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

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

[00:30] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the eighties. I do ripped from the headlines

[00:35] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:37] Meg: I would like to take note of the fact that we are so committed to this podcast that I basically had to swim here because there is a flash flood warning.

[00:48] Jessica: I am very impressed. And, in fact, considering that I know the FDR is underwater, how did you get here?

[00:57] Meg: Good old subway.

[00:58] Jessica: It was not flooded to the usual New York City point of, well, there are sheets of rain coming through the sidewalks onto the subway, and only canoes are allowed.

[01:10] Meg: I think that's the case in Brooklyn, and I think that's the case on the west side. Luckily, I'm on the east side.

[01:16] Jessica: But are there any shots of people, like, waist deep, like they sometimes are in this horrible-

[01:21] Meg: Look, I did not look because I didn't want to know. I figured I would go down into the subway, and it was either working or it wasn't.

[01:27] Jessica: I like your avoidance tactic. Very good.

[01:29] Meg: But also dedication.

[01:32] Jessica: Oh, dude, I'm in shock. I mean, I'm honored to be part of this duo that. Oh, that. In fact, we have recently been told for possibly not the first time, that we are a very unlikely duo. We are the Felix and Oscar Madison. Felix Unger and Oscar Madison of the podcast airwaves. I'm going to guess that I'm. Am I the Felix?

[01:57] Meg: I don't think you are.

[01:58] Jessica: Oh, really? But I'm very tidy. You know, I don't wipe my hands on the curtains, so I'm an inner Oscar Madison, which might be worse. Actually, I think it's much worse for people to perceive that your soul and psyche are covered in cigar ash and gum. Like, maybe. Maybe that's not so good.

[02:25] Meg: Well, I'll be the Bert to your Ernie.

[02:28] Jessica: I like the idea of us as a weirdly asexual couple living together with our little felt faces and little cotton PJ's in our little tiny beds.

[02:41] Meg: In our little single beds.

[02:43] Jessica: Yes. Good night, Bert. And they have a pet. Oh, Bert with the pigeons. That's right. Do we like pigeons?

[02:49] Meg: I'm okay with pigeons.

[02:50] Jessica: I saw. There was some comedian I saw on the YouTube recently, and I'm sure this is a really old bit, but it's a song about why don't we ever see baby pigeons?

[03:01] Meg: Oh, I've heard this.

[03:03] Jessica: Yes.

[03:03] Meg: Apparently they're machines or something. I think they're machines.

[03:07] Jessica: They're machines?

[03:08] Meg: Or the pigeons are machines, and that's why there are no baby pigeons.

[03:11] Jessica: Oh, this is a conspiracy theory.

[03:13] Meg: It's a conspiracy theory.

[03:14] Jessica: Oh, no, no. This was like, an amusing and charming song. Like Tom Lehrer, instead of, like, poisoning pigeons in the park, it was more like, why are there no baby pigeons in the park?

[03:24] Meg: But do you see baby anything else?

[03:26] Jessica: It's true. I don't see baby sparrows.

[03:29] Meg: No, they stay in the nest.

[03:32] Jessica: It's a very good point. Maybe we need to, like, do a public- I'm like, oh, we should do a public service announcement. That's what this is. It's called a podcast.

[03:45] Meg: Do some pigeon research.

[03:47] Jessica: Yeah.

[04:00] Meg: So remember back in the 80s, Jessica, when it was really hard to be in contact with people, and if you were going to meet somebody at a restaurant or in a corner or at a movie theater or something like that, and they didn't show up, or your plans changed, what were you gonna do?

[04:21] Jessica: I know what I did.

[04:22] Meg: Okay, tell me.

[04:23] Jessica: I emotionally prepared for being a disappointment or yelled at by someone. I was like, well, if I'm late or I got the place wrong. Cause I assume it's me is the point. Like, if I'm standing there, I'm like, I got the time wrong. It's not that the other person stood me up.

[04:42] Meg: Okay?

[04:43] Jessica: So in myself, my constant self flagellation, I would just assume I was the bad person, and I would have to decide how to deflect it later. But if I tried to get in touch with someone. Cause I knew I was gonna mess up. I don't even know, like, it was horrible. The not knowing.

[04:58] Meg: It was so disconcerting, wasn't it?

[05:01] Jessica: But it was weird. You know what? It was disconcerting. But it was an accepted part of life.

[05:08] Meg: That you could be sitting in a restaurant for 45 minutes and just be like, maybe I got the day wrong, or maybe this person is just friggin late.

[05:18] Jessica: And then you grow up a little more and you decide to have a 15 minutes rule. Yeah, yeah, that's. That's a big one. I had a friend in college who is actually going to come up in this podcast later. So it's weird that we're talking about this. He was so habitually late that it was a thing. I mean, and I was late, too, but, like, never more than 15 minutes. But he could be like an hour late.

[05:44] Meg: So, I mean, what do you do with that?

[05:46] Jessica: And it was terrible. Cause like, you'd know that was part of who he was. So you're kind of like, oh, my God. So it's almost, for me, again, with my self flagellation. It was like, if I leave, I know I'm starting a fight because my not being here is making a statement.

Meg: Oh, God

Jessica: It was so fraught. So, yes, in other words, Meg, back to your original question. Yeah, I remember that.

[06:07] Meg: Yeah. And that just doesn't exist anymore.

[06:11] Jessica: No, but I think that having to navigate that stuff was part of understanding how to navigate social interaction generally. And so in the long run, not a bad thing.

[06:25] Meg: I don't know. I'm sure you're right.

[06:30] Jessica: Say it again.

[06:31] Meg: You're so, so right, Jessica. Oh, my God. You have never been more right, ever.

[06:39] Jessica: I feel radiant right now.

[06:41] Meg: But in addition to that, I will say, while it may have made me stronger, I am so happy I don't have that anxiety anymore because it made me so anxious.

[06:52] Jessica: It was very anxiety producing. But especially now, as a parent, I can only imagine that it's the ultimate game changer, that if your child is late, you can ask within 30 seconds, where are you?

[07:06] Meg: Yeah, answer me now. Which is a thing that just didn't exist then.

[07:12] Jessica: Nope.

[07:12] Meg: My sources are: The Nation, New York Homicide, which is on Oxygen, and the Times. In 1982, 31 year old artist and poet Theresa Cha published her experimental novel Dictée. According to The Nation, quote, "the book offered fragmented portraits of mythological and historical women, the Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone, Joan of Arc, the Korean revolutionary Yu Gwan-Sun, and Cha's mother, as well as herself. Some pages are in French, others in English. A few are blank. There are occasional anatomical drawings of the human larynx and vocal cords. It was the culmination of two long, hard years living in New York as an emerging artist. Teresa worried that to achieve success, shed have to accept the, quote, "dregs of morals, money, parasitic existence". She wrote that to her brother John. She was very close to her brother John.

[08:20] Jessica: Oh, I can relate.

[08:21] Meg: So I'll tell you in a second. But basically, she was new to New York, trying to make her way, and she was worried she was just going to have to make all these personal concessions. Yeah, personal sacrifices. I mean, New York, it was not easy those two years. But now her book was published, and she was working on a piece for a group show at the Artists Space at 155 Wooster.

[08:46] Jessica: Oh, I know that.

[08:47] Meg: Yes. The Artists Space has established itself as an alternative to museums and commercial galleries and was and is highly respected. She taught video art at Elizabeth Seton College and had a job in the design department of the Met.

[09:03] Jessica: Ah, lovely.

[09:04] Meg: I know. These are all great things, all in her skillset. It's not like she was, you know, working as a waitress or something.

[09:14] Jessica: (singing) In a cocktail bar- I couldn't resist. I'm so sorry.

[09:16] Meg: Theresa had moved to New York from the Bay Area with her boyfriend, photographer Richard Barnes, whom she'd met in a drawing class at UC Berkeley. Theresa and Richard came to New York because it was the epicenter for visual and experimental art. It wasn't an easy life, and it took a toll on their relationship. But in the spring of 1982, they got married, exchanging matching rings. Hers was white gold with an ebony stone between two coral stones, and his was the same, except the coral stone was between two ebony stones. 1982 was shaping up to be a great year for Theresa. In anticipation of her book being published, Theresa wrote to her brother John, quote, "it is hard to say what I feel, how I feel, except that I feel freed. I also feel naked. It feels good. It feels frightening."

[10:12] Jessica: I can actually entirely relate to that feeling. Being published and writing about yourself and just being like, it's amazing. Holy shit. What did I do?

[10:23] Meg: Theresa was the middle child of five, and her family had emigrated to the US, the Bay Area, from South Korea in 1962 when Theresa was twelve. The Cha family was very close. When Dictée was published in September 1982, it made it to number five on the paperback version of the A List, which is a bestseller list compiled by independent New York bookstores. It was a promising start. On the afternoon-

[10:54] Jessica: I love the voice that goes like. And the inevitable downfall of Theresa.

[11:00] Meg: Yeah, sadly. On the afternoon of November 5, 1982, two months later, Theresa left work at the Met at 3 p.m. wearing a beret, gloves, and a leather jacket and carrying a red shopping bag from the Met. She dropped by the Artists Space and met with the photographer Kenji Fujita. Kenji said when Theresa left Wooster street, she was headed east towards the Puck Building at 4:30-

[11:27] Jessica: Oh, I love the Puck Building.

[11:30] Meg: -A 15 minutes walk away. And we're about to talk about the Puck Building. But the reason she was headed there was because she planned to meet Richard. The Puck Building was undergoing a full renovation, and Richard was photographing the progress and had an office there. So the Puck Building was built in the 1880s as a printing facility and home of Puck Magazine, which was considered the first successful humor magazine in the US. And I'm going to assume that that's why Spy magazine set up shop there in the eighties. It underwent an $8 million renovation starting in 1981. And that's what Richard was hired to document. The plan was that Theresa would meet Richard in his office at 5:00 and they were going to meet friends for dinner in the East Village. When she didn't show up, Richard assumed there had been a miscommunication and she was at the restaurant. When she didn't show up at the restaurant, he assumed she was at home. When he got home from dinner and she wasn't there, he figured something must have come up. He made a few calls, but no one had heard from her. So he met up with some friends for drinks. It wasn't until he got home after the bars closed and there was still no sign of Theresa that he started to panic. Richard went to the fifth precinct on Elizabeth street at 3:15 a.m. the police showed him a photo of a body discovered at 7:15 p.m. in a parking lot at Elizabeth street, less than a ten minute walk from the Puck Building. It was Theresa. She had been raped and strangled to death. She had multiple lacerations to the back of her head, and her pants and underwear were around her knees. There was a scarf and belt around her neck. Her beret and gloves and wedding ring were missing, along with her purse and wallet. She only had one boot on. Richard collapsed when he saw the photo. At first, police looked closely at Richard as a suspect, but considering the condition of the body and that Richard had no marks of any kind, they ruled him out. On Monday, Like all that happened early morning on Saturday. Right. So now we're on Monday. The police descended on the Puck Building with K9 units and searched the huge building with its maze of half finished rooms and construction zones. But they didn't come up with anything. Then a plumber came forward. His brother in law, Joey Sansa, had moved to New York in September and was staying with him and his wife, Joey's sister, in their Brooklyn apartment. The plumber had gotten a job for Joey at the Puck Building. Joey was a security guard for the construction site. On Friday, November 5, Joey had returned to the Brooklyn apartment at 07:30 p.m. just as his sister was getting out of the bath, he asked if he could use her bath water to wash up.

[14:35] Jessica: Ew.

[14:36] Meg: I know what's up with that? That was the first red flag, the look on your face right now. Then at 10:00 p.m. he asked if he could use her car. Now, when you read the accounts of Joey's sister and her husband, the plumber, they really don't like Joey. Like, no one is a fan of Joey. Joey- they don't want Joey around. Just saying, no fans.

[15:07] Jessica: Okay.

[15:08] Meg: That's when she noticed. When he asked if he could borrow her car, that's when she noticed what she thought was a very feminine ring on Joey's pinky finger. A ring with black and red stones.

[15:22] Jessica: Oh, no.

[15:24] Meg: Joey didn't show up at work on the 6th. Instead, he waited for his sister and her husband to leave the apartment. Then he stole $1,000 worth of jewelry and never came back. Turns up, he met up with his friend Michael Weinstein, who noticed scratches and bruises on Joeys arms. Joey said he'd been in a fight with a, quote, "bum" and that he'd beat him up badly and had to call an ambulance. Michael also noticed Joey was wearing a ring that made him look effeminate. Thats a quote from Michael. That was the last anyone had heard from Joey. In the meantime, the police couldn't figure out where the murder had taken place. The dogs picked up on something, but then lost the scent in the catacombs of the Puck. And then the Cha family showed up in town. They were heartbroken, but determined to find out what happened to Theresa. John, her brother John, and his father went to the Puck themselves to see what they could discover. It was there that they found a sub basement that the police had overlooked. There were columns in the sub basement that were numbered 710, 711, 712. Theresa's grieving mother had told John and her husband that she had had a dream in which Theresa told her to look for the sevens.

[16:49] Jessica: I actually have chills running all over my body right now. This is after Theresa died. Her mother had- I'm freaking out. I'm jumping out the window.

[16:59] Meg: And in that sub basement, the men found Theresa's other boot, gloves and blood soaked beret. The police were able to determine that at 03:00 p.m. on the 5th- Now, help me figure this out, okay? Because this is all-

[17:16] Jessica: I'm still traumatized by the ghost story. Hold on a second.

[17:19] Meg: I just need you to keep track of the times because this is all. I read the police report, which happens to be online. So these are the times that were written up. The police were able to determine that at 3:00 p.m. on the 5th, Joey was given the keys to a van that was parked in the back alley and was being used to cart materials for the renovation. Joey's locker was on the same hallway as Richard's office. Joey punched out at 5:15, but didn't leave the building. He returned the van keys at 5:30. At 06:05 he was seen leaving the building, but he returned at 7:10, explaining that he had forgotten his bag. He went to his locker and returned 15 minutes later with an overnight satchel and a red shopping bag. Then he headed to the Brooklyn apartment. So I'm trying to figure out the timeline there.

[18:19] Jessica: Wait, so at 03:00 he gets the van keys?

[18:25] Meg: Yeah, and she's headed to the Puck Building at 4:30. So she could have gotten there at 4:45.

[18:33] Jessica: Okay, so let's start the timeline, just for the sake of argument, at 4:30. So where is he at 4?

[18:41] Meg: Where's Joey?

[18:42] Jessica: Joey.

[18:43] Meg: I guess he's at his security spot.

[18:45] Jessica: Okay, so when does- so he- but he gets the van keys at 3. Right, and then what's his next move? What's the next time?

[18:52] Meg: The next thing we hear from him is he's punched out at 5:15 but doesn't leave the building.

[18:59] Jessica: Okay, so he's done his bad deeds.

[19:02] Meg: I think so.

[19:02] Jessica: By not punching out. He's done his bad deeds.

[19:06] Meg: No, he did punch out at 5:15.

[19:08] Jessica: No, no, no. Oh, prior to that.

[19:10] Meg: Yeah. Why didn't he punch out at 5?

[19:12] Jessica: He doesn't punch out, but he leaves the building. He does the dirty deed. He comes back in, then punches out at five, whatever. But he doesn't leave the building because maybe in some ridiculous way, he's trying to build an alibi of, like, being moving on. I don't know. But he's in the building, and now he's mucking around with the evidence.

[19:35] Meg: He is.

[19:36] Jessica: So he's mucking around with the evidence. And what is his next move? After the 5:00 punch out?

[19:44] Meg: He returns the keys at 5:30. And at 06:05 he's seen leaving the building. And then he comes back at 7:10.

[19:50] Jessica: And what does he leave with after that, 7:10?

[19:54] Meg: When he finally leaves, 15 minutes later, he's got an overnight satchel and a red shopping bag.

[20:00] Jessica: Okay, so he has cleaned up what he. I think he cleaned his evidence. He's got it in his bag. He's got her red bag, which probably has something in it that he wants, because we already know that he's taking jewelry, he's stealing from his sister and her husband. He's just in a frenzy of getting whatever it is that he thinks he needs to amass. Right? And then- including bath water- and then-

[20:28] Meg: I mean, the crazy thing is, no matter how you slice it, this all went down so fast. And the parking lot is a ten minute walk from- It's on Elizabeth street, which is a ten minute walk from the Puck Building. But we're assuming that's how he carted the body.

[20:45] Jessica: Oh, the body.

[20:47] Meg: Yeah, the body was in a parking lot on Elizabeth street.

[20:49] Jessica: I mean, I'm assuming that he did it in the parking lot.

[20:52] Meg: No, they think he did it in the sub basement. Cause that's where all the blood was. And her beret. So he. I think he ambushed her.

[21:01] Jessica: So she got to the building to see Richard and he ambushes her, drags her downstairs.

[21:05] Meg: Yes.

[21:06] Jessica: And then immediately- so, leaving at 05:00. The punch out probably is-

[21:14] Meg: The punch out was 5:15. So I think he drove her and was back by 5:15. I think the whole thing happened, including the body dump, in half an hour. From the encounter to the body dump.

[21:30] Jessica: That's insane.

[21:31] Meg: It's insane, isn't it?

[21:33] Jessica: That's like a frenzied lunatic.

[21:35] Meg: Yeah.

[21:35] Jessica: I mean, not that he's a normal lunatic. I'm just saying this is a manic, crazed episode.

[21:44] Meg: By the way, there were two mistrials. And maybe this is why. Because the timeline is so tight. Okay. The evidence against him was compelling, but circumstantial. As it turned out, he had been arrested for three rapes in Florida. In each case, he told the woman that he, quote, "wanted to make love", and then he put a revolver to her head to threaten her. So the press, because it's in the 80s, called him "the gentle rapist". That's his name.

[22:19] Jessica: Are you fucking kidding?

[22:20] Meg: I am not at all kidding you. In each case, he took a ring from the victim. Once they nabbed him on December 2 at the Sierra Resort Motel in Fort Lauderdale, because obviously he skipped town, they were able to convict him on twelve Florida rapes. Those women he had left alive, and they identified him. Convicting him of Theresa's murder proved more difficult. There are two mistrials until his girlfriend revealed- at his third trial- his girlfriend revealed in 1987 that Joey had called her on the night of November 5th and said, this time I screwed up and killed someone. He was convicted of second degree murder and rape and sentenced to 25 years to life. He'll serve that sentence after his stint in Florida is done, which it probably won't ever be, because he got life for those rapes.

[23:18] Jessica: This girlfriend.

[23:19] Meg: The girlfriend.

[23:20] Jessica: When did he acquire this girlfriend?

[23:22] Meg: Well, they were girlfriend and boyfriend in 1982.

[23:26] Jessica: Oh, they were together in '82.

[23:29] Meg: Right. And it took the third trial for her to finally say, okay, I know something you guys probably wanna know.

[23:37] Jessica: She should be in prison for obstruction.

[23:39] Meg: I mean, the quote, "this time I screwed up and killed someone". Meaning there have been other times that she knew about. Theresa Cha's artistic reputation has grown substantially over the years. In 1993, there was an exhibition of her work at the Whitney. Dictée was republished by Third Woman Press in 1995 and the University of California Press in 2001. It is considered an essential work for feminist writers, conceptual artists, and Asian American authors and scholars. The first of the six penthouse units of the Puck Building sold in May 2014 for- I want you to guess.

[24:23] Jessica: Okay, wait, so the Puck Building was made- is the whole building, by the way, now units, or is some of it still public space? I'm just curious.

[24:30] Meg: The renovation that we were talking about turned it into some office buildings and event space. Now it's a restaurant. And Jared Kushner, that family, owns it, and it's mostly residential. And they've got penthouses.

[24:49] Jessica: The Puck is, very sadly, no longer one of my favorite buildings.

[24:54] Meg: Sorry. But again, we've got six penthouses.

[24:58] Jessica: So there's six penthouses in the entire building?

[25:01] Meg: Yes.

[25:02] Jessica: Okay.

[25:03] Meg: And one of them sold in May 2014.

[25:06] Jessica: Can you tell me what the square footage is?

[25:08] Meg: No.

[25:08] Jessica: Okay.

[25:09] Meg: But it takes up a whole block. Oh, I know. There's a. Did I say there's a restaurant in it? There's a restaurant in it.

[25:14] Jessica: So, yes, the building takes up the whole block. I'm gonna go with 12 million,

Meg: 28 million.

Jessica: Shut up. In 2014?

[25:23] Meg: In 2014.

[25:25] Jessica: Oh, my God. Who bought it?

[25:27] Meg: I don't know.

[25:28] Jessica: Let's find out. That's outrageous.

[25:33] Meg: An obituary for Theresa Cha was printed in Overlooked No More, which we've talked about before, which the Times does. Obituaries for people who they didn't deem important enough at the time.

[25:47] Jessica: Very interesting.

[25:48] Meg: Also interesting. I mean, it's a bit reminiscent of Ana Mendieta, who was killed by Carl Andre.

[25:55] Jessica: Yes.

[25:57] Meg: Just a couple years after that.

[25:59] Jessica: Just as a quick aside.

[26:01] Meg: Sure.

[26:02] Jessica: Because you've invoked the name of Jared Kushner. So I've been under a rock for the last two days. I've really been in work cuckoo town, and I have a wonderful house guest who said to me this morning, so what do you make of what happened?

[26:21] Meg: What happened?

[26:22] Jessica: That's what I said.

[26:23] Meg: Uh oh. What happened?

[26:24] Jessica: You're a New Yorker, and I said, I still don't know what you're talking about.

[26:27] Meg: What was she talking about?

[26:29] Jessica: The trial. The Trump trial.

[26:31] Meg: Oh.

[26:31] Jessica: And how he's had-

[26:33] Meg: Yes, I did know that.

[26:34] Jessica: Yes. So the notion that Trump and all of the adjacent family members,

[26:43] Meg: I'm not sure Jared is wrapped up in this. But it is his sons.

[26:45] Jessica: No, no, it is his son in law.

[26:47] Meg: It's the Trump Organization,

[26:51] Jessica: Which Jared was involved with, I believe.

[26:52] Meg: I don't think so. He's got his own thing.

[26:54] Jessica: Okay, well, then, nonetheless, it brought me so much joy this morning that I was literally flapping around my apartment in glee and I realized,

[27:06] Meg: It's a big frigging deal.

[27:08] Jessica: Yes. But it's a double whammy that has to do with stuff that we've talked about on this podcast before, which is for all of the misdeeds that we know about and for all of the, you know, presidential bid issues that are wrapped up in it. If you are not a Trump supporter, it is a very sunny day. Despite the actual foreboding weather outside. It's a sunny, sunny day, as New Yorkers, to know that this person who we have all known and we've talked about on the podcast.

[27:42] Meg: Forever, day one, gross, garbage.

[27:46] Jessica: And specifically the way that his companies have done business and cheated New Yorkers for decade upon decade upon decade, is so delightful, it feels like maybe the zit has not been entirely popped. And I was trying to come up with something more elegant, and then I thought, why? For that, it's profoundly satisfying.

[28:11] Meg: He's going to lose his buildings.

[28:13] Jessica: He's going to lose his ability to do business.

[28:16] Meg: And his buildings.

[28:17] Jessica: I understand.

[28:18] Meg: That's a big thing for him.

[28:20] Jessica: It's his income.

[28:21] Meg: It's it beyond his income. It's his identity.

[28:24] Jessica: Yes, you're right. It is his identity. Losing his business certificates is like snipping off his balls. You're dead in this city. There's nothing for you to do.

[28:38] Meg: There's nowhere for him to stay unless he stays on someone's couch.

[28:42] Jessica: It's true. Well, maybe he could rent a hotel room. Or he could get a hotel room. I don't know. But I like the idea of couch surfing. And in Red Hook.

[29:07] Meg: Thelma and Louise.

[29:09] Jessica: But are Thelma and Louise really opposites?

[29:13] Meg: I have to rewatch.

[29:14] Jessica: I feel like they're the same. But Louise is savvy and Thelma's innocent until bad things happen.

[29:23] Meg: Right. And I'm not sure how we would.

[29:25] Jessica: I don't think we are.

[29:26] Meg: I don't think that works.

[29:27] Jessica: No.

Meg: I think we're more like Lucy and Ethel.

Jessica: Yes.

[29:33] Meg: Who's Lucy?

[29:35] Jessica: I don't know. I don't think we are Lucy. I think I just liked the idea of it.

[29:44] Meg: But like Laurel and Hardy.

[29:48] Jessica: That's more accurate. I don't know.

[29:51] Meg: I don't know.

[29:52] Jessica: But that's funny.

[29:53] Meg: That is kind of funny.

[29:53] Jessica: That's funny. All right, so I have an engagement question.

[29:58] Meg: Okay, I'm ready.

[30:00] Jessica: Did you ever see a movie that had a soundtrack of pop music that opened you up to a new genre of music? Like, really opened your eyes musically?

[30:12] Meg: I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I mean, I was gonna say The Wall, but I didn't see it, so I can't say that.

[30:19] Jessica: Are you kidding me with that answer? It's a movie I've heard of. But I did not see it, nor have I listened to the album.

[30:27] Meg: So I know the right answer. But it's a fake answer.

[30:30] Jessica: There's no right answer at all. Mine is extraordinarily specific, which I will talk about, but it's-

[30:37] Meg: I don't open my mind up to a different kind of music. No, I can't say that.

[30:41] Jessica: Like, someone who saw Sid and Nancy might be, like, punk. What's that punk you speak of?

[30:46] Meg: Right. I saw that movie. It did not open me up to punk.

[30:49] Jessica: So. Remember that person I talked about earlier who's always late?

[30:52] Meg: Yes.

[30:53] Jessica: Okay, well, that friend of mine actually opened my eyes to a lot of really interesting cultural phenomena. He actually gave me a copy of Proust when I graduated, and he would send me these really long letters. Remember how printers used to be? You know, with the long scroll of paper with-

[31:14] Meg: Perforation on the side? Yes.

[31:17] Jessica: Yes. And he would write me a whole letter and then do it as a scroll inside a tube.

[31:20] Meg: You've actually-

[31:21] Jessica: Have I talked about that before?

[31:22] Meg: You've talked about that.

[31:23] Jessica: He is a delightful human being.

[31:24] Meg: What's his name or his pseudonym? Greg.

[31:28] Jessica: Dude.

[31:29] Meg: Okay. Dude.

[31:30] Jessica: Anyway, so he and I went to see Velvet Goldmine, okay.

[31:36] Meg: Which I have not seen.

[31:37] Jessica: Oh, my God. You have to see. So this is the 90s. Okay, so my intro to my topic today, we're really gonna cover the 70s, 80s, and 90s today. But the 80s are the central point. In the nineties, Velvet Goldmine came out, Todd Haynes movie that was supposed to be about David Bowie. And then David Bowie said no, and so he made up his own character. That was basically Bowie. And the opening scene of this movie is kids, you can see that they're in platform shoes. Kids running to a rock and roll event. They're running and they're in glam makeup. And it's the 70s. It's the early 70s, and they look amazing, and they look ridiculous, and it's just so great. And the music going with it is Brian Eno from his album, his first album after Roxy Music. And the song is Needle in the Camel's Eye. And the album is Here Come the Warm Jets. And I saw that scene and that music got me. I was like, I gotta know about it.

[32:50] Meg: And you knew about Roxy Music before?

[32:53] Jessica: Only from the 80s when we were in high school. And some of the Roxy Music songs were hitting the top for you. But I sort of had lumped them in with Ultravox and bands like that. It wasn't notable to me. And I saw this and I was like, what? This is everything. And then there were other songs in that movie that made me say, oh, my God, glam is everything. I am a glam rock fan. This is it. And it wasn't until, I guess, when I got home that I learned about Brian Eno and I got really into him. Now let's take a little flashback to the 70s, to the very, very late 70s. What was the movie, Meg, that every kid knew all of the lyrics to with John Travolta... musical?

[33:45] Meg: Grease.

[33:46] Jessica: Yes. Yes. So grease.

[33:48] Meg: That was easy.

[33:50] Jessica: Look, I'm giving you a layup.

[33:51] Meg: Thank you. You're right. I need soft questions today.

[33:55] Jessica: And I had been a huge fan of Grease, the actual show. I saw it with my mom, an original Broadway cast album. And I remember when the movie came out that I was sorely disappointed because there are a few songs that didn't really make it into the movie, except they were being played in the background by the band at the prom, of course. Do you know who that band was?

[34:20] Meg: Of course. It's Sha Na Na.

[34:23] Jessica: Yes, it was.

[34:24] Meg: Oh, my God. My brain. Thank you, brain.

[34:26] Jessica: Well done. So today is a bizarre mashup of Sha Na Na and Brian Eno.

[34:36] Meg: All right, I'm ready. That's crazy. Those two musical worlds are in such separate parts of my brain and heart that I don't even know what to do.

[34:47] Jessica: Correct. And there's no way that they should live together. And yet, as you know, I've become obsessed. Obsessed with New York Times Times machine.

[34:58] Meg: Right.

[34:58] Jessica: And I was just cruising around, reading old newspapers. Cause God forbid I read the current newspaper, as we've established earlier on this podcast. But I was cruising around, and I saw that on March 13, 1981, Robert Palmer. Not The Robert Palmer, but a music columnist for the New York Times, Robert Palmer,

[35:23] Meg: Oh, interesting.

[35:24] Jessica: Wrote about Brian Eno in the jazz pop section of the Times. And I guess it's the style section, but it's not designated as such. But it's the C Section, where arts and the movie listings are. And that's half the page. And the other half of the page is about Sha Na Na. So I looked at this thing and there's a photo of Brian Eno surrounded by the bands that he's working with at the time, the Talking Heads, David Bowie and Robert Fripp. And then on the other side is a photo of Bowzer, of Sha Na Na wearing just the black muscle shirt.

[36:05] Meg: Yes.

[36:05] Jessica: And glasses and singing, but not looking as Bowzery as he normally did. So I read both articles and I thought, what an amazing juxtaposition, because everything about Brian Eno was about the future and everything about Sha Na Na was about the past.

[36:25] Meg: That's so crazy.

[36:26] Jessica: And I thought, and the 80s was such a fascinating time because it was a crossover into electronica. The status quo of how you experienced music and pop culture and so many things was shifting. And we think about our generation, Gen X, as being the generation that straddled analog and digital. And we are right because of the internet. However, I think that it started even a little bit earlier. And we know from the 80s because of MTV and all of this stuff was really changing, even just the way that TV was used.

[37:05] Meg: Right. And you've mentioned before about how the 80s were, also had this retro flair back to the 50s. Conservativism, family values, whatever that's supposed to mean. Thank you, Reagan.

[37:18] Jessica: Exactly. And at the same time, you had bands like the Talking Heads pushing the world forward very fast. So let's take a quick detour into Sha Na Na land.

[37:32] Meg: Should I tell you now that I have met Bowzer?

[37:35] Jessica: Oh, my God, I'm in heaven

Meg: Multiple times.

Jessica: Why?

[37:41] Meg: Because he was really good friends with the head of Alice and Billy's preschool, the Acorn School, and he was the auctioneer for the yearly fundraiser. And he, at the time, and maybe he still does, we should look it up, did regular gigs at the Mohegan Sun, and one of the things that was auctioned off was going to the Mohegan Sun and spending the weekend there and seeing Bowzer do his deal, gambling at the tables.

Jessica: And did you ever bid on that?

Meg: I didn't.

[38:21] Jessica: Well, I'm going to lay some truth on you about Sha Na Na. That is going to surprise you.

[38:25] Meg: All right.

[38:26] Jessica: And Stephen Holden, the famous Stephen Holden, wrote this review. So both of them were performing, and this Sha Na Na extravaganza was going to be taking place at the Beacon Theater on Broadway near 74th street. So he begins with, this is a jaw dropping statement. Ready for feeling old?

[38:46] Meg: Oh, no.

[38:48] Jessica: "With rock and roll more than a quarter of a century old, rock nostalgia no longer simply means the 50s, ducktail haircuts and oldies but goodies. It also embraces the 60s." It's like I need to just jump off a bridge. Oh, my God. Anyway, so they're talking about this. And at this thing at the Beacon, Sha Na Na is playing with John Sebastian from the 60s, from The Lovin' Spoonful.

[39:20] Meg: Oh, okay.

[39:20] Jessica: Who wrote a lot of things, including the theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter.

[39:24] Meg: So he's legit. And Sha Na Na is what you call a tribute band?

[39:29] Jessica: No, wrong again. Get ready.

[39:32] Meg: Okay.

[39:33] Jessica: Sha Na Na started in 1969.

[39:37] Meg: Oh, wait, they played at Woodstock. They did. Yes, I know that.

[39:42] Jessica: Yes, they played at Woodstock. Crazy.

[39:46] Meg: But weren't they trying to do something from the past?

[39:48] Jessica: I'm going to tell you, you're going to love this. They started out in 1969 and bizarrely made it to Woodstock the same year. But their whole persona was an act. You know how Yale University has The Whiffenpoofs?

[40:03] Meg: Yeah.

[40:04] Jessica: And there are lots of other universities that have their, like, all male a cappella singing groups. So did Columbia, the Kingsmen. Sha Na Na was the all male a cappella group from Columbia University. Okay, that is where they began.

[40:22] Meg: But again, they were doing oldies.

[40:24] Jessica: But wait, they did it. Yes, they were. But it wasn't a tribute band originally. They did dirty lyrics to make their friends laugh about 50s songs.

[40:38] Meg: Okay.

[40:39] Jessica: And they did it as like a talent show act. They did it to amuse themselves. They participated on campus to a salute to the 50s called- are you ready? And this was in 1969, Grease Under the Stars. They were so entertaining that the William Morris agency picked them up. And the William Morris agency is what got them to Woodstock.

[41:07] Meg: Fascinating.

[41:08] Jessica: Yes. So in describing what they were, Jon Bauman, aka Bowzer, Bowzer says, we're vaudevillians first and musicians second. Their records didn't really sell. They were a live act.

[41:27] Meg: They're a live act.

[41:28] Jessica: That's what they did. And he said that only one of their eight albums, which was a K-tel package of a live show that they did. K-tel.

[41:39] Meg: Amazing.

[41:39] Jessica: For those who don't know, know, K-tel was a music company that packaged singles onto compilation discs.

[41:48] Meg: They were fantastic.

[41:50] Jessica: Exactly.

[41:51] Meg: And things like that should exist now.

[41:53] Jessica: And there were advertisements for K-tel on TV. It preceded Columbia House, I think, with the for-a-penny, but they were cheap. And they were also in the back of comic books. So they did that in 1969. In 1971, a little show was put together that then made it off Broadway or off-off-Broadway in 1972 called Grease.

[42:19] Meg: Okay, so it's just a coincidence that they happen to have already hooked into the idea of grease.

[42:26] Jessica: Yes, exactly.

[42:27] Meg: Being a retro 50s thing.

[42:30] Jessica: And who knows.

[42:31] Meg: the grease that you put in your hair.

[42:33] Jessica: Correct.

[42:33] Meg: Right.

[42:34] Jessica: But who knows if anyone who did the the musical knew about Grease under the stars? Coincidence? I think not. A few interesting little things about Grease that you also might not know is the original Danny Zuko. Treat Williams.

[42:51] Meg: Oh, my God, I love Treat Williams.

[42:53] Jessica: I know. RIP.

[42:54] Meg: Stop. All you have to do is say Treat Williams. Treat Williams. Stop it, Jessica. Stop it.

[42:59] Jessica: And John Travolta in the original Broadway cast played Doody.

[43:06] Meg: Oh, good for him. Yes.

[43:08] Jessica: On the original movie soundtrack one side of the four side double album record is all of the songs from the original Broadway show that didn't make it into the film that are all performed by Sha Na Na.

[43:26] Meg: Oh, I know, because I had that album.

[43:28] Jessica: As did I.

[43:29] Meg: So I know those songs just as well as I know the songs from the show or the movie, rather.

[43:34] Jessica: When I first started learning how to play guitar and let it be known that I've not progressed much, but I remembered that song, Magic Changes from Grease. And it's like C, A minor, F, G. I'm going to learn that song. And I did so. Yay, Grease. Sha Na Na. Vaudevillians. They kept on upping the ante with being theatrical, and they came up with their stock character names, Bowzer, Chico, Jacko and Santini. What does that sound like?

[44:11] Meg: The Marx Brothers.

[44:13] Jessica: So as I was reading this, I was like, my entire childhood is coming into focus. I understand now. Oh, my God. You couldn't escape the Marx Brothers as a reference point in anything when we were growing up. So he described what they did in 1969 as a "lewd rock show for hippies", their friends. And it wasn't until they got picked up by CBS to make their vaudeville show into a variety show that they cleaned it up and made it appropriate for 3 year olds to 60 year olds.

[44:52] Meg: Right? And there were all those shows, those variety shows on TV that were like that, that took one genre of music and it was like for family hour, like Hee Haw. My grandfather was obsessed with Hee Haw.

[45:06] Jessica: Everything about that sentence brings me so much joy.

[45:11] Meg: I could talk about Hee Haw. In fact, I mean, can we cover Hee Haw?

[45:14] Jessica: My house guest who's here with me today? For some reason, last night we were a little in our cups, so I don't know why it came up, but we started talking about Hee Haw.

[45:28] Meg: Shut up. That is crazy.

[45:30] Jessica: I'm totally serious. And we were. And she asked me, she said, do you think Hee Haw could be on tv today?

[45:36] Meg: Yes.

[45:37] Jessica: I was like, absolutely not.

[45:40] Meg: Oh, it was really offensive.

[45:41] Jessica: It was so offensive. It was so. It was so bad.

[45:46] Meg: It was so racist. Oh, my God.

[45:48] Jessica: No, you could not do Hee Haw today.

[45:51] Meg: Damn. I want Hee Haw.

[45:52] Jessica: Bad. Bad. Bad.

[45:55] Meg: He also liked the Lawrence Welk show.

[45:57] Jessica: Well, that's less crazy. But again, not exactly an integrated show. Oh, my God. By the way, the one thing about Sha Na Na, you're saying, did they do any original music? Their pianist wrote Sandy. For Grease. For the movie. Yes.

[46:21] Meg: Now I'm on this other thing. Sonny and Cher show.

[46:24] Jessica: Sonny and Cher. Donnie and Marie.

[46:26] Meg: The Mandrell-

[46:27] Jessica: Mandrell Sisters.

[46:28] Meg: Mandrell Sisters!

[46:30] Jessica: Yes. Another thing that I was looking at with my friend who's staying with me. This is in the late 60s, but did you know that Ken Berry, who was in a lot of Disney movies and who wound up being the son on Mama's Family?

[46:45] Meg: Of course.

[46:46] Jessica: He had a short lived variety show. And his backup, quote, dancers, like, you know, his comedy backup- Teri Garr and Steve Martin.

[46:57] Meg: Amazing.

[46:58] Jessica: Isn't that amazing?

[46:58] Meg: Steve Martin danced.

[47:00] Jessica: Okay, like, joked around. Sure, whatever.

[47:04] Meg: We have to bring back the variety show.

[47:07] Jessica: Maybe that is what we're gonna do as our, like, side gig.

[47:12] Meg: Yeah, bring back the variety.

[47:14] Jessica: Yeah, I know that we could do it on YouTube or whatever, but don't you wish that we could do a cable access variety show?

[47:21] Meg: Absolutely.

[47:23] Jessica: That would be so amazing. In 1981, Bowzer at the age of 33. And this also is sort of chilling to me, he says, "I think we've acquired a certain flabby charm as Bowzer. I'm a 33 year old guy having the same kind of fun I was having at 17. It's eternal youth." Sha Na Na on the Muppet show. (singing) Good night, sweetheart. Yeah, it's time to go. So that's one side of 1981. On the other side we have the mad genius, the mad electronic wizard who doesn't know how to play any instruments and barely sings.

[48:14] Meg: Brian Eno.

[48:15] Jessica: Yes. Brian Eno was born to be a producer because he was a knob twiddler. I didn't mean that to sound quite so lewd, but he is, and he was. "Eno is God", says the graffiti spray painted on the walls of Greenwich Village and Soho. And I wrote in the margin of this article, ooh, like, Clapton is God from the 70s and two lines down "in the past, rock musicians were considered worthy of deification only if they were powerfully sensual singers like Elvis Presley or virtuoso instrumentalists like the guitarist Eric Clapton". I love that they're referring to the guitarist Eric Clapton, who you may or may not have heard of. But Brian Eno sings only occasionally and self consciously. And in fact, when he does sing, it's so processed that it's not even quite a human voice. The instrument that he can be said to play is the recording studio. And what I thought was really fascinating is, think about the time period. So this is 1981, and just to cut ahead for a second, as I said, he's working with Bowie, I mean, Bowie at this time, he had just come out of doing his album Berlin. I think he was maybe just getting off drugs and still Thin White Duke and Cuckoo bird out there. And the Talking Heads, the album that he did with the Talking Heads at the time, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a collaboration with David Byrne that was issued that same week in 1981 by Warner Brothers Sire label. He had produced the previous three Talking Heads albums for Sire and had worked on three of David Bowie's most impressive RCA albums. Let's just focus again on the fact that this is 1981, okay? So I'm going to read something, and it really made me reflect on the state of music at the time. "The fact that some rock fans want to deify a thinker and systems manipulator like Mr. Eno, at a time when rock gods of a more physical kind are in short supply, is of considerable interest. It confirms the thought that rock is becoming more concerned with ideas and less concerned with the immediate gratification of a hard beat, a shouted melody and a couple of loud guitars." And I read that and I was like, number one, that's just nonsense. I mean, there was so much rock going on at the time, and it seemed really easy to just be like, oh, you know, here's this really weird, balding, English, weedy guy who's sitting, literally, he was sitting in an empty Soho loft with a cup of tea. Like, it couldn't have been more out of Central Casting. And then I realized something. Why would rock musicians be in short supply in 1981? What would support that? And I realized John Bonham died in 1980. Led Zeppelin ended in 1980. So suddenly, because that was, from a pop culture perspective, a cataclysmic event. It's easy for a rock journalist to say, here's this other person who's taking electronic music and studio work in this new direction, when in fact, he'd been doing it since 1973. Okay, so I thought that was really interesting. And it must have been a reflection of how bananas the sudden end of Led Zeppelin was, because Led Zeppelin, I think they were '69 to '80, maybe a little earlier, but I know because of the people I'm working with now that the Texas Pop Festival in 1969 was the first American appearance of Led Zeppelin. So they might have maybe a year or two earlier elsewhere, but they had not been around that long. And then suddenly they were gods. They ruled, and then goodbye. So 1981, Brian Eno. About Eno, it says, "since he became the group's producer, the music of the Talking heads has evolved from its beginnings as rock minimalism into a densely layered, African influenced brand of funk. On the most recent Talking Heads album Remain In light, Mr. Eno and the group's lead vocalist, David Byrne, wrote all the songs but one and seem to have called most of the creative shots," meaning they were in cahoots and Eno is the puppet master here "The critical acclaim of the album, of the Talking Heads album left the Talking Heads on the horns of a dilemma. Mr. Eno's expansion of the group's musical horizons may result in its dissolution." Quote, "we haven't talked about making another album, Mr. Eno said about his work with the Talking Heads, and I don't know what the state of the group is at the moment. David is the only member I've seen in a while. At present, I'm not much inclined to work with other musicians in situations where I've not clearly been in control." And there's an intimation in what he's saying that the Talking Heads are over. Ha. Not so much.

[53:19] Meg: Oh no.

[53:20] Jessica: And that brings us full circle to-

Meg: Here Lies Love?

Jessica: There you go. So anyway, Brian Eno and Sha Na Na, strange bedfellows, 1981, two concerts at the same time. Who knew?

Meg: Crazy

Jessica: Red Hook.

[53:48] Meg: So for Joe's birthday a couple of years ago, I got tickets front row to American Utopia. David Byrne's show. It was so great. Oh my God, it was so good. And you can actually, you can see it. I think it's on like Netflix or something.

[54:05] Jessica: Really?

[54:07] Meg: And I watched it again because it was so great in person. And it is almost as great on Netflix. Very well filmed.

[54:15] Jessica: Oh, that is a fantastic recommendation.

[54:18] Meg: Love me some David Byrne.

[54:19] Jessica: Yay. You know what? Here's another David Byrne little tidbit.

[54:23] Meg: Yes.

[54:24] Jessica: Our dear friend Sasha, listener of the podcast, she was a teacher and one of her little charges, little tiny kids- I hope if she's listening, she remembers this, because it made me laugh so hard- there was a kid in her class who Sasha would report to me almost daily that this kid would come in in a wig or, like, some weird outfit, and it was always of her own devising. But the wigs, she had, like, a wig wardrobe, and it was really a thing. And this was David Byrne's kid.

[54:55] Meg: I didn't even know David Byrne had a kid.

[54:58] Jessica: Of course she's wearing wigs and running around, like, you know, big shoulder pads. Yes. Like, doing performance art at the age of three. Like, of course you are. So what's our crossover, do you think?

[55:10] Meg: What's our-

[55:11] Jessica: I've got it.

[55:12] Meg: Okay.

[55:12] Jessica: So Theresa was an artist who wound up being highly influential and changed feminist art.

[55:19] Meg: This is true.

[55:20] Jessica: And in this article, Brian Eno, who is a master innovator, was also sort of being questioned, but he continued on. And not only did he change rock earlier, but he continued to really rewrite the script.

[55:36] Meg: Beautiful. Thank you.

[55:38] Jessica: And Bowzer, God bless him, just holding the torch. Just keeping on,

Meg; At the Mohegan Sun

Jessica: At the Mohegan Sun with his absolute- again, like, how could I not love him now that I know how Marx Brothers, they really were. Yay, Vaudevillians.