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

[00:18] Jessica: I am Meg and I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here. Here in New York City, where we.

[00:27] Meg: Still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and.

[00:33] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: So, Jessica, we have been ever since, you know, I darkened your door, whatever, half an hour ago. We've been talking each other's ears off about so much stuff.

[00:46] Jessica: Yes. We. We hit the ground running.

[00:48] Meg: I know. So let's try and bring the energy into the podcast. But I didn't. Usually I prepare something that somebody wrote in in response to one of our stories, and we have had a lot of response. I feel like that kind of bubbling energy is. Even though January can be kind of rough, very hard, it's a, you know, mental. Not mental illness, but mental health. Mental health, the opposite of that.

[01:19] Jessica: In January, mental health and mental illness are synonymous.

[01:23] Meg: And it's not the easiest of months, especially in New York City, especially when it hits, like, 20 frigging degrees. That said, I'm feeling a lot of energy from just feedback on the podcast that people are kind of, you know, they're back from vacation and.

[01:41] Jessica: Well, what kind of feedback are you?

[01:43] Meg: I can't remember specifically. And I. I didn't write it down, but it was. It's just nice. It's nice to hear the little burbles of engagement.

[01:51] Jessica: Well, that.

[01:52] Meg: Bring it on.

[01:53] Jessica: That is great. And for all of you burblers out there, hit follow and get your friends to do the same burble.

[02:16] Meg: Have you ever been to or seen Magic Mike?

[02:21] Jessica: Yes. You have?

[02:22] Meg: Oh, you saw the movie?

[02:23] Jessica: I saw the movie.

[02:24] Meg: Have you ever been to something live like that? You mean the male stripper?

[02:30] Jessica: No, no.

[02:30] Meg: Interesting. I have.

[02:32] Jessica: Interesting, yeah. What were the circumstances that got you there?

[02:37] Meg: I did a show in graduate school, and the director, there's a scene in the show that was really about fear, female excitement, and he wanted us to sort of experience that as a group. And he thought of what he'd heard about women in male strip clubs. And so we all went to a male strip club to sort of have that communal frenzy as research for doing this play. Oh, and come on, you've been to, like, a bachelor party. Bachelorette party?

[03:12] Jessica: Not like that, no.

[03:14] Meg: Oh, someone we went to high school with invited me to the bachelorette party, not to the wedding, which is weird, by the way.

[03:24] Jessica: That is really poor form.

[03:26] Meg: And then the stripper came in, and I knew him because he was an actor.

[03:32] Jessica: All right. That was hysterical.

[03:36] Meg: And we're, like, standing in the corner and he's, like, gyrating because he's still doing his job and his little speedo, but we're, like, catching up. I'm like, oh, my God.

[03:43] Jessica: How has it been?

[03:44] Meg: I haven't seen you in months.

[03:45] Jessica: Oh, my God. That is classic. No, I. I have. I've had many, many experiences, but that is not one of them.

[03:57] Meg: My sources are. Welcome to your fantasy podcast. Highly recommended. Secrets of the Chippendales Murders. Welcome to Chippendales. You knew we were going to Chippendales.

[04:09] Jessica: I figured.

[04:10] Meg: Okay. And. Good old New York Times. Now, bear with me as I tell this story, because there are so many twists and turns, and I was trying to figure out really what the theme of it is, and I think I figured it out, but I need your help.

[04:24] Jessica: I am going to sit. To quote Robin Byrd. I'm gonna sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

[04:32] Meg: And if you have questions, please pipe in.

[04:34] Jessica: Okay.

[04:35] Meg: On April 7, 1987, at a little after 3pm, Will Mott was in the bathroom in the hallway of his office on the ninth floor at 264 W. 40th St. So that's near Port Authority and the Garment District. Can you picture those?

[04:53] Jessica: Oh, I certainly.

[04:54] Meg: Buildings.

[04:54] Jessica: Yes.

[04:55] Meg: And so you can imagine, you know, the. The hallways that have offices.

[04:59] Jessica: They're like a zillion offices on one gray hallway. Right.

[05:02] Meg: And there's, like, a landlord in this office and a who knows what in that office, and an advertising guy and people working freelance, I guess.

[05:11] Jessica: Right. Like, have their own practitioners.

[05:13] Meg: Sure.

[05:14] Jessica: Yes.

[05:15] Meg: He was the proprietor of Wilmot Management. He managed actors and shared his office with his partner, Audra Vid Novak. Nick Denoia, who ran Chippendale's Universal, which was the touring company for the Mail strip Club on 61st and First Avenue, had an interior office in Will's space. So they, you know, Will and his partner had a big office, and then they had, like, another room in the back, and they rented that out, subleased it out to Nick De Noia in the bathroom. And the bathroom is in the hallway, right? Right next to the elevators in the bathroom. When Will Mott was in there, there was another man washing his hands. Will took note of him because their office was the only one that was actually occupied on that floor.

[06:08] Jessica: Oh, that. That alone is weird. Eerie, I guess.

[06:12] Meg: Will returned to his desk, and a few minutes later, that man from the bathroom came into the office space and asked, will, are you Nick? Will answered, no. The man walked past him into Nick Denoia's office, approached Nick, who was seated behind his desk, and said, you're dead. He then shot Nick in the face right in his cheek, turned around and ran past a shocked Will Mott. Will was able to give the police a pretty clear description of the man. 35 to 45 foot 6, 145 pounds. And he helped develop a composite sketch, which, incidentally, was really accurate.

[06:57] Jessica: Wow. I assume Nick's dead.

[07:01] Meg: Oh, yes.

[07:01] Jessica: Okay. Okay.

[07:03] Meg: There were suspects from the jump. As one of the Chippendales dancers said, I'm not surprised someone shot Nick De Noia. Nick was a choreographer and producer of the New York branch of Chippendales.

[07:16] Jessica: No more jazz hands. I can't do another kick change. Kickball change. Fosse. Fosse. No.

[07:22] Meg: I'm so glad you said jazz hands, and you will know why in a second. I'm so glad you said that.

[07:29] Jessica: Oh, is this what I'm imagining is no more bad choreography Nick?

[07:34] Meg: Well, actually, Nick was a very good choreographer, but definitely of that stripe. Totally song and dance man, Broadway baby kind of guy. And he was a very harsh and demanding and frequently insulting boss. I have seen YouTubes where it's like, geez, Nick, you don't have to be so mean. By most accounts, he was a major dick, so maybe he was in the right business.

[08:05] Jessica: You know, it was just. It was just hanging out there. Get it? Okay, I'm done. I'm done.

[08:13] Meg: So. So maybe one of his employees did him in. All right, so that. That's our suspect number one.

[08:20] Jessica: Stand to reason he'd also pissed off.

[08:22] Meg: Some mob guys in Florida when he skipped out of a contract for the touring act. And these were the kind of guys you didn't want to anger?

[08:30] Jessica: Well, generally, mob guys are guys you don't want to anger.

[08:33] Meg: I just wanted to underscore the point, okay? And it turned out he was gay. And just so you know, he was.

[08:41] Jessica: Nick was gay?

[08:42] Meg: Yes. Well, he was. No, no, no, no, no. He was extremely closeted. Like, people.

[08:47] Jessica: Really? How closeted can you be when you're like, kickball change, jazz hands.

[08:52] Meg: I will say this, that watching the YouTube videos, I mean, to me, it seems pretty clear. That said, he was married. He didn't live that life. He kept his world.

[09:05] Jessica: It was very separate. Got it.

[09:08] Meg: And nobody, like some. Some people actually, like, in the arts, were somewhat out. But he was not one of those people at all.

[09:19] Jessica: He.

[09:19] Meg: In fact, like somebody said he came across as someone who needed to proclaim his Heterosexuality all the time, like insist on it. Almost.

[09:30] Jessica: Red flag, right?

[09:32] Meg: So his actually very active gay life was very much separate from his what he presented to the world. So it wasn't just like you didn't talk about it, you know what I mean?

[09:44] Jessica: Well, we've been talking a lot about closeted men lately on this podcast. So. Yeah, he fits, right? He fits the mold.

[09:51] Meg: Yeah, kickball change. So it turned out he was gay and in a relationship with a man whose ex boyfriend had a beef. So that might be a suspect. Okay, come on, you are such. You are so silly today. And his brother had taken out a $100,000 life insurance policy on him. So maybe there's something there.

[10:16] Jessica: Nick's brother did. Yeah.

[10:19] Meg: And then his business partner in Chippendales, Steve, was furious about the napkin deal. Now, in order to explain the napkin deal, we're gonna go back to the 70s. Why are you smirking now? You've just got a dirty mind right now.

[10:36] Jessica: No, it's not a dirty mind thing. It's just how in any story that we talk about like, you know, there are these giant like life and death or big themes and it always winds up being about like, where's the swizzle stick? Like where's. Where's this minor detail that sent me into a lather of a rage and now I kill you, Nick denoia. So when you said the napkin, I was just like, the napkin deal. So clearly they ordered napkins from someone who's the wrong person to order napkins from. And maybe they got a typo on the napkins and it's all Nick danoia's fault.

[11:14] Meg: Oh my gosh. It's so crazy. It's like you're psychic, but wrong.

[11:18] Jessica: So it's like in other words, not psychic.

[11:23] Meg: No. You're gonna see you're hitting on something, but just not the thing. Okay, so again, the napkin deal, we have to go back to the 70s and have some background. Steve Banerjee was an immigrant entrepreneur from India and he moved to LA to make his way. He idolized Hugh Hefner and Walt Disney.

[11:44] Jessica: You know what, you could do worse.

[11:46] Meg: He was trying to get his fledgling disco backgammon club.

[11:50] Jessica: Okay, I'm dead. That was it. Like Nick denoia. I'm dead. Wait, just say those words again.

[11:58] Meg: Disco backgammon club.

[12:00] Jessica: I can't.

[12:02] Meg: It was called Destiny 2. There, by the way, was not a Destiny 1. He intentionally called it Destiny 2 so people would think that it was so successful that they had to come up with a Destiny Too. That was part of his thinking. He was an entrepreneur. He had thoughts. He had big ideas.

[12:19] Jessica: All right, Was Electric Boogaloo part of it? No. Okay.

[12:23] Meg: Sorry.

[12:24] Jessica: I couldn't stand it. I had to say.

[12:25] Meg: Okay, now you need to slow your roll because we've got a lot of story to tell.

[12:29] Jessica: I'm so agitated today. I worked up.

[12:32] Meg: Okay, so he's trying to get his disco backgammon club, Destiny 2, off the ground, and he meets Paul Snyder. Now, that name might sound familiar to you. No. Okay, I will tell you about Paul Snyder. It will sound familiar to a lot of people who are interested in true crime. Paul Snyder was the sleazy Canadian boyfriend of Playboy Playmate of the Year, Dorothy Stratton.

[12:57] Jessica: Oh, that guy.

[12:59] Meg: That guy.

[13:00] Jessica: Bad man.

[13:01] Meg: Bad man. He was a mover and shaker, and he had a great idea. Back in Vancouver, where he was from, there was a club where men stripped for women and the women really ate it up. And Paul convinced Steve to give it a go at Destiny 2. Now, you know, he's got his girlfriend, Dorothy Stratton, and all of her friends, and they came up with the idea that the men would wear collars and cuffs and really not much else, like Playboy bunnies and gyrate around. Right. It was pretty cheesy and awkward. Again, thank you, YouTube. But Dorothy and her Playboy pals gave the club extra flair, and the concept started take off. Now, of course, it needed some polishing. First things first. Steve fired Paul Snyder as the mc. He was just too sleazy, and everybody who met him deeply loathed him. So Paul's out. And as we know, Paul Snyder doesn't.

[14:02] Jessica: Deal well with rejection.

[14:04] Meg: Well, he did murder Dorothy Stratton. That's a whole other story that is covered in the beautiful Bob Fosse Movie Star 80, starring Mariel Hemingway as Dorothy and Eric Roberts as Paul. But that's a whole other story. And really, actually, like, Steve Banerjee doesn't come into that at all. So they're two separate incidents. But in any case, interesting that Paul Snyder sleazed himself into this story.

[14:30] Jessica: Well, he clearly had some skills, but was so gross that he, like, no one would want him to stick around. Which is sort of tragic. Right? Like, if you've got. You know, you've got the goods, but you are not the goods.

[14:42] Meg: Right. And you get that from the movie Star 80, which, again, I remember that movie vividly. Such a good movie.

[14:48] Jessica: Just quick side note, Eric Roberts has been so good in so many movies, being disgusting, that I think, like, there was a little episode, like an era when he wasn't getting a lot of work. I'm convinced it's because he was. So.

[15:04] Meg: I think he also had a drug problem.

[15:06] Jessica: Oh, or the drugs. It doesn't matter.

[15:08] Meg: In any case, we'll do another stir in Eric Roberts.

[15:15] Jessica: You're like, it was the coke. Never mind.

[15:19] Meg: He's fired Paul Snyder.

[15:22] Jessica: Okay.

[15:22] Meg: And then he hires Nick De Noia, our shooting victim. He hires Nick to choreograph the numbers. And that was really the secret sauce. See, Nick is a New Yorker. He was really just in LA to follow up on a TV opportunity that didn't pan out. But really what he was was he was a New York song and dance man. Right. He'd won two Emmys for his children's show, Unicorn Tales about a Mythical and Magical New York City.

[15:52] Jessica: Really? Really. Did you watch that on YouTube?

[15:54] Meg: Sure did.

[15:55] Jessica: Is it fun?

[15:55] Meg: Yeah, it's pretty good, huh? After watching the Chippendales show, Nick convinced Steve it needed to be completely revamped. Instead of a bunch of guys wiggling around, the dancers should be costumed like policemen and bikers and construction workers and Zorro and the unknown flasher who wore a bag over his head and a.

[16:18] Jessica: Trench coat like the unknown comic.

[16:21] Meg: I mean, because, you know, flashing was really common then.

[16:25] Jessica: The way you've described it, it's like he took the Village People and the Gong show and put them together.

[16:30] Meg: Well, what it was was uber masculine alpha male types who would enact elaborate stories that would result in removing everything but a G string. The choreography needed to be tight. The sets needed dry ice and flashing lights. Nick made Chippendales an actual production. The Perfect man was the most popular act. It was a Frankenstein ballet that took the best legs from one dancer, the most handsome face from another, the most muscular torso from a third, and cobbled them together to create the perfect Man. The only flaw, he had no heart.

[17:11] Jessica: I need to see this, because I don't. I can't imagine what the production was to make that happen.

[17:16] Meg: Black light. It's actually pretty. It's ingenious. And people went wild for it. Also because the guy who played the perfect man was really hot.

[17:28] Jessica: I love your voice. Just like. He was amazing.

[17:33] Meg: I mean, some of them look sort of like Tom Selleck and just really not the cup of tea. But this the Perfect man guy, he was.

[17:42] Jessica: He was pretty good.

[17:44] Meg: The effect of all this glow up was almost instantaneous. The women in the audience didn't stop screaming from the moment they entered the club. Going out with the girls could be a debate. Debaucherous but ultimately safe activity. And the women were allowed to touch. If you stuck a dollar in the guy's G string, you'd get a full on deep throated kiss. Imagine how many women these guys are kissing every single night.

[18:15] Jessica: I would like to do a call back to our herpes episode.

[18:18] Meg: I mean, seriously, it felt naughty, but you could bring your grandmother. There was a semblance of transgression, but it wasn't dangerous. Chippendales promoted itself as a place for female empowerment. Flip the power dynamic. Be the ones in charge. And the women who had just recently been allowed to have credit cards of their own had something to prove and some cash on hand. And for the most part, they bought into it. The Chippendales Club, formerly Destiny 2, was a wild success. Which brings us to the napkin deal. Nick wanted to get back to New York and proposed opening a club there. Steve had no interest in New York, but he liked money a lot. Nick proposed that he open a New York Chippendales club and pay Steve a cut. Steve said sure. What did he have to lose in return? Nick wanted the rights to set up a touring show. Steve said, okay, he's a businessman, not a showbiz man, so he didn't really know what a touring company was. He didn't really have a visual on that. Nick wrote up the deal on a napkin, giving himself the touring rights in perpetuity in exchange for opening a New York club. And Steve, for whom English was a second language, signed it the New York Club on 61st and 1st, which incidentally was also where all the wrinkle bars were. And also Maxwell's Plum and your Danger Fields, right? Yeah. It was an instant success. Celebrities loved it. Soap actresses Valerie Bertinelli, Brooke Shields had her 20th birthday party there. And Nick, thrilled to be back on his home turf, promoted Chippendales with the daytime talk shows he and the dancers were favorites on. Donahue and Geraldo and look who's talking about. Outspoken and gregarious, Nick became Mr. Chippendale and never hesitated to rub Steve's face in that the two men would scream at each other, fighting over who was the creator of Chippendales. Now, Steve was making money hand over fist. But he was also saddled with discrimination lawsuits. And this is just a side story. Men were allowed into the LA club and after the strip show, so it was women only for the actual stripping. And then they opened the doors and the men came in. Now, really, I should say white men were Black men were given all kinds of excuses why they were not allowed in, and they started filing some lawsuits. Now lawsuits are a lot less fun than running a super popular club in New York and being on tv. So Steve's life, you know, not so fun. Back in la, feeling left out and disrespected, Steve decided to go all in on merch. Specifically, calendars, unfortunately, because he was also a dick. Apparently he was rude to the printer of the 1987 Chippendales calendar.

[21:33] Jessica: You never fuck with your printer.

[21:35] Meg: No, no, no. And then he didn't check the proof. And he ended up signing off on 1 million calendars that had 31 days in every month of the year.

[21:49] Jessica: Oh, no, he didn't.

[21:54] Meg: The $300,000 loss was nothing compared to the hit to his ego. Steve was mortified. And to make matters worse, Nick's touring shows were making a killing. But Steve, who hadn't understood what in perpetuity meant when he signed that damn napkin, wasn't getting a penny of the profits. Also, there were whispers that Nick was forming his own mail strip group called US Mail. Their tagline was we delivered. I thought you would like that.

[22:29] Jessica: I'm in heaven. This is the best.

[22:32] Meg: It was at this time that Nick got shot in his office by an unknown assailant. And in spite of dozens of people with a motive or a grudge, the police couldn't pin it on anyone and the case went cold. Then, in 1990, a man known as Raspberry.

[22:54] Jessica: Is that R A Z Z?

[22:57] Meg: No, just like the fruit.

[22:59] Jessica: I.

[23:04] Meg: We were a little punchy.

[23:06] Jessica: No, this is just an outstanding story.

[23:11] Meg: Raspberry contacted the FBI and told them that he'd been hired to fly to London and inject cyanide in the necks of two former Chippendales dancers who had started a male strip group called Adonis. You know how England has its, like, annoying gun laws?

[23:32] Jessica: How dare they? Yes.

[23:33] Meg: So if you're going to kill someone over there, you're going to have to be creative.

[23:37] Jessica: I also love the specificity of injecting in the neck with cyanide. Like.

[23:44] Meg: Yeah. And the interview, the FBI at first was like, hey, Mr. Raspberry. Like, how were you thinking this was going to happen? Were you going to jump on stage while they were dancing? And then when one guy collapsed, didn't you think that these like 6 foot 4, 250 pound guys were going to tackle you?

[24:08] Jessica: Maybe? I mean, no, I'm nimble. I can keep flying around.

[24:13] Meg: And actually he was like, well, that's kind of why I'm here because I couldn't go through with it. It was such a crazy, preposterous plan. Ridiculous idea. But he had been given the cyanide and he had been given the plane tickets, and he had been given instructions about where the show was. It was pretty easy for him to finger the bad guys.

[24:38] Jessica: Oh, my God, you are so naughty today. No, you're just, like, setting it up.

[24:44] Meg: This is like.

[24:45] Jessica: If I didn't, I would think terribly of myself.

[24:49] Meg: The man who had hired Raspberry.

[24:52] Jessica: Oh, God. Ray Colon, which I didn't even think about until now. Psycho, Myers, Jessica. Oh, my God. What's his first name? Ray Colon, Otherwise known as Colon. Not to be outdone by Fred Amos, who's the next guy ran over the power? You're right, it's cologne. But it's spilled colas. But it's fabulous. I can't.

[25:30] Meg: Okay, we gotta calm down. Okay? Ray Colon. Once the FBI got him into the office, he told the FBI that his old friend is Steve Banerjee had hired him for the job, which you saw coming a mile away.

[25:48] Jessica: Wait, wait, wait. Is. Is Ray Galan. Raspberry?

[25:52] Meg: No, Ray Colon.

[25:53] Jessica: How did Ray Colon get roped into this?

[25:58] Meg: He's a really old friend of Steve Banerjee.

[26:01] Jessica: Why did he talk to the FBI?

[26:03] Meg: Because Raspberry said, Ray hired me.

[26:05] Jessica: Oh, Ray hired him.

[26:06] Meg: And so then FBI brings in Ray, and Ray goes, steve hired me. And Steve hired him to find someone to kill Nick De noia back in 1987.

[26:16] Jessica: Nice.

[26:18] Meg: After a sting operation during which Ray got Steve on Mike, admitting to everything, Steve was arrested, put on trial for racketeering, attempted arson, and murder for hire. He pled guilty and was scheduled to be sentenced to 26 years to life in return for signing Chippendales over to the federal government. I'm like, interesting deal, federal government. What are you going to do when you have Chippendales as, like, your property?

[26:46] Jessica: The imagination runs wild.

[26:49] Meg: It's like, all right. But he hanged himself hours before his sentencing. It's what Jeffrey Epstein did. So all of his.

[26:59] Jessica: That was exactly what was in my head.

[27:01] Meg: So all of his assets ended up going to his widow. But then she lost Chippendales in a lawsuit brought on by Nick De Noia's family. What a mess. Millions in cash disappeared. Most probably stashed in Switzerland, where Steve often traveled. It was very much a cash business. And he would just fly to Switzerland every once in a while with, like, garbage bags full of cash. All of that completely disappeared. Interesting. So ultimately, we've got a story about two men who were success stories. They made gobs of money doing what they loved, but let their huge egos orchestrate their downfall. You know what I mean? I was like, trying to mull, like, what is it about these guys? And I think it's ironic that the institution that claimed to unleash female sexual empowerment was run by a couple of guys who didn't feel they were man enough. Ooh, do you like that one? All right. And I kept going back to like, it's about ego. It's about ego. And I think, because, you know, I play these Survivor games and that's. If you can just keep that in mind. I. I watch it happen with myself and I watch it happen with other players. If your ego gets in the way, that's when you get distracted. That's when you make silly decisions.

[28:24] Jessica: Not about the business anymore. It's about you.

[28:26] Meg: That's the thing. And it's about the weakest part of you.

[28:30] Jessica: You're.

[28:31] Meg: It's about your insecurities.

[28:33] Jessica: Nicely said. Yes.

[28:35] Meg: So I'm thinking about ego a lot, right? And it's not, trust me, it is not easy to keep your ego at bay. I mean, your ego wants to, like.

[28:45] Jessica: Look, I agree with.

[28:46] Meg: Destroy you and distract you.

[28:48] Jessica: I'm going to put you in this category, okay? You are an actor, but I'm not putting you in this category. Every time I see some tabloid, you know, even People magazine, whatever, about actors behaving badly or celebrds or whatever they are behaving badly, I'm always struck by. I always think, well, how did you get into this pickle? Invariably, if you sort of just sit and very sensibly go backwards with the story, do a little digging, like, what is this person's background? Everything starts with, I'm not good enough. But this. This intense insecurity and awareness that there's always something more. Well, it's a certain personal, a particular way. And it's a politician's too.

[29:37] Meg: Well, and it's interesting too. Look, we live in New York. This entire city is fueled by people who want to achieve. Yeah. By ambition. People who want to achieve something. And so that kind of energy. Friggin fantastic. Go for it. It's how things are going to get done. I'm all for it. But at some point, without perspective, you're going to lose track of what you actually have. And you're certainly not going to enjoy what you have because it's never enough. It's never enough. But then there's this also this thing about ego that I'm trying to get to. It's like both these guys, right? Both Nick and Steve were outsiders. Steve was an immigrant, and then Nick.

[30:20] Jessica: Was leading a double life.

[30:21] Meg: Leading a double life. Nick wanted fame, Steve wanted fortune. They both got it, but they didn't recognize that they both got it. But really what they both wanted more than anything was respect. And when they kept disrespecting each other, that's when the ego comes in. And it was the downfall of both of them and they weren't willing to give respect to each other. It's not a zero sum game.

[30:45] Jessica: It's about affirmation. You know, you're saying ego, I agree. It's ego. When affirmation that much needed affirmation is externalized, you never ever reach it because it's never something that you never set the bar yourself. It's the minute that the wind blows and something else happens outside of you, you have to raise the bar. You have to just keep going. There's this show that I've been watching on Max that I adore, and it's hilarious. It's called the Other Two and oh.

[31:23] Meg: Yeah, it's really fun.

[31:24] Jessica: So great. And in the last episode, the guy who's the actor who's been horrible, apologizes to his best friend, who's also an actor, for having been such a shit, and he's trying to explain why. And I wish that I, you know, could call this up perfectly, but he's like, I know why, like, do you have to tell me? Because you want to become incredibly famous and you want everybody to love you and you want to be completely affirmed, and then you want to be powerful, but. But you want to be so powerful that then you can crush all the people who didn't like you before and you can tell them how much better you are than they are. That's why you are. And I was like, oh my God, that's what everybody's about. So I just, I agree with you. And I think that any industry, any, anything, those people who are fragile, the most fragile people, are always going to be the ones who are externalizing their self worth.

[32:18] Meg: Yes, very well put. And we could go on. We haven't even really touched on the whole concept of like men taking their clothes off in front of women and how that's different from women taking their clothes off for men and all that kind of stuff. But you know what? I'm sure we'll come back to that at some point. We don't even have to get into that.

[32:34] Jessica: The one thing I will say about it, and I'm glad that you brought it up, is that when women do it, it affirms an existing social structure. When men do it, it's a novelty act. And that's the entire difference. It doesn't. It doesn't change anything for the men to do it. It doesn't change a power dynamic. It's a power dynamic that's changing in a room where everyone knows it isn't real. Because those guys are also, as you mentioned, 6, 4, 250 pounds of solid muscle. A girl touches him the wrong way, he can rip her head off. A guy touches a girl who's on the pole, he can rip her head off if she doesn't do what he wants in a split second. So that whole Chippendales thing is. It's almost like it's making fun of female sexuality. There's something about it that is condescending. Not saying that female strip, what we think of as normal strip clubs are any good. But it's not like there's nothing. There's no positive social change inherent in Chippendales. I agree.

[34:05] Meg: Sorry I went long on that one.

[34:06] Jessica: Oh, please. I had the best time ever. Like, seriously, today was fine. Got things done, whatever. It was not a joyous day. And now it is a day that will be marked in history as pure, unadulterated joy. So thank you. And thank you for letting me make every really dumb, bad dick joke, because that also makes me really, really, really happy. Sorry, dad. But, yeah, really happy. So thank you. This. No. And in that context. Go long. He's just sitting there. Okay, so I'm going to talk about, you know, when you're living in any particular era, unless you are a certain type of person, which is a very small number of people, you don't really think. Think about the fact that you're living in a particular era. You're like, oh, it's 2024. Here I am. Even though, P.S. i still write 19, whatever. Like, on my. Like, if I'm signing something like, God damn it. Our friend Ali's children ask her, what was it like living in the 1900s? And I'm like, you need to discipline them. And they mean it.

[35:28] Meg: They're like, I know different back then. Fair enough.

[35:31] Jessica: These are the same two children who, much younger, were like, what is this object? It's a dial phone. How do you. And they tried to both figure out how to use it. They were both wrong.

[35:43] Meg: It's not very Intuitive.

[35:45] Jessica: Anyway.

[35:45] Meg: Yes.

[35:46] Jessica: So as we sit here, we don't think, you know, like, what's our gestalt of 2024? But when you think about growing up in the 80s, what are some of the things that to you are. Like, if you had to be, you know, you're doing a movie. Like, you're doing the 80s version of American Hustle. Right. So what. What are the things that to you broadcast. Now we're in the 80s.

[36:15] Meg: I mean, what comes off the top of my head is like, change. I always needed change. I needed. I needed exact. I need money. I needed cash, for one thing, and I needed money to buy a token or so I also, you know, tokens used to be what people use instead. Metro cards. And I needed to call somebody, so I needed change to use the phone booth.

[36:41] Jessica: You know, it's funny because when you said change, at first I thought you meant, you know, the way that things transform from one thing to another. And I was laughing when you said it was actually coins, because. Also from the 80s, one of the lost casts of Saturday Night Live, which had Julia Louis Dreyfus in it, and Brad hall, who became her husband, and Tim Kazarinski, who's like the little guy with the glasses.

[37:06] Meg: Okay, Right. Yes, Creature.

[37:09] Jessica: And he did the funniest and now wildly politically incorrect character, a. If you'll excuse my saying this, it's just because it's from the time a swami called Having a Good Time Vishnu were here.

[37:24] Meg: Oh, my God.

[37:25] Jessica: And he would say, the only thing that is constant in the universe is change, which is a good thing because you need it for the bus.

[37:33] Meg: You did need it for the bus.

[37:34] Jessica: You did need it for the bus.

[37:35] Meg: You would scrounge around to find the exact change for the bus. And if you didn't, you might have to pay a little bit of extra.

[37:41] Jessica: Yes. And I.

[37:42] Meg: Buses did not take dollar bills.

[37:44] Jessica: Nothing. Nothing took a dollar bill. And to make our friend of the podcast and dear friend, Regina George, who listens to the podcast, laugh. I will admit that I think after school every day, I turn to her after looking through my paltry wallet. Do you have a quarter? Well, you need a constant state of asking Regina if she had a quarter.

[38:07] Meg: And you needed change for video games. You needed quarters.

[38:10] Jessica: You needed a lot of quarters.

[38:11] Meg: And now who has change?

[38:13] Jessica: I. Every. All. Every coin I have is a penny in. In one pottery vessel or silver in another one. And I don't know how to make them into bills. I don't know where to go. Like, TD bank used to have the thing I'm like, I don't know what this is. I'm sort of tempted to go someplace and pay for everything and change and just see what happens.

[38:38] Meg: Oh, my God, they will hate me.

[38:39] Jessica: They would really be very unhappy anyway. But the reason I was laughing when I. And sort of delighted when I thought you meant things evolving was that when I think about the 80s, I think about the look of the 80s. And, you know, we've talked a lot about what the style was. So you could be punk or you could be Valley Girl, or you could be this. And, you know, there's neon. You know, we can look at the Barbie movie and be like, okay, here, check, check. But the other thing was, if you're a set designer, what does it look like in someone's home? What does it look like in a store? What did the 80s really look like? And I've watched, you know, movies and TV shows where there's an interpretation of this, and I'm always like, wrong, wrong, wrong.

[39:28] Meg: Russian doll was good.

[39:29] Jessica: Russian doll was very good. And here's. So what I thought I'd do is take us on a little tour of 80s interior design.

[39:38] Meg: Nice.

[39:39] Jessica: And what did that even mean? So, because so many productions that I've seen have gotten it wrong, I'm going to start with a list of a few things that if you want to go full 80s in your apartment, which is now very hip, here are a couple of items to think about. The first is you've got to really commit to mauve. Mauve as a color was very, very big. It was not purple. It was not light brown. It was a truly indeterminate mauve. Like, not even lilac.

[40:17] Meg: Yeah, I was gonna say it's closer to lilac than either of those options.

[40:20] Jessica: But, yeah, it was the predecessor of Greige, although the name was not a portmanteau. And in fact, I will bore us tears on another episode where I will tell you about how mauve was invented, that it's the first ever synthetic color that was ever made of non natural materials.

[40:44] Meg: Jessica, please do that.

[40:45] Jessica: Okay, well, we'll. We'll get to that.

[40:46] Meg: Okay.

[40:47] Jessica: But it opened. The idea of being able to create synthetic colors was what changed fashion in the 1850s, I think. 1840s, 1850s. And if you see. If you ever look at anything in the Metropolitan Costume Institute, you're like, what were they tripping on? That they were like, here's an acid green and puke yellow dress with a hot pink check.

[41:14] Meg: Because they were playing around.

[41:16] Jessica: Yes, they were finally Making fake colors that wouldn't run that, you know, they could put on cotton, they could do silk, they could do whatever. So mauve was the predecessor anyway. 80s mauve. Also the heady mixture of gray and purple. Deep purple.

[41:40] Meg: On walls. On walls.

[41:41] Jessica: That was, that was a big on walls scenario. Another thing that was very big. We partly have our friend Ralph Lipschitz to thank for this. But preppy, not only on your. In your clothes, preppy at home.

[41:56] Meg: Oh, absolutely.

[41:57] Jessica: Do you remember plaid wall to wall carpeting?

[42:00] Meg: I don't remember plaid wall to wall carpeting. I do remember there was a girl who went to Nightingale named Candice.

[42:07] Jessica: I remember her.

[42:09] Meg: And her house was the preppiest apartment. I mean, if you wanted to know what preppy was, that was what it was. And it was, it was that green, that bright green.

[42:19] Jessica: Oh, bright. Oh, like, like a Kelly green.

[42:21] Meg: Yeah, a Kelly green. And I think it was a carpet situation. It was super WASPy. And then like the couch had little bitty green frogs on it. There are lots of little bitty things on. You know, little bitty things.

[42:40] Jessica: White turtlenecks with the tiny little hearts.

[42:43] Meg: No, I am constantly looking for that. Why won't someone bring that back?

[42:48] Jessica: Please tell you why I found out because I found one on Etsy. It is pilled and. Yeah, I'm not interested. They were not built to last. That was kids clothing.

[42:59] Meg: But they could reproduce it now.

[43:01] Jessica: Oh, well, take that up with FIT students.

[43:04] Meg: Yes, please bring it back.

[43:06] Jessica: If you're listening and you go to fit, you have two buyers.

[43:10] Meg: But it was. Yeah, it was little bitty frogs. It would be little bitty whales. You know what I'm talking about.

[43:15] Jessica: Oh, yes I do. When you said green, I started to go crazy. Because what we now think of as the interior design of a TGI Fridays was actually considered really fancy preppy in the 80s.

[43:30] Meg: By that I mean Tiffany lamp, hunter.

[43:33] Jessica: Green walls, brass wood, plaid. Anything that was from the preppy handbook would have been good. Preppy handbook meaning the clothing. It got applied to a room. So all. And what Ralph Lauren had going on in his store windows, they went beyond set design and became interior design ruffles. And I think that's what you're thinking about with your friend. Do you remember that in the 80s every little girl wanted a canopy bed?

[44:06] Meg: Yeah, I. When you said that. Yeah. Ruffles at the bottom of the bed for sure.

[44:11] Jessica: Yes.

[44:12] Meg: Ruffles at the bottom of the couch.

[44:14] Jessica: Yes.

[44:15] Meg: At the bottom of the chair.

[44:16] Jessica: Yes. If there was a piece of fabric, a ruffle could Absolutely, go on it. But what's interesting is, you know, right now we are in a phase, and I think we're starting to get out of it, of minimalism. Mid century design. Everything is pared down, pared down, paired down, very square. And we were talking just before we started, you know, in on this section of the podcast about how you, as a teenager, you were wearing Poison perfume and Shalimar, like. So the thing about 80s was maximalism. The idea of a mid century console table would have been like, ugh, barf, puke, never boring. Like that's office furniture ugly. Yes, exactly. That all got knocked off. Put a naugahyde cushion on it and now that's your dentist.

[45:10] Meg: Right.

[45:10] Jessica: So everything was, if there's a doily, put another doily on it. If there's a ruffle, put another one and make sure it has a pattern. So maximalism, very, very big. On the other side of it though, there was a lot of glass and a lot of brass and glass, or glass and chrome, which went along with brutalist, sort of a nod to brutalism. Do you remember that? Everything had like, was like a cylinder. There were a lot of like abstract, like wall art that was like metal and cylinders with like a wire. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[45:50] Meg: I do know what you're talk. Our friend Ray, Ray's parents lived in a very white home. We're talking about really good art, which I didn't really realize, but my mother was talking to me, you know, more recently and she was like, they had very good art. I was like, who knew?

[46:09] Jessica: I knew it was a Roth home. Exactly, exactly.

[46:14] Meg: But it was definitely the kind of house that you just. You didn't touch anything. I mean, it felt really cold. It didn't feel like a place that you wanted to go after school. So fortunately, Ray always came over to my place because my place was not that. Not that, not that at all.

[46:32] Jessica: But what your house also did not have. And I don't think Ray's parents had this. And this is another hallmark of 80s interior design, green marble. Do you remember green veined marble?

[46:44] Meg: Sure. I mean, I can picture it, but not in person, you know, do you.

[46:48] Jessica: Remember like little tables with marble tops like that? It was like, like drinks tables or like a console when you first walk in to put your keys on it.

[46:59] Meg: Yes.

[46:59] Jessica: Everything had that weird dark green, veiny white veined or black veined marble.

[47:08] Meg: Interesting.

[47:09] Jessica: Which was hideous, I think. Okay, so obviously what we're coming away with is there was a lot of green going On. So those are just some of the things about 80s interior design. But you know, obviously coming out of the 70s, it's not like everything was suddenly a prototypical 80s look. And one of the things that carried over from the 70s was remember really curvy furniture, like, like couches that undulated and like giant round upholstered ottomans.

[47:43] Meg: Yeah.

[47:43] Jessica: If you want to see what really perfect suburban 80s design looked like, watch Private Benjamin.

[47:53] Meg: Interesting.

[47:54] Jessica: Private Benjamin. Her parents house is so perfection. And at the beginning of that film, before she goes into the army because her husband dies having sex with her on the sink and he asks her to lift her hind leg, which is my favorite of all time, she's having a nervous breakdown with her. She's super princessy, yelling at the interior decorator because she wanted the ottoman to be upholstered in mushroom with bun feet. And the bun feet were also upholstered.

[48:35] Meg: Like, I want this item. Can we have it, please?

[48:38] Jessica: Yes, yes. But you must watch Private Benjamin to get a good.

[48:42] Meg: You know what I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about interiors and a good visual is Scrooged. Because they're all these different people and you see them watching TV in their different. So you've got the woman who lives in Harlem and her apartment. You've got the guy who owns the TV studio and you see his apartment because they're watching tv. You've got the office, but yes, and.

[49:10] Jessica: A lot of those. It's that tubular chrome and steel like in the offices with the black leather.

[49:17] Meg: And you've got there, You've got their apartment when they, when they're first dating. So they've got like whatever, the East Village apartment. There are lots of interiors in this movie that are very specific.

[49:28] Jessica: Well, then we, we, we're going to have a viewing and, and dissect it. But you know, as I was doing my research, bun feet came up. Okay. And I found who, who came up with bun feet. So there are two designers who we're going to talk about. And in a, an unprecedented moment, I don't really know how to pronounce this person's last name. And it lends itself to a dick joke, but I'm not going to do that. It. I'm gonna show you the name and you tell me how you would pronounce this.

[50:00] Meg: I'm scared.

[50:00] Jessica: It's the last name. See?

[50:04] Meg: Don Gya Dungea. I don't know.

[50:09] Jessica: Okay. You asked. No, no, no, no. I'm not horrible. I'm not saying that you were wrong. You had More flair in it than I just did. But Angelo, I'm gonna say Don Gia because it's just my decision based on nothing. I had never heard of this guy.

[50:27] Meg: No, I neither.

[50:28] Jessica: Never. And you know why? Another AIDS casualty. Oh, he. So here's. Here's a little bit about him. On the cusp of the 1980s, as Donna Summer flooded the airwaves and the syrupy scent of opium or poison wafted through the clubs, those who had fame, money and courage called Angelo Dangia to help them figure out how to live. Halston may have been the customer of the lush decadent era, wedged between the birth of disco and the scourge of aids, but Don Gio was its set designer. He was like the guy for the rich and famous, for the glitz. Diana Ross, Mary Tyler Moore. He did her post divorce penthouse overlooking Central Park. Marvin Hamlisch's screening room. Talk about 80s Marvin Hamlisch. Hello. He did Ralph Lauren's place. He did Woody Allen's place. Every person who got their money in the late 70s and into the 80s who wanted to be cool handed him their keys to their apartment.

[51:35] Meg: I can't wait to look this up.

[51:37] Jessica: You do it. Ralph Lauren, king of the preps, as we just described, bought an American style, super traditional apartment on fifth Avenue. And it was Dungea who stripped it down to an all white minimalist aerie. Okay. Steve Martin had the same thing done. He died of AIDS related pneumonia at age 50 in 1985.

[52:03] Meg: Oh my God.

[52:04] Jessica: So he had a very, very good lord specific window when he was really the king. But what he did was he's the guy who also brought back a lot of. Not brought back, but preserve from 70s, 1930s chic.

[52:22] Meg: Okay, that makes sense.

[52:23] Jessica: And that's where coming back to the chrome and the glass and the curved lines. Sure, that's what that was.

[52:30] Meg: My Man Godfrey is what I'm picturing.

[52:32] Jessica: Don't you just love that movie?

[52:34] Meg: It's perfect.

[52:35] Jessica: It is one of the greatest movies of all time.

[52:38] Meg: Lots of interiors.

[52:40] Jessica: Lots of interiors. He had been obsessed with Hollywood movies of the 30s and 40s. And so he pioneered a gently subversive blend of traditional and outlandish. He was the one who came up with oversized all cushion couches. Cool. You know, like so those super dramatic, like who would live this way? Kind of a little bit of what you see in the expensive apartments in. Oh my God, our most referenced movie, After Hours.

[53:13] Meg: Okay.

[53:14] Jessica: That's his stuff. His giant chairs and sofas had rolled arms and bun feet.

[53:20] Meg: Bun feet.

[53:21] Jessica: Bun feet. He would have rather had a pile of giant cushions on the floor than a sofa with a frame. He exemplified Studio 54 and took. Which, as we know, went into the 80s, but he took that into the 80s. He also designed the apartment for Joel Schumacher, major Hollywood producer. He said, we lived in Angelo's world. Schumacher was part of Halston and Dungea's inner circle and dressed windows for Henry Bendel before leaving for Hollywood. I never knew that he was a window dresser. By the way, I've been going through the clothing that I got from my mom. Like, finally going through. There is so much Bendel stuff in there. And I've been like, do I love it? I love it. Just for the lace. Can I put the label on the outside? Is that bad? I don't know. Dungea found his clients at Studio 54. He worked for Bianca Jagger, for Eliza Minnelli. He had his own. His home was an Upper east side townhouse that was art deco fabulous and 1980s fabulous with raw material. So he. He was a flash and he brought a modernism that was very gentle, but it was definitely modern, but so different from mid century modern. Like completely, completely different. On the other side of the spectrum, we have someone who I heard of him at all and certainly in the way that I'm about to describe him from our friend Nick for the. For the first time, because Nick has had some experience in interior design. But the other side of the spectrum, and now we're going back to the ruffles. And the super preppy was Mario Buada. Okay. The prince of chintz. Okay. So Mario Buara was the king of. Put another ruffle on it. He was the one where you were talking about fabrics having little patterns on them. That was him. Everything was draped in fabric. The canopy beds, he was responsible for those. So everything that Angelo did that was a retro looking forward. This guy was obsessed with English country house.

[55:46] Meg: Okay, got it.

[55:48] Jessica: And there's a story about him, I think when he was like, he grew up on Staten island and he bought his first antique at like the age of 11, and it was a Georgian writing box. And that was everything that he wanted to do. So anything that would come from, you know, like the most dowdy 1940s English, uninspired chintz covered house, he took that and just amped it up. He stole from the greats, including Sister Parrish, who got a little pissed off about it, which was kind of fabulous. And there are these great photos that I'm going to make sure we put on the Instagram. But he had no problem putting a giant flowered couch next to a wing back chair that had stripes bows on it. So it was mix and match. Or you had wallpaper that was the exact same pattern as the upholstery for all of the furniture. I love that stuff, I have to say. I mean, I would never live like that, but I love it. I'm glad that it exists. Exactly. It's not for me, but yes. And on all of that, needlepoint pillows, if there's some needlepoint to be had, Mario's gonna find it and he's gonna put it on your couch for you. 1984, he did this bedroom. We're also going to put on the Instagram that is a symphony in pink and white ruffles and cans.

[57:20] Meg: Blissful.

[57:21] Jessica: That was. And chintz, for those who don't know, it's a polished cotton that kind of has a glaze on it. So it's a very specific fabric that you don't really see much of anymore unless you're going for a very specific look, which is this guy. America's love affair with aristocratic England was fueled in part at this time by the marriage of Charles and Diana.

[57:47] Meg: Oh, her dress.

[57:51] Jessica: Yes. It gave that look a foothold in popular culture. And so the people who loved it were the people who aspired to be like royalty. So Malcolm Forbes and all of the grand ladies who we've talked about, the swans, they loved Mario Buada. He did the official White House guest residence, Blair House, in 1985. So it's a very specific look. And if you really want to think about how specific an 80s this guy was, he did Mariah Carey's house. Glamour. Gold, peach, silver flashes of crystal over the top and a ruffle.

[58:39] Meg: Amazing.

[58:41] Jessica: So this is a highly visual thing. And I know that our Instagram is going to be the best place to put this, but if you lived through it, you know, the nice thing, in my opinion is because I always look at what people are doing. Like, I love people who do DIY home makeovers because they're usually really awful. And you're like, wow, you did that. Okay. But what the trend that's happening now is people are finished with minimalism. And maximalism is coming back, and it's coming back with a lot of darkness in it. It's a little goth. But in. In my estimation, Mario Buara and his ilk are going to be showing up or their designs, even your Instagram, soon. Go, tie it, tie it in, tie it in. Okay. The first thing is that the two guys in your piece Outsiders. The guys in my piece Outsiders. No one from Staten island ever grew up in an English country house, and Ralph Lipschitz certainly didn't. So Outsiders do the best job of.

[01:00:02] Meg: Of aspiration.

[01:00:04] Jessica: Aspiration and blowing it up out of.

[01:00:07] Meg: Proportion and having perspective. You were talking about how you don't understand what you're in the middle of because you're in the middle of it. But they were on the outside of it, so they understood it.

[01:00:17] Jessica: Exactly.

[01:00:18] Meg: Maybe.

[01:00:18] Jessica: Yes. The other thing is maximalism. Being over the top Chippendales. Absurdly over the top.

[01:00:27] Meg: Well, actually, that was my tie in. Over the top Chippendales was named after the furniture.

[01:00:33] Jessica: Oh, my God. That's the. That's it. I. I'm embarrassed that it. I. My God, I'm worth nothing. Perfect. Sam.