.

[21:31] Meg: Well, I'm just telling you the facts, and we can certainly conjecture.

[21:34] Jessica: If we can solve it on this podcast, we will have done our jobs.

[21:39] Meg: All right. One of these murders is a cold case. The other was solved. On January 14, 1982, David Bullock was arrested after his roommate, Michael Winley disappeared. When the police searched their basement apartment, they found a .38 caliber revolver and a shotgun. A few hours later, Bullock confessed he had committed six murders, and he came to be known as The .38 Caliber Killer.

[22:10] Jessica: Get out.

[22:10] Meg: Now, this happened after Son of Sam, and yet you dont really hear about it. Son of Sams, so famous, and for some reason, The .38 Caliber Killer.

[22:20] Jessica: Well, Son of Sam was working during the blackout like there was a whole environment of chaos.

[22:28] Meg: But this is also. Anyway, it's just interesting how some serial killers, like the whole country, just gloms onto that and for some reason The .38 Caliber Killer. Who is he? He's this guy.

[22:42] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[22:43] Meg: He described in detail the crimes he had committed without expressing any remorse. He claimed his motive was hedonism. "I was in the Christmas spirit. It made me happy. I enjoy what I do." He was sentenced to 150 years. He personally knew each of his victims, except James Weber, who he said he killed randomly. And despite the police's assumption that there was a sexual element to their encounter, Bullock claimed there was not, but four of his six murders took place after a sexual encounter.

[23:24] Jessica: Were they all men?

[23:25] Meg: No. One was a female prostitute. Sex worker.

[23:29] Jessica: Fascinating.

[23:30] Meg: Right? What's happening? Okay, how about this? Then I find this. So. Okay, so that's the whole thing about James Weber. Some people think that he was driving home across the park, as one does, and that maybe David Bullock jumped in front of his car, and so he stopped the car to help him. But would you do that?

[23:52] Jessica: No.

[23:53] Meg: No, you wouldn't. And then maybe it was a sexual encounter. The police absolutely thought that.

[24:00] Jessica: I immediately, when you started saying 108th Street and, you know, the park west side, I'm like, I was calculating. How far is that from The Ramble, like.

[24:08] Meg: Oh, it's very far. But this area around The Blockhouse, that's what it's called, right? The Blockhouse?

[24:16] Jessica: Uh huh. It's also a recreational area.

[24:20] Meg: Yeah, for sure. But then his friends and his roommate are like, no, that's not his thing. I mean, I think we can probably assume that he was.

[24:32] Jessica: I think he was.

[24:33] Meg: I think he was gay, too.

[24:34] Jessica: The orchids. The orchids was what got me, I saw this come. I was like, musical theater. Theater is his life. The orchids.

[24:43] Meg: He wants to retire to Portugal.

[24:45] Jessica: It all adds up. But, of course, that is an incredibly reductive, horrible way to look at this.

[24:52] Meg: Oh my god, listen to us. I mean, that's actually one of the things I was like, why am I telling these two stories? And I think part of the reason was the whispers. The whispers. But we'll get to that in a second. Cause I've got one last thing to say. Okay, this is about Bob Kabcenell. Back to Bob. You know, I went on a deep dive.

[25:10] Jessica: Well, as you do.

[25:11] Meg: And Bob Kabcenell's murder is unsolved. But on May 16, an officer

[25:20] Jessica: May 16 of what?

[25:22] Meg: 1991. Oh, okay, so it was just a month later.

[25:24] Jessica: Okay.

[25:25] Meg: May 16, 1991, an officer approached Dennis Stakin, who was 27, who matched the description of Bob's attacker. Dennis, who was on parole, but I don't know what he was on parole for doing, bolted from the officer and darted into a building on 91st and York and took a woman hostage in the building's sauna for 20 minutes. What? Until he finally released her and he was arrested. But then I couldn't find anything else about this Dennis Stakin. But the article in the paper said that he was going to be questioned about Bob Kabcenell's murder.

[26:10] Jessica: If you want a window into New York City, my first thoughts were, what building has a sauna? Where were the doormen? Where's the security? How did he get into the sauna?

[26:21] Meg: Amanda had a sauna. But, yeah, it must have been on the first floor, right? Amanda's sauna was on her roof.

[26:27] Jessica: Right. So these are many questions that I have. It's all. It's all peculiar.

[26:35] Meg: It's all peculiar. And when my mom first started telling me about Bob Kabcenell and when I started finding these articles and then all this other stuff, I was like, to be attacked twice feels like a crazy coincidence. And I was like, maybe it was a patient or something. I don't know if I'm buying the random.

[26:54] Jessica: I don't think it's random at all. It's just. It's too random. It's not. It's not. No, no. I refuse to believe it. I'm just saying right here and now. And I think that the butler was involved.

[27:05] Meg: Oh, my God. The butler did it.

[27:07] Jessica: The butler did it. No, no, I don't think the butler did it. I think that a tiny butler.

[27:18] Jessica: The presence of a tiny butler, is just too perfect not to be. Like, how are we gonna investigate this little ridiculous wrinkle. Tiny butler.

[27:30] Meg: Tiny butler.

[27:31] Jessica: So the tiny butler.

[27:33] Meg: So, yeah, I was thinking.

[27:35] Jessica: Maybe the tiny butler let them in.

[27:37] Meg: Yeah. I mean, unlocked garage. Why wouldn't you lock the garage?

[27:41] Jessica: Well, you would lock it, but then your tiny butler would unlock it so that they wouldn't have a breaking and entering. Maybe.

[27:49] Meg: I mean, it's also really interesting. You know, these psychoanalysts let their patients. Lunatics. Patients into their home.

[27:59] Jessica: Yes. Which is a bad idea.

[28:01] Meg: Well, it's definitely not the safest thing in the world.

[28:05] Jessica: No, it's a terrible idea.

[28:07] Meg: But Henriette saw patients in her home, too. Daddy said that's why it's an all New York classic. But it is. And the fact that he was a child psychoanalyst. Thank you.

[28:17] Jessica: Cause, you know, someone's gonna grow up and have, like, an issue, don't you think? Yes, I do. I really do. I think that there's too much that's been documented that says A plus B equals C. And here, this is mimicking.

[28:32] Meg: It, like, how mugging with a two x four seems crazy to me.

[28:36] Jessica: It's so opportunistic. And just to have the upper body strength. I mean, yes, he was 6'3", so he had a good angle maybe, but to bash someone's head in with a two x four and get out of there that fast and elude the security guard. You had to know the block. You had to know the block if that's what you were gonna do. If you knew the block, you would instinctively know where to go and what to do. Even if you weren't planning it. Precisely.

[29:04] Meg: Knife, gun. Two by four?

[29:07] Jessica: Well, two by four screams opportunity, right?

[29:10] Meg: Because people walk around with two by fours?

[29:13] Jessica: No, like if there was one lying in the ground because of some construction.

[29:16] Meg: On 91st and Park?

[29:19] Jessica: Have you seen the scaffolding around the city? I don't know. Anyway, I don't know. I think I just.

[29:24] Meg: It just doesn't scream robbery to me.

[29:25] Jessica: I agree with you.

[29:26] Meg: I just. I'm not getting that vibe from it.

[29:31] Jessica: Well, did they say what was taken from the house?

[29:33] Meg: No. In fact, you know how we're talking to Travis in a couple of weeks? I was gonna ask him, like, is there a way that I could access police reports? Cause now I'm just freaking obsessed. I want to find out what happened.

[29:47] Jessica: Travis, if you're listening, start working.

[29:50] Meg: My dad also said he at the time thought that they should put up a reward, but he didn't think that they had.

[29:59] Jessica: You know, there's such a cocktail of grief and confusion and shock in my incredibly uneducated and reactionary in this moment way. You know, my feeling is, how do you judge what people do when you find out that your husband or your dad has been mangled with a two by four in the street outside your house.

[30:24] Meg: Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily part of the story, but it is just another factoid. It's also memory. It's also my parents trying to remember.

[30:34] Jessica: But you're bringing something up about New York in the '80s/'90s that strikes me, which is that violence had been seen as being something that was not in that neighborhood. Violence was Harlem. Violence was Spanish Harlem. Violence was Central Park. It was Central Park. But I think people really still believed that if you lived in certain neighborhoods, things were not going to happen. That the mere fact of the neighborhood made it safe. And it was so for a very long time. What happened to Bob specifically strikes me, and let's forget the tiny butler who I'm obsessed with, but let's just say, oh, well, we live amongst friends. We know everyone on 91st Street and 92nd Street and what have you. So, yeah, if we leave our garage open, no one's going to run home and lock it. Because whatever, that's a mentality that was normal in certain enclaves. I think in certain munnied enclaves of New York at the time, I think there was still a feeling of that doesn't happen to us.

[31:54] Meg: Well, that's not my. I mean, when I was talking to my dad today, he was saying the opposite. He was like, it was scary and he was attacked a few times. Anyway.

[32:04] Jessica: Well, then I recant my statement. If people who are adult homeowners living in this space, they would know.

[32:13] Meg: Yeah, I mean, literally a block away.

[32:15] Jessica: Well, then it goes back to the tiny butler. It's his fault.

[32:19] Meg: The other thing I thought was interesting was, you know, people were closeted. That was just a thing. And that the police would whisper about James and that, you know, the Psychoanalytic Institute was whispering about Bob, and the fact that not very long ago, people kind of had to be closeted to a certain degree. And that's kind of crazy.

[32:44] Jessica: Yeah, we have talked about issues along those lines in many different settings on this podcast, but what we have not talked about is what you're bringing up right now, which is in your professional life. Like, what was it to have to be gay? Like, what was closeted? Why were you closeted? You're a monied, respected person. What were the hoops that you needed to jump through if you were gay? That's what's really striking me from this is that these were people who were acknowledged as being celebrated.

[33:20] Meg: Absolutely. Both very accomplished men.

[33:23] Jessica: And they still didn'T get a pass. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying, is that it's harsh. There's no conclusion here, but I know that you are going to go on a deep dive. What's your next deep dive into this?

[33:34] Meg: I can't find anything else from my internet search, so if we're still talking about it by the time we meet with Travis, I'll just ask, like, can you get police reports? Could we find out more about the home invasion? Because I feel like that might be the lynchpin to the whole thing.

[33:52] Jessica: I agree, and I want to.

[33:54] Meg: And also, this guy, Dennis Stakin, like, whatever happened to him?

[33:58] Jessica: I feel like, who was he and why was he not further investigated? Or was he.

[34:03] Meg: Maybe he was, but then I'm like, why didn't they have another article about it? Unless they interviewed him and he didn't do it. But then I'm like, why did they put that in the paper in the first place, that they were even questioning him about it?

[34:16] Jessica: Fascinating. Well, RIP, these two men, Bob and James. Bob and James. Meg.

[34:33] Meg: Yes.

[34:34] Jessica: Do you enjoy exercise?

[34:37] Meg: I do.

[34:37] Jessica: Tell me about that, because I hate it.

[34:40] Meg: I'm sorry.

[34:41] Jessica: That's fine. I'm comfortable with hating it. What about working out is pleasing or pleasurable for you?

[34:51] Meg: I do it first thing in the morning, and I think there's something. I mean, I'm sure there's some sort of scientific reason for this, but I solve problems. Like, it puts my head in a good place.

[35:05] Jessica: I've heard a lot of that, yes. And just the physical experience, like the exertion, do you enjoy that? How do you feel about?

[35:13] Meg: Yeah, I like feeling strong. I like to feel like. Ooh. I mean, it's funny, sometimes I forget that I went to the gym.

[35:21] Jessica: Really?

[35:22] Meg: Like, did I go to the gym today? Yeah, I did.

[35:24] Jessica: Interesting. And when you go to the gym or you work out, I mean, I know you have the delightful Sheldon Shaw as your personal trainer, right?

[35:33] Meg: Yes.

[35:33] Jessica: When you go to the gym without a trainer, what are the things that you do?

[35:37] Meg: I just do, like, the elliptical or the treadmill.

[35:40] Jessica: And do you know anyone at the gym?

[35:44] Meg: No, I very much.

[35:46] Jessica: In fact, I actively avoid knowing other people.

[35:50] Meg: Yeah, no, thank you. I'm very friendly with the guy at the front door, but that's it.

[35:57] Jessica: Well, I hate working out as we know, and I do it because I know if I don't I will become creaky and disintegrate. I've never liked it, and I've tried doing it since my teens, after we graduated from high school, like, high school, I had no idea how good we had it, even though I hated gym class. And you know the story about how Sasha and I ran in the other direction.

[36:24] Meg: Around the reservoir, right.

[36:27] Jessica: The other way, so that we came back pretending like, oh, that was a hard run.

[36:30] Meg: There's no way you got away with that.

[36:32] Jessica: No, no, no. But what was the name of that?

[36:34] Meg: Miss Fernald.

[36:35] Jessica: No, with the blonde hair. Miss Smith. Miss Smith was like, you fuckers. Of course. Yeah. She was so pissed off at us. And we were like, hey. And then, like, lit up a cigarette, like something completely uncalled for. When I got to college and then had the freshman 15 descend on me, that was when working out began, and that was in 1988. I've been watching on Apple TV+, a show that I've become completely obsessed with called Physical. Are you aware of this?

[37:09] Meg: I think I've seen the ad for it.

[37:11] Jessica: So it's Rose Byrne, and she plays a San Diego housewife who has sort of her breakdown because nothing in her life is working. And it's all held together with spit and rubber bands. And she's bulimic and she's battling it, and she's miserable in her marriage. And one of the things that sort of shocks her into clarity is how good it feels to work out. And she's not always a very sympathetic character, you know? And whoever does the costume and set design like chef's kiss to them, because they never make it into a parody. So it's the early '80s, and they never make it into a parody. It's just exactly as it was. And it is how she creates an aerobics empire.

[38:05] Meg: Okay.

[38:06] Jessica: And I've been obsessed with it because I'm like, oh, my God, I had that leotard. Oh, my God. This is so great. I watched an episode like the next to last episode last night, and I was thinking about, like, why does this resonate with me so much? And it made me think about working out in New York City. And what does that even mean? From the time that I first felt that I needed to go to the gym, how has it changed? What is it? And the way that you just described how you work out is really the antithesis of what the aerobics studio that she has on this show is about and what I remember it being about. So what I wanted to talk about today was just sort of a little snapshot of what that was like, because I think that the way that people who are younger than we are now work out and how they see women specifically see their physical selves and just their physicality is so different. It has its own disturbing elements, but just that ours were different. So as I'm watching this, I had a memory. So I was like, oh, my God, what did I do? I know that I came back fat, and that did not go over well in my household, as you know. Of course, I look back on those photos of me fat, and I'm like, if I could only be 20 pounds heavier than that now, I'd be so pleased. I was thinking, like, well, what did I do? And why does this resonate? And it came back to me in a flood. I had not thought about this in a decade or more. What this show is talking about is community, because the women would come together on this show, and they were seeing women just, like themselves, wanting to get strong and wanting to be fit and what that meant to them. And so I was like, oh, my God. I did that on 79th Street. On the corner of 79th Street and Lex, on the second floor of the corner building was a window, it, like, wrapped around the corner of the building and, you know, paint written on the window. Body Design By Gilda. Do you remember this?

[40:41] Meg: Yeah. And you mentioned it before, actually.

[40:43] Jessica: I did, yeah. What I recall was being terrified of going. I hated the community, and it was so competitive. It was like, can you do your kick up to your butt faster? Can you do this? And if you didn't have the right outfit, it was, oh, you don't have the right leotard. Oh, my God. So I was like, you know what? Who the fuck was Gilda anyway? Who is this woman who created and by the way, there was another place on 86th Street called Bringing Up The Rear. And all of these places, like, now, when we think about working out, it really is about health. Everyone wants to look a particular way, but we're so focused, like, with our Apple watches, about, like, how many steps am I getting? And am I. What's my body fat? At that time, it was exclusively don't look like shit. Whatever you need to do to not look like garbage, that's what you're going to do. And on 86th Street, on the same block as Bringing Up The Rear, what was there? A Weight Watchers. And for those who don't remember, Weight Watchers at that time was another horrible gauntlet you would have to run because you'd go in, and it was like, a twelve step program, but completely indiscreet. And you'd walk in, it was like, hey, fatties. Welcome, fatso's

[42:17] Meg: You had to weigh in, didn't you?

[42:18] Jessica: You had to weigh in in front of everybody else.

[42:21] Meg: My God, that's awful.

[42:24] Jessica: Yes.

[42:24] Meg: Is that still how it works?

[42:25] Jessica: No, they have an app now. I mean, they've been through so many rebrands.

[42:29] Meg: You don't ever have to meet anybody again.

[42:31] Jessica: No, I mean, I think that's one of the great and terrible things about life now, right? Is that every single community experience, good or bad, can now be circumvented. But no, at the time, and amazingly, they were always really dingy looking. There was nothing appealing about going into a Weight Watchers room. And mind you, again, I want you to know I was going to Weight watchers to lose what I thought was a horror show of, wait for it, ten pounds. And I was like, this is it. I'm horrible. I'm out of control. Oh, my God. So I would toddle in to this, like, grim gray, you know, like, molded plastic seats kind of thing, and have some dodo stand at the front of the room and be like, well, you know, eat an apple. That's better for you than eating chips. And you're like, can you just weigh me for my, my weekly humiliation and I can just move on?

[43:39] Meg: It also just sounds like such a time suck.

[43:42] Jessica: Total time suck. But don't forget that you did this.

[43:45] Meg: After you started college. So was this during the summer?

[43:49] Jessica: Mm hmm.

[43:50] Meg: Okay.

[43:51] Jessica: Yeah. And afterwards as well. I mean, it's a whole story of eating disorders and madness and, you know, parental pressure. We can do that another time. We can do a deep dive into my psychology, and I'm happy to do it at any time. But what it did do was that it exposed me to the exercise and dieting culture of the '80s, which was. And now we're talking about how indiscreet it was and how pun part of the mentality was, if it was brutal enough, you'll shape up.

[44:30] Meg: Oh, okay.

[44:32] Jessica: Let that sink in for a second.

[44:34] Meg: Yeah, I don't know.

[44:35] Jessica: Yeah. Cause now there's so much emphasis on support.

[44:40] Meg: Okay, I see what you're saying. And, like, make it burn.

[44:45] Jessica: What was it? Pain is the feeling of weakness leaving the body.

[44:50] Meg: Wow.

[44:51] Jessica: No pain, no gain.

[44:54] Meg: That was Jane Fonda, right? Make it burn.

[44:56] Jessica: Yes. Feel the burn.

[44:57] Meg: Feel the burn.

[44:58] Jessica: So, yeah. So, Body Designed By Gilda, and I was by far the youngest person there.

[45:03] Meg: Did you go to the same clock? Did you see the same people every time?

[45:06] Jessica: I did.

[45:07] Meg: How often did you go?

[45:09] Jessica: Well, in my self loathing, I think I went, like, no less than three times a week. And I probably was in amazing shape. But I saw the mentality of the other women. There was so, again, punishing. It was if you were in pain, you were doing it right, and you had to win in the class, there was a sense of, like, whoever was, you know, as I said, like, doing the highest kick or could do the grapevine step in aerobics the fastest, you know, without falling over. You were, in this microscopic world of this stupid exercise class, it meant everything. And I do think that I told the story before, but I'm sort of coming at it from a different place, that my only moment of joy at that place was when I recognized the astonishingly wonderful playwright Wendy Wasserstein.

[46:10] Meg: That's right.

[46:10] Jessica: In my class and then in the changing room. And I could tell how much she hated it. And I was like, oh, fucking yes, yes, yes, Wendy, yes. Because she was a bit fluffy. Yeah. And so it was just such a punishing thing. And then I did a little bit more research, and then I remembered another thing from my growing up. I don't know if this is the case with you, with your parents, but did you ever find books in their bookshelves? And you were like, well, that's just peculiar.

[46:41] Meg: Sure.

[46:42] Jessica: Like, what was one of those.

[46:43] Meg: Oh, God.

[46:44] Jessica: For you.

[46:45] Meg: My Mother/Myself: The Daughter's Search for Identity, I think. Okay. I was like, what's that about?

[46:48] Jessica: And do I want to know? Do I want to get involved in that? I nearly fell over laughing and dying when I saw that on my parents bookshelf. My father had clearly purchased the Arnold Schwarzenegger Bodybuilding book, which was a hit at the time. But I remember being like, what are you doing with this? And it was like this, like the culture, the cult of the male body building of male exercise, wasn't this aerobic thing.

[47:24] Meg: No, it was lifting weights.

[47:25] Jessica: It was lifting weights and getting big.

[47:28] Meg: I remember my dad, because he taught at Columbia, so he would lift weights at Columbia, and he would ride his bike to work. So that was his exercise. And my mom watched the Jane Fonda videos.

[47:42] Jessica: Mm hmm. Really? Did she do them at home?

[47:44] Meg: Absolutely. Yeah.

[47:45] Jessica: Gilda Marx. And I think that this backstory says a lot about how this mindset of the '80s came to be. So Gilda Marx in the '60s was a nice, chubby Jewish girl from Pittsburgh who went to LA to act and was just not looking the same as the other girls. And so she set out to transform herself with dance and exercise and it was about getting herself as small as humanly possible. From there, she realized that what she had was a business, because every woman around her felt the same, even if they weren't fluffy. Everyone had this core fear. It was all fear based. And so she said, there's enough people here for this to be a business. But what she did that I thought was really clever was she went ahead and said, I'm not going to get that worried about the psychology. I'm going to dress them. And so she became a leotard.

[48:59] Meg: Ooh.

[49:00] Jessica: Designer and manufacturer. Yes. And she created a fabric called Flexitard. Ah, that's a very funny word. I know. And as I was doing this research.

[49:11] Meg: Was it just spandex?

[49:13] Jessica: It was, you know, it was like spandex that stretches in four ways.

[49:17] Meg: Okay.

[49:17] Jessica: You know, and there was a really big store, relatively big clothing element of that studio.

[49:26] Meg: I was like, that is a good business model.

[49:29] Jessica: In fact, I had a pair, and it was all like, it would wick away sweat and it would keep you dry, which, by the way, is utter nonsense. There's no such thing as sweat wicking. Give me a break. It was so expensive, that stuff. I mean, you were in a leotard and tights, basically, in these classes, like footless tights and a leotard and those scrunchie socks and the squishy reeboks. Quite a look. And they're all high cut.

[49:58] Meg: Right? That's what I was thinking.

[49:59] Jessica: Super.

[50:00] Meg: Like, you could see your hip bones above your hip bones.

[50:03] Jessica: Yes. And they called it a french cut, which I think they still do. And I remember that I was like, well, I have to get the right underwear for this. So I bought a pair of Body Design By Gilda, like a thong. That thing must have cost $40.

[50:18] Meg: Oh, ridiculous.

[50:19] Jessica: At the time, Meg, I kept that pair of underpants until it was a waistband held to the underpants with, like, two connection points. And I was like, I'm wearing this motherfucker till it melts off my body.

[50:37] Meg: But that's a good point. You couldn't wear normal underwear because you would see the panty line.

[50:40] Jessica: And your bra. Like, that was the beginning of all of this sportswear, workout wear, because you couldn't wear normal underwear. You couldn't wear a bra. And it was all designed around this hyper sexy. You know, it was to be on display. And now we're going to have a quick referral to the John Travolta Jamie Lee Curtis film. Perfect.

[51:06] Meg: Yes.

[51:07] Jessica: For those of you who have not seen it, if you want a fashion cavalcade and a demonstration of how nutsy and competitive and weird that whole thing was. That's the only movie that I think exists from that period that really shows what an aerobic studio looked like. Forget the storyline. Forget John Travolda doing aerobics as an embedded investigative reporter. Is that what the plot was? Yes, from Rolling Stone or something like that. It's so preposterous. And there he is, lying there, doing his leg lifts along with Jamie, making significant eye contact with Jamie Lee Curtis.

[51:57] Meg: Jamie Lee. She was built for the high french cut.

[52:00] Jessica: She was the only person in the world built for that high french cut. Oh, my God. Which Gilda Marx did a swift business in. But do you want to hear a fabulous, like, we're going to bring this all together New York thing? Guess who Gilda Marx was married to?

[52:20] Meg: Who?

[52:21] Jessica: The son of Marx brother, Gummo.

[52:25] Meg: Okay. If I was going to guess, obviously I was going to say one of the Marx brothers, but I thought that was such a stupid thing to say that I didn't say it.

[52:34] Jessica: Nope.

[52:35] Meg: And I would have been right. One thing I'm gonna say about men bulking up and women shrinking, I do remember reading somewhere at the time, so when I was a kid that that was something psychological, that women were trying to take up less space and men were trying to take up more space.

[52:53] Jessica: Well, and I think that women were trying. I mean, it's something that's spoken about a lot now with the diet culture. That's he cultural cue they get from men is it's basically the physical equivalent of shut up and sit down. I looked up a little more on Gilda Marx. She has an Instagram site.

[53:13] Meg: Ooh, I'll follow.

[53:14] Jessica: She is still making this clothing and most of her Instagram. If she is, in fact, still with us. I think she is. But there's a lot of grandma loves you to her granddaughter. So back to current times. The only thing I was going to say is, after having done this little research and remembering the trauma of all of that that was being heaped on top of my eating disorder trauma, I now think about the gym in my building that I belong to that I never use but I pay for because that's part of my penance and I think about the luxury of getting on a machine by myself.

[53:57] Meg: Oh, absolutely.

[53:59] Jessica: And I can only say, thank you, fitness industry, for moving forward.

[54:14] Meg: Maybe a tie in is running around the Reservoir, Central park.

[54:18] Jessica: Oh, I don't know. That's good. I'm thinking about. There's something in there about the psychology of group dynamics.

[54:26] Meg: Ooh.

[54:26] Jessica: And the group dynamic of that psychiatric institute.

[54:32] Meg: Psychoanalytic Institute.

[54:34] Jessica: I like psychiatric institute. Like, they've all been shoved into the padded room together. But, yeah, the Psychoanalytic Institute and their group dynamic and the group dynamic of people in these exercise classes. Like, we're all goading each other on to do something.

[54:56] Meg: I do miss spinning. I enjoyed spinning. I hated it. Oh, my God, I had so much fun. And my friend Jennifer Bradley and I would go together, and she thought I was being competitive, and I thought she was being competitive, which means, of course, we were both being pretty competitive.

[55:10] Jessica: I would imagine so. I mean, didn't the seat in spinning hurt?

[55:16] Meg: No. Oh. And you go up and down and up and down. I love spinning. And now I haven't been back post Covid.

[55:23] Jessica: I used to belong to an Equinox, or Equinox, whatever they're called. And I went to two spinning classes there. And it made me so sad. I had to stop. And then I stopped going to that gym.

[55:37] Meg: Just go downstairs.

[55:39] Jessica: I think that's. That's all there is for me.