[00:17] Jessica: So, Meg, how great is it that we are introducing a new feature to the podcast. Field trip. Field trip. So unlike days of your when it was doing sports that we hated and sweating in Central Park and wishing we weren't there, these are field trips that we really want to be part of. We're taking our recording device, and we are going out into the field and talking to people about New York in the 80s who were here in the we've begun, of course, with our first field trip. Obviously, it had to be at the nexus of all teenage activity on the upper east side. Dorrian's Red Hand.

[00:57] Meg: So what we did is we parked ourselves at the bar and we talked to one person on our left, and then we talked to one person on our right, and we got a bunch of great stories, and we hope that you enjoy them.

[01:08] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[01:10] Meg and Jessica: Field trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[01:16] Guy at Bar: Okay, here's here's the mean. This is a sort of Rubenstein adjacent, 84th Street gang adjacent Dalton story. So, 6th grade, the last year, the last the first and only year I have friends in my high school until senior year at my school, I'm hanging out with all the DND (Dungeons and Dragons) players, and I'm really happy there. I don't know why I didn't just hang out with them. One of them is named you wouldn't know. Okay, Laird. But as these scenes kind of break up, Laird, who's not one of the rich Dalton kids. He's like one of the Yorkville Dalton kids. He's like, in a building on I think he's a building on, like, one of those red brick kind of buildings on East End or 84th and Laird oh, no, it wasn't this is a little more complicated than that. But Laird is the first one to really get into, the DND group kind of collapses. But Laird is one who gets into Throwing Stars and Dark Out. The reason I confused him and then he sort of became a dead, he became like a trouble kid, but now he's a Deadhead Survivalist, very much in the Rubenstein mode. Like, he's got long hair. But the reason I thought of him and this is the story. This is the rough story. So 10th grade, I'm briefly friends with this horrible fucking kid named Philip. And Philip doesn't have any friends at Dalton either. But the reason he doesn't have any friends with Dalton is because he's such a fucking asshole that, A. no one will hang out with him, and B. his entire social scene is York Prep friends. And it's rare. I mean Dalton kids. Really? Dalton kids hung out, when they hung out with other kids, it was mostly other coed at schools that hang out with Riverdale, Fieldston kids, but still very rich. Kind of like evil style. Evil sense of style. Jock, but jockey. Hangs out with these York Prep kids mostly, McBurney kids, does a lot of drugs but is just mean. But we're friends for a while before we eventually got in a big fight, in a fistfight that began well. Yeah, because he turned on me really quickly, as people do. And then he started tormenting me in the hallway as, like, junior year of high school. And he would say things to me because this is that moment where he'd say things to me like, my clothes are worth more than your entire family. No, my clothes are worth more than your life. And he would, like, mean this shit. And he just, like, torment me. And I like, my dad, my stepdad was like I was like, what do I do about this kid? And my dad's like, well, he grew up in Michigan. Depression. He's like, hit him in the head with a plank.

[04:17] Meg: Exactly.

[04:17] Guy at Bar: And so he teaches me some basic fighting moves, and he's like, but don't fight him. Just slap him. And I was like, why slap him? He's like, because that's really humiliating. Just slap him. And so I leave AP History. Phil is hanging out in the hallway with, like, Liz something and somebody else where he'd always torment me whenever I walked out. And I walk up to him, I like, I go get some water. He gives me shit. The hallway is totally empty. I lean over and I slap him. And then I walk back into AP History. He finds me a while later, and we get into, like, a one blow apiece fistfight at lunch. That's it. But the story I was going to tell you, which also feels emblematically 80s, wait here.

[05:01] Meg: Hold on. You're not going to back off of that story?

[05:05] Guy at Bar: No. We each landed, like one blow. We were separated. I had a class to go to. We never spoke again. Fights broke out once in a while.

[05:17] Woman at Bar: We didn't have that.

[05:20] Meg: We were in an all girls school. We don't know what that is. We would just ruin you socially.

[05:28] Guy at Bar: Right, but ask the guys you hung out with from Collegiate. It would have been the same thing. Or the Trinity kids. It would have been the same, maybe not the Trinity kids, but yeah, we got separated fast. But then we just gave each other room after that. It never kind of came up again.

[05:47] Meg: Yeah, you won.

[05:48] Jessica: You said you got exactly.

[05:51] Guy at Bar: It was great. It felt great. It felt great.

[05:54] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[05:56] Meg and Jessica: Field trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[06:01] Woman at Bar: Have a moment. So, long story short, so I was to be married about two weeks ago to a lovely man because I also live in Cannes, and he's from Cannes, but he's also Tunisian. And so there was this whole situation going on. And I get back to Cannes. I'm here at Cartier in New York. I bought him his ring, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. I go fly over there, and I wake up in the next. He picks me up at the train station. Like, total romantic story, right?

[06:33] Meg: Wait, which train station?

[06:35] Woman at Bar: The train station in Cannes. The main one. I went from New York to Paris. My designer who made my dress in Paris, went to pick up my dress, took the train to Cannes. Like the whole romantic love story? Yes. Got to Cannes. He picked me up, I fell into his arms. He held me in his arms. I had all these suitcases. DA DA DA. My whole life was changing. And the next morning I woke up and he was gone. And all the Cartier was stolen. Everything was taken.

[07:10] Meg: Are you fucking kidding me?

[07:12] Woman at Bar: No, not at all. And I was literally on the floor, crying in the hotel room. And my girlfriend, who's there, because, like I said, the wedding was planned, completely planned, in Tunisia. So all my bridesmaids, all my friends, because like I said, I live in France and so I live in Cannes. They said, no, get off the floor. We're going to the police station right now. Went to the police station because it was over 10,000 euro. They said, if he doesn't return it, he's going to go to prison.

[07:41] Meg: Of course he is.

[07:42] Woman at Bar: Yes. So they call him because oh, mind you, he had also blocked me after he stole everything.

[07:49] Meg: Right, because he's a crook.

[07:51] Woman at Bar: Exactly. No need to be sorry. This is a life lesson. I'm one of those ballsy bitches. I live by the seat of my pants and I'm a musician. But I'm also a very independent woman.

[08:05] Meg: Can I ask you, I've been had moments of just like, I thought you were someone you weren't. And what it does to me is I don't trust myself anymore.

[08:20] Woman at Bar: Exactly.

[08:22] Meg: Like, screw that guy. That guy is all, well, that's the thing.

[08:24] Woman at Bar: It's like, how do we know to love yourself. Yes.

[08:28] Meg: How do you trust yourself after?

[08:29] Woman at Bar: And that is the thing. And also, being a single mother of a daughter who's 20 years old here in the city of New York, my daughter. Okay. So how do we navigate that whole situation? Teaching her my mistakes. Like, holy crap a dole, you know what I mean?

[08:46] Meg: Absolutely.

[08:49] Woman at Bar: It's an interesting perspective, being a mother, having gone through this at my age, at 47 years old, mind you. But thankfully, I have an amazing support system. Thankfully, I have my music career, thankfully, I have my daughter. It's all lovely. And the police called him and got all my stuff back.

[09:08] Meg: Oh, my God.

[09:09] Woman at Bar: Yes. So the mystery continues.

[09:11] Meg: So happy to hear that.

[09:13] Woman at Bar: The mystery continues. So they called him because it was over 10,000 euro. It would have been a felony. So he returned it immediately. And supposedly it's like something they do there. Yeah, I got sucked into it. Mind you, I'd also have been single for seven years. Seven years. I really worked hard on myself, working on my music, being a mom. And it still happened. It happens. It can happen at any time. To anyone at the end of the day. Do you know what I mean?

[09:48] Meg: Look, we have to be open enough to trust people.

[09:50] Woman at Bar: Absolutely.

[09:52] Meg: You trusted me right now to tell me your story.

[09:55] Woman at Bar: Absolutely. But this is a universal connection that's happening right now. You and I and your Desperately Seeking podcast from the 80's, love it, this is like a universal connection. I strongly believe in that. These kind of moments, we have to nourish those moments because what else do we have? We're going to be dead tomorrow. That's kind of how I look at it. And like I said, even being single for seven years and planning it and being cautious, it can still get screwed up.

[10:30] Meg: I hope we'll stay in touch. Actually.

[10:33] Woman at Bar: You're stuck with me now, girl. Yay.

[10:36] Meg: I'm very happy about that because I think about this often about how important it is to be open, but also protect and how to make that balance.

[10:54] Woman at Bar: How to figure out very challenging balance. It's a very challenging balance, and I'm still figuring it out today.

[11:03] Meg: And for you to be 2 weeks out of, I'm sorry, a traumatic experience.

[11:05] Meg and Jessica: Yes.

[11:05] Meg: Whether you are reflecting the trauma right now. I mean, there's no question that's a traumatic experience.

[11:13] Woman at Bar: Very traumatic.

[11:14] Meg: It was to have your trust broken.

[11:16] Woman at Bar: But in that regard, too, like, waking up to I mean, literally, a photo I have of all the Cartier boxes just emptied. It was just like, knife in the heart. And the first time I let my heart be opened again. Now what do I do?

[11:33] Meg: All right, well, that's a question.

[11:35] Woman at Bar: Yeah.

[11:36] Meg: When do you date again?

[11:37] Woman at Bar: Not going to, I'm just going to have lovers.

[11:38] Meg and Jessica: field trip, feel trip, field trip, field trip.

[11:47] Guy at Bar: Because the thing is, like, Brad, who had a metabolic thing going on, is dead. And the way I found out well, I think we found out through, like, Dalton alumni, whatever, that Brad had, like, passed in Vegas. But then a couple of years ago, some Instagram story post goes viral because it's this woman who's whose tag handle, whatever is @theheauxmentor. Her thing goes viral because she's like, my sugar daddy's ghost won't stop hassling me. I'm being haunted by my sugar daddy's ghost.

[12:41] Meg: Hello.

[12:44] Guy at Bar: Basically, Brad turns out to have spent his last days in Vegas being sugar daddy to this sex well, to a dancer, at least, possibly an escort sex worker. And she was in his will and everything, and there was a big fight with the family over whether or not she should receive stuff, but she also did that. But then his ghost wouldn't stop haunting her, and she went on Instagram and was, like, to tell off the ghost. And apparently she's like, Brad, you bought me my first broken bag. You bought me my first whatever. You bought me my first broken bag. You bought me, like, you know, my first Louboutin's. You bought me my first horse.

[13:36] Meg and Jessica: Horse.

[13:39] Guy at Bar: But you know what? You know what? My bodyguard, who you thought was gay, I was fucking him the whole time.

[13:53] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[13:55] Meg and Jessica: Field trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[14:00] Woman at Bar: It's a shame, really. It's men that do this to women.

[14:06] Meg: Yeah, it is.

[14:09] Woman at Bar: It's really sad. Pathetic. Annoying. Frustrating. Confusing.

[14:16] Meg: You have a daughter. Do you have a son?

[14:18] Woman at Bar: No, I just have the one child.

[14:20] Meg: I have a son. And I worry. I thought, oh, because I have a daughter. I hear from my daughter that guys haven't gotten any better.

[14:32] Woman at Bar: My daughter says the same thing. It's terrible out there for her. She's like, Mom, I don't even want to date. I really don't.

[14:39] Meg: If the guys my age I thought were not awesome, you would think it would get better generation.

[14:51] Woman at Bar: No, it's gotten worse. It's gotten worse. Because now there's all these applications for dating, and they're swiping and they're doing this, and they can get punani at the snap of a finger now. There's no chivalry anymore.

[15:06] Meg: As a mother, it's my responsibility to raise my son better.

[15:11] Woman at Bar: Absolutely.

[15:11] Meg: I don't exactly know how.

[15:13] Woman at Bar: But you also have no control, and you don't know how, and it's a whole other generation. And like, I was just discussing with the bartender here, it's like when I was a flight attendant, I had a pager. I had to go to this payphone. Everything's different. It's just that we have to navigate differently. We have to navigate differently. It's the same thing with emotions and people and humans and interaction. It's different. It's different.

[15:39] Meg: We're exactly the same. And I don't know how you feel about your daughter. I feel like my daughter is a better version of myself by far.

[15:48] Woman at Bar: Thank you, Jesus. Let's have a moment. Yeah. She's very different, though. I'm much more of an extrovert, and she's definitely an introvert.

[15:57] Meg: Oh, my gosh. My daughter's an introvert too.

[15:58] Woman at Bar: My daughter's like, stop it, mom. Stop saying hi to everyone. Stop talking to podcast people.

[16:09] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[16:11] Meg and Jessica: Field trip. Field trip, field trip.

[16:16] Guy at Bar: Yeah. Okay, so here's like a totally NSFW. Here's what was so fucked up about growing up on the Upper East Side. Childhood divorce at a certain moment. Actually, they both are, but okay, first one is has a birthday party in fifth grade. I don't think you can actually tell the story, but John so birthday party in fifth grade. Here's what I remember. His mom was a shrink. We all go over there. His mom was like, a nice hosting mom. I think he and David shared opposite sides of a very big room, and we're sitting around, David's out or he's away, or maybe he comes back at some point. All I remember is that John had had, here's the details. Remember John had had hernia surgery at some point, and he had a Snoopy stuffed stuffed animal. Someone gave him a heat that he'd put a bandaid on the crotch of. This stays. That's fine. That's not the story. This is just like scene setting. We were sitting around to watch a movie. I can't remember what movie. We were watching it was like a slightly raucous boys movie, but approved. But David's older, and David's got all these porn mags, and we're all sitting around looking at David's porn, and I'm looking at Hustler, right? And I just cannot really believe what I'm seeing. Yeah. And so I come home the next day after my sleepover, and my mom's like, how was it? And I was like, it was good. Now, my mom I think I must have understood by now that my mom was my mom was a Libertine, post divorce, anyway. But I was like, yeah, but we were looking at these porno. We were looking at these dirty magazines.

[18:08] Meg: How old you are.

[18:10] Guy at Bar: It must have been ten, nine. We were looking at all these dirty magazines, and there was a woman putting a guy's dick in her mouth.

[18:21] Meg: Did you use that word dick to your mother?

[18:23] Guy at Bar: I don't know what word I used. I might have said penis. Okay. And my mom was like, yeah. And I was like, Is that okay? And she's like, yeah, it's fine. And I was like, do you do that? And she's like, no, but it's still okay. She said, no, I don't like it, but it's still okay.

[18:44] Meg: That's so sweet.

[18:46] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[18:48] Meg and Jessica: Feel trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[18:54] Guy at Bar: What are the odds that my math teacher in 10th grade would run for the presidency of a newly liberated Haiti and get assassinated? Mr. Volel? Yves Volel. One time, if you didn't want to study geometry, you could get him talking about you get him talking about, like, techniques to resist torture that he learned in Haiti, including slicing the thing that holds your tongue down with your teeth. With your own teeth, to resist torture. One time I was talking in class in the back, and he like, threw a piece of chalk this big of me, like, tiny piece of chalk hit me square in the fucking forehead. He leaves Dalton because Haiti been liberated from the Duvalier's to run for elected office and is assassinated.

[19:53] Meg: Holy. This is like he leaves Dalton

[19:58] Jessica: And within a year, he's assassinated. Yeah.

[20:01] Meg and Jessica: Field trip.

[20:02] Meg and Jessica: Field trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[20:09] Meg: So that was our first field trip.

[20:11] Meg: What do we think?

[20:12] Jessica: Well, it was good to get out. Yeah, I felt very sociable. Yeah, I loved it. I think, look, every time we get anyone to respond to what we're doing, it never gets old that there's a connection.

[20:31] Meg: Right.

[20:32] Jessica: The topic, just age group, whatever it is, the connection is very exciting.

[20:39] Meg: And the idea that it's sparking things.

[20:41] Meg: In other people exactly.

[20:42] Jessica: And watching their faces as they're like, oh, my God, that I remember. So, yeah, I'm giving it a thumbs up and to be done frequently.

[20:54] Meg: Yeah.

[20:54] Meg: Let's do some more.

[20:55] Meg: All right.