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

[00:20] 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.

[00:28] Meg: Where we still live and where we are podcasting about New York City in the ‘80s. I do Ripped from the Headlines.

[00:35] Jessica: And I do Pop Culture.

[00:37] Meg: So, Jessica, this is the first week after our epic back to school special.

[00:42] Jessica: Our two-parter! I felt very, very proud and accomplished after we finished that and we've gotten some really good feedback.

[00:50] Meg: We really have. Most notably, I will say, from Jessica Doyle, who was Jennifer’s very close friend and is featured very prominently in the documentary that I was talking about.

[01:04] Jessica: Really?

[01:05] Meg: And she reached out and said, thank you for bearing witness and setting the story straight. XOXO.

[01:11] Jessica: I actually literally just got chills.

[01:15] Meg: Yeah. So that meant a lot.

[01:18] Jessica: My dad unsolicited, and this is a man who is of a certain generation, and I would not have expected him to say what he did, which is that he remembered the headlines and all of that when it happened, but that our perspective was something that he never heard, he never thought of, and it really changed the way that he understood what happened. And it surprised me just because he was my parent, saying, don't go to Dorian’s. But still, the whole thing kind of was just a mishmash in his head.

[02:02] Meg: That's interesting.

[02:03] Jessica: It was interesting to hear that it took this many years to crystallize.

[02:09] Meg: And I was thinking that we didn't have a clear story of what happened at the time because we were young, but maybe nobody did.

[02:17] Jessica: Well, I don't think anybody did, but we all had little bits and pieces. But even just being a parent of a kid who was in that scene, it must have been bewildering.

[02:32] Meg: And do you want to talk about the fact that we saw–

[02:41] Jessica: We have a new friend! Our oft-quoted pal of Flaming Pablum blog fame, Alex, met with us. The poor man. I mean, we sat across from him like a panel of nutballs, but we met at Olde Town Bar and had burgers and beers and caught up and compared notes, and I couldn't have had a better time. We did not stop laughing for about even a second.

[03:13] Meg: So that's going to be the first of many, I'm sure.

[03:17] Jessica: Yes. And I know he will be listening. So I'm just letting you know, Alex, that you are going to be a guest, whether you like it or not. We're going to have you come in as, like, guest commentary.

[03:29] Meg: We should be so lucky. All right, should we get started?

[03:45] Jessica: Meg, what do you have for us today?

[03:48] Meg: Well, my engagement question for you is, do you feel lucky? Do you consider yourself a lucky person?

[03:57] Jessica: What are you, Dirty Harry? Or was that like Charles Bronson. Do you feel lucky, punk?

[04:04] Meg: Oh, no, not in a threatening way at all. Do you just go through life considering yourself kind of like a lucky person?

[04:12] Jessica: Well, you know, I don’t. I'm too much of an anxiety ridden maniac to think of myself objectively as I stroll through life as lucky. But in moments of peace and calm, I'll tell you honestly, the older I get, the more I have these moments where I just think, oh my God. Think of all of the different scenarios that you could have been born into, and from the luck of birth, place, and time, and situation through to like even two nights ago, I was lying in bed and I was like, I'm lying in bed in this really lovely place with my little dog on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and I do things with my friends. Like, what could be better? So yes, I do. It's a very long yes.

[05:07] Meg: Yeah, no, I was expecting an answer along those lines, but more specifically, do you gamble ever?

[05:17] Jessica: Oh, you mean luck?

[05:20] Meg: I expected you to answer the way that you did, but now this is sort of a follow up.

[05:24] Jessica: I don't believe in luck that way. I think we live in a chaotic world and stuff happens that we can assign meaning to and we can backtrack into figuring out how a sequence of events came to take place. But I don't believe in some cosmic luck factor.

[05:49] Meg: Okay, so you don't gamble?

[05:51] Jessica: Oh, hell no.

[05:52] Meg: Interesting.

[05:53] Jessica: I mean, for what?

[05:54] Meg: Money? Fun!

[05:55] Jessica: Yeah, I don't find it fun. I find it very stressful to throw money in the toilet bowl.

[06:02] Meg: Okay. I'll see how you like this story. This will be interesting. My sources for today are New York Post from 2018, New York Times from 2019, lottoanalyst.com and YouTube. In November 1982, Curtis Sharp, a maintenance worker at Bell Laboratories living in Newark, New Jersey, making $300 a week, asked his friend to buy him a New York state lottery ticket from a store near Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was the fourth ticket he'd ever bought in his life. But the next thing he knew, he was $5 million richer. He had beaten the 1 in 1,948,292 odds to win the biggest prize in New York State history.

[06:56] Jessica: Wow.

[06:57] Meg: At the New York Lotto press conference to announce his win, he showed up with his wife Barbara, their three children, his girlfriend Jacqueline…

[07:08] Jessica: Stop it.

[07:08] Meg: …And two of her four children.

[07:09] Jessica: Were any of her four children his children?

[07:13] Meg: I do not know. I do not think so. I think he was dating Jacqueline, but I'm not sure they had procreated yet.

[07:20] Jessica: Was he still married to his wife?

[07:22] Meg: Yes.

[07:23] Jessica: Oh, okay.

[07:25] Meg: Quote, my wife was going to get a divorce, but she seems not too sure now. And he and Jacqueline were planning to marry in July, but she also still needed to divorce her husband.

[07:42] Jessica: This is a tangled web, Meg.

[07:45] Meg: And then $5 million dropped into their lives. Curtis decided to receive 20 yearly payments of $238,695 minus the 20% for taxes rather than a lump sum. He was given that choice. He decided to stay at his job and to use the bulk of his winnings to support his two families, who all got along really well together.

[08:20] Jessica: Shocking!

[08:21] Meg: I know! The pictures from the press conference are all very happy.

[08:24] Jessica: Wow. All right.

[08:27] Meg: Quote, it's something to make them happy. If they're happy, I'm happy. This is from Curtis.

[08:36] Jessica: Don’t tell me someone's gonna kill him now.

[08:39] Meg: No.

[08:39] Jessica: Okay.

[08:41] Meg: No murder today.

[08:43] Jessica: We're having a murder free day!

[08:45] Meg: We're having a murder free day. He arranged trust funds for his children and ended up giving Barbara a home and $1 million. He did end up marrying Jackie and bought a $555,000 ranch in New Jersey and a $60,000 Cadillac. He became quite a celebrity. He was known as the $5 Million Man and starred in TV commercials for the New York Lottery featuring Curtis in his signature gray bowler hat. Is this beginning to ring a bell?

[09:25] Jessica: Yes.

[09:26] Meg: And Lou Eisenberg, who had won $5 million in 1981, the year before. And the two of them are in the back of a Rolls Royce limo. And at the end of the commercial, what do you call that in a car when you–

[09:50] Jessica: Sunroof?

[09:51] Meg: They open up the sunroof and Curtis comes out of the sunroof and yells out to hot dog vendor. And Lou, in the meantime, rolls down the window of the limo. Don't be stingy with the mustard! Do you remember this?

[09:56] Jessica: Yes, this is weirdly ringing bells. Strange.

[09:59] Meg: Yeah, I will post it.

[10:00] Jessica: Okay.

[10:02] Meg: Lou and Curtis had met at Curtis's press conference and become fast friends. Quote. This is from Liu. I was the first Jew that won $5 million in New York and he was the first black man who won $5 million in New York. And we were both just working stiffs. I liked him because he reminded me of me. He was dressed to the nines and came in singing a song. Curtis had his wife on one arm and his mistress on the other. I laughed myself silly. So now I'm going to do an extended side note on the history of the New York State Lottery because it's pretty fascinating.

[10:40] Jessica: Okay.

[10:40] Meg: Lottery games have existed in different communities since forever. But the ways the winning numbers were chosen were always pretty unreliable and easy to rig. But in the early 1920s, a black man who lived in Harlem and worked as a messenger for a brokerage house, Caspar Holstein, came up with a system of choosing the winning numbers that was fair, foolproof, and easy to announce and disseminate. The Clearing House was an operation that managed the exchanges of money among New York City banks and published these numbers in the paper every day. So Casper used the Clearing House totals to produce a random combination of a three digit number. And this became known simply as The Numbers because it was completely random. But it was published daily. So you weren't trusting someone to pull something out of a hat?

[11:43] Jessica: No, no, no.

[11:44] Meg: It's really smart.

[11:45] Jessica: Yes.

[11:46] Meg: And I wrote down exactly, like, how he figured it all out. But that's probably my new show. That is not I'll post that if people are interested. His system became incredibly popular because it permitted a larger number of gamblers to play the same game and the people trusted the game wasn't fixed. Holstein became known as the Bolita King, going on to earn an estimated $2 million from his lotteries. Now he's running a numbers game. In fact, The Numbers provided an underground economy for the black community in New York. Numbers runners were major employers, providing jobs to their neighbors and providing their families with a middle class life and ultimately, generational wealth. The numbers sustained lucky players through the Great Depression. If it was your day, a nickel could turn into $30. And that's kind of a big deal.

[12:45] Jessica: Yeah.

[12:46] Meg: While the black communities were largely underserved by the formal economy, The Numbers filled that void. By 1971, the money from the Numbers was bankrolling many small businesses from bars to restaurants to corner groceries and employing 100,000 workers across five boroughs. It's a pretty big deal.

[13:08] Jessica: Wow.

[13:09] Meg: Right. The Harlem Numbers Runners were often philanthropic and civic minded, supporting the community in many ways. Colin Powell's father bought his family home after he hit it big with the Numbers. Lena Horne's father Teddy was a Numbers runner.

[13:27] Jessica: I have to ask you this. What is a Numbers runner?

[13:30] Meg: Like, he was the guy who organized a numbers game.

[13:35] Jessica: I see.

[13:35] Meg: And if you're the organizer, you take a cut.

[13:39] Jessica: I see. Okay. I got it.

[13:41] Meg: And it's lucrative.

[13:42] Jessica: Okay. So this is pre state game. This is individual lotteries.

[13:49] Meg: Right. And private lotteries. And it’s illegal.

[13:51] Jessica: Yes.

[13:51] Meg: So it's all being done on the sly.

[13:53] Jessica: I get it. I've always heard the phrase running the numbers and I never knew what it meant.

[14:00] Meg: Like, Colin Powell's dad just won, so that's how he could afford his house. But Lena Horne's dad was, like, the guy.

[14:09] Jessica: Amazing.

[14:10] Meg: In fact, it was going so well that the New York State government wanted in on the action.

[14:16] Jessica: Gangsters.

[14:18] Meg: So since 1967, there has been a government sanctioned lottery. But it was kind of a hot mess because they were picking numbers the old fashioned way as opposed to Casper's way. And it was cumbersome and corrupt and not very popular. Because if you can't really trust the people who are running it, it's like…

[14:38] Jessica: Why would you do it?

[14:39] Meg: Yeah. So in 1980, now we get to the ‘80s, they decided, the government, to steal Casper's idea and instituted a legal pick three lottery while cracking down on the street-run numbers games, which by this point were generating 800 million to $1.5 billion a year in the black communities. Now, if the numbers game had been legalized, the money would have stayed in the community. But really, what they ended up doing, the state just siphoned it away.

[15:20] Jessica: I'm feeling rage.

[15:22] Meg: I'm sorry. One Harlem numbers parlor posted a sign in their window saying, quote, does Governor Kerry know how many people are working in the numbers industry? He is sending our families back to welfare. We don't want welfare. We want our jobs. And while proceeds from the New York State lotto were earmarked for education.

[15:46] Jessica: We all know that it didn't go there.

[15:47] Meg: Well, it did. But lawmakers then took the opportunity of this windfall to cut the education budget. But back to Curtis and Lou, our two millionaires.

[15:58] Jessica: Okay.

[15:59] Meg: They lived a good life for 20 years. Curtis loved fancy cars and casinos and giving money to his friends and relatives. He donated to a lot of charities. He gave $15,000 to help victims of the Ethiopian famine.

[16:17] Jessica: Wow.

[16:18] Meg: Beat the World.

[16:19] Jessica: Yeah.

[16:20] Meg: Lou love to travel and also love to gamble. They both really like to gamble.

[16:26] Jessica: Okay.

[16:28] Meg: His alimony payments to two women ate up more than half of his winning.

[16:33] Jessica: Wait, is this Curtis or Lou?

[16:34] Meg: This is Lou. They really did have a lot in common. This is a quote from Lou. It was easy come, easy go. There was always a check coming soon, but 20 years flew by, and then the checks stopped. I started getting payouts at 53. I thought, well, I'll probably be dead by 73, and that'll be that. But Lu lived to be 93.

[17:06] Jessica: Oh, my God. That's like a classic TV sitcom, genie Wish, and I'll give you longevity. Haha. All right. Sorry.

[17:20] Meg: He celebrated his 90th birthday with Curtis in 2018.

[17:25] Jessica: How old was Curtis?

[17:27] Meg: He's ten years younger, so he was 80.

[17:29] Jessica: I love these too.

[17:31] Meg: They were so sweet. So sweet and so supportive of each other. They used to call each other all the time.

[17:37] Jessica: This is the most charming story.

[17:39] Meg: And go like, how are you doing?

[17:41] Jessica: How are you doing? How's your money?

[17:44] Meg: So Lou had run out of all of his money and was living in a mobile home for this 90 birthday party, supported entirely by $1,800 a month in Social Security. But he was happy.

[18:03] Jessica: As long as he's happy, who cares?

[18:04] Meg: He is totally happy.

[18:06] Jessica: Great.

[18:06] Meg: Curtis also spent all his money and ultimately became a Baptist minister. He still had the pension from his maintenance job, because, remember, he didn't quit. Man, but he gave away a lot of that too. Quote, if someone needs something, I help out.

[18:28] Jessica: Well, that's very sweet.

[18:30] Meg: Curtis and Lou stayed close friends until they passed away. Curtis passed away in 2020, Lou in 2021.

[18:48] Jessica: Lou outlasted Curtis?

[19:00] Meg: And neither regretted the highs and lows of hitting it rich. This is a quote from Lou, it was great.

[18:52] Jessica: Are you kidding? I'm in love with this story.

[19:25] Meg: Oh, good. I’m glad.

[19:30] Jessica: Wait, so there's no shoe that's going to drop?

[18:58] Meg: No, that's it.

[18:59] Jessica: They're just happy.

[19:01] Meg: They got money. They lost money, but they were happy and very good friends.

[19:04] Jessica: Incredibly sweet.

[19:06] Meg: And I swear to God, all these women and all these children, no one seemed all that upset with them.

[19:15] Jessica: I don't even know what to say. It's so hard for me.

[19:17] Meg: I mean, they didn't necessarily stay married to them, but who cares? They feel like they were bad feelings.

[19:23] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[19:24] Meg: And you do read stories about lottery winners where things go terribly wrong, horribly wrong. Like, some guy's brother tried to have him murdered so he could get the money.

[19:36] Jessica: Honestly waiting for the who took out a hit on him.

[19:41] Meg: They were nice guys, and they gave all their money away. Well, they gambled a lot of their money, too.

[19:45] Jessica: Yes.

[19:46] Meg: I mean, they were playing the lottery. They liked the games of chance.

[19:52] Jessica: I have a friend who had a friend who I knew well, and here's one of the reasons that I have a visceral reaction that's negative about the gambling. He bought lotto tickets and scratch-off cards in multiples every day and wound up and he had, like, a Wall Street job, but he wound up having to be a roommate in a small room in a multiple.

[20:24] Meg: That's a lot of scratch off.

[20:26] Jessica: Dude, I’m telling you, it was an illness. He had a gambling problem. And, you know, I think when people think about gambling problems, they think about Vegas or Atlantic City or what have you, and, you know, it comes in a lot of forms, and people buying the scratch off cards and lotto tickets and all of that, it's no joke. So, I mean, this is the rosiest version of this story.

[20:58] Meg: Except for the New York State government being so greedy and awful to all the people in the Harlem community who were doing really well by themselves.

[21:11] Jessica: Why let them have prosperity, damn it?

[21:15] Meg: Horrible. Take it back. There's some amazing books, too, about how people were choosing the numbers. There's this whole thing about interpreting dreams, and it's like you dreamt of a sheep or a pig. A sheep was number five, and a pig would be six, and you would go to people and they would interpret your dreams and tell you what your numbers should be.

[21:39] Jessica: This is why gambling, again, does not resonate with me, because it is a world of… I love magical thinking if we all agree it's magical thinking. But this is like, I could set up a storefront and be like, Madame Jessica Psychic will help you interpret your dream. You know, that's not a bad side, gig. Maybe that's my new side gig.

[22:10] Meg: I know, what's so bad about that?

[22:12] Jessica: I don't know. Anyway, but the whole world of the lottery has been, I think, fascinating to people for a very long time, and it pops up in pop culture. Do you remember Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda in the movie. It could happen to you. He plays a cop. She's a waitress.

[22:32] Meg: It was based on the real story.

[22:34] Jessica: Yes. And Rosie Perez plays his wife.

[22:40] Meg: He gave her a tip, right?

[22:43] Jessica: Yes. And of course, it’s a romcom, so the two of them wind up together at the end, and they wind up having to share the winnings or something like that. But it was sweet. And I haven't thought about that movie in decades.

[22:58] Meg: And what was the tagline that you remember.

[23:01] Jessica: Hey, you never know. I don't even know what to do with myself because this is so happy. I normally steal myself for some horror show and I feel disoriented. This is so sweet. Thank you.

[23:34] Meg: Friendship! Alfie, it’s okay.

[23:36] Jessica: Alfie feels very bad that he's not been asked to be a guest on the podcast.

[23:41] Meg: I feel like he is now, though.

[23:42] Jessica: He is. All right. Well, maybe if he sits in my lap, he can chillax a little bit. He's good. So I have an engagement question for you.

[23:51] Meg: Great.

[23:52] Jessica: All right. In the ‘80s, what did you read for pleasure?

[23:58] Meg: I remember Summers of Jackie Collins and Interview with a Vampire and sort of Pulp Fiction-y kind of stuff.

[24:08] Jessica: Yes, I remember. This is pre the ‘80s, but when Judy Bloom's groundbreaking book Wifey came out, that made the rounds in my bunk at camp. Yes. But when we were in high school, what I was thinking of is there was a culture of cool that surrounded us in New York that was really distinctly different from any other city, I think, in the world at that time, which was magazine culture.

[24:42] Meg: Okay.

[24:43] Jessica: We had interview magazines.

[24:44] Meg: Oh, true, yeah.

[24:45] Jessica: And we had a lot of fashion magazines that were coming out of New York. Obviously, they were not purchased yet by giant conglomerates. But there was one magazine that was so quintessentially cool, and it, in my opinion, really created a sensibility and a tone for humor as we even experience it right now.

[25:20] Meg: Humor. Specifically humor.

[25:22] Jessica: Specifically humor, which is Spy Magazine.

[25:25] Meg: Oh, yeah. Was that Graydon Carter?

[25:30] Jessica: Yes. I've read a lot of commentary over the years about how our generation is a generation of smarminess or sarcasm as humor and snark. And as much as I would like to say that's not true, it really is. And where did that begin? At least in my awareness? It began with Spy Magazine. In reality, it was really probably the Harvard Lampoon and then the National Lampoon.

[26:08] Meg: Well, were those the writers that he gathered?

[26:11] Jessica: No.

[26:11] Meg: Okay.

[26:12] Jessica: No. And those guys were more out and out, broadly funny. Spy magazine focused entirely on New York City. It did not care about anything else. It was 100% New York, and it was just making fun of and skewering every person who thought they were something. At the time, I remember thinking that it was just the coolest, the funniest, the most edgy, and it was. But as with so many things in this podcast, I went back and read it and I was like, what a bunch of shitheads!

[26:58] Meg: Well, give me an example.

[27:00] Jessica: But it's still funny. So what I'm going to do one of the comments that we got relatively recently was that someone very kindly said that they liked when I read from the New York Literary Brat Pack. So I'm going to do a little reading today from Spy Magazine. And this is from their very first issue. Spy came out in 1986, and Grayden Carter, who wound up being the editor in chief of Vanity Fair, started it with his friend, whose name, of course, I've forgotten, and a whole bunch of up and coming writers who were not anybody at the time wrote for this, like Luke Saunt, who wrote Lowlife famously, Paul Rudnick. And you can see it online. I'm going to try to do some screen grabs and stuff so we can put it on our Instagram, but you can read it online. There are a couple of issues that are available in archives. And I think that there is nothing that gives a better sense of New York in the ‘80s than these magazines. So I'm going to read three selections. And even the ads are perfect because they have all of the New York Club nightlife people in these ads. Whichever ad agencies were doing these were very smart. So I'm going to read three selections from the inaugural issue of Spy Magazine, and they had a whole bunch of different features that were recurring. And one of them that made me laugh out loud was their crime blotter.

[28:40] Meg: Okay.

[28:40] Jessica: Okay. So just reading this issue came out in October. Spectator sports, october's pick hit criminal trials. And I'm going to just tell you right now some of the things that I've selected, they reference things that we've talked about in the past. So it's just showing you, like, this was a very small pond with everyone talking about the same insanity. Okay, so the public is welcome to watch any of the following New York State Supreme Court trials which will take place at 100 Center Street in Manhattan. The court calendar and trial particulars are always subject to change, of course. So called the courthouse at 212-374-5800 (tel:212-374-5800). First one, Carl Andre, the minimalist sculptor is charged with murder. He allegedly shoved his wife Anna Mendieda from an apartment window. This will be in the chambers of Justice C. Birkman, Criminal Court Part 66. Andrew Crispo, the art gallery owner.

[29:56] Meg: We know him!

[29:57] Jessica: Alfie doesn't like him. Andrew Crispo, the art gallery owner alleged to have participated in the, quote, death mask torture of Agulvesti, the late Fashion Institute of Technology student, is to be tried on a charge of kidnapping someone else in an unrelated incident. And finally, Stanley Friedman, the Bronx Democratic leader and former law partner of the late Roy Cohen, is charged with bribery, forgery, coercion, and tampering with public records.

[30:24] Meg: Wow, I love this.

[30:25] Jessica: But wait, there's more. Underneath that, the Wild Kingdom. Spy's unofficial, highly selective account of incidents to which the New York City Police Department's emergency Service Unit responded during the month ending August 15. Quotes are from the police dispatcher. East Fourth Street. Rat trapped in bathroom. Quote, a large rat. Upper West Side bat in an apartment. New Lots Avenue, Brooklyn, an attack cat. Upper Second Avenue, man with his foot stuck in the toilet. Brooklyn snake that quote, left the scene before officers arrived. An East 129th street dog needs tranquilizers so that police can search an apartment for spent rounds from a gun.

[31:24] Meg: Oh, no.

[31:26] Jessica: And then the last in this really, really dark little selection is, I stay away from the waterfront. Spy's unofficial, highly selective account of incidents to which the New York Police Department Harbor Unit responded during the same month. East River near Market Slip and South Street. Corpse or floater? Hudson River near Gansevort Street and Little West 12th street. Corpse or floater? South Channel Bridge to Broadchannel Bridge, Queens. Shots fired from private boat being pursued by second private boat.

[32:06] Meg: I've got to find out what that one’s about.

[32:07] Jessica: Little Cricket Marina, Brooklyn. Corpse or floater? Harlem River, The Bronx. Runaway stolen barge.

[32:24] Meg: Someone stole a barge?

[32:25] Jessica: And Bergen Yacht Club, Brooklyn. Floater under the dock.

[32:27] Meg: Oh, no.

[32:28] Jessica: So, clearly, dear Alfie is disturbed by this, so let's pick him up. I think that you're going to see why I chose this. Okay, so this is an article called the Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers, and Alfons Damato is one of them. Andy stein, who I believe was head of the parks department. Grace Jones. I don't know why they would say that. They say long before anyone suspected she was anything other than a very large black woman. Ooh, spy magazine.

[33:03] Meg: What are they saying?

[33:03] Jessica: Grace Jones knew she was the greatest. I'm bold. I'm a revolutionary! That was back in 1977. In those days, she was merely a high strung model, taking her first steps into the short lived limelight of disco music. Disco died. But like a loud, uninvited guest, Grace stayed on, gabbing remorselessly, mostly about herself, until the only impression remaining is that of a towering blur of indistinct sexuality, peddling dirty pictures of herself.

[33:36] Meg: Rude.

[33:37] Jessica: Very rude. But you're going to see that there is a little bit of a theme here with another reading that's coming up shortly. They also put in George Steinbrenner. And do you remember Rex Reed?

[33:55] Meg: Sure.

[33:56] Jessica: Okay, so Rex Reed was a critic. But he was much more. So let me ask you, when people say that standards of rigor and good sense were abandoned in the late 1960s, they usually have Abby Hoffman and Beans in mind. But consider this. Back in crazy 1968, Red Reed was a respected figure in American letters whom Time called, quote, the most entertaining new journalist in America since Tom Wolfe. Rex Reed? That period was brief. Fortunately, Reed quickly moved downscale to The Gong Show and the murky middle parts of the New York Post. Unfortunately, however, Reed also moved back to New York. Now nearly 50 and taking up space in the Dakota, he represents himself as the embodiment of waspish wit and show business urbanity. Rex Reed loves New York, and that makes the rest of the country think New York loves him. Reed's epigrammatic put downs are lame and arbitrary, phrases meant to be mean are meaningless. For instance, he once called Womenswear Daily a pimple of a publication with, quote, the sophistication of boiled peanuts. Praise is even more horrid. His positive reviews sound like the overblown testimonials of an unctuous Judy Garland fan after hoisting one too many key royals at the piano bar. Rex Reed makes a living writing sentences in which nearly every word is ungrammatical, awkward, or wrong. So now they've slammed a woman and a gay man, right?

[35:26] Meg: I don't like Spy anymore.

[35:28] Jessica: Well, I'm sharing with you. This was, again, Alfie. This is just another illustration of how we at the time didn't notice so much of the misogyny and anti-gay bias that we were steeped in.

[35:50] Meg: And I wonder, too, if now there's just so much negative trolling that happens that maybe we're a little bit more sensitive to that. And this was just one because it wasn't ubiquitous. This is just one publication.

[36:04] Jessica: This is the only publication that had this tone.

[36:07] Meg: Right, and now I feel like that tone is everywhere all the time.

[36:12] Jessica: And hence, why I am talking about it today. I think it really was revolutionary to be this mean and this snarky in a publication. But those two things that I just read are really mean. But how do we feel about this one? The final of the ten and most embarrassing, Donald Trump. Forget the way he is imposed upon all of us, his idea of class. More a Dynasty notion of panache than anything even faintly evoking that uptown swagger that New York epitomizes. Forget his noxious tactics with tenants he wishes to evict. Forget the sheer cheesiness of Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, and his casinos. Forget the way he seems to have the Times in his back pocket. Forget the hustler on his best behavior manner. In fact, forget just about everything concerning Donald Trump except the stupid things he says. Quote, it would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles. I think I know most of it, anyway.

[37:18] Meg: Wow, I didn't realize that dated back to the ‘80s.

[37:20] Jessica: To on his desire to handle nuclear non proliferation negotiations for the United States.

[37:27] Meg: Oh, my God.

[37:28] Jessica: Quote, they weren't even sculptures. They were stones with some engraving on them. They were nothing, just junk. His rationale for destroying Elijah Khan's art moderne freeze on the front of the old Bonwhit Teller building. Quote, electricians make 100 and some odd dollars an hour. The concrete people just make fortunes. Laborers make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And finally, it's the greatest group of stores – the shops in Trump Tower – ever assembled under one roof. Well, it's probably the most expensive set of stores anyway.

[38:11] Meg: Yuck.

[38:12] Jessica: Right. So that's a little something.

[38:13] Meg: I mean, I know it's our fault. I know it's New York's fault, but we always knew he was gross.

[38:19] Jessica: Well, that's the thing.

[38:20] Meg: We should have dealt with him years ago.

[38:23] Jessica: Well, when he ran for office and everyone in New York just thought it was hilarious because that was our perspective. And it was so galling that anyone we spoke to about it was like, no, he has really good points. Okay, so here's another little something. And again, this is about something that we've spoken about on the cast already, and I referred to it in the very opening, which is Tama Janowitz, one of the young literary lions. But because it's Spy magazine and I looked up who wrote this. His name is Melik Kalin, and he wound up being a nothing burger of a writer. He's a journalist, and he did some coverage, I think, of Afghanistan, but I don't think he was embedded. I saw his website, and the only things in it are from 2008, and he clearly abandoned his own website.

[39:27] Meg: So did he slam Tama?

[39:30] Jessica: Oh, man. This is the most misogynistic, unbelievable thing you could possibly believe today. Yes, you're all sunshine, and I am now filled with bile, but here we go. Free the Tamajanowitz slaves. Surely there is no mistaking this authoritative new voice in our midst. It is Tama Janowitz, fearless writer and female. J. McInerney, says the New York magazine, whose tales of life downtown collected as slaves of New York, have been published and reported on and reviewed ever so widely. She is the star of the first literary video which, if her publisher's publicist is to be believed, could do for quote, writing what MTV has done for music. We need to look that up. Ever since the cover story in New York magazine heralding her as, quote, the most talked about writer of the year, she's been talked about incessantly in the remotest bizars and byways of the English speaking world. Last month, she left the city for Princeton, no less, where she will be the Alfred Hotter Fellow in the humanities. Let us say the name just one more time. Tama. Tama Janowitz. Conjures with it a little, there's a frosty cookie cookiness, a certain Zamy specificity about it. The very sounds evoke a detailed image, as does her writing of the uptowner's idea of the quintessential downtown gal, a sort of rubberized all-weather Lower East Side tamadol with matching plastic pink dress, trashy earrings, and, quote, downtown hairdo. Tama Janowitz has very little to do with literature and everything to do with television. Her own video aside, Tama Janowitz's writing: ephemeral, external, instantly forgettable reads like a transcribed night's worth of rock videos. In the world of the plotless image, the momentary pose is king. And it just goes on and on.

[41:35] Meg: And that is the opposite of what my impression was when you read all three of those people out loud. Hers was the most narrative. It wasn't at all what he's describing.

[41:48] Jessica: Nope.

[41:49] Meg: What the fuck?

[41:50] Jessica: Yeah. So there's a lot that we love about the ‘80s, but this is a really big wake up call for me because I loved this magazine and it was like a blueprint for cool. True cool. Spald and Gray was featured in it. People who really were cool. But reading it now, I'm horrified. I'm absolutely horrified. So I have now ruined for myself a wonderful memory.

[42:28] Meg: Just look at that pictures.

[42:30] Jessica: I know. I started out with this episode being like, yeah, Spy! And now I'm just living in a world of wah wah. And Grayden Carter, he has really made a living out of being an asshole. He certainly made a ton of money for Vanity Fair and from Vanity Fair, and he's a cultural icon. But his perspective when he didn't have, I think it's Conde Nast, over his shoulder. This is also who he is. And it's the boys club. It's just kind of sour.

[43:02] Meg: Yeah, guys tearing people down.

[43:05] Jessica: Yep. So I vote if it's Spy versus National Lampoon, National Lampoon one, spy zero.

[43:15] Meg: Interesting. I'm glad that they're online so that we can post the actual thing and people can see what we're talking about because it's also a visual.

[43:26] Jessica: The layout was revolutionary. When you see it online, it's archive.org (http://archive.org). Lookup Spy magazine. The visuals were completely fresh, and now… it's actually what Grayden Carter did in Vanity Fair. So now it's very recognizable.

[43:43] Meg: Yeah. And what do you think that is about having to tear somebody else down?

[43:49] Jessica: Well, I'll tell you what I think it is with Grayden Carter. So, Grayden Carter, what country do you think he's from?

[43:55] Meg: Britain.

[43:56] Jessica: Well, that's what he'd like you to think and feel. He's Canadian. I think he's a bitter Canadian.

[44:05] Meg: Does he talk with an accent?

[44:06] Jessica: I don't know. We have to listen to him. He is the ultimate, I'm in and you're not.

[44:12] Meg: Well, that's what I was thinking. This sort of like, this is a fantastic party and you're not invited.

[44:19] Jessica: They have a section called Party Poop, and they have photographs of all kinds of people who are, let's see, okay, talking about the legendary Tina Turner wearing a black leather, is it Elia? Yeah. Azadine Elia dress. Okay. So she's amazing. Okay, so they say he says, wrapped for La Mode en Liberté at Lincoln Center, Tina Turner turned up with and in Azadin Elia. Trust up in one of the tiny designers tiny designs, she resembled a black Michelin woman on a diet.

[44:57] Meg: Oh, my God.

[44:58] Jessica: It gets better. Perhaps Cristo, above, could have swaddled her more becomingly, or at least more loosely.

[45:10] Meg: Oh, I hate this.

[45:11] Jessica: Next photo. Mrs. Mitzi Newhouse and her hangers on, come dressed as a marionette theater. Her date was a grand tinker impersonator, and Mrs. Schlong, standing, looked just like, well, Mrs. Schlong. It was all about, I think, male ego. Fragile, Graydon Carter's fragile male ego. If you're black, if you're a woman, or if you're gay, not good for you in his world.

[45:38] Meg: Thank you, Graydon.

[45:39] Jessica: Thank you, Graydon. But yeah, I think he's a bitter Canadian who always wanted to be at the party, and so good for him. He made a party happen and then invited everyone so he could shit on them.

[45:51] Meg: Wow.

[45:52] Jessica: Yes. Although I hear his restaurant’s very nice.

[45:55] Meg: What's his restaurant?

[45:56] Jessica: Well, he bought the Waverly Inn.

[45:58] Meg: Oh, my God.

[46:00] Jessica: It was 100 years ago that he bought it. I used to go there owned it.

[46:03] Meg: And it was just a fun, nice place to be. And when it became a place, it's just so obnoxious.

[46:08] Jessica: Well, once you bought it, you had to go on a wait list to get in, so yeah. So that's a darker side of New York's social life. It's worth looking at. It’s like a time capsule.

[46:21] Meg: No, thank you. This was great. Yeah, and I'll definitely I'll post a bunch of stuff. So because my mother has asked us to give the actual episodes that we reference so that she can, I don't know, listen to them again, which would be lovely if she did. We referenced episode number nine, the Rat Race and Tag You’re It and Episode 14, Mr. Crispo's Dark Arts and Escape From New York.

[46:59] Jessica: Are we self referential, or is the city that self referential?

[47:05] Meg: We are talking about one place in ten years. So it's going to constantly be coming back. I mean, if that's what you mean.

[47:15] Jessica: I think it's what I meant.

[47:16] Meg: Yeah, I think it's what you mean.

[47:17] Jessica: Yeah. I'm not entirely sure what I mean. But yeah, good. Excellent. What else do we have? What else do we have to cover? Anything? Just we're back.

[47:29] Meg: We're back. And what did these two topics have in common? Spy Magazine. What’s our tie-in?

[47:34] Jessica: Donald Trump owned casinos. I know.

[47:53] Meg: He's the glue?

[47:55] Jessica: Well, he's like the really gross, nasty, dried up glue stick that doesn't quite work, and you just keep rubbing it on a piece of paper. Cursing Elmer's. Yeah, that's what he is. You know what I just realized?

[48:05] Meg: What?

[48:05] Jessica: Elmer's glue. I think it's a cow as part of their logo?

[48:10] Meg: Oh, my God. Is that bad? Is that what they’re talking about?

[48:12] Jessica: Yeah, like to the glue factory. OK, that's like, another thing that we now need to look up and maybe not tell anybody about. But I just had this really grim realization. Why a cow, Elmer’s?

[48:29] Meg: Why?

[48:32] Jessica: We all know why.

[48:33] Meg: Okay, let's think again about Curtis and Lou.

[48:37] Jessica: Curtis and Lou live they were such nice people.

[48:40] Meg: They were lovely people. They lived a great life. Whether they had money, whether they didn't have money. They enjoyed themselves and they enjoyed each other. And I think that should be our closer, our closing image. Yeah.

[48:57] Jessica: That New Yorkers live forever and make the best of it. Yeah, I love that. And don't be stingy with the mustard.

[49:08] Meg: Nice.

[49:22] Jessica: Subscribe our channel.