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

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

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

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

[00:36] Meg: And this week, we interviewed Travis Myers, who was an 84th Street Bomber back in the '80s.

[00:42] Jessica: AKA 84th Street gang. Sorry, Travis.

[00:46] Meg: And we got so much response.

[00:50] Jessica: It seems like it hit a very deep and disturbed chord in the denizens of Yorkville.

[00:59] Meg: It's awakened a lot of memories. People are remembering their childhoods. So we've got this idea. We want to do a special episode. The title is a little up in the air. I like Yorkville Storytime.

[01:14] Jessica: Mm hmm.

[01:15] Meg: Do you like that?

[01:17] Jessica: I do. What was the insane thing that I said earlier?

[01:20] Meg: I don't know. Cause I don't know the movie you were referencing. So I was like, sure, Jessica.

[01:24] Jessica: But I was like, oh, yes, Yorkville Rashomon, whatever the case may be. I think. I think Yorkville Storytime is awesome.

[01:33] Meg: Right. And what we're doing is if you grew up in Yorkville or if you were an adult in Yorkville in the '80s, and you have a great Yorkville story for us from the '80s, we want to hear it. Would you write it in to our website, www.desperately80s.com, or through our Instagram, which is desperately80s, or our Facebook, which is Desperately Seeking the '80s and we will, as many stories as we get, we will read as many of them as we can find.

[02:06] Jessica: I love this. I can't wait to see what comes in.

[02:21] Meg: So it's Halloween next week.

[02:23] Jessica: Yes.

[02:24] Meg: So this is our Halloween episode. I'm gonna call it that. Cause it's gonna land. I can't remember exactly when, but close enough to Halloween that this is our Halloween episode.

[02:33] Jessica: Did you pick a spooky story?

[02:37] Meg: I did. But first, I want to hear from you if you remember any kind of, like, urban legend. Doesn't have to be New York or like, a campfire story or, you know, the guy with the hook who's creeping up behind you, those kinds of things. Do you remember?

[02:56] Jessica: Of course.

[02:57] Meg: Yay. Share one with us, would you?

[02:59] Jessica: I mean, we did all of the crazy Bloody Mary, the guy with the hook, which reminds me, in the movie Meatballs, there's a whole thing with the guy with the hook. And someone's like, I thought it was on his foot. You're like, what would you do with a hook on a foot, you moron? So where I went to camp, my theater camp, the version of Bloody Mary was Raggedy Ann. And do you remember this one? No, I don't remember. Oh, so Raggedy Ann. I wish I could remember all of the details, but, like, Raggedy Ann was a local teenager who is drinking in a car with the other kids, and she didn't have the time to get scared straight because she was in a terrible accident. And in the accident, the tendons of her, this is so specific and insane. The tendons of her neck were severed, so her head flopped from side to side. And then she died. Or did she. And then a counselor would come out of the woods, you know, flopping their head around, and everyone would be, like, shitting themselves and running amok, like, straight through the campfire or like some madness. But, yeah. So Raggedy Ann was very terrifying.

[04:30] Meg: Thank you for that intro.

[04:32] Jessica: Oh, dear. You're welcome.

[04:35] Meg: The legend of Cropsey has scared the bejesus out of the Staten Island kids at the YMCA sleepovers and sleepaway camps since the late '70s. The story goes like this. George Cropsey is a respected businessman with a wife and kids, and the family is staying in a small summer cottage near Masten Lake near a sleepaway camp. One night, the cottage burns down, killing the whole family, but George manages to escape. Now George goes insane and blames the kids in the local sleepaway camp for setting the fire. So he dedicates the rest of his life to getting revenge. And every summer, he returns to threaten or kill the kids at the camp. And he sets fires in the forest and carves threatening symbols on doors and trees. But then, during the colder months, he lives in the tunnels under an abandoned insane asylum.

[05:37] Jessica: This is really detailed.

[05:40] Meg: And as soon as it gets warm again, he's back to stalking the campers he blames for the death of his family.

[05:47] Jessica: Oh, he's like a groundhog.

[05:52] Meg: And to this day, strange voices and low, terrifying laughter and weird symbols and even sightings can be seen by campers. Now, the interesting thing about this particular urban legend is that it is very specific to Staten Island, and they all tell it to each other, and it is, everybody knows you say it so differently.

[06:17] Jessica: I've actually heard the name Cropsey before. So that's it migrated to the island of Manhattan as well.

[06:29] Meg: My sources are mostly The New York Times, NPR, and good old Murderpedia. At 09:30 p.m. on July 15, 1981, seven year old Holly Ann Hughes, who lived near Richmond Terrace on Staten Island, went to the corner store to buy a bar of soap. She was $0.05 short and the guy at the deli wouldnt sell it to her and after she left to head home, she was never seen again. Witnesses said they saw a green Volkswagen circling the block around the time Holly disappeared. A month later, Holly's mom got a call from a man who said his name was Sal. Sal told her that he had Holly and would return her if Hollys mom would have sex with him.

[07:18] Jessica: That seems like a pretty low ransom note bar, but okay. What? Its weird. Im just saying its weird. Its bananas.

[07:27] Meg: Holly's mom didnt believe him clearly.

[07:30] Jessica: Good.

[07:30] Meg: But she played along and she had the police follow her to Penn Station where she was supposed to meet Sal. But then Sal never showed. And that was that.

[07:40] Jessica: No leads, no nothing.

[07:43] Meg: No. Fast forward to 1983. A school bus picks up a group of eleven kids from a YMCA camp on Staten Island. The kids thought they were going home, but instead the driver took them to Newark Airport, bought them burgers at White Castle and they watched the planes take off and land. Eventually the bus driver drove them back. Now Staten Island. Let's talk about Staten Island.

[08:11] Jessica: I wish that my facial expression could be shared with others. What the. Okay, okay.

[08:18] Meg: Staten Island has a very different vibe from the other boroughs, right?

[08:23] Jessica: Yes, very much so.

[08:24] Meg: Ask Pete Davidson.

[08:26] Jessica: You know what? Well said. Yes. If you need a reference, go there.

[08:31] Meg: It's much more suburban. Only 8,000 people per square mile compared to 22,000 in Queens, 39,000 in Brooklyn, 74,000 in Manhattan. So that's just interesting, right?

[08:45] Jessica: Very.

[08:45] Meg: In the '80s it was 90% white. Can you imagine any area of like the rest of the city being that concentrated with any race? It's notable.

[09:00] Jessica: It's beyond notable.

[09:02] Meg: Mostly they were Irish and Italian. There were some German and Russian Jews. The only way to get there is by ferry or to drive. There are no subways. So it really is kind of isolated from the rest of the city.

[09:15] Jessica: Yes.

[09:16] Meg: In the '80s in particular it was working class and felt a like a small town with kids on bikes and lawns to mow and empty streets. So as strange as it may sound that parents didn't know where their kids were at all times, it really wasn't that unusual on Staten Island. And everyone knew everyone else. So when the bus driver dropped that group of kids off after the joy ride, everyone recognized the driver as Andre Rand, the local creepy guy.

[09:52] Jessica: He migrated out of his van onto a school bus.

[09:55] Meg: Years earlier, Andre Rand had worked as a janitor at the Willowbrook State School. Willowbrook was the state supported school for children with intellectual disabilities on Staten Island that was an absolute horror show from 1947 to 1987. Geraldo Rivera did an expose in 1972 called Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace, and he uncovered all kinds of deplorable conditions, including overcrowding, inadequate sanitary facilities.

[10:32] Jessica: I remember this.

[10:33] Meg: And physical and sexual abuse of residents by members of the school staff. Have you seen any clips of it?

[10:39] Jessica: Yes, it is. It's a horror show. It's like American Horror Story come to life.

[10:44] Meg: As it turns out, Asylum, season two of American Horror Story is based on Willowbrook. By the way, I know we sometimes talk smack about Ryan Murphy, but we have similar interests. Ryan Murphy really likes the '80s. It's hard. If you like the '80s or interested in the '80s, it's hard to avoid Ryan Murphy.

[11:06] Jessica: Yes, that's true. My beef with Ryan Murphy is that he makes things that weren't pretty, pretty.

[11:13] Meg: Mm. That's fair. Well, look, I have not seen season two of American Horror Story, but I did see that little YouTube from Geraldo Rivera's expose. Holy crap. I mean, the children aren't wearing clothes. They're in the dark. Well, they're covered in stuff.

[11:30] Jessica: Feces.

[11:31] Meg: Yeah.

[11:32] Jessica: Yeah. Okay. We can say that.

[11:34] Meg: I don't know what's gonna shock you, Jessica.

[11:36] Jessica: I love poop. What are you talking about? That's, like, my favorite topic ever.

[11:42] Meg: I won't censor myself anymore. Covered in feces, rocking back and forth.

[11:48] Jessica: Yeah, well, I feel like we should do a sidebar on Ryan Murphy, but, yeah, I remember when it came out, and I remember it because we weren't that far off in age from some of the kids who were there.

[12:04] Meg: I mean, you do not remember when it came out. Cause it came out in 1972, but.

[12:08] Jessica: Then I remember when it was re-aired.

[12:10] Meg: Okay. Oh, you know what? You probably remember they did do something, I think, even in the early '90s where they did. Let's see what's happened to the people who were released from Willowbrook.

[12:22] Jessica: Well. Cause if it stayed in business until 1987, there must have been some.

[12:29] Meg: They did coverage, or that's what was so crazy. He did this crazy expose, and everyone was like, oh, my God. And then people went in, and they would clean it up for a day, basically when the inspectors were coming. So as a result, I mean, its days were probably numbered, but that's how it extended its life.

[12:52] Jessica: Not good. All right.

[12:55] Meg: Hold your seatbelt. Want to hear one of the worst things that happened. Yeah. Just one of the worst. Just one of them.

[13:01] Jessica: Is it sexual?

[13:02] Meg: No.

[13:03] Jessica: Is it? Okay.

[13:04] Meg: In the '60s, medical researcher Saul Krugman, in an attempt to figure out how Hepatitis spread experimented on the developmentally delayed children at Willowbrook.

[13:17] Jessica: No.

[13:18] Meg: He fed the live Hepatitis virus from stool samples to 60 healthy children and monitored their response when they got sick. He fed them poop. Infected poop.

[13:36] Jessica: It's so psychotic. At what point does, children, someone say, I'm going to infect healthy children with disease fecal matter, according to. There's a special place in hell for him is all I'm saying.

[13:51] Meg: According to vaccinologist Maurice Hilleman, quote, "the Willowbrook studies were the most unethical medical experiments ever performed on children in the United States," which begs the question there are more? Well, I mean, it just, it opens up all kinds of questions for me, but this is the most, the most unethical? Finally, Willowbrook was closed down in 1987, and most of the residents were sent to various group homes, but 150 were simply released. The grounds of Willowbrook, which included a maze of buildings and underground tunnels and a surrounding forest.

[14:34] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[14:35] Meg: Were mostly abandoned and fell into disrepair. And some of the former residents found their way back to the abandoned grounds. It was the only place they'd ever known. And a scattering of homeless camps cropped up in and around the old buildings.

[14:52] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[14:53] Meg: Its suspected that Andre Rand, who wasnt a resident there, but he was the janitor there. It was suspected that Andre Rand had been living in a tent on the grounds for years, even before the school's official closure.

[15:08] Jessica: This is one of your, this is an exceptional story because it actually keeps getting weirder. You're like, strap in. Here you go.

[15:19] Meg: So Andre Rand, he'd had a number of run ins with the law before he drove those kids to Newark. In 1969, he'd abducted a nine year old girl, took off her clothes and his, but police spotted them in a parking lot and stopped the assault before it escalated. He served 16 months. In 1972, five year old Alice Pereira vanished from her South Beach apartment house where Andre Rand was working as a painter. But there wasn't enough evidence for an indictment. Rand was accused of rape twice in 1979, but was not indicted. In 1981, he tried to get a nine year old girl into his car. She ran away and hid from him and was able to identify him, but no charges were filed. Then Holly Ann Hughes disappeared. He actually got in trouble for the bus incident in 1983 and served ten months. Days after he was released later that year, ten year old Tiahease Jackson disappeared in the middle of the day on her way to the supermarket. It wasn't until 1987 when twelve year old Jennifer Schweiger, who had down syndrome, went for a walk and never came home, that Rand got in trouble, that he couldn't talk his way out of. She was last seen walking with Andre Rand and his bicycle. A neighbor remembers. Quote, "it was the first summer I was allowed to ride my bike more than two houses away from my home. I was seven years old. I'll never forget that Thursday. My parents told me to put my bike away and come in the house. Hurry. Get in the house. The news just broke. Another little girl abducted on Staten Island. Jennifer was a student at my elementary school." A massive search pulled the entire community together, and after 35 days, Jennifer's naked body was found in a shallow grave on the grounds of Willowbrook, not far from Andre Rand's encampment. There was just circumstantial evidence, but Rand was convicted of the first degree kidnapping in Jennifer's case because there was a witness to see that they'd been walking together and sentenced to 25 years to life, but the jury couldn't reach a verdict on the murder charge. Then, in 2004, a jury convicted Rand in the kidnapping of Holly Ann Hughes, whose body was never found and he got an additional 25 years.

[17:53] Jessica: Wait, so I. So they tried him again when he was in prison?

[17:57] Meg: He was already in prison because he had a green car. He had a green Volkswagen.

[18:02] Jessica: Right.

[18:03] Meg: It's circumstantial, but at that point, people felt pretty confident he will become eligible for parole in 2037, when he will be 93 years old. So, as the legend of Cropsey was passed from campfire to campfire in the '80s on Staten Island, an actual bogeyman living on the grounds and in the tunnels of an abandoned mental institution was stealing children. Life imitates art. Imitates life.

[18:34] Jessica: Okay, I have questions. Yes. Is there any knowledge of when the Cropsey ghost urban legend began?

[18:44] Meg: They say in the '70s. And he was active in the '70s.

[18:45] Jessica: That's what I'm wondering. Yes.

[18:47] Meg: Everyone considers it related. It's not a coincidence. Isn't that wild?

[18:53] Jessica: You know, yes and no. Now, here's the thing. You know that prior to doing this podcast, I was not a true crime enthusiast. And so I have learned a lot from you. Listening to your stories. I learned a lot. Thanks, Meg. And the sad response to isn't that wild is, no, it's just not.

[19:18] Meg: Because there are always children being snatched off the street.

[19:21] Jessica: Yes. And even if the children are not the ones being attacked or whatever, there's a crazy man 99.9% of the time, a crazy man ready to pounce all the time. It's just so fucking horrifying that my answer is no, I'm not surprised. What I do find amazing, and this is what I am riveted by, is how children were the custodians of this story. And so children had to make sense of something that was going on around them that they might have been seeing, that adults weren't. They were aware of something not right, and so they mythologized it, which is exactly where all myths come from, is something's happening. I don't understand what it is. We're going to create a story that makes it make sense. That, to me, is is fascinating. And, you know, children are. If they have testimony in a case, it's not admitted because children are unreliable witnesses. And I think that this story is a really good example of they are reliable witnesses. You have to know what their language is.

[20:40] Meg: Exactly. You have to decipher what their language is.

[20:42] Jessica: And making the horror of this guy into a campfire tale also declaws it a little bit. It gives them some power over the story.

[20:54] Meg: I mean, that little girl who said, he tried to get me in his car, and I ran away and I hid, and that's the guy who did it. And that wasn't enough, right? That wasn't enough. That needs to be enough people.

[21:06] Jessica: Agreed fully.

[21:10] Meg: Here's something interesting that I wanted to point out.

[21:13] Jessica: Please.

[21:13] Meg: In his 1988 trial, Andre Rand, he drooled profusely and acted like he wasn't competent to stand trial. He acted like he was a resident at Willowbrook, right? But then once he was incarcerated, he produced a detailed and eloquent and beautifully handwritten. I mean, this guy has handwriting like you would not believe, defense of his actions in each of the cases that he was being accused of doing weird things. And I'm like, oh, I know people who have done that. That's what Weinstein did. Remember, as soon as he was incarcerated, he was like, oh, I can't even walk like this, kind of.

[21:58] Jessica: Well, remember Vincent "Chin" Gigante who wandered around in a bathrobe? You know, like, everyone has an angle.

[22:07] Meg: I will show you. I'll post it. I'll post it on the instagram. Just a page of his defense. It's in three different handwritings, and each one of them is gorgeous.

[22:18] Jessica: It's in three different handwritings.

[22:20] Meg: Yes.

[22:21] Jessica: Well, that's a sign of looney tunes right there.

[22:24] Meg: It's beautiful to look at, like, if he wanted to do scrapbooking, he could have.

[22:30] Jessica: Do you want to suggest crafts for him?

[22:33] Meg: I mean, it's really remarkable, but, I.

[22:34] Jessica: Mean, think about that. He has three different handwritings. Like, isn't that a sign of some major mental derangement?

[22:40] Meg: I have no idea.

[22:41] Jessica: Well, I think that that merits some investigation on our part.

[22:45] Meg: Wait till you see what he looks like.

[22:46] Jessica: I'll show it to you. Do I bring. Yes.

[22:48] Meg: You want to see it.

[22:49] Jessica: Oh, my God. Okay. Okay. I don't like it. Oh, I remember what I was going to say. Not only is there a special ring in hell for this guy, there's also a special place in hell for the guy who wouldn't sell Holly the soap for the fucking five cents.

[23:08] Meg: I agree. That is crazy.

[23:10] Jessica: A child? You can't do pick a penny, take a penny for a child. Give me a break.

[23:16] Meg: At 9:30 at night.

[23:18] Jessica: Yeah. That is a psycho. That's asshole. Yeah. That is someone who is gonna hopefully have some toasty toes in hell. Maybe not the full hell immersion, but just a little something.

[23:34] Meg: Happy Halloween. Boo.

[23:47] Jessica: All right, Meg, I have an engagement question.

[23:50] Meg: Okay. I'm ready.

[23:51] Jessica: What is the sickest you've ever been?

[23:54] Meg: Ooh. Okay. Alice was little. She was a baby, and she got some kind of flu. And, you know, flus don't really hit babies very hard because they have to survive and stuff. I mean, you know, typically, but the flus that babies get hit adults, like, I've never in my life I could not leave the bathroom for, I'm gonna say, like, more than a day. Whatever was in my body, it was like my entire body was convulsing to get it out of me.

[24:29] Jessica: Your innards liquefied.

[24:30] Meg: It was unbelievable. It was shocking.

[24:35] Jessica: That sounds horrific. We actually have a very good friend who had that happen to her on a plane. The second that the flight left the ground, she was like, something's not quite right. Scampered into the bathroom and monopolized it. Didn't leave it once for the entire flight. There's nothing worse. No matter how sneezy, coughy, snotty you might be, there is nothing worse than vomit, diarrhea, liquefaction. It is the worst.

[25:13] Meg: The worst.

[25:14] Jessica: You're so aware that you have no control, right?

[25:17] Meg: Yeah. You're outside of your body. You're kind of watching yourself going like, good luck, body.

[25:23] Jessica: I wish you the best. Thoughts and prayers. Now, oh, I'm going to also make you faint with surprise. My sources are. Ooh, The New York Times, Slate, and Time magazine. Cool. I was really struggling over, like, what is my title for this portion? And I'm going to call this, File It Under False Hope. Okay, now, what year did The Big Chill come out? It was '83, I think that sounds right.

[25:59] Meg: I was gonna say '82, but sure, yeah.

[26:01] Jessica: Despite being a youngster.

[26:04] Meg: I saw that movie.

[26:05] Jessica: Yeah, me too. Exciting. There was a scene that struck me as really funny, but I wouldn't really understand how funny it was until much later. It is a scene where JoBeth Williams is with Mary Kay Place. I think out on the porch, JoBeth Williams is talking about her husband, who she's like, he's such a bore. He's this, he's that. And I can't remember how the conversation comes around to it, but Mary Kay Place says, well, why doesn't he leave you? And she says, fear of herpes. And, you know, we talk about AIDS a lot on this podcast, but the scourge of the '80s, for those who were not in what was considered to be the target demographic, was herpes. It was like the shame, the nightmare. Because, you know, with AIDS prior to that, you know, you get the clap, you get a shot of penicillin, and you are on your way. So, you know, all the partying in the discos, there was very little to be concerned about. Or so they thought. Well, guess what? Herpes took America by storm in 1982 and 1983. I just can't wait to read some of this to you. But here's what's so interesting. So herpes is the exact same thing as chickenpox, meaning it's the same virus. Herpes, from what I was able to gather, and I'm going to share with you, was a way for people to be shamed and feel ashamed about something that had been happening and going on for a very long time. Definitely promiscuity from the '70s and '80s brought it to a new level. But it wasn't like AIDS or Coronavirus. Like a bat, you know, someone ate a bat, someone fucked a monkey. Like whatever people were saying at the time, do you remember that? With AIDS, someone was like, oh, they're fucking monkeys. So psychotic.

[28:26] Meg: So it's not going to kill you.

[28:31] Jessica: But the way that it was discussed, the way that it was, in a weird way, promoted it was worse than death. What's the one thing that's worse than death for people of a certain preppy echelon? It was social death. Yes. What were you going to say?

[28:53] Meg: Well, but how would anyone know that you had herpes?

[28:56] Jessica: And now we begin. So I'm going to start with, why File This Under False Hope? Thanks to The New York Times, from today's date, 1983, above the fold in The New York Times, a herpes vaccine effective in mice. Thank God. Again, file this under false hope. So these researchers were like, we found something that helps with hepatitis in rabbits. And guess what? It also helps with herpes. This is a bit of Yiddish because this is going to be the funniest thing in the whole world. This is written by Harold M. Schmeck Junior. In Yiddish, penis is schmekel.

[29:52] Meg: I love it.

[29:53] Jessica: So Harold Penis wrote this article about a herpes vaccine effective in mice. Scientists said yesterday that they had succeeded in developing vaccines that protected rabbits against hepatitis, maybe rabbits because they were known for getting busy, who knows, protected rabbits against hepatitis and mice against a type of herpes. Moreover, the researchers are confident that comparable vaccines will be developed for humans as well. Then there's a long dissertation on how vaccines are developed, which is fascinating and as a quick aside, there's this one virus strain called vaccinia, which is where the name comes from. Its DNA allows space to put in the DNA of the ailment that you're targeting. Your immune system somehow positively responds to it. But anyway, it's a carrier, the vaccine DNA as the carrier. So that's fascinating. But it didn't work out so well because here's what they say. At a news conference yesterday, Dr. David Axelrod, New York State Commissioner of Health, described the new research as a major innovation, a major finding which we believe will have public health impact and will allow us to deal in a very innovative fashion with a variety of different diseases. Dr. Jeffrey Smith of the institute said that his group presented data at a recent scientific meeting at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab on Long Island showing that experimental vaccine also produced from vaccinia virus protected chimps against hepatitis B, and that the similar vaccine would protect, would protect humans from herpes. Now, just as a quick aside, kids, everyone who's listening, don't ever say something is until it is, because there has never been a herpes vaccine, and there is none on the horizon. Now, why was this above the fold, you ask? Why was this such big news, especially because herpes has been around forever. Well, in the '80s, possibly as part of the AIDS crisis and I'm going to go out, and that's my postulation here, they had to sell newspapers and they had to sell magazines. "They" being the press, the publishers, okay. They locked on to herpes as the scourge. And I'm going to read to you a few things. Now, I.

[32:44] Meg: So you're saying that people weren't actually upset about herpes?

[32:47] Jessica: Well, they became very upset about herpes.

[32:49] Meg: But chicken and the egg kind of situation, like they became upset because they were reading about it, not that the stories were being written because people were upset.

[32:59] Jessica: Correct. On the cover of Time magazine, Today's Scarlet Letter.

[33:05] Meg: Ah.

[33:06] Jessica: And then in giant, looking, like bloodstains lettering, Herpes.

[33:13] Meg: Oh, my God.

[33:14] Jessica: And underneath it, a well dressed duo of preppies, man and a woman, looking at each other like, hey, you want to hook up? Are you ready? I want you to see this and get your reaction ready.

[33:25] Meg: Oh, my God. It looks like a horror movie.

[33:28] Jessica: Yes. So Today's Scarlet Letter.

[33:31] Meg: That is not a good magazine cover. That's ridiculous.

[33:34] Jessica: No. So Time, right before, that's from 1982. In 1980, Time covered herpes under the headline, Herpes: The New Sexual Leprosy.

[33:45] Meg: Oh, my God.

[33:46] Jessica: And the sub headline Virus of Love Infect Millions with Disease and Despair.

[33:54] Meg: This is so crazy. Do you think that they were writing these stories because they couldn't write stories about AIDS?

[34:00] Jessica: This is why I'm bringing it to you. This is our rousing conversation that we need to have because I'm going to read these things to you. And the language is so bananas.

[34:11] Meg: Yeah.

[34:11] Jessica: Okay. So they call it an insidious venereal disease and quoted someone saying, "it's like someone putting a soldering iron against your skin." Herpes hysteria reached its pinnacle in 1982. The disease deals a terrible blow to the victim's self image. Rolling Stone wrote a contribution to the genre, an article called Lovesick the Terrible Curse of Herpes. Time ran this Scarlet Letter article, and John Leo, the author of this article, dubbed herpes, quote, "the VD of the Ivy League and Jerry Falwell's revenge." So you were asking about AIDS. Remember AIDS? It was the victim's fault, and it's what you got for being gay, right? This is what you get for having too much fun. So the sexual liberation. And guess what else was happening? But what were women really able to do? Take the pill and be in charge of their own sexual destiny. So maybe for straight people, this was a good way to put them back in the box, so to speak. Wink.

[35:29] Meg: But why is Time magazine and Rolling Stone going along with what, like Jerry Falwell wants?

[35:36] Jessica: I have no idea, other than you just said that the magazine cover looks like a horror movie, that sells newspapers and magazines. So I think that they were latching on to something where, you know, it's not pleasant to have herpes. So they were like, great, this is now happening. And maybe it was being reported more, or maybe it really was more prevalent and who knows what? So it was, it's just a really good story. In March of 1981, 60 Minutes ran an episode on herpes, and a CDC scientist named Dr. Mary Guinan, who appeared reluctantly in the episode, said it opened with a question, Dr. Guinan, which venereal disease would you least like to have? Which is, like, if you have to die, do you want it with a red hot poker up your ass, or do you want your head chopped off? Like, what? What are you saying? A question that no one had ever actually asked her during the interview process. The response that was aired was a contrived one, a sliced together collage of clips discussing syphilis, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and orogenital sex. Guinan wrote in her 2016 memoir, I cringed. Now, as if that isn't bad enough, the topic made the rounds of the talk shows like Phil Donahue, but original programming, scripted programming, was not going to be left behind. And in 1983, ABC, this is my favorite one. This is the best. ABC aired a made for tv movie called Intimate Agony, in which, get this. In which practically everyone living in a fictional community called Paradise Island contracted herpes.

[37:31] Meg: On the show, how did they describe the symptoms of herpes?

[37:34] Jessica: I mean, I haven't watched it yet. I'll let you know. I have to find this now. But Paradise Island is, it's just.

[37:40] Meg: I guess my question is, you don't die from it. Is it the shame that you've had sex with somebody who had sex with somebody else? Is that what it is?

[37:51] Jessica: So we're gonna get there, but there's some statistics that I will share with you. Between 1970 and 1985, the incidents of herpes rose from 13.6% to. Guess how? Guess what?

[38:05] Meg: 60 something.

[38:06] Jessica: 15.7.

[38:08] Meg: Oh, my God.

[38:08] Jessica: Whatever. Nothing. But around the same time, doctor visits for genital herpes increased tenfold. A fact that researchers at the time saw as evidence of an epidemic. No. It was called, I'm gonna go to the doctor. Interesting, indeed. And who is more likely to go to the doctor because they're owning their sexuality?

[38:32] Meg: Oh, women.

[38:33] Jessica: Yes.

[38:33] Meg: Well, actually, I mean, yeah, women have to go to the doctor because they actually have to get birth. If they're gonna get birth control, they have to go to the gynecologist. Men can avoid going to the doctor.

[38:43] Jessica: Yes. A quote from Time magazine was, "if herpes did not exist, the moral majority would have had to invent it." So there you go. That's super fun. So you asked the very salient question, why. Why is this so terrible? What's so symptoms?

[38:59] Meg: Yeah, what are the symptoms? What is the?

[39:02] Jessica: Oh, it's not the symptoms that are so terrible. It's the social shame. So the symptoms, anyone can look this up. They're blisters. They're very painful. They pop open, it's gross, and then it's over. And you can get one breakout in your whole life or you can get it every month. Women. Now, here's the other thing. So you're right about the birth control. Women are more likely to have an outbreak around their periods. So again, who's reporting it? Women. So the article in The New York Times that I fell in love with, now, nothing will be as good as Mr. Schmeck. Ever, ever. But this article from February 21, 1982 is titled The Herpes Syndrome. While researchers seek a cure for the disease, PS callback to false hope, it's many victims, victims are organizing to cope with this painful byproduct of the sexual revolution.

[40:16] Meg: Oh, that is so moral majority.

[40:19] Jessica: Yes. So this article, and I'll just cut to the chase, this article is about support groups and self help groups that were cropping up across the country. He was focusing more specifically in New York City and some in Maryland, which is where this journalist lived. But these were self help groups designed by other sufferers of herpes simplex one and two, top and bottom. Just to say you're still a person. You're allowed to date. You can date. And they covered questions like, how do you tell someone? What do you do? Do you ever tell them? And there are all of these people talking about, like, I just never tell anybody. And I only have, like, one night stands when I'm not, when I don't have an outbreak and I'm too afraid to have a relationship, because then they'll know, right? Then they'll know. The thing about herpes at the time was also that, like AIDS, you had to contact everyone you've ever had sex with. That was the recommendation from your doctor. Do you really need to do that? Because if you have herpes, it's a pretty good chance you're going to know pretty quickly, right? So you're getting this notification from someone who's being forced to call everyone they've had any contact with and say in their minds, as per this article, I'm a dirty beast and I fucked you up forever. Right?

[41:59] Meg: Right.

[42:00] Jessica: That's the aftermath of all of this, is people becoming celibate, people living with unspeakable shame. A lot of people were getting divorced because herpes can lie dormant. And if someone gets an outbreak, their spouse was like, oh, clearly you've been screwing around. I'm divorcing you. So it caused widespread panic and mayhem. This is a story about social condemnation. I thought that this was going to be a story about science and what happened with the vaccine and blah, blah, blah. No, this is a story about how disease is handled by human beings somewhat for entertainment value.

[42:52] Meg: To sell the magazines.

[42:53] Jessica: To sell the magazines. And any time that there's going to be any kind of sexual liberation, there's a backlash. The backlash is shame. Nowadays, if you have herpes, you are prescribed a pill and it cuts down on how long you have it. People who have herpes are like, hey, please wear a condom or just be really careful. Whatever. Everyone has it, whatever. But there's no cure. Nothing has changed. It's just perception. Did it change because AIDS was, to quote Eddie Murphy from the time "now you stick your dick in and you drop dead or it explodes." That was his thing. You stick it in and it explodes. Was it in comparison that it wound up becoming less of a big deal? Was it just people realized that they could get on with their lives? Was it that the moral majority moved on to something else? Unknown, but really interesting. Totally different perspective, totally different way of handling it, and yet nothing has changed.

[44:06] Meg: I mean, I do think that we talk about sex in a much healthier way than we did in the '80s.

[44:10] Jessica: I credit Salt-N-Pepa

[44:15] Meg: Any song in particular?

[44:17] Jessica: Let's talk about sex, baby let's talk about you and me let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be.

[44:28] Meg: I hate speaking in absolutes, as you well know, but I do think that things have gotten better in that respect as far as communication about sex. And not to say that everything is solved by any stretch, but there does seem to be better communication.

[44:45] Jessica: Yes. And I think that although we are far from being in a world where there is tolerance, as we well know, with our political climate, but tolerance for sexuality, sexual practice, all of that shifted radically. And with that, the consequences of sex, I think, have become less terrifying because the mystery has been taken away. I think I've talked about this on this podcast in the past, but, like, I did. I did actually, when, like, HBO in the '90s had that insane show, Real Sex, and they were like, following the people you never want to see naked at nudist colonies. And they were always interviewing people about sex. If you haven't seen it, you must, because it is such a time capsule. It's amazing. And that show, which HBO, right? Massive, they were putting stuff on the air like latex, fetish, pony play. I know we've talked about pony play on this we have. Yes. The clippity cloppity. I'm a little. My little pony. And you had the butt plug situation with the tail.

[46:01] Meg: Yeah. I mean, we had. I know that you talked about something that I was like, I need to have a graph of that because I don't understand what you're talking about.

[46:09] Jessica: Yes.

[46:09] Meg: Well, and then.

[46:11] Jessica: Do you now.

[46:13] Meg: And then I googled.

[46:14] Jessica: You googled it. So if HBO, like, talk about sex as entertainment. Right? So magazines were making that. Newspapers were making this into an ABC. Thank you for that. I have to find that special. What was it again? It's Intimate Agony. Intimate Agony. I just wanted to start using that in my everyday speech. Like, how are you feeling today? I have intimate agony.

[46:46] Meg: Imagine being the screenwriter who was assigned that story. Here we have to fill two and a half hours on a Thursday night.

[46:56] Jessica: And I wonder, did the writer come up with the title or were they given the title? They were given the title. Well, not unlike other made for tv movies. My favorite title of all time, Tori Spelling's classic. Classic Mother, May I Sleep With Danger. So, yeah, so, yes, if you're handed a title like Intimate Agony and the fact that it's like in Paradise Cove or whatever, it's so. And then every single person gets it, it's so fabulous. All I can say is that person must have said, thank you, God, for this assignment, because I'm going to get paid to come up with absolute nonsense that does not have to be substantiated.

[47:44] Meg: I mean, it sounds like a Bible story. Sodom and Gomorrah.

[47:50] Jessica: Yes, yes. Yes, it does. And no one gets out scot free, blister free. Again, it's the moral majority. And how that swings.

[48:01] Meg: Yeah.

[48:01] Jessica: I mean, also, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I also think that for the moral majority now the oothpaste is so far out of the tube, like, how are you going to put it back at this point? Like, what is there left to shame? Like, is there anything. I don't know.

[48:18] Meg: You were going to say that they were upset with toothpaste now.

[48:24] Jessica: Well, don't you know how the kids are using it these days?

[48:27] Meg: Now I do.

[48:31] Jessica: No, no. It's like, well, if they're going to eat Tide pods, for God's sakes, God knows what they're going to do with. Why do they eat Tide pods?

[48:40] Meg: I don't think they're doing it on purpose.

[48:41] Jessica: No, no, they are. It was a thing. It was to get high. It was like bath salts. And. Which I know are not actually bath salts, but nonetheless, there's a good connection there. But, yeah, they're eating Tide pods to, like, get high. Like, that's the problem with the world today, is that you have to tell people, don't eat the rat poison. But I thought it was tasty. They had it in 9 to 5. And he didn't die, like, what? No, no, as good. So, yeah. Where was I going with this? I don't know. I'm on a roll. Watch out.

[49:17] Meg: Here we go.

[49:18] Jessica: Is that when the Japanese. No, not the Japanese. Is that when the Germans just do this? Cut this, cut this. No, there's that line from Animal House when Bluto is like, when the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor. And they're like, what is he? Don't interrupt him. He's on a roll. That's what's happening here. Anyway, so. Yes, so. Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? Mother, may I get herpes? It's all just entertainment. Oh, the toothpaste. That's it. Toothpaste of the tide pod. See, I got there. I'm not totally feeble yet, so it's so far outd. What can you do?

[50:06] Meg: Isn't it crazy that both of our stories had to do with experimenting for scientific research?

[50:14] Jessica: That is grim.

[50:15] Meg: I know. They were trying to find the hepatitis with the rats, and then they.

[50:21] Jessica: Rabbits.

[50:21] Meg: Rabbits.

[50:22] Jessica: And then chimps.

[50:23] Meg: And chimps. And then they thought they found herpes, and then they were trying to find the hepatitis thing with the children.

[50:29] Jessica: Yes. That is severely severely fucked up. The way that I was thinking about a connection was a little less macabre on this hallows. Not yet. The eve of Hallows Eve is that they were both about mythology, that the children created a myth to be able to handle this horror show and that this was mythology created around sex and promiscuity and what will happen to you.

[51:00] Meg: Herpes was the boogeyman.

[51:01] Jessica: Yes.

[51:02] Meg: Nice.