[00:16] Jessica: Hi. Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Jessica.

[00:21] Meg: And I'm Meg.

[00:22] Jessica: And this is a podcast about pop culture and true crime from the 1980s here in New York City, where Meg and I grew up and still live.

[00:33] Meg: Yes and I do ‘ripped from the headlines.’

[00:36] Jessica: And I do the pop culture.

[00:38] Meg: Exactly.

[00:38] Jessica: I have to address something that's very important.

[00:41] Meg: Okay.

[00:41] Jessica: I'm an idiot.

[00:43] Meg: What?

[00:43] Jessica: I'm a dummy. I'm a real dumb dumb. Something major happened on our last podcast that I have to address. Okay, so the whole thing with Curtis Sliwa with the Bernie Goetz episode. Okay. It took me listening to the podcast to realize how moronic it was that I didn't understand what you meant by eye fornicating.

[01:09] Meg: What did you

[01:10] Jessica: So Curtis Sliwa says that people on the subway eye fornicate in a. And I was like, what the hell are you talking about? Because I thought it was like, I, as in me, the possessive or not the possessive, that would be my. I, me personally, Curtis Sliwa fornicate. And you just kept repeating it, and I was like, Curtis Sliwa fornicates like, what the fuck is that about? And it took me until, I now realize he was trying to be fancy. He meant eye fucking, but he was trying to be.

[01:46] Meg: Yes. Fucking someone with your eyes.

[01:48] Jessica: I got it now. But it was such an awkward phrase that it was, like, completely lost on me.

[01:55] Meg: Look, I'm going to use it in our daily discourse, and then it'll become second nature. Then you'll finally get it.

[02:00] Jessica: Really? We're going to walk down the street, and you'll be like eye fornicator. Eye fornicator to the left. Eye fornicator to the right. All right. 12 o’clock. Okay, Meg, what grizzly, terrifying story do you have for us today?

[02:21] Meg: Well, actually, I'm going to, I thought it was time for us to introduce the loves of our lives, our doggies.

[02:31] Jessica: I knew that's what you were going to say.

[02:33] Meg: So, would you like to say a few words about Alfie and his awesomeness?

[02:37] Jessica: Well, yes, but is this related to your segment? Oh, great. Alfie is a three year old Brussels Griffon. His birthday is May 11. He's a little chubby. We won't judge him.

[02:53] Meg: And he's sleeping right now.

[02:55] Jessica: Right. And he joins us for every podcast and is sleeping with us right now.

[02:59] Meg: He's awesome. And my guy is Fozzy. He's 80 lbs, a little chunk, but he doesn't know it. And he's a huge lap dog. And he's part chocolate lab and part Shar Pei.

[03:13] Jessica: Which is so cute.

[03:16] Meg: Amazing mix, I've got to say. And he is perfect.

[03:20] Jessica: We have two muppets.

[03:21] Meg: Yes. Okay, my story today is about another dog lover, Leona Helmsley.

[03:32] Jessica: I'm so excited. I love Leona Helmsley. Everything about her is so twisted. Okay, here we go. Here we go. I'm so excited for this. Okay, go.

[03:45] Meg: All right. My sources are the New Yorker: Michael Schulman article, New York Post: Carolyn Howe article, The Rachel Maddow Show and Empires of New York, a documentary which I think is great. You can get it on Amazon Prime.

[04:02] Jessica: Okay.

[04:03] Meg: The Helmsley Palace Hotel is a Roman Renaissance mansion on 50th and Madison. It faces the rear of St. Patrick's Cathedral, so you can picture that, right. And is featured prominently on the TV show Gossip Girl and is where I stayed on my wedding night.

[04:24] Jessica: Oh, how lovely.

[04:25] Meg: You were at the Mark, and I was at the palace. It opened its doors in 1981 after an extensive renovation by its owners, Harry and Leona Helmsley. The ads for the Helmsley Palace featured Leona in a ball gown, basking in the golden glow of the ballroom's opulence. This is from the ad, which I am thinking she might have written herself. “From the glow of the tapers on the four foot candelabra to the 100 year old pastel panels of the Royal court in Amorous play, Leona Helmsley ensures the grandeur as a promise that each function held in the elegant oval Versailles ballroom is one to remember. What better way to lavish her royal family- you her guests. It's the only palace in the world where the queen stands guard.”

[05:25] Jessica: Okay, I have several comments I need to make immediately.

[05:28] Meg: Like, she hired someone to write that.

[05:30] Jessica: First off, was that really the ad copy? That is the longest ad copy.

[05:38] Meg: I've read it over so many times, going, like, what were they trying to say?

[05:43] Jessica: They could have just gone with the tagline, the only palace where the queen stands guard. The other thing that brought, I immediately thought of with the pastel panels and the amorous frolicking, was there eye fornication in the Helmsley Palace, or was Leona indulging in a little well, EF?

[06:06] Meg: Actually, rumor has it she was very amorous.

[06:11] Jessica: Do tell.

[06:13] Meg: That is what they say.

[06:15] Jessica: I'm assuming you're saying beyond the loving of Harry.

[06:20] Meg: No. All about Harry.

[06:22] Jessica: Oh, no. She was obsessed with Harry. Okay.

[06:25] Meg: And she made Harry happy. Unfortunately for Leona, by the time she went to jail, she was known as the Queen of Mean. The old guard New York aristocracy prided itself on understated elegance and modest graciousness, but Leona ushered in a new era of ostentatious consumption and brash, outspoken business practices. She was the epitome of greed is good. She once said, “If you pet me, I'll purr. If you hit me, I'll scratch.” Leona Helmsley was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in Marbletown, New York, to Polish-Jewish immigrants. Her father was a hatmaker. She changed her name a number of times, finally settling on Leona Mindy Roberts. She married and divorced a couple of times before she met Harry Helmsley. And at this point, she was a very successful condo broker at Brown, Harris, Stevens. And Helmsley was a huge real estate mogul, family business. He owned $5 billion of New York real estate, including the Empire State Building.

[07:41] Jessica: And that's when a billion was a billion. Okay.

[07:45] Meg: He was a Quaker.

[07:46] Jessica: What?

[07:47] Meg: Yeah. Known for his ethical business practices. How ironic. And he was a married man, but he fell hard for Leona and they began a torrent love affair. He eventually divorced his wife of 33 years, and he and Leona got married. She was 52 and he was 63. Once they were married, Leona helped take Harry's real estate business to a whole nother level with the opening of the Helmsley Palace, which was the place to stay in the 80s. Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston. You can picture it. Leona was a brilliant and I'm going to mispronounce this because it is Yiddish.

[08:27] Jessica: Okay.

[08:27] Meg: Balabuster

[08:29] Jessica: Balabuster

[08:30] Meg: Balabuster.

[08:30] Jessica: A buster of balls.

[08:32] Meg: Well, I was wondering if that's what

[08:34] Jessica: Yes. The answer is yes.

[08:36] Meg: Oh, that's what it actually means, yes. Oh, my God. Okay, because I looked it up, and in Yiddish, it's executive of the house.

[08:43] Jessica: Yeah, but that's like where did you look that up? What was your source?

[08:47] Meg: The Internet?

[08:48] Jessica: No. Go to Leo Roston's, Joy of Yiddish. And it means like, a really bossy, overbearing woman.

[09:00] Meg: Oh it’s not a good, you don't want to be called that.

[09:03] Jessica: It’s not a literal translation of ball buster, necessarily. I don't know. But it's about the women who, like Leona, kind of assholes. Okay, go ahead.

[09:13] Meg: She was known to say she worked on their 27 hotels 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, and the palace was the jewel in her crown. She spared no expense adorning the hotel, and she had very expensive taste. There were phones in the bathrooms. Can you imagine?

[09:32] Jessica: Oh, my God. Breaking ground.

[09:34] Meg: She routinely ran millions of dollars over budget, and Harry paid it. Completely smitten with her, he did whatever Leona wanted. In fact, Leona tried to control everyone in her life, including her son, Jay, from one of her earlier marriages. She brought him into the family business and was an incredibly exacting and demanding boss. And not that there's necessarily a connection here, but it is implied that there is. Jay died suddenly of a heart attack during a business meeting when he was 42. I know. And after his death, Leona declared war on his widow, Mimi, who she blamed for his death. At Jay's funeral, Leona turned to Mimi and said, I will destroy you. And she certainly tried. She evicted Mimi from her home, sued her for jewelry she had given Jay, and charged Mimi for the transportation of the casket to the gravesite. By all accounts, all accounts, she was gratuitously, cruel.

[10:39] Jessica: Wow.

[10:39] Meg: Yeah. Many say her only response to stress and grief was anger. And she actually enjoyed her reputation for being aggressive. She made it part of her branding. “I won't be treated like a room number. Why should you? I won't settle for skimpy towels. Why should you? I insist on excellent service. I insist on a great cup of coffee. Why shouldn't you?”

[11:00] Jessica: I remember all of these.

[11:02] Meg: She claimed she was inspecting every corner of the hotel, accepting nothing but perfection, firing anyone who didn't live up to her standards.

[11:10] Jessica: Could you imagine if you were, like, staying there and you see Leona Helmsley creeping around with a feather duster. ‘There’s a white glove test that no one passed.’ Sorry. Go ahead.

[11:23] Meg: So, yeah, firing anyone who didn't live up to her standards, and if you stayed there, you would get the benefit from that. It was very effective marketing. The problem was that she was, in fact, incredibly cruel to the staff. If there was a smudge on a glass at dinner, someone was fired. Everyone lived in fear. Once, she fired a waiter on the spot because his nervously shaking hands making the silver tray rattle. Once she smashed a chipped teacup on the floor and demanded the server beg for his job. If the soup was cold, if the service was slow, off with their head. And she rarely paid her bills in full, constantly disputing payments to vendors and contractors. In a period called the “Bloodbath”, she pressured Harry to fire his four most loyal and stalwart employees, leaving only herself as his confidante. She made a lot of enemies, and in December 1985, one of them tipped off the New York Post that the Helmsleys were guilty of fraud against the US government. It turns out Helmsleys had been writing off the $8 million renovation of their Greenwich, Connecticut estate as a business expense. And in 1988, US attorney Rudy Giuliani, who I hate talking about, but here he is again, indicted them on several tax related charges, including tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the US government. Harry was deemed too feeble to stand trial, so Leona faced the music alone. At her trial, a former housekeeper recounted Leona telling her, “we don't pay taxes.” Only the little people pay taxes.

[13:09] Jessica: I see how that resonates down through the years.

[13:13] Meg: Interesting, right?

[13:14] Jessica: Indeed.

[13:14] Meg: And at that moment, the jury was like, Fuck you. She was convicted and sentenced to 16 years, famously collapsing outside the courthouse while being taken to prison. But she didn't stay down for long. She insisted she was only convicted because she was a woman in business, and if she had been a man, she would have been elected president.

[13:40] Jessica: I just got chills. She was no dope.

[13:47] Meg: Swear to god. And she could also see the future. She contrasted her $25 million bail to Jeffrey Dahmer's $1 million bail.

[13:57] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[13:58] Meg: Good friggin point.

[13:59] Jessica: It's an excellent point.

[14:01] Meg: Her new lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who I'm also not a huge fan of, was able to get her sentence reduced, and she was released in 1994 after serving two years. She died in 2007 and this is where it comes around left the bulk of her $4 billions to a charitable trust that benefits dogs. She left her Maltese named Trouble a $12 million trust fund. She left her two grandchildren $5 million. The other two received nothing. Leona left 3 million for the 1300 square foot mausoleum where she and Harry were buried to be steam cleaned at least once a year. Always exacting.

[14:52] Jessica: Wow.

[14:54] Meg: I have a little footnote about greed is good.

[14:56] Jessica: I also want to know how much longer the Maltese lived to enjoy its $12 million.

[15:05] Meg: A while. Like, at least five, six years.

[15:08] Jessica: Could you imagine being?

[15:10] Meg: In Florida. He moved to Florida.

[15:11] Jessica: The person who administered the Trust?

[15:13] Meg: I read up about him.

[15:15] Jessica: Oh, God.

[15:15] Meg: It's actually, it wasn't as easy as you would think, because, like, he got death threats and stuff. People are really pissed off about the dog getting all that money.

[15:22] Jessica: No, that's what I'm saying. I think it would have been a really bum deal. Wow.

[15:26] Meg: This is our first discussion of Greed is Good. Obviously, we will come back to that. Your father very much wanted me to talk about the financial crisis, which, I guess, at some point, this is my entry into the financial crisis.

[15:41] Meg: Yeah. Greed is good. We will revisit it. We've got Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street in 1987. But really, it was Ivan Bowski and Michael Milken who began this whole trend. When Ivan Bowski said, “I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” Ah the 80s.

[16:05] Jessica: Ah the 80s. Fabulous. God, I love Leona Helmsley. She was so, such a character to hate. She was so entertaining at the time. And that's the thing that I think is kind of amazing that, again, we were kids, and I remember all of those taglines for the hotel. Like, why would I know that as a kid? But it's burned in there. And I remember her.

[16:27] Meg: it was very good branding.

[16:30] Jessica: Her whole look like I can conjure her face instantly. That crazy facelift and the makeup and lips, the short steely haircut. She was out of Central Casting. She was Cruella De vil. She looked like Cruella De vil. And she behaved that way. But dogs were okay the other way around, right? People were shit. Dogs were okay.

[16:56] Meg: And unapologetic.

[16:59] Jessica: Completely.

[17:00] Meg: And to her point, she got a lot more shit for it than a lot of these guys did for doing the same thing.

[17:06] Jessica: Well, there’s no question, so are we going to now retroactively give her a little bit of a thumbs up? Not for being a human, right? But for being a bit of a trailblazer.

[17:19] Meg: A bit of a trailblazer. And I'm sorry, but these women who were in these situations, she was the only woman in the boardroom.

[17:26] Jessica: Yeah. Could you imagine? Not fun.

[17:29] Meg: Not fun. And she got it done. It was a nice place to stay, I'll tell you that much.

Very clean.

[17:39] Jessica: That's nice. That's good. Yes, she was a New York character. She was a real standby.

[17:49] Meg: How about that she hated Trump. And again, another person who I do not want to discuss on this podcast very much at all. But he will bleed in.

[17:57] Jessica: No, but I love that. It's like the hotelier feud. As he was busy making the Plaza Hotel and Ivana making the Plaza Hotel a gilded monstrosity.

[18:14] Meg: He was so jealous because they had the Empire State Building. Oh, yes. That's all he ever wanted.

[18:19] Jessica: Yeah. Just wanted a giant pointy top building. I'm miming it for you right now.

[18:29] Meg: Yeah, I got it. Visual.

[18:31] Jessica: Okay. Well, thank you, Meg. That was I'm so delighted.

[18:34] Meg: I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

[18:37] Meg: I mean, that was kind of fun. So this is going to be fun, too.

[18:41] Jessica: I hope. I don't know.

[18:43] Meg: I mean, usually there's like a mood switch.

[18:45] Jessica: Yeah. But you know what? It might go the other way this time.

[18:47] Meg: Oh,

[18:48] Jessica: yeah.

[18:49] Meg: Okay.

[18:50] Jessica: Yeah. All right. Look at that. This is like Freaky Friday. You're Ellen Burston, I'm Jody Foster. Let’s go.

[18:56] Meg: Got it.

[18:57] Jessica: So here I'm going to start off with one of our now frequently asked trivia questions.

[19:03] Meg: Yes.

[19:05] Jessica: When you think of protest music, which you may never, from the way you're looking at me, you never think of protest music.

[19:12] Meg: If I were to think of protest.

[19:13] Jessica: If you were to think of protest music, what would you come up with?

[19:16] Meg: Like protesting the Vietnam War, I guess.

[19:19] Jessica: Right. So, like Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield. Kind of. Okay, well, in the 80s, there was another kind of protest music that was not ever announced as such, but really performed that job, really played that role.

[19:42] Meg: Okay.

[19:43] Jessica: And that my dear friend. Now, this is going to sound like it's not New York City based, but it will come around.

[19:49] Meg: Okay?

[19:49] Jessica: In the 1980s, there was a proliferation of out, openly gay singers and bands, [19:59] Meg: Okay?

[20:00] Jessica: They were primarily British and reacting to Thatcher's Conservative England. And these bands were, and I think this is really the core of it: Bronski Beat, Communards, Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, Culture Club, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Smiths, Pete Burns/Dead or Alive and Erasure.

[20:28] Meg: 75% of those I absolutely love.

[20:30] Jessica: Who did you not love?

[20:31] Meg: I mean, I don't know. Pete Burns.

[20:34] Jessica: “You spin me right round”

[20:36] Meg: Oh I do know!

[20:37] Jessica: Yeah. Did you see that Paul Rudd and Jimmy Fallon reenacted that video frame for frame? Awesome. It's so great because you realize how stupid the video is. It's another one of those you look back on it now and they do it totally straight. They're not hamming it up. They do it and every gesture, every facial expression exactly the same. Wow. Just wow. I encourage you, our listeners, to check it out on YouTube because if you watched that video in the 80s and you look at this now, it will really make you cringe really bad. Anyway, so those bands all featured out gay performers, and some of those performers were non-binary.

[21:33] Meg: Okay.

[21:33] Jessica: As we now say at the time, and I know this is not politically correct, but at the time it was gender bender performers such as Pete Burns and Boy George. Boy George had a disciple named Marilyn, who is also who is genuinely all the time kind of gender queer. But they were important and they were protesting something that no one wanted to talk about which was the AIDS crisis. My Oration is going to cover. It's going to tie together some themes that we will visit in future podcast. Okay, so as I hope most people know who are listening to this podcast, the AIDS crisis began in 1981, and it was in San Francisco and New York City for the most part. And this unknown disease that was presenting in hospitals, primarily with gay men was known as the gay cancer, and eventually it was identified as HIV, which caused AIDS. So while all of this was happening in New York City, there was an increasing amount of violence against gay men. And gay bashing became something that was a known activity and really scary for men living in Chelsea and the village. There were neighborhood vigilante groups to watch out for anyone, or rather, I would guess, like community watch, not vigilantes. And these were people who would come into town who didn't even live in New York City. They would come in cars and go down 7th avenue to the West Village and jump out of the car with baseball bats and beat someone, if not to death, then close to and why? AIDS. All of the ills of the era started to get lumped into the identification with the AIDS crisis and gay men, and that was that. So that incredible hostility was not only happening, obviously, in New York City. In England, you had these bands who were incensed, and rather than just declare themselves as gay, they started writing songs that were either brash and sexually explicit about gay sex or they talked about the emotional toll that it takes on young boys having to grow up in a community where if you're gay, you're immediately ostracized. They were really meaningful. And so these songs getting on the radio and being constantly in rotation under the nose of people who didn't understand because they didn't know the context what was going on, but those who did, it was a huge protest movement. And in future podcasts, we'll go through what the actual music was and I will share a few music clips, but the one that everyone knows that I think I can use as an example very safely is Frankie goes to Hollywood. Relax.

[25:12] Meg: That’s what I was thinking. Yeah.

[25:13] Jessica: Now, do you remember that when we were in high school, so this was what, like 84’ maybe? Everyone had a t-shirt that said Frankie say relax in huge letters. Yes. And this t-shirt was not just popular with us, it was all around the country. The song is about how if you want to have a really fabulous orgasm while your boyfriend, and you are a man, is giving you head, just relax.

[25:44] Meg: Right.

[25:45] Jessica: That's it.

[25:46] Meg: And it wasn't very subtle.

[25:48] Jessica: No, it was absolutely explicit. And I think what's so interesting about the 80s was that that was going on like that was actually on the airwaves. And the collective denial about that being something that was gaining strength and having a voice was so profound that on the radio was, I mean, what were the lyrics? It was, “Relax, don't do it when you want to suck it to it. Relax, don't do it when you want to come” There's no ambiguity there. There's another lyric about getting on your knees. It's just bananas to me that this was sort of happily ignored and it was only Boy George who got flak for being gay, but he was still revered and he was quite literally in a dress. That's how overt you had to be.

[26:50] Meg: Right.

[26:51] Jessica: But this is a protest music of a time and in New York City, some of the most seminal, no pun intended, things regarding the AIDS crisis.

[27:04] Meg: You said semen.

[27:08] Jessica: I hope no one's listening. You're a child. Get serious.

[27:14] Meg: Sorry. Seminal.

[27:18] Jessica: The way this all ties back to New York is the activism around AIDS, HIV and AIDS as expressed through this music that really became all of these records became anthems. And they were played in every gay bar and disco. Places like the Roxy, which we've talked about on West 18th street. The Anvil, a very famous leather bar at 500 West 14th street. Crisco Disco. Also not subtle.

[27:56] Meg: No.

[27:56] Jessica: Yes, not subtle. The lubricant of choice at 408 West 15th street. And again, in a bid for least subtle decor ever, the DJ booth was a giant crisco can. There's a Triangle building that I know, you know, on 9th Avenue. 28th Avenue at 14th street. It was built in 1859, and nearly from its inception, it housed a series of gay clubs and bars, including the Triangle, the Vault, Hellfire, and my favorite of all time, Manhole.

[28:37] Meg: Meat Packing. Yeah.

[28:37] Jessica: Yes. Anyway, so that's where this music was being played. And who was one of the people who was part of this scene early on and in the 70s, Larry Kramer.

[28:49] Meg: Yes.

[28:49] Jessica: And Larry Kramer was an activist who started the Gay Men's Health Crisis.

[28:55] Meg: And a playwright.

[28:56] Jessica: And a playwright. The Normal heart.

[28:58] Meg: The Normal heart is the big one.

[29:00] Jessica: In 1982, he started the Gay men's health crisis. And in 1987, as things were really going quite poorly in Reagan's America and the ignoring of the AIDS crisis, he started a more militant group called Act Up. And Act Up would stage events all around the city where they would sort of disrupt and go into a space where they're traditionally not welcome and go in with their silence equals death, placards and protest whoever was there, whoever was speaking, whatever.

[29:38] Meg: And Act Up was and it's in the name, again, not subtle, Loud.

[29:43] Jessica: Very.

[29:46] Meg: These are not peaceful protests. These are.

[29:48] Jessica: They were angry.

[29:50] Meg: Angry.

[29:51] Jessica: They were and rightfully so

[29:52] Meg: pay attention

[29:54] Jessica: Pissed off beyond belief. So could you imagine if the pandemic that we've all just lived through was happening and no one talked about it?

[30:02] Meg: Oh, right. I mean, it's crazy.

[30:03] Jessica: And they only blamed whatever your exact profile is for the entire thing that you're not supposed to talk about. But that's killing people all over the world.

[30:12] Meg: And also, that your life is so worthless that it's not even worth the energy to try and figure out what the hell is happening.

[30:20] Jessica: Acknowledgment.

[30:21] Meg: Awful. Awful. Really truly evil.

[30:23] Jessica: Well, although this transcends the 80s a little bit, in 1990 there was even more frenzy because things were still very bad and a splinter group from Act Up called Queer Nation was formed in New York City. And they are the ones who created the slogan “We're here, we're queer, get used to it.” And they also and this is a questionable thing for and again, this is a podcast unto itself. They were the ones who started outing famous people saying you have no right during this crisis.

[31:02] Meg: To be quiet about who you are.

[31:06] Jessica: Exactly. So that was the tenor of what was going on. Back to the music. There was no shortage of gay performers. I just want to point this out. Prior to these British bands, the difference only being that there wasn't, it didn't have the feeling of an organized, angry speaking out against the silence. In my research and my sources are, ready for this one?

[31:35] Meg: Yes.

[31:35] Jessica: Rateyourmusic.com, New York Magazine, the Guardian, The Advocate, the New York Times and Them.us.

[31:42] Meg: Okay.

[31:43] Jessica: I found out that Little Richard's ‘Tootie Frutti’ originally had lyrics about anal sex. [31:50] Meg: Really?

[31:51] Jessica: Yes. That were cut out. And of course during the disco era there was Sylvester and Barry Manalo. David Bowie, famously at the beginning of the 70s proclaimed that he was gay, though later sort of recanted, but he set everyone on fire when he threw his arm around Mick Ronson on stage. And then this one is really important again to go back to Joe Bryant, who was early 70s, the first openly gay rock star and he was amazing. So 1987, Larry Kramer starts Act Up. All of these bands are, they have huge hits and in 1987 also, it was the first march on Washington for gay rights and it was the first full display of the AIDS quilt. So I'm giving you that context so you can see how much fury there was.

[32:50] Meg: And so when these and mobilizing.

[32:52] Jessica: And mobilizing so this was a sort of stealth not stealth way that it entered into the public consciousness through this music. And I'm going to make my point by telling you a story because it's always my personal stories that bring it all together. So in 1989, I believe, I was in college. Kenyan College in Gambier, Ohio. There was a dining hall that had sort of a little annexed room off to the side. It was Pierce dining hall and this little room had a projection TV. Remember those huge projection TVs? And it had MTV on twenty-four seven. And I hated it because always it was metal bands. It was just metal, metal, metal hairband, hairband. So annoying. I walked in there and I sort of stayed in the back. I saw there was someone who I wasn't that fond of sitting there, a guy, a football player, but what was on the screen, Erasures, Chains of Love. And this football player was clearly enjoying it and tapping his toe and having a really good time. And then it dawned on him that this was a very gay band with very, very gay messaging. There was no one else in the room, to the best of his knowledge, and he felt the need to stand up and shriek and please excuse my language, it's the language of the time, “Oh, my God, those are fags.”

[34:22] Meg: Oh, my God.

[34:23] Jessica: And stomped out of the room, really? In this performative moment, in case anyone saw him enjoying it.

[34:33] Meg: Oh, that's horrible.

[34:34] Jessica: And so at the time, I laughed because I was like, what a moron. But back to our adults looking at our teenage years, it was one of the saddest things imaginable. And we think about guys like that, I do, from our college years, as just being these toxic jerks, but could you imagine what's going on in that guy's head? The fear that he feels the need to do that?

[35:06] Meg: To have such an aggressive reaction to something that he's watching.

[35:14] Jessica: And alone. So back to the gay bashing in New York City. There's your mentality. That was someone who had to freak out openly and disassociate himself from it, and there was no one even there.

[35:26] Meg: No. So much of what you were talking about. Just I didn't know. I mean, you just connected a lot of dots for me, actually. I mean, I don't really think. I love so much of that music. I never really thought about it as being they look feminine like, but I didn't think that they were necessarily gay. I don't know. I just didn't think about it.

[35:44] Jessica: I didn't think about it. And you are part of the problem. You didn't, but that's what that's the other thing, is that I did not grow up with a lot of gay men in my parents world. Not that I was aware of. I should actually say that. Right.

[36:07] Meg: I mean, that's really the. I feel like I did well, I know I did grow up surrounded by gay men.

[36:14] Jessica: Would you care to expand on that?

[36:19] Meg: Well, as it turned out, my father was gay.

[36:22] Jessica: Oblivious. Sorry. But wow. Fascinating. Yeah. So the consciousness was just not there. And I'm amazed. I was growing up in a city that was really ground zero in so many ways, and I knew about it, but academically, it was really kind of bananas. But yeah. So that's my little thread here, is that all of the 80s music that is on the radio now that people love and people are copying 80s fashion and all of that, and a lot of the fashion comes from those bands.

[36:57] Meg: Yes, sure.

[36:58] Jessica: Those were some angry guys who had something to say, and we'll go into the lyrics next time.

[37:10] Meg: I look forward to that. Thank you.

[37:14] Jessica: So Meg.

[37:15] Meg: Yes Jessica. this is a good one. And we did kind of switch energies. I thought that was interesting.

[37:20] Jessica: I know. That was really unexpected. I'm really kind of glad that I walked a mile in your shoes today. But you know what I thought was really interesting?

[37:31] Meg: Tell me.

[37:32] Jessica: Is that what we chose without knowing what the other was doing to talk about was it paints a very accurate picture of the time, because at one end of the social spectrum, you had people like Leona Helmsley consuming so conspicuously and caring so deeply about money and artifice and declaring herself royalty. And that quite literally outside the gates, the gates of the palace, The Helmsley palace. There was just unbelievable devastation and unrest and sadness.

[38:13] Meg: That wasn't even being acknowledged in any way.

[38:19] Jessica: Exactly. So I was thinking about how she had the Versailles room and really did embody a little bit of let them eat cake, because that's what someone like her giving $12 million to the dog instead of in her own city. Gay men's health crisis. Who are you? What kind of monster are you? Well, we do know. And then you had the Elizabeth Taylor's of the world, who were beyond generous, but activists. We'll paint Leona into an even tighter corner with that.

[38:50] Meg: Sorry, Leona. Happy trouble though.

[38:51] Jessica: This was fun. Yes. Trouble.

[38:54] Meg: Tease. Trouble.

[38:55] Jessica: Trouble. I want to come back as trouble in my next life.