[00:16] Meg: Welcome. You are listening to Desperately Seeking the 80s: New York edition. I am Meg MacCary.

[00:22] Jessica: And I am Jessica Jones. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982, and we got through middle school and high school together. And clearly we are still friends.

[00:32] Meg: Yes. And now we're podcasting together about New York City in the 80s.

[00:37] Jessica: Which is where we grew up and where we still live.

[00:39] Meg: I focus on ‘ripped from the headlines.’

[00:42] Jessica: And I focus on ‘pop culture.’

[00:45] Meg: And I have a good one for you today. Jessica, are you ready?

[00:49] Jessica: Yes.

[00:52] Meg: So, Jessica, my question to you today is: I'm wondering if, by and large, your experiences with your landlords over the years in New York City has been a positive or a negative experience.

[01:12] Jessica: I would say colorful.

[01:14] Meg: Okay.

[01:17] Jessica: Ranging from being completely ignored by them to being asked for the rent every three minutes, to having all kinds of arrangement. It's very personal.

[01:36] Meg: Yes, it is.

[01:37] Jessica: I guess that's what I would say. It's a very personal thing. Well, it's your home, but New York, you're in a constant state of is this my apartment? How long will this be my apartment? Am I staying in this apartment? Do I have a choice about how long I'm in this apartment? So all of that adds up to a lot of interaction.

[01:56] Meg: Well, this story is about a landlord relationship. My sources are Texas Monthly from 1993, People Magazine from 1986, Ephemeral, New York, my standby I love them. And a New York Times article from 1986. When Marla Hanson, I knew you would love this.

[02:29] Jessica: Ah!!! This is such a good one. Okay. Okay.

[02:30] Meg: When Marla Hanson first moved to New York in 1985, she hated it. She was 25 years old and had been transferred here by her boss at JH Collectibles, a fashion firm in Dallas, Texas. She was working as a showroom sales clerk, but didn't see much of a future there. She was making $25,000 a year, which didn't begin to cover her New York City living expenses. And she felt very lonely and isolated. And men kept stopping her on the street and asking to take her picture. She blew them off, figuring they were creeps. But then one of them gave her his card, and he turned out to be a legitimate photographer and Marla ended up signing with Petite Modeling Agency. She was five foot, four inches, so runway was never going to be her thing. But she did quite a few commercial print ads and was featured in a J.C. Penney catalog. On the job, she met Steven Roth, a 27 year old makeup artist. When they met, he offered to wax her legs and bikini line. He said, “how would you like to have my face between your legs?” She replied, “I would find that disgusting, actually.” Undeterred, Stephen Roth encouraged her to move into a model apartment he was renting out. Marla liked the other models who she met, and her share of the rent was only $600 a month. So she moved into 455 West 34th street. This is right near Hudson Yards, near 10th Avenue. And as we've discussed in previous episodes, not a fantastic part of town, but the price was right. A studio apartment in that building now goes for $2,200 a month. Marla quickly regretted her decision to move in. Stephen Roth was always grossing her out with his sexual innuendos. He refused to make repairs and would let himself into the apartment whenever he felt like it. So Marla found another apartment and told Roth she was moving out. He lost his shit screaming at her, but she didn't back down. She told him she was going to take him to small claims court for her $850 deposit and report him to the city for illegal subletting. So Roth agreed to meet her at Shutters, a bar on the same block as the apartment building, and return her deposit. Around midnight on June 4th, Marla met Roth at Shutters. She told some friends about her creepy landlord and they offered to go with her. But she told them she felt safe. After all, the bar was very public and there was a police station on the corner. When she got there, she said she noticed that Roth's hands were shaking, he was sweating and his eyes were glazed over. He told her, when she sat down, “Things come back to you when you're nasty to people.” Interesting word, right?

[05:57] Jessica: Nasty.

[05:59] Meg: Then he said he only had half in cash and he wanted to hand it off outside the bar because so many people were around. As they stepped outside, Marla noticed Roth glancing over his shoulder. She turned to see what he was looking at and two men rushed up and pushed her into a parking lot and up against a fence. This next quote is from an interview she gave to Texas Monthly, so this is all in Marla's voice. “It's a strange experience. It's like you're off somewhere watching yourself. I thought, they're probably going to kill me. I'm probably going to die. I just don't want to be raped. And it's hard to rape somebody who is standing up. I just resigned myself to the fact that I might die. I wasn't upset by that. The short one got around behind me, put his arm around my shoulders and had one hand on my face. He was trying to push me onto the ground, but my legs were braced. The tall guy started waving his hands in front of me. I thought he was trying to tear my clothes off. I kept looking for cars, trying to push their hands away from me. I was trying to figure out what they were doing. I caught Steve's eye and he had this horrified look on his face. And then all of a sudden he came over and said in this loud voice, ‘say, what are you doing to that girl?’ The two guys ran off down the alley. Steve grabbed me and jerked me through the parking lot without saying anything. I thought, now he's the one who is going to try to kill me. So I elbowed him really hard in the stomach and ran. When I ran out to the parking lot, ran out of the parking lot. I saw the blood and started screaming. People just stared at me. I knew I had to get to a hospital. I tried to flag a cab, but I didn't have any money with me. So I ran back into the bar. The bartender started screaming, ‘Oh, my God, who did this to you?’ I said, ‘Steve Roth.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Steve,’ like she didn't believe me. Somebody got me some towels. I sat on the barstool and thought, it's going to be my word against his.” All right, so this is back to Meg. At this point, Marla didn't realize that every corner of her face had been slashed by a razor blade. The muscles that controlled her smile were severed, half her nose skinned. A couple of police officers from the nearby precinct stopped two black men running down the street covered in blood. And Marla identified 19 year old Darren Norman and 26 year old Stephen Bowman before she was whisked off to St. Vincent's hospital. Stephen Roth tried to jump into the squad car with Marla, claiming to be her fiance.

[08:48] Jessica: What?

[08:50] Meg: But the police quickly put the whole story together, thanks to Norman's and Bowman's statements, Marla's accusation and Roth's inconsistencies, and he was in jail by dawn.

[09:03] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[09:04] Meg: I know this guy. She ended up getting 150 stitches and was left with an S shaped scar from her right cheek to the corner of her mouth. There was a media onslaught after the attack. Marla was ambushed by the press in the hospital. She couldn't afford a private room, so the reporters just walked right up to her hospital bed.

[09:24] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[09:25] Meg: I know, right? Can you imagine?

[09:27] Jessica: No.

[09:27] Meg: The phone in the room never stopped ringing. Many offered compassion, but that compassion had an odd tone to it. Most people assumed she had done something to bring this on herself. Just the act of moving to New York implied she was a lost soul who had gone astray. Then, the trial began. Stephen Roth claimed he had been in a romantic relationship with Bowman.

[09:53] Jessica: With Bowman?

[09:54] Meg: With Bowman. This is a strange little twist in the story. And had broken up with him that day. He alleged Bowman had slashed Marla out of jealousy, thinking she was his rival. The jury didn't buy that, and Roth was convicted of first degree assault and sentenced to 15 years. Then came the trial of Bowman and Norman. It was not as smooth. Bowman was represented by Alton Maddox. Have you ever heard of him? He is a, well, Alton Maddox would eventually be involved in several high profile civil rights cases in the 80s, including the incidents in Howard Beach, Bensonhurst and the attack on Tawana Brawley. In his opening statement, Maddox said, I will tell you about a woman named Marla Hanson who was after every man in this city, a woman who preyed on men and their relationships with women. Marla Hanson, a girl out of Texas, has a lot of racial hangups. As she walked up that street, just the simple act of seeing two black men walking, saying nothing to her, acting in the fashion of any two civilized men, she went absolutely nuts. Immediately, she began to think she was about to be raped and immediately began to think about all the fear of black men she had brought from her from Texas.

[11:17] Jessica: That's revolting.

[11:19] Meg: The judge in the trial also appeared to blame Marla for her attack. Judge Jeffrey Atlas told the prosecutor that Marla's alleged flirting with other women's men might be considered improper, low, even. I don't even know where they got this stuff from. She wasn't dating somebody who was dating someone else. This is all completely fabricated.

[11:42] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[11:43] Meg: And this is the judge and the lawyer for the defense. He allowed Maddox to suggest that Marla was promiscuous and manipulative, as well as bigoted. Zero evidence of any of that. He let Maddox introduce Roth's description of Marla as a cunt. Yep. And then asked Marla to define the term for him. She said “the same as a bitch.”

[12:11] Jessica: Go, Marla.

[12:12] Meg: I mean, and I'm noticing in a lot of the stories that we're telling, a trend like ‘blame the girl’ seems like it was happening a lot in the 80’s. Marla did get a lot of support, too. I mean, she's a very pretty white woman. Mayor Ed Koch was outraged by Judge Atlas's treatment of her and demanded he apologize. 80 year old philanthropist Milton Petry set her up with a trust fund that paid out $20,000 a year.

[12:46] Jessica: Really?

[12:47] Meg: Yes. She used it to go to NYU Film school, and she was invited to swanky celebrity parties. At one of these parties held by Keith McNally at his club, Nell's.

[13:01] Jessica: I love Nell's.

[13:03] Meg: She met Jay Mcinerney, the author of ‘Bright Lights, Big City,’ the Bible for the York City fast lane. They started dating, and Spy Magazine took to calling Marla the walking docu-drama. Not very kind. Four years later, Mcinerney married Helen Bransford while he and Marla were, quote, on a break. So obviously, we need to do a Brat Pack story. Eventually, Marla became a screenwriter and married a man she met on a flight to Cuba and had a daughter. Most recently, she appeared on Skin Decision: Before and After, which you can find on Netflix. It's a reality show that follows people through their cosmetic surgery journeys. I watched it. It's actually pretty moving. Marla talks about how she associated her beauty with danger and that for the last 30 years, she's unconsciously made an attempt to hide it. But her daughter wanted her to go on the show to help her rediscover her beauty for herself.

[14:08] Jessica: That's lovely.

[14:09] Meg: I know. I mean, she was beautiful before.

[14:11] Jessica: I remember.

[14:12] Meg: No, I mean, like, now she's beautiful and then.

[14:15] Jessica: No, no, I mean saying I remember the photos from the tabloids at the time, and she was. Weirdly, I was trying to remember what the circumstances were, but I was at a party with her in the 90s, okay? And for the life of me, I cannot remember. But she was like the date of a family friend, something totally random, and she was just this really she was kind of like a ‘Kate Moss’ kind of looking woman. But very pretty. Very Tragic, very sad. One of the many examples of the rampant misogyny of the time, which was certainly a continuation of the rampant misogyny in the United States before that. But yes, really very fucked up.

[15:14] Meg: But I do think that's very interesting that she started associating beauty with danger. That hit me hard. And also that she went to this Skin Decision thing. She went to this plastic surgeon in order to find her beauty again. And she shows up looking beautiful, so she just can't even see herself. Or she doesn't want to see herself.

[15:39] Jessica: Well, it's sort of like Linda Evangelista, another supermodel of the time, of the 80s, who is now in the news because she had cool sculpting. Are you aware of this?

[15:51] Meg: No.

[15:52] Jessica: Oh, my God. Linda Evangelista had cool sculpting done for her Abs or something. And there's a very small percentage of people who have the procedure who wind up having like, weird scar tissue. And she had that happen to her and has been in the news talking about how she's disfigured and doesn't want to leave the house. I think there was something under her chin as well. But of course, to anyone who doesn't know, who isn't thinking of her as she was when she was 24, she looks completely normal clothed, admittedly. But I think beauty is well, you know this as the absolutely lovely woman that you are. I don't mean to laugh. Sorry. No. Beauty is a weapon and it's also armor for women. It's traditionally one of the things that women have had to try to have some leverage.

[16:53] Meg: Well, in Marla's case, though, it enraged him.

[16:57] Jessica: Yes. The weapon against her. Anything, if you're a woman, basically anything you can name is fraught with danger and havoc and some weird backlash. What was that movie in the early nineties, I think it was, with Billy Baldwin. Remember when the Baldwins were cute?

[17:14] Meg: Yeah.

[17:17] Jessica: Before they were shooting people on set. They were firemen. And.

[17:26] Meg: Billy is the youngest, right?

[17:28] Jessica: Yeah, he's the super cute one, not the crazy weirdo. Steven is the father of Haley Baldwin.

[17:37] Meg: Who's married to Justin Bieber. Why do we know this?

[17:41] Jessica: Because 80s, man. I mean, Baldwin, man.

[17:45] Meg: Yeah, I guess.

[17:45] Jessica: But what was that? Backdraft. That was it, Backdraft.

[17:49] Meg: Who was that? That was Stephen Baldwin.

[17:51] Jessica: No, I think that was Billy Baldwin. And I always remember from that movie, if you're in a fire, feel the door. If the door is hot, don't open it. That's really good advice, because then the flames will suck out and backdraft attach themselves to you.

[18:09] Meg: What made you think of the Baldwins? Do you remember? This is just a couple of seconds ago.

[18:16] Jessica: Well, as I have had several glasses of wine, I'm going to have to work a little to get there. No, wait, what was it? Shit. Talking about Linda Evangelista

[18:28] Meg: Beauty being a weapon, but also being used against you.

[18:40] Jessica: And then P.S. Billy Baldwin. Well, it will come to me eventually. You know what? We'll put it on the website. We'll do a follow up on the website. Here's why drunken Jessica was talking about Backlash. Maybe I was just thinking of the word backlash instead of backdraft. Is that what I was thinking? Maybe.

[18:58] Meg: I don't know.

[18:58] Jessica: Maybe. Well, look at the website and you can follow my ramblings. Anyway, yes, Marla totally, totally of that time and just sad and weird.

[19:12] Meg: But I got to say, everything that I read about her, I was really impressed by the way she handled it. And I'm very happy to see that she's got a really good life and a daughter who loves her, which is very sweet.

[19:26] Jessica: That is sweet. Well, thank you for that, Meg, for that trip down memory lane. I didn't know that, like, half her nose came off. That is severely, severely fucked up. Wow.

[19:37] Meg: Well, Jessica, you look kind of excited to tell me something.

[19:42] Jessica: I am!

[19:43] Meg: Okay. That makes me excited.

[19:46] Jessica: Purely by coincidence.

[19:48] Meg: Yes.

[19:49] Jessica: I indeed am ready to talk about what you referenced in your segment. It's what I prepared. But I will ask you a question first.

[19:57] Meg: Okay.

[19:59] Jessica: New York City has many industries that it's known for.

[20:04] Meg: Oh, my gosh, so many.

[20:05] Jessica: Name three.

[20:06] Meg: Fashion, finance, broadway.

[20:10] Jessica: Excellent.

[20:11] Meg: Thanks.

[20:12] Jessica: But there's another one.

[20:13] Meg: I'm sure.

[20:14] Jessica: Publishing.

[20:15] Meg: Yes.

[20:15] Jessica: The publishing industry, which I've been a part of for a very, very, very, very, very long time, has gone through a lot of change in the last 35, 40 years or so, more than it ever did prior. It's pretty much a 19th century model that it runs on, and all of the changes that have happened with technology or taste or anything that pushes artistic expression forward. This is what happens when I have wine before we do a chat. I'm really sorry.

[20:49] Meg: You had one glass.

[20:50] Jessica: No, I didn't. I kept refilling. Baldwins. Baldwin. It became a very in the last several years, particularly what with the ebook and etcetera, it's all changed a lot. But the 80’s was really the last hurrah of publishing as a prestige industry.

[21:13] Meg: Okay.

[21:14] Jessica: And the people who were the stars were getting gigantic advances. An advance, for anyone who doesn't know, when you publish a book, the publisher will give you an advance against your royalties. And then after you earn that advance out, like, say you get 10% of the cover price of the book. Once you earn that out, then you start earning your royalties.

[21:37] Meg: Okay?

[21:37] Jessica: But the idea of an advance was always just to sort of, like, help you get along until your book comes out. It became this monstrous, bloated, crazy multi million dollars for really young people coming out with for whatever was deemed to be the hot new thing.

[22:02] Meg: Right.

[22:03] Jessica: So in that world, like film at the time, like all the other arts, there was a Brat Pack. Yes. Now, the Brat Pack that most people know about are the Hollywood. Rob Lowe. Yes. Baldwin, basically everyone who is in The Outsiders. Right. But it was Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy. Molly Ringwald was kind of fringe for that.

[22:30] Meg: I feel like it was the guys.

[22:31] Jessica: It was the boys, Andrew McCarthy. But who else was in? Judd Nelson. Bad boy.

[22:38] Meg: Yes, I feel like he was very bratty.

[22:39] Jessica: Very Bratt. So they were the Bratt Pack, which, of course, was a riff on the Rat Pack, Sinatra and his pals.

[22:49] Jessica: That was the Brat Pack. But the literary Brat Pack was actually really just three people, okay. Two guys and a woman. And that's who we're going to talk about today.

[23:01] Meg: I can name them.

[23:02] Jessica: Is it because you can see the spines of the books that I've pulled off my bookcase? Okay, hit it. Who are they?

[23:08] Meg: Jay McIneney, Bret Easton Ellis and Tama…

[23:14] Jessica: Tama Janowitz. Okay. So the reason that I wanted to talk about them is that who better to describe New York in the 80’s than the authors of the time who were in their 20’s, who were really making their way by using the city as their inspiration? And each of them had a very different approach. Now, interestingly, Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney both went to Bennington college.

[23:41] Meg: Did they know each other?

[23:42] Jessica: I do not know. I would imagine so, because they were in the same age range. Also, at Bennington was Donna Tart, who in 1991 came out with “The Secret History,” but the first novels of Jay McInerney.

[23:59] Meg: And Goldfinch. I love the goldfinch.

[24:03] Jessica: Yes. “The Secret History” is my favorite.

[24:04] Meg: Okay. But I haven’t read that.

[24:06] Jessica: Are you kidding me? Ahh read it! Anyway, so these two guys, their first books were “Bright Lights, Big City” for Jay McInerney, and the “Rules of Attraction” for Brett Easton Ellis. And Tama Janowitz wrote “Slaves of New York.”

[24:24] Meg: Right.

[24:24] Jessica: All of these were made into movies. Now, Brett Easton Ellis, people think of him as the author of “American Psycho,” which, of course, is huge. But I always remember Brett Easton Ellis because the summer after junior year of high school, I went to Oberlin College for the Theater Institute for the summer, and I wound up getting into a bike accident. Was not terrible, was not great, but whatever. So, I wound up in the emergency room, and I had all anesthesia in my ankle, which had been ripped open on my bike. It was all ugh. But by the time I got back to my dorm room, the anesthesia was wearing off and my leg hurt like hell, and I picked up a book that had just found its way to me. That was, was it? No, no, no. Not the “Rules of Attraction.” “Less than zero.”

[25:16] Meg: Okay. Oh, my gosh.

[25:17] Jessica: Yes. “Less than Zero” was his first one. Actually, it was “Rules of Attraction” that I read at Oberlin, and I couldn't believe what I was reading because even though it was about these college kids, the dissipated lives that they were leading, really, like what we were living. And what we've talked about a bit on this podcast was foreshadowing, that same kind of thing. Lots of drugs and sex and drinking and more than anything else, a sense of alienation, which was a constant theme in New York and certainly major cities of the time. But it was very New York because there was so much money and then so little money in other areas. Like now, the social strata were incredibly divided. And when there was money to spend, it was spent with abandon and usually, in a pretty self destructive way. So anyway, what I thought I would do is just introduce the novels of each of these authors that most relates to New York City. And so those novels are from Jay McInerney, his inaugural run with “Bright Lights, Big City.” Tama Janowitz, “Slaves of New York,” obviously. And for Brett Easton Ellis, because he's from LA, I think originally his first two books were about LA. And then a school like Bennington. But then in 1991, “American Psycho” was published, which he wrote in the 80’s.

[26:53] Meg: All right, see, that makes sense because actually, when you were talking about “The Preppy Handbook” a while ago and sort of the evolution of the uniform, I feel like it leads up to that “American Psycho” uniform, don't you think? With the whole, like, Michael Milton, the white shirt, that whole Wall Street.

[27:12] Jessica: Yeah, well, I think for any, I don't know, any social group, there's always going to be a uniform, right? Like, it's how people indicate who they are.

[27:22] Meg: Slicked back hair.

[27:24] Jessica: Yes. But what I loved about “American Psycho” was he parodied it and brought it to the nth degree, where it was like the shape of your fingernail became part of the uniform. Anyway, so I'm actually just going to do a little reading today from each of these, and we'll go back, and as with most things that I've brought up, we will revisit them at some point. But what I also wanted, why I wanted to read from these three, is that they are very distinct voices. They are very different, although they are completely certainly the two men are of the same ilk. Tama Janowitz went to Barnard, and she was a real downtowner, the other two were preppies, and she was a product of Lower East Side artist culture.

[28:16] Meg: So did she grow up in the city?

[28:18] Jessica: I don't believe she did. I'm looking at the flyleaf. Amazingly, I have the first edition hardcover, obviously.

[28:27] Meg: Is that her on the cover?

[28:28] Jessica: Yes, it is. She was sort of the absolute downtown. Giant hair, sort of like Madonna tule headband and crazy vintage clothes and makeup that was super exaggerated. Very,very cool, very hip. So, I'm going to read a little bit from Tama Janowitz first as the downtown kid. “So now I'm living in New York, the city, and what it is, it's the apartment situation. I had a little apartment in an old brownstone on the Upper West Side, but it was too expensive and there were absolutely no inexpensive apartments to be found. Besides, things weren't going all that smoothly for me. I mean, I wasn't exactly earning any money. I thought I'd just move to New York and sell my jewelry. I worked in rubber shellac seahorses, plastic James Bond doll earrings. But it turned out a lot of other girls had already beaten me to it. So it was during this period that I gave up and told Stashua that I was going home to live with my mother. Stash and I had been dating for six months. That was when Stash said we could try living together. We've been living together in his place in the Village about a year now. One room. It's big, but he has a lot of stuff here: boxes, closets full of papers. While he's been here for ten years, and after his divorce, he hadn't lived with anyone in like, six years or so. I'm getting used to it. In the morning, I clean up some. I walk his dalmatian, Andrew. Then I come back and cook Stash two poached eggs, raisin tea biscuits, coffee with three spoons sugar. Usually around this time of day, the doorman buzzes on the intercom and I've got to go down to pick up a package or run to the store for some cigarettes, whatever. Then Stash goes off to work. He's an artist. He works for himself, and he doesn't have to go in until late. Except recently. He's been out of the house by ten since he's nervous about getting ready for his show coming up soon at his gallery on 57th street. I watch a few soap operas and have a second cup. Then, usually I start to plan the evening dinner. I'll make, let's say, Cornish game hen with orange glaze, curried rice, asparagus. Or it could be fettuccine Alfredo with garlic bread and arugula salad. Nothing too fancy. I take Andrew to the Key Food and tie him up outside, return the empty bottles. Stash likes Coca Cola, Cracker Jacks, eats marshmallows out of the bag. Well, I'm getting used to it. He still complains a lot if I leave makeup on the back of the toilet. He keeps saying, ‘Eleanor, look at this sin’ until I pointed out to him he was regressing to his Catholic childhood. I forget what else bugs him. If I do the dishes and there's, let's say, a little spot of grease on the pail, this just drives him crazy. Clothes. If I have any clothes out or leave any out or if after I wash them, I put them away where he can't find them. If I buy the wrong kind of deodorant, why he has to take 15 minutes to explain to me why he only uses deodorant and not antiperspirant. Antiperspirant clogs up the pores and prevents you from perspiring. It's unhealthy, whereas deodorant just masks the odor. Well, it's his apartment, and if we have a fight or something I sometimes get this panicky feeling, where the hell am I going to go? I have a couple of girlfriends in the city. One is renting out her second bedroom for $650 a month.”

[31:53] Meg: Oh, my God. Just like Marla.

[31:55] Jessica: “The other has a three year old baby and I'm sure she'd be glad if I slept on her couch in the living room in return for daycare services or whatever. But would I be better off? Anyway, I'm trying to learn how to get along with a man. So, what happiness is I went out to this party without Stash. He wasn't feeling too well. And once in a while I really make an attempt to go out without him. It's one of the most difficult things in the world for me to do. I'd much rather go out with him. And when he's saying hello to all his friends I can kind of lurk behind him and smile every once in a while. But I don't actually have to come up with anything to say. For instance, at a nightclub, some guy comes over. Well, he isn't talking to me. He's talking to Stash about business or the softball team they both play on. What do I have to say? I don't have anything to say. Anyway, this party was a housewarming for this couple, Mona and Phil. I didn't know them too well. They had just found a new apartment on 14th street, $1,500 a month. Mona had some money from her parents, a real find, a 6th floor walk up. Phil was a carpenter, and so he could install the toilet and fixtures himself. Most of their boxes and stuff hadn't yet been unpacked. For a while, I sat on the couch drinking a margarita that had been mixed up in a blender and listening to Mona's mother and father talk about their trip to China. They had deluxe accommodations at some hotel in Peking and there was a lottery among the members of their tour group. And Mona's mother and father won and got to stay in the grand suite, which had a fully stocked liquor bar.” If that's not New York, I don't know what it is.

[33:24] Meg: I'm just sitting there thinking, like, why does this remind me. So much of my youth. And then I'm like, maybe this is just maybe it was like this everywhere, but I don't think it was.

[33:36] Jessica: Obsession with real estate. It's the obsession with real estate. Even when you have no money. It's the finding, what I was saying earlier, is finding a place to stay, it's knowing you could lose it any second. And what I also thought was really interesting about it, and we talked about this a little bit with Marla Hansen, is women lived in the 80s, women were still living in a completely separate world than men. They were trying very, very hard and frequently succeeding to break into male dominated social groups or industries. The way that this character describes herself, Eleanor, she's an afterthought, even to herself. She is just another girl with an idea for jewelry. Someone else got there first.

[34:28] Meg: Oh, my gosh. Who does that remind you of?

[34:31] Jessica: I don't know.

[34:32] Meg: Connie Crispelll. Connie Crispell, who had the idea of the subway token?

[34:38] Jessica: Someone else did it first. And also that kind of jewelry that she was describing, like the doll heads and shellac found objects. So 80’s and every nut ball on the Lower East side was selling something like that. Do you remember on Houston they used to sell handmade goods?

[35:00] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[35:01] Jessica: All lined up.

[35:03] Meg: Incidentally, I did just look it up. And she was born in San Francisco, and she moved to New York to…

[35:10] Jessica: Go to Barnard.

[35:11] Meg: Barnard. And then she went to; she got her MFA at Columbia. So she came here and she stayed.

[35:17] Jessica: No dummy, Tama. So in sharp contrast to her, here's the opening of “Bright Lights, big City.”

[35:27] Meg: Okay.

[35:28] Jessica: Jay McInerney’ fame-creating novel. And what I also think is interesting is just, think about the voices here. Tama Janowitz's character speaks; The text is entirely like natural, not dialogue, but internal monologue.

[35:46] Meg: Right.

[35:46] Jessica: This book, “Bright Lights, Big City,” was well known because it's in the second person, okay. Which is unusual. The first chapter is “It's 06:00 A.m.. Do you know where you are? You're not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning, but here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You're at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian marching powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where 02:00 a.m. changes to 06:00 a.m.. You know this moment has come and gone, but you're not yet willing to concede that you've crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there, you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder, and now you're trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots, and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian marching powder, a vaguely tribal flavor to the scene; pendulus jewelry, face paint, ceremonial headgear and hairstyles. You feel that there's a certain Latin theme, something more than the piranhas cruising your bloodstream and the fading buzz of marimbas in your brain. You're leaning back against a post that may or may not be structural with regard to the building, but which feels essential to your own maintenance of an upright position. The bald girl is saying, this used to be a good place to come before the assholes discovered it. You don't want to be talking to this bald girl or even listening to her, which is all you are doing. But just now, you do not want to test the powers of speech or locomotion.

[37:46] Meg: Oh, my God. That's wild. I like Eleanor better. I’m sorry. Am I allowed to have a favorite?

[37:53] Jessica: Yes, of course. Of course. If anyone listening has done cocaine, it's a very accurate description of your brain being a bit fried. Remember, ‘this is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.’ So this is the fried egg of this character. And this character never gets you never know what his name is. But there's another little line here that I think is great. He's talking about his best, worst friend, Tad Allegash. And it says, Tad's mission in life is to have more fun than anyone else in New York City. And this involves a lot of moving around since there's always the likelihood that where you aren't is more fun than where you are.

[38:35] Meg: FOMO!

[38:36] Jessica: Exactly. So that's a stark contrast and absolutely as valid as the Tama Janowitz.

[38:48] Meg: Absolutely!

[38:49] Jessica: Very male, very aggressive.

[38:53] Meg: Very New York

[38:54] Jessica: Swept up in. Yes. And those parties I know both of us know about those parties where you're like, how did I get here.

[39:04] Meg: I love that you just; You did this on purpose didn’t you?

[39:07] Jessica: Well, yea.

[39:08] Meg: That they were both about going to parties, and they were different experiences that they had at the party. Maybe they were at the same party.

[39:12] Jessica: Maybe they were at the same party. And just to round it out, I'll do a very quick Brett Easton Ellis. His, as we know, because most people know this movie is really different. So this is ‘American Psycho,’ and there are a couple of references in here that are going to make you laugh because they are defunct New York Institutions. But this book begins with a chapter titled April Fools. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the chemical bank near the corner of 11th and 1st and is in print, large enough to be seen from the back seat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street. And just as Timothy Price notices the words, a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Le Miserable on its side, blocking his view. But Price, who is with Pierce and Pierce and 26, doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him $5 to turn up the radio be ‘My Baby’ on WYNN, and the driver black, not American, does so. ‘I'm resourceful,’ Price is saying. ‘I'm creative. I'm young, unscrupulous, highly motivated, highly skilled. In essence, what I'm saying is that society cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset. Price calms down, continues to stare out of the cab's dirty window, probably at the word Fear sprayed in red graffiti on the side of a McDonald's on 4th and 7th. I mean, the fact remains that no one gives a shit about their job. Everybody hates their job. I hate my job. You've told me you hate yours. What do I do? Go back to Los Angeles? Not an alternative. I didn't transfer from UCLA to Stanford to put up with this. I mean, am I alone in thinking we're not making enough money.’ Like in a movie, another bus appears, but another poster for Le Miserable replaces the word not the same bus because someone has written over the word dyke over Eponine's face. Tim blurts out, ‘I have a co-op here. I have a place in the Hamptons, for Christ's sake. Parents, Guy. It's the parents. I'm buying it from them. Will you fucking turn this up?’ He snaps, but distractedly at the driver. The crystal is still blaring from the radio. ‘It don't go up no higher,’ maybe, the driver says. Timothy ignores him and irritably continues. I could stay living in the city if they just installed Blaupunkt in the cabs. Maybe the ODM 3 or ORC two dynamic tuning systems.’ His voice softens. Here, ‘either one. Hip, my friend, very hip.’ He takes off the expensive looking Walkman from around his neck, still complaining. I hate to complain, I really do, about the trash, the garbage, the disease. About how filthy the city really is. And you know and I know that it is a stye. He continues talking as he opens his new Tumi Calfskin attache case he bought at D.F. Sanders. He places the walkman in the case alongside a Panasonic wallet size cordless portable folding EASA phone he used to own the NEC 9000 porta portable and pulls out today's newspaper. ‘In one issue. In one issue. Let's see here. Strangled models, babies thrown from tenement rooftops, kids killed in the subway. A communist rally. Mafia boss wiped out Nazis. He flips through the pages excitedly. Baseball players with AIDS, more Mafia shit gridlock, the homeless, various maniacs, surrogate mothers. The cancellation of a soap opera. Kids who broke into a zoo and tortured and burned various animals alive. More Nazis. And the joke is; the punchline is, it's all in this city, nowhere else, just here. It sucks. Whoa, wait. More Nazis. Gridlock. Gridlock. Baby sellers, black market babies, AIDS babies, baby junkies, building collapses on baby maniac baby gridlock. Bridge collapses.’ His voice stops. He takes in a breath and then quietly says, his eyes fixed on a beggar on the corner of 2nd and 5th. ‘That's the 24th one I've seen today. I've kept count.’

[43:26] Meg: Oh, my goodness.

[43:27] Jessica: Does that resonate with you?

[43:29] Meg: A lot of stories for me to cover.

[43:30] Jessica: Yes. That's a lot of rip from the headlines.

[43:34] Meg: That's wild.

[43:35] Jessica: So three different takes on pretty much exactly the same thing and three different social echelons. Wall street, literary, New York club and party scene and then the downtown scene, but all with exactly the same it's, echoing the same concerns and the same fears.

[43:55] Meg: Right. Thank you Jessica, you just painted a picture for us.

[43:59] Jessica: Well, yeah, I sure did. Anyway, I love a good reading.

[44:06] Meg: Well, that was awesome. Thank you very much.

[44:10] Jessica: Well, what I was thinking as a wrap up is in “Bright Lights, Big City,” and actually all three books and what you reported on today and and an anecdote that I told all models models, models, models are are were the bedbugs of the 80’s.

[44:30] Meg: That's true.

[44:33] Jessica: And I think that's something that we should probably take a look at.

[44:37] Meg: Oh, my gosh, you're right. Okay, so there you go.

[44:40] Jessica: Anyway, that was fun.

[44:41] Meg: Thank you.

[44:42] Jessica: Thank you.