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

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

[00:28] Meg: we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: So you know Billy's at Williams.

[00:38] Jessica: Yes.

[00:38] Meg: Which is in Massachusetts. And it snowed. And he was so excited about the snow.

[00:46] Jessica: That was sweet.

[00:46] Meg: And then my phone told me today that New York is going to get

[00:52] Jessica: snow this winter for the first time in ages. Yes.

[00:58] Meg: Winter wonderland alert.

[00:59] Jessica: Do you. We always. I always bring this up. I'm so predictable. I know, I know. But I will never get over the beauty of the storm. Gosh, it must have been in the. Sometime in the aughts. The city was so blanketed in snow that people were cross country skiing down fifth Avenue. And I was just like, that is. It was as close as we ever got to being like. This is what it was like in the olden days.

[01:25] Meg: And it's so quiet when it snows.

[01:28] Jessica: Yes, it is so quiet.

[01:30] Meg: The snow kind of muffles everything, you know?

[01:32] Jessica: So I just spent almost the last week on Fire island and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I was sleeping so well and so late. And I was like, you eejit, there's no cars. You dumb, dumb. And I was like, oh, my God, that's it. This silence. Like, it took me a minute to get used to it and then another minute to recognize that's what it is. But oh my God, I feel like everyone in New York should get a free pass from like, what's the, what's the. The coupons, like, to go to the spa, like the, the Groupon. Everyone should get a Groupon to go to an isolation tank. I. I don't know. But to go to an isolation tank, I think that that would solve so many problems. Just interesting.

[02:20] Meg: You know, they have those bands. I've got like a sleep band. And you put it and it blocks out all the light and it also blocks out all the sound.

[02:30] Jessica: Like a noise canceling Bose kind of thing. I need that very badly.

[02:34] Meg: It's pretty cool.

[02:35] Jessica: I mean, I do it totally, you know, Jerry Riggs style with an Amazon sleep mask and earplugs that don't quite do the trick.

[02:45] Meg: Time to upgrade, babe.

[02:46] Jessica: I think it is time.

[02:58] Meg: Your dad grew up in Brooklyn, am I right?

[03:01] Jessica: You are correct.

[03:02] Meg: Where in Brooklyn, if I may ask?

[03:04] Jessica: Brownsville.

[03:05] Meg: Okay. I don't Know where that is?

[03:09] Jessica: Neither do em. I know that it was. I think we've talked about this before. That it was the home base of Murder Incorporated. Yeah. And then it. And now it's just like a really, really rough neighborhood. Okay, like, like just pretty crime laden.

[03:29] Meg: All right, would you tell me a little bit about what he's shared with you, about what it was like to grow up in Brownsville before it turned into Murder Incorporated, blah, blah, blah.

[03:41] Jessica: No, no, it was Murder incorporated in the 20s and 30s, and it, you know, it continued on a little bit.

[03:48] Meg: She grew up in a crime ridden neighborhood.

[03:50] Jessica: No, no, no, no. Think about Little Italy. Safest streets you can be on because the mob is controlling it, so no one's gonna mess with you. So Brownsville, back then with Murder Incorporated, like Louis Lepke and Bugsy Siegel and

[04:06] Meg: people like that, like a different group of people. In the 80s, you're talking about 20s,

[04:12] Jessica: you asked what was it like for him to grow up there. So he, when he was born in the late 30s, it was really, it was very Jewish, but not exclusively. Like everyone knew everyone else's business. All the moms knew exactly where all the kids were. You couldn't get away with anything. You know, you coughed wrong and you know, Mrs. Schwartz would be like, I'm gonna tell your mother. The, the kids were out on the streets all day. You know, that kind of. They. And they were definitely not bookish. They were kind of tougher kids. But they all went to. From that neighborhood. Not all, but a lot of them went to Bronx Science. You know, I don't know if Stuyvesant was around at the time. A lot of immigrants, so very aggressively upwardly mobile.

[05:02] Meg: Okay. That is such a great lead in to my story.

[05:06] Jessica: Excellent.

[05:08] Meg: All right, My sources are the New York Times, an article by mark gaddo in crimelibrary.com and the Killing Fields of East New York by Stacy Horn. This book was recommended to me by BFF Elise ages ago and I started reading it and then I put it down and then I picked it back up again for today and I'm super, super excited, excited to share with you. It's an exhaustive book and I'm just going to give a little bit of info that I found out from it, but it is highly, highly recommended. This book, fabulous. It's a page Turner.

[05:54] Jessica: Great.

[05:55] Meg: In September 1982, a memorial was held in East New York, Brooklyn for Randolph Evans, a 15 year old boy who had been shot dead on Thanksgiving Day 1976. Now, in the late 70s and 80s, about a third of the murders in East New York went unsolved. It was a rough neighborhood, but back in the 50s, East New York was the thriving home of working and middle class German, Italian and Jewish families.

[06:31] Jessica: Correct. And my father was in high school in the 50s at Brooklyn Tech.

[06:36] Meg: Okay, there we go.

[06:38] Jessica: Yes, that. That rings very true.

[06:40] Meg: I wish we knew where Brown Brownsville was in relation to East New York, but my guess is it wasn't far away because Brooklyn isn't that big.

[06:51] Jessica: As we know from the opening of welcome Back Cotter, it is the fourth largest city and yes, though still large, a subdivision of New York. Okay, I'm done.

[07:04] Meg: By the 80s, though, East New York was called the Killing fields. People were murdered so often and in such numbers that if it wasn't obvious who had pulled the trigger, the case was shelved. But everyone knew who killed Randolph. On Thanksgiving at 11pm There were reports of a man with a gun at the Cypress Hills housing Project.

[07:31] Jessica: Oh my goodness. Really? As in Cypress Hills wrappers?

[07:36] Meg: Oh, interesting.

[07:38] Jessica: Yes.

[07:39] Meg: Officers Robert Torsney and Matthew Williams of the 75th Precinct responded. They went to the second floor and saw that two other units had already responded. So now there were four other officers there. As it turns out, there was no gun, but there was a family argument and the police, who were already there, had settled it. Now, the six policemen then returned to their cars. As Officer Torsney walked outside the building, a group of six boys approached him. According to Mark Williams, Randolph's 16 year old friend, quote, Randy asked, did you go into apartment 7D? And the cop walked up to him and said, damned right, then shot him in the head.

[08:33] Jessica: Mark got shot in the head.

[08:34] Meg: Randy did.

[08:35] Jessica: Randy ran.

[08:36] Meg: Okay, Mark is our witness.

[08:37] Jessica: I got it. Okay.

[08:40] Meg: And then the cop walked over. This is still in quotes. The cop walked over and flashed a flashlight in Randy's face, then turned, walked to the curb and started running toward the car. Close quote. The other policeman shouted out to Torsney to stop, but Torsney got in his squad car next to his partner, Matthew Williams. No relation to young Mark Williams. So we've got Matthew Williams was Torsney's partner and Mark Williams was Randolph's friend.

[09:15] Jessica: Right.

[09:15] Meg: Okay, got it.

[09:17] Jessica: His partner and Billy goes to Williams, but we'll go back. Sorry. Okay, go ahead.

[09:24] Meg: So his partner turns to him when he jumps into the squad car and asked him, what did you do? Torsney answered, I don't know, Maddie. What did I do? While he reloaded his gun, menacing Officer Torsney, Was arrested. And when questioned, he said, quote, he, meaning Randolph Evans, was talking to me. I don't remember exactly. I remember not being in my body, sort of. At his trial for second degree murder, Torsney claimed Randolph was reaching for a gun. There was no gun. And all the witnesses, including his fellow officers, said the shooting was completely unprovoked. The psychiatrist for the defense claimed he was, quote, suffering from a psychomotor seizure, A sort of mini stroke which leaves no telltale signs and may never return again. An extremely rare condition called automatism of Penfield. The all white jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was sent to Creedmoor. But he showed no signs of suffering from any mental illness. No one had ever heard of automatism of Penfield. So after a year, during which he was often allowed to go home, he was officially released from Creedmoor. Case closed. Crazy, right?

[10:58] Jessica: So who was behind that, I wonder? Well, first off, that sentencing and that. That psychiatric forensic psychiatrist, like, where'd they dig that guy up from?

[11:10] Meg: Where they dig that guy up from?

[11:12] Jessica: Yeah. And having dated a forensic psychiatrist, I can tell you they ain't no good.

[11:18] Meg: Oh, I didn't know that.

[11:19] Jessica: Yes.

[11:20] Meg: Tell me that story later.

[11:21] Jessica: Yes.

[11:22] Meg: One thing that came up in court that the jury didn't put much weight in was that he, he, meaning Torsney, was really pissed about having to work on Thanksgiving and had written, quote, happy working felony Thanksgiving in his police memo pad. And also that he had shared with his psychiatrist, quote, I can't say I like black people, but I don't let that affect me. There's a lot of violence down there. My life is in danger. Local east New York paper, the link, published an article in response. In poor communities, policemen don't see human beings, only potential danger. Frightened, poorly trained and prejudiced policemen are as dangerous to us as inadequate police protection. We do need more police, but we need police who are concerned about the people they are supposed to protect. The patrolmen's union defended Torsney, quote, in the dark shadows of a high crime area, he did what he had to do to protect himself.

[12:33] Jessica: What utter twaddle. That is just serious, like, appalling.

[12:39] Meg: Appalling. And I don't know if you've heard of. There's. There's a movement that is unsuccessful to make sure that policemen are taken from. That the policemen are taken. Used to patrol areas, are actually, like, live nearby.

[12:56] Jessica: Yes, I have heard about that.

[12:57] Meg: Instead of, like, Staten Island.

[13:00] Jessica: Yes.

[13:01] Meg: Sorry.

[13:03] Jessica: What's that called? Like, cop. Is it cop town?

[13:05] Meg: Yeah. I think so. Yeah. But it. Unfortunately. Yeah, it seems unfeasible. And also the police union is totally against it. But you see what the benefit would be. You would see an actual neighbor of yourself as human instead of not well.

[13:25] Jessica: And you would be protecting your own community.

[13:28] Meg: Exactly.

[13:29] Jessica: And that is very, very different.

[13:31] Meg: Yes. How did East New York get this way? Now, we're gonna take a little bit of a history lesson here.

[13:41] Jessica: I'm very excited.

[13:42] Meg: How did it get from that beautiful neighborhood that you described your father living in to this kind of killing field? Literally killing fields.

[13:54] Jessica: So was. Because East New York and Brownsville are not the same.

[13:57] Meg: True. But it sounds kind of similar, so.

[13:59] Jessica: Okay, so the description was. Was on par. Yeah, gotcha.

[14:03] Meg: All right. There were a number of factors. The Vietnam War brought back traumatized, mentally unstable, drug addicted men, for one. But much of the destruction of the neighborhood can be tracked back to white collar crime.

[14:21] Jessica: Fascinating.

[14:22] Meg: During the Depression, the Federal Housing Administration was established to jumpstart the housing industry by making loans available to home buyers. But not just any homes, anywhere. The government came up with a color guide for neighborhood desirability to protect its investment. If your desired home was in a green zone, Upper east side, for example, would be a green zone. You're going to get that loan if it's in a red zone, forget about it. Half of Brooklyn was red zoned. What made an area red zoned? Usually it was because there were some black residents. Even one would make it a red zone. The Johnson administration tried to address this with the Housing and Urban Development act in 1968, which had the goal of providing a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family. It also prohibited discrimination. So formerly redlined areas were now considered acceptable for loans.

[15:31] Jessica: Yay.

[15:32] Meg: That's a really good thing to do, right?

[15:34] Jessica: Indeed.

[15:35] Meg: But just in case the lenders were nervous about it, the FHA set up a special risk insurance fund to cover foreclosures.

[15:47] Jessica: Also very interesting.

[15:49] Meg: If the buyers showed they could make minimum payments and the houses passed inspection, the lenders were protected. So exciting too, right? You're not gonna just be a renter, you're gonna be a homeowner. It's straight out of. What's that freaking movie? It's a Wonderful Life.

[16:08] Jessica: Except I bet there's a pot of money now that everybody wants to take a big ladle full out of.

[16:13] Meg: How did you know that?

[16:15] Jessica: Because I know the people are. That's what they probably would want to do.

[16:20] Meg: Speaking of which, Harry and Rose Bernstein, who owned the mortgage bank Eastern Service Corporation, Saw an opportunity to get really, really rich. Step one, get rid of the current residents by scaring the bejesus out of them. Black people will ruin your neighborhood and property value.

[16:44] Jessica: White flight.

[16:45] Meg: Yeah, so that's called blockbusting. Step two, now you got an empty house, right? Step two, buy up the neighborhood at bargain basement prices. Like, you gotta go now. You gotta go now, now, now, now, now, now. Ah, they're running away and they're not even getting the value of their property. Step three, appraise the property at more than it's worth. Step four, convince a low income family that they can afford it and create false credit reports so they appear to qualify. Step five, loan them the money. When they move into the rundown home that they can't afford to fix or maintain, they will default on the loan, you will foreclose on them, and the government will make you whole. Once you evict the family, you just find another one to take advantage of and start all over again.

[17:42] Jessica: That seems like a lot of work.

[17:44] Meg: Well, it's worth it if you're gonna make $200 million.

[17:48] Jessica: Good grade.

[17:49] Meg: The Bernsteins and the people they bribed built the government out of $200 million and systematically ruined a neighborhood in just a few years. The residents were left bankrupt and homeless. The government, in the meantime, didn't see them as victims. Rather, they saw an opportunity to walk back. Programs. Nixon said, quote, some of our programs to help people buy or improve housing are also backfiring. Too many of the owners fail to meet their payments and the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. So no mention of all these predators. It's got to be their fault that they couldn't afford their own house. Horrible. Harry and Rose were eventually caught and sentenced to five years. They served less than two. The Killing Fields of East New York by Stacy Horn is subtitled the first subprime mortgage scandal, a white collar crime spree, and the collapse of an American neighborhood. It draws a pretty straight line from the financial crimes in East New York to its street crimes to its. To its tragedies, like the killing of Randolph Evans.

[19:08] Jessica: Yet another feel good, feel good moment in New York City history. Come visit the Big Apple anytime.

[19:18] Meg: But it was crazy. People talking about, like, in the 60s, they were like, this is a blissful childhood. It's like what you described your father describing Brownsville like. And then just literally a handful of years, not even a decade later, it's like, oh, my God, we can't walk from this block to that block without getting shot.

[19:42] Jessica: Yeah.

[19:43] Meg: And it was all, there's all this. The book is incredible. There are all these other sort of details that come into it. Like there were no street signs and the city wouldn't replace the street signs. And you would think like, well, is that such a high priority? It's a huge deal when you don't know where you are and that, yeah, when you make an entire population homeless, you're gonna get some desperate people. And then of course you throw in crack.

[20:14] Jessica: But as it turns out, I love you're like. And then just for the spice of life, we're gonna sprinkle some crack in there, I think. But they, the point is that the

[20:22] Meg: people were blamed for all of this when they were like systematically turned into poor people.

[20:30] Jessica: It's the kind of despicable where it's like, what is there to say once you have all of that research sort of spread out in front of you? It's, I mean, I'm saying the most trite nonsense. But people want the money and they will do what they can do to get it. What I think is really fascinating is that it took them so little time to get people to give up their homes. That's the one piece that like, I understand, like, you know, the blacks are coming, the Puerto Ricans are coming. It's 1960s, late 60s America. You should be terrified. And that, that would be some absolute nonsense that would be, you know, put in front of people who are prone to white flight. But for it to be so thoroughly useful, to be so effective, like I

[21:20] Meg: think basically what they were saying, they were calling them non stop. One woman said that her phone never stopped ringing. It was an onslaught of harassment. And also your house is going to be worth nothing. So you invested all, you know, or your parents did, like the past couple of generations, two to three generations that you guys have been living in this neighborhood, you're gonna lose it all. You're gonna be penniless, you're gonna be homeless if you don't go. Now, now, now, now, now.

[21:53] Jessica: It also makes me wonder about, you know, like neighborhood associations and that sort of thing at the time. Because these were close knit neighborhoods. And for everyone to be like, well, this outsider is calling and telling us that this is what's going to happen and for their not to.

[22:09] Meg: They were insiders. They were insiders. I mean Rose.

[22:14] Jessica: And I'm not saying that the people who lost their homes did something wrong. I'm just as a, you know, a Monday morning quarterback. I'm just kind of like, wow, no second opinions. It's just that terror, basically, I guess it's that it's pretty easy to sow seeds of terror. And it catches on fast.

[22:37] Meg: And your neighbors, all your neighbors are leaving.

[22:40] Jessica: Well, that's the thing, I guess, is also like, suddenly you're in a, a ghost town. And now what's going to happen to me if I'm the only one in the ghost town? That could be really terrifying. It's just very sad. And that it persists 50 years later, 55 years later is amazing.

[23:00] Meg: The response of the government wasn't like, oh my God, first of all, it took them forever to catch the white collar criminals, and then what, they gave them five years, whatever. I mean, the fines were minuscule as well. Honestly, they kind of like got away with it to a degree. But then to also not go, oh, we can help this community, instead of it's their fault. And when they think it's their fault, they're like, oh, well, that's throwing good money after bad. And we're not going to do that. We're going to put whatever resources we are in a sauce of the 70s and we didn't have a lot of resources. You know, New York had like just a little bit to share to pass around.

[23:45] Jessica: Well, what's the time frame crossover with Ford telling the city to drop debt?

[23:50] Meg: I think that was 76. Am I making that up? Are you saying that the, the city went bankrupt because of this?

[23:57] Jessica: I think it's crime. I think it's part of it. I think that the city going bankrupt and the feds refusing to help it has to have some connection, if not the all the routes, at least a connection to this kind of opportunistic theft, white collar crime that could not possibly have been limited exclusively to the Bernsteins. There must have been tons of people who could see that there were these loopholes. And because it was the time of white flight, this is when everybody was going to the suburbs anyway. And you have done segments for this podcast about the devastation in the Bronx and like, what happens when everyone's gone and what happens when the city tries to revitalize? Oh, let's put some decals on the buildings and convince people to invest in garbage. There were a lot of not only unexplored by the federal government, but not even understood what kind of opportunistic crime is going on in the city to just empty accounts as well as cronyism within the administration and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, I think there has to be a link.

[25:16] Meg: It's not just the Bernsteins. But they are such a good example, and they're so colorful. This description of Rose when she was in. When she went to try to her trial, she wore a neck brace. And then somebody caught her in the bathroom without the neck brace so she could put on her lipstick. It's like Rose. I mean, these people had no shame.

[25:41] Jessica: I mean.

[25:41] Meg: Oh, and their son took up the mantle. So there was another generation of. Of. Well, why not bilking?

[25:50] Jessica: Why not? When you find out that all your parents get is two years in Club Fed. Yeah, why not? You're not gonna get in trouble.

[25:58] Meg: It's the family business, too.

[26:01] Jessica: Exactly. We both know what we want to

[26:04] Meg: talk about right now, but we're not going to do it.

[26:06] Jessica: Not going to take the bait.

[26:07] Meg: But our listeners know what we're thinking, and they're developers.

[26:10] Jessica: Thinking New York City developers.

[26:12] Meg: All right.

[26:13] Jessica: Very interesting.

[26:14] Meg: Yeah. Read this book, if you can. The Killing Fields of these New York. Stacey Horn, you are amazing.

[26:31] Jessica: As you know, Meg, I've been a fan of covering all things related to ridiculous sex nonsense on this podcast, starting with episode number one, and as have you with police porn and the like. And we've had many rousing conversations about this. In 1984, in Suffolk County, a little something happened, and I found it so hilarious because of the character involved that I had to share it with you guys.

[27:05] Meg: Great fun. Fun.

[27:06] Jessica: So here on the cast, we've talked about Robin Byrd, Al Goldstein, Playboy, Playgirl, your police spread. I get a kick out of it. But there are people who did not get a kick out of anything pornographic in the 80s, as we know. One of them being the hilariously named, in retrospect, WAP group, Women Against Pornography. Andrea Dworkin, Adrienne Rich, who we've also talked about. Indeed.

[27:35] Meg: And we've talked about Plato's Retreat. Now I'm thinking about all the crazy sex stories. Yes, you should have, like, a whole, like, series where we just, like, list

[27:43] Jessica: all of the, like, episodes. Shenanigans with an exclamation point. And, of course, we talked about with wap, Lynn Campbell, who would stand outside of Bloomingdale's with the famous Hustler cover, with the woman in the meat grinder. The woman in the meat grinder being a very important part of this little story. Wap, again, was against it, but so was a particular council member in Suffolk county, and we're gonna talk about that today.

[28:14] Meg: You know, this podcast has made me really appreciate Suffolk County.

[28:20] Jessica: It. It is a hotbed of crazy.

[28:22] Meg: It just gives us some of our best Stories. I have to say it.

[28:26] Jessica: It really, really does. In 1984, on November 12th. Hey, your birthday.

[28:33] Meg: Yes.

[28:33] Jessica: The Suffolk county legislature was going to debate and vote on the most sweeping anti pornography bill ever in the United States. And it was going to happen the following Tuesday. And the bill was going to define smut more broadly than any state law or federal law. Now, now, why would this be? I don't know what's happening in Suffolk county, what isn't. Also, just to be clear, not just against smut, it was very specifically against sexually explicit subordination of women.

[29:10] Meg: Okay, Right. It is specific.

[29:12] Jessica: Right. And it would permit civil lawsuits, civil, not federal cases, against distributors of this material. And it could be so, meaning it could be brought by any member of the public saying, you distribute porn. Therefore, if. If this bill passes, it's against the law. I'm able to invoke the law as a private citizen and say, shut it

[29:37] Meg: down so I can sue the newspaper guy on my corner. Yep, fascinating.

[29:42] Jessica: Yes, very good point. Because distributor could be a whole publishing company.

[29:47] Meg: Right.

[29:48] Jessica: And it could be the trucking. It could be the guy on the corner. Right. So anything. And they could sue personally for damages because they had been offended by the pornography. Ooh.

[30:02] Meg: I mean, that's.

[30:05] Jessica: Oh, well, yeah, it's a little problematic. Exactly.

[30:11] Meg: Because as we know, some people are rather offended by a lot of things.

[30:16] Jessica: They don't like the stuff, so. Yes, that's true.

[30:19] Meg: And lady and meat grinder.

[30:22] Jessica: Lady and a meat grinder. Obviously, they had a good point at heh wap. So. And what was also very surprising is that even though the bill was focused on women, and again, like, that was what was going on at the time. There were a lot. It was a rise of feminism. It was the rise of separatist feminism. It was like these. The expected spokespeople, like, keep who those people are in mind right now. In addition to any kind of harmful depiction of sexual activity towards on around women, this bill was also extended to cover homosexual and child pornography. Now, those three things don't normally get lumped together because at the time, there wasn't anyone really championing gay rights with porn, child pornography. It was so obvious, like, that's not something that you're going to break out. That was a. That was a federal criminal offense.

[31:29] Meg: Right.

[31:30] Jessica: And then there's women. So who would bring this together? Michael DeAndre, a Republican legislator from St. James, Long island in Suffolk county, is our man. Now, a lot of people thought that this was going to pass, but the county executive, Peter Callahan, Said he would veto the measure. Now let. Now why. Why would this happen? So let's take a moment to hear from Mr. D' Andre and the mentality that is backing this whole movement. He says, quote, if pornography is okay, I fought World War II for nothing. Let's. Let's just let that sink in.

[32:14] Meg: Really interesting. Nazis pornography.

[32:18] Jessica: It's bad enough, he says, when you read Edgar Allan Poe's books.

[32:24] Meg: What.

[32:25] Jessica: But at least you have to have an imagination for that now. There's nothing lewd in Edgar Allan Poe. So I actually, being me, this guy's name. Michael. Michael d'.

[32:37] Meg: Andrey. Michael.

[32:37] Jessica: He. Now I, of course, being me, did a little bit of a dive into Edgar Allan Poe's works. And I was like, what if this guy is right? Like, what if there's some poem, some short story where it's like, it's not just the telltale heart. There are some other organs that might have a tale to tell. Like, who knows?

[33:01] Meg: Did you workshop that?

[33:02] Jessica: No, no, no, no, no. I just thought that was off the

[33:04] Meg: top of your head.

[33:04] Jessica: Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you.

[33:07] Meg: Very good.

[33:08] Jessica: Sometimes I get enough sleep and I can come up with this. So I did a little. A little search. Literally, how I have a visual. Sorry, Literally. Literally. Nada. Nothing. Zero. There is no academic school of thought that has pinpointed Edgar Allan Poe as problematic. Yes, his work was in the gothic genre, which did, for some authors, cloak a lot of sexual undertones and darkness. But Edgar Allan Poe was just like, things are being horrible and haunted and you're murdered. And I don't know, there's that person in that house who's creepy. No, but nothing. No, no, no. The only people who might have thought that there was briefly a school of thought amongst Freudian analysts that they're. And like, that's like saying the sky is blue. There is a school of thought that it tempted to get this out there. And every other psychiatric and academic group was like, no, go home.

[34:18] Meg: Yeah. I'm trying to think. Most of the victims in P.O. are men.

[34:24] Jessica: Yeah.

[34:24] Meg: I mean, there's not a lot of women running around either.

[34:27] Jessica: Yeah. This just tells us a little bit that Michael d' Andre is a bit off his rocker. So you were talking about people being off their rocker and, you know, the horrible policeman who murdered that poor boy. And what does off your rocker look like? Here's another example of what off your rocker could look like.

[34:47] Meg: It's like the male equivalent of white lady.

[34:49] Jessica: Yes, yes. But. But actually crazier. So let. Let us continue. So the bill which civil liberties lawyers and county attorneys say violates state constitution and the First Amendment were like, no. But it was one of many attempts across the country for state or county legislatures to try to bring anti pornography bills to a vote. And why was that happening? Well, what happened in 1984? Ronald Reagan was reelected and we got deeper and deeper into conservative, quote, family values. So that opened the door for Republicans like d' Andre to force a personal moral code. Thank you. I was like, ethics. No, that's not it. Moral code.

[35:45] Meg: It's like that woman who wouldn't make a cake for the gay marriage.

[35:49] Jessica: Precisely. Well, well identified. Boo. He says Michael d', Andre, after acknowledging that he is riding the wave of the conservative movement, said, we've had too many liberals on the Supreme Court. Does this ring a bell? Doesn't, doesn't this just remember how I, I did that whole segment on, like, we're living in Reagan's era again. Yeah. Here, here we go. He says that he is tired of children being ruined. Now we're on the kids. For us to survive as a society, we need morality, but we need his morality, as is usually the case. Bizarrely, now that I've told you who he wants to protect, Mr. D' Andre opposes the Equal Rights Amendment. He is anti gay.

[36:36] Meg: Of course he is.

[36:38] Jessica: Yes. And anti abortion, of course. But like so many people like him, he was very, very happy to, to argue both sides of the coin. Right. I'm going to protect women, but I'm not going to protect women. I'm going to protect women the way that I want to protect them. And I'm going to throw in the gays and the kids just to make it look like I'm kind of open to protecting everybody.

[37:01] Meg: I'm going to protect them by locking them in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.

[37:06] Jessica: Nicely said. The director of the New York Civil Liberties Union had this to say. A spirit of censorship abounds in the land, whether sexually or politically offensive. It's the same one moves very easily from one to the other. The other thing that was happening at the time, during Reagan's reign of terror. And again, let's not forget, as we bring up all things gay, this was the year after HIV was identified. This was also, when you may recall, 900 numbers came on the scene. And that was happening just as there were other kinds of pornography that they were trying to suppress. So this bill was also against porn, phone calls, phone banks. So they got lumped into this. So like 1900 777p the extra E for extra P. Remember that one? No, you don't. Oh my God. So that was one of the 900 numbers that was frequently on, like, you know, the Robin Bird or whatever. Like they would have the, the porn escort lines that you could call. And some of them were chat lines and some of them were just for escorts. And there was one that, like every kid I knew knew this one because it was so fucking hilarious. And it was 11900777 P E, E, E extra E for extra. P. There's something for everyone except for Michael d'. He. Bizarrely, in Suffolk County, a coalition was created, an unlikely coalition, super conservatives and feminists. Oh, right. So the Andrea Dworkin followers were like, well, it's strange bedfellows, but we're gonna get in with the super conservative Republicans to see if we can push this through.

[39:04] Meg: Okay.

[39:06] Jessica: They did manage, just with public pressure campaigns to shut down some of the local Suffolk county cable access porn. They didn't get out of Suffolk County. Who does, really? Another example of another county doing this was there's a Buffalo City council that tried to ban the Playboy Channel, which featured sex shows. They, they went after the Playboy Channel. Guess how well that went? Quite poorly.

[39:36] Meg: They're wealthy.

[39:38] Jessica: Eventually the Buffalo council said, we're not going to police this. This is not for us to do. And Michael d' Angie was like, but it is for me. And so he continued on, he says, I'm willing to think for the majority. The majority rules. So let's go back.

[39:56] Meg: Willing to think for the majority. What a dick.

[39:59] Jessica: Well, also like, do you know what the majority. So if the majority rules, shouldn't they be telling you? And when it was brought to his attention that the First Amendment might really raise some problems for him, he said, well, the porn stores weren't around when the First Amendment was written. Okay, let that sink in for a second. So it doesn't apply because, quote, porn stores didn't exist. Perhaps if he had ever visited, I don't know, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had taken a look at a few Roman earns, he might have had a little moment about how long pornography of all kinds had been around, store or no store. So yes, he is a limited man. And I think it's another great moment for us to not talk about who we won't talk about on this episode. But when you're electing city, state, federal officials, take a moment to think, how sane is this person? I think it's worthwhile to just be like, hmm, cuckoo crazy or just eccentric. My kind of Eccentric or dangerously eccentric. Paul Sabatino, counsel to the Legislature, said that it is constitutional for the county to ban pornography, just as it is constitutional to outlaw billboards or advertising on the sides of buildings that didn't really hold much water. Eventually, while Mr. D' Andre is running amok with all of this, and by the way, painting pornography with an extraordinarily broad brush, because if he's the Moral Majority, he's the one who's going to say what it is and what it isn't. And we've already determined that he's a bit of a kookaloookas. Right. So let's just go back to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that defined pornography, which Mr. D' Angry had a hard time remembering, if he ever knew it. The standard was whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests, whether it depicts or describes in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and whether the work lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The court did eventually narrow its ruling with child pornography, which, of course, was the right thing to do. The Suffolk County Council, however, came up with its own definition, its own very subjective definition, and came up with eight elements that had to be met.

[42:44] Meg: Ooh, I can't wait.

[42:45] Jessica: And I'll just narrow it down to a few. The only ones that held any water were anything depicting rape, pain, or violent sexual acts. But there were five others that didn't meet this standard. And this is my favorite thing, and it's why I think it's the best way to end this little segment. They wanted to make sure that there wasn't going to be any pornography out on the streets. Oh, again, Mr. D' Andre is tipping his hand. He doesn't want any women depicted in a way that would show that they were, quote, whores by nature. Oh, my God, whores by nature.

[43:26] Meg: And the feminists were like, yeah, I'm with him.

[43:29] Jessica: They were like, if he's gonna be the thin edge of the wedge. Right. Politics. Go figure. In Suffolk county, there was actually a huge amount of pressure for this bill to be passed. And the reason was that anyone who's going to be reelected, they were worried that if they didn't support the bill, they would come off as being pro pornography.

[43:54] Meg: I was waiting for that.

[43:55] Jessica: The head of the Civil Liberties Union sums it up well by saying, I find all of this very offensive, but I have a good solution. I don't buy it, and I don't look at it, Mr. D'. Angry. However, I'm just going to say as a. As an aside, which is usually the case when you find people who protest very loudly.

[44:18] Meg: What was his problem exactly?

[44:20] Jessica: Like, there is no question that he was spending hours upon hour, hundreds of hours, combing through pornography. Mm, this one's good. Yes. This is some ass. Play it. It makes me feel aroused.

[44:35] Meg: Bad. Bad.

[44:38] Jessica: Nope. Put it on the no pile. We've seen this so many times. And the person who shall not be mentioned on this podcast today really took on the Roy Cohn mandate of if it's something that you do, accuse someone else of doing it, and accuse loudly and often. So I loved this thing that I found in the New York Times, and I loved doing not the research on d' Andre because he's clearly just a fricking nut bag running around. But his arguments were so entertaining for me and a great example of how close to the line we all get with charismatic leaders. People who will say what is maybe popular, like riding the line of what could be really popular, to see what you could. All puns meant to be made here. What you can get in. So the. The. The very short and very predictable end of the story is the bill did not pass.

[45:48] Meg: Go porn.

[45:49] Jessica: Go porn.

[46:01] Meg: So what does porn and subprime mortgage scandal have in common?

[46:08] Jessica: I am gonna go with nothing. But. But what we do have is very clearly delineated communities.

[46:20] Meg: Ooh, I like that.

[46:21] Jessica: And very, very clearly delineated and targeted communities by charismatic, forceful people with whacked out agendas and who had a huge

[46:35] Meg: impact on those two communities or tried to.

[46:38] Jessica: Exactly. And by the way, East New York is east of Brownsville.

[46:42] Meg: There we go.

[46:43] Jessica: Did you have something else that you wanted to add?

[46:46] Meg: No, I was just thinking I should do a story on the Moral Majority because, I mean, we really do need to do that. But yeah, I know that you wanted to share something.

[46:54] Jessica: Yeah. BFF of us and BFF of the podcast. Our dear friend Nick was thrilled with the Mommy Dearest segment and texted us the following comment. And I just want to quickly say that having been very, very close to Nick and his parents from the age of 17, when he sent this, it warmed my heart. Cause it was like having a visit with someone special. So I'm just gonna read exactly Nick's words. Love it. So he says, I went to see Mommy Dearest first. How many times, Nick? I went to see Mommy Dearest first the summer it opened at the West Hampton Beach Theater with my dad. When it was over, pop turned to me and said brightly, see, I'm not so bad. Sigh. Then we went out to the parking lot and a car and a car ran over his foot, neatly leaving a tire tread on his white Sperry sneaker. I was like, oh my God, a car ran over your toe. Is it broken? Does it hurt? And pop said, pickle, if the car had run me over and killed me dead, it could not have hurt more than that movie Pickle, Pickle. So. And to say it in now, in, in the like, I needed to say it just so that I could get it out. But George would be like, Nicholas. So Pickle, Pickle, if the car had run me over and killed me dead, it could not have hurt me more than that movie. He Later Nick said he later sat next to her at a publishing conference.

[48:39] Meg: Christina Crawford.

[48:41] Jessica: And he said he described her as, quote, fairly tedious. I don't doubt it. So I said, your dad was Tallulah Bankhead. And Nick, in his own words, agreed.

[48:55] Meg: So we're going to take Thanksgiving off.

[48:58] Jessica: Hooray. A little. A little break to eat turkey and then have to lie on the couch. Yeah.

[49:04] Meg: And I invite everybody to catch up on some episodes that maybe you've forgotten because we have 169 at this point.

[49:14] Jessica: 69, dude. What we're going to do, we're going to do a little something special, a little something extra for our return after Thanksgiving. We have been having a hell of a time, lots of fun with our little segment that is based on everyone's favorite psa. The more you know. Well, this is the more we know.

[49:37] Meg: And it's already on YouTube. You can see our pretty faces. But now we're going to do a special audio episode of the more we Know for you the week after Thanksgiving.

[49:49] Jessica: And for everyone who loves trivia, this is the one for you. It.