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

[00:20] Jessica: I am Jessica, and Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We went through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:29] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines

[00:35] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:37] Meg: So, Jessica, I want to start today by giving a shout out to a fantastic true crime podcast. That's A Bad Sign.

[00:48] Jessica: Love them.

[00:49] Meg: Aren't they amazing? Now, I started listening to Emily and Liz during quarantine, and they are they are so smart, they are so engaging, and I feel like we're good friends, even though I have never met them and we have so much in common.

[01:04] Jessica: Tell me more, Meg.

[01:05] Meg: Well, they're New Yorkers. They're childhood friends.

[01:09] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[01:10] Meg: They love to tell each other's stories.

[01:12] Jessica: They're us.

[01:13] Meg: I know. No wonder we're them now. They're younger, they're millennials, and they're podcasting in the East Village.

[01:19] Jessica: Ability, aren't we? No, we are not.

[01:22] Meg: Our branding is we are Gen X.

[01:24] Jessica: Our reality is Gen X, not just our branding. I don't know how to break that one, to you?

[01:29] Meg: Okay, but seriously, if you like what we're doing, then you're going to love That's A Bad Sign. It's a fantastic true crime podcast that drops on Thursday.

[01:37] Jessica: Yay.

[01:39] Meg: And I also heard from another dear friend, Cathy. Whose favorite movie is Valley Girl.

[01:48] Jessica: You know what? That's very weird that that doesn't surprise me.

[01:51] Meg: Okay. And it made me start thinking, actually, because what do you think Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Desperately Seeking Susan all have in common?

[02:04] Jessica: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Desperately Seeking Susan. I don't know.

[02:09] Meg: All directed by women.

[02:12] Jessica: Oh, for God's sakse.

[02:13] Meg: Isn't that awesome?

[02:15] Jessica: You know what, I have to go now because that should be so obvious to me. I'm ashamed.

[02:19] Meg: I think it says something.

[02:20] Jessica: I mean, I think it says everything.

[02:21] Meg: Such friggin amazing movies with..

[02:24] Jessica: Add Clueless to the bunch.

[02:27] Meg: And that we love them. I think that's not a coincidence.

[02:31] Jessica: I agree. Well, huzzah to Cathy, right?

[02:34] Meg: And can you name those three women directors? Susan Seidelman, Amy Heckerling.

[02:40] Jessica: I'm not finished. What the hell, man? You asked to quiz. Okay, fine. You know what? Just tell them I can't.

[02:48] Meg: And Martha Coolidge.

[02:50] Jessica: Happy now?

[02:52] Meg: Don't be cranky at me. Mercury is in retrograde, we have to be very ginger with each other.

[02:57] Jessica: I love you. Meg.

[03:00] Meg: All right. Ready for your engagement question?

[03:03] Jessica: No, I already failed a question today.

[03:06] Meg: No, there's no failing. We're going to be in great moods and very supportive.

[03:11] Jessica: I'm feeling very self actualized and ready to embrace the question. I'm ready to internalize it. I'm going to light a candle about it, and I'm going to draw an angel card about it, too. Perfect. Okay.

[03:23] Meg: All right, so a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about the stock market crash in 1987 and you were temping down on Wall Street. And my question is, outside of your experience of what you saw when you were there? Did we talk about it at school, or did you talk about it at your dinner table?

[03:44] Jessica: About the crash? Yeah.

[03:45] Meg: I just have no memory of it.

[03:50] Jessica: At home, yes, because we always talked about whatever was in the news at the dinner table. But I think at school, we were far too involved in, like, who liked who and gym teacher giving a bad grade, and she's a jerk because

[04:06] Meg: I mean did you have, like, people talk about Black Monday, the Crash of 87. Did you have an experience of that?

[04:13] Jessica: No, only an intellectual experience. When you're a kid, things happen around you.

[04:18] Meg: Well, my story today starts on October 19, 1987. My sources are The Deadliest Decade which is on Amazon Prime. It was just so trashy and amazing. And a series of New York Times articles that were written in 1989.

[04:38] Jessica: Okay.

[04:40] Meg: On October 19, 1987, the stock market fell more than 500 points. Black Monday was the single biggest point drop since the Great Depression. Wall street panicked. And Joe Pikul, a Vice President of the investment firm Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, lost a fortune. His wife, Diane, was working as an executive assistant at Harper's Magazine. And she was at work. And she broke down in sobs at her office that week. She told her coworker Anne that she and her husband Joe would be forced to sell their house in Amagansett. And as it turned out, that wasn't the only thing upsetting Diane.

[05:26] Jessica: Nice segway. I'm hooked. What happens next?

[05:30] Meg: Well, back in 1978, she had met Joe in an AA meeting on Perry Street in Greenwich Village. He was 43, recently divorced, and well established in his career, managing $80 million a year in assets, for which he got a 10% commission.

[05:49] Jessica: Not bad.

[05:50] Meg: No. Diane was single, 35, and a little tired of the New York City nightlife. She grew up in South Bend, Indiana, majored in English at Mount Holyoke College, and moved to New York to be a writer. Joe Pikul swept her off her feet, and they were married within the year. And on paper, everything looked great. They had a plush duplex in Greenwich Village and the house in the Hamptons. They had maids and drivers and two tow headed children, Claudia and Blake, named after the characters from Dynasty.

[06:27] Jessica: Are you kidding me right now?

[06:28] Meg: No, I am not. From all outward appearances, they had a perfect life.

[06:35] Jessica: I have to pause there. I actually realized that I was also staring at you slack jaw, because I couldn't get over the names I'm still simmering. Okay, go ahead. Claudia and Blake.

[06:49] Meg: But--you knew there was a but.

[06:51] Jessica: There's always a but.

[06:53] Meg: When Diane didn't show for work the Monday after the crash, her coworker friend Anne was very worried. It wasn't like her to be late, much less not show up at all. Anne called Joe, and he said he didn't know where she was. Then Anne called the police and spoke to Detective Bill Glynn. She told him that Diane's marriage was in shambles. I know. Only Anne knew that. Nobody else knew.

[07:23] Jessica: Damn Anne.

[07:24] Meg: In fact, Diane was getting a divorce. Anne said Joe was angry Diane had a job and had accused her of neglecting the kids. At first, Detective Glynn thought Anne was overreacting. Quote, "My thoughts were that she might have just taken the day."

[07:43] Jessica: Sounds like our friend Kathie Durst.

[07:46] Meg: Isn't it crazy? Like friggin detectives?

[07:49] Jessica: And how old were the children?

[07:51] Meg: Eight and four. Right. She's going to abandon her kids. So. Yes, this is Detective Glynn. "My thoughts were that she must have just taken the day. Couples argue and they fight. Once everyone cools down, they come back." But on that same day, in a dumpster in Newburgh, New York, a car wash attendant came across a knife, rope, women's clothing, and the driver's license for Diane Pikul. When questioned, Joe said the whole family had been in the Hamptons that weekend and Diane had stormed out Friday night after they had a fight. By the way, the police were like, did she get a cab? What do you mean she stormed out? Did she take a car? Did someone pick her up? And he said, no, she just left. And went where? Come on.

[08:38] Jessica: Wait. So where was this dumpster[

[08:39] Meg: In Newburgh, New York. And that is close to? It's between the Hamptons and Massachusetts.

[08:48] Jessica: It's Hamptons adjacent? Okay. Got it. Okay.

[08:49] Meg: Joe said he had found a condom under the bed and accused her of having an affair, and he hadn't seen her since. When the police searched the Hampton's home, they found blood on the kitchen floor. And when they searched the small apartment Joe kept near his Wall Street office, they found women's underwear. Very large underwear.

[09:11] Jessica: No.

[09:11] Meg: And sex toys.

[09:13] Jessica: Is he Dursting again? Is there a women's clothing thing going on? Oh, my God, these men. Go ahead.

[09:21] Meg: Then, on Wednesday, two days after she was reported missing, highway crews on the New York State throughway found Diane's body wrapped in a tarp and tossed in a drainage ditch. Her wrists and ankles were bound and cord, and there were marks around her neck. She was also covered in bruises from a severe beating. So the police brought Joe in for questioning, and they strip searched him. And to their surprise, and not to your surprise at all.

[09:49] Jessica: Not to my one tiny bit.

[09:51] Meg: Joe was wearing women's panties and a bra under his Brooks Brothers suit, as one does. Joe then admits that Diane had discovered his penchant for wearing women's underwear. In fact, she had discovered videotapes Joe had made of himself dancing in lingerie to Tina Turner as his alter ego Chloe.

[10:13] Jessica: That's so Buffalo Bill.

[10:16] Meg: I have seen the videos, Jessica. I have.

[10:20] Jessica: I was so excited to watch them. I don't know.

[10:27] Meg: You can't unsee it. Joe said Diane was going to use the videos to gain custody of the children in the divorce and while he was standing in his underwear in front of the police he couldn't hide a long scratch on his side. And finally, he broke down and admitted he murdered Diane. But he claimed he strangled her in self defense. Because that's the thing.

[10:51] Jessica: Give me a break.

[10:52] Meg: Then he loaded her body.

[10:54] Jessica: Did he also beat her senseless with, like, nickels in a sock out of self defense?

[11:00] Meg: Yeah. I mean, obviously it's funny because it's not funny, it's horrible. But I feel like I've read this before, this whole excuse of I strangled her because she was attacking me. And when it actually takes, like, multiple minutes to strangle somebody, well, there is.

[11:16] Jessica: A case we both know about. Yes.

[11:19] Meg: All right. That's for our very special, that's a very special episode. So then he loaded her body into the back of his station wagon and drove with his children seated just in front of their mother's dead body, to a hardware store and bought tarp, rope and a lot of ice. Then he dropped the kids off at a college buddy's house and headed north, where he dumped the body off the thruway. After getting the station wagon scrubbed down at the car wash, he dumped Diane's purse and other items in the nearby dumpster. Are you caught up? Are we ready to move on to the trial?

[11:54] Jessica: So many questions about people who dispose of criminal evidence in a garbage can. That happens all the time. These people are like, I threw it in a dumpster, no one was ever going to look there. They get emptied, and someone sees, I don't know. I don't know why that's a detail that I get hysterical about. It's such bad planning.

[12:19] Meg: There are so many things that Joe really didn't think through.

[12:23] Jessica: And this was a man making $8 million a year in 1987.

[12:27] Meg: Exactly. His trial exposed more lurid details.

[12:31] Jessica: Goody.

[12:32] Meg: His first wife, Sandra, testified that he'd asked her if he could bury the body in her backyard in Norwell, Massachusetts. She had resisted, saying, I" have a high water table." That one was just for you.

[12:51] Jessica: That is priceless. How do you ask that of someone? So I have a body? Like, did he say, it's a body? Or did he say, I have some trash I need to bury on your property?

[13:03] Meg: Talk about that when the story is over, because I think yeah, there's something about Joe. Let's just say there's something about Joe. The forensic pathologist testified that Diane died of blunt force trauma in addition to the strangulation. So much for the self defense. And while he was out on $350,000 bail, Joe Pikul married his next door neighbor, Mary.

[13:29] Jessica: What?

[13:30] Meg: She fell in love with Joe while their children were on a play date. And a judge awarded Joe custody of Claudia, nine, and Blake, five, because this judge found no evidence that Mr. Pikul was an abusive or neglectful parent.

[13:49] Jessica: Other than killing their mother.

[13:50] Meg: Other than killing their mother. But then the judge reversed herself after an incident when Mr. Pikul chased Mary with a knife and slashed her dress.

[14:01] Jessica: Well, that was a very short honeymoon.

[14:03] Meg: Old habits die hard. Joe was eventually found guilty of second degree murder and was facing 25 years in jail. But he died of AIDS before he was sentenced. He was 54 years old. And on August 22, 1989, a judge cleared Joseph Pikul's name because he died before an appeal of his conviction was decided. What do you think about that?

[14:35] Jessica: I have a lot of feelings. I have so many feelings, and I'm completely incapable of pulling them apart.

[14:44] Meg: Can you believe that? Like the Robert Durst was not the only crazy story. That apparently it was just a thing.

[14:51] Jessica: Well, think about how restrictive the time was to begin with, just socially. And think about how much pressure was Joe Pikul, either legitimately or not legitimately, under in his own mind to not be a cross dresser. How deep the shame, how deep the secrecy, and how, in his mind, every detail of everything he had ever built was hanging on whether or not someone knew he was wearing underpants. I mean, women's underpants. I hate the word panties.

[15:28] Meg: I love the word panties because it makes you squirm.

[15:31] Jessica: I hate it.

[15:32] Meg: And also, remember the beginning of the story. He murdered her the weekend after the crash.

[15:38] Jessica: See, I thought this was going to be revealed because of the crash, as a murdering for the life insurance kind of thing. But the fact that it wound up being about the underpants, about his proclivity, that really took me.

[15:55] Meg: I mean, I don't know that's part of the story for sure, but he was an abusive husband to his first wife, to his second wife, obviously, he murdered her. And then to his third wife.

[16:08] Jessica: Yes. Look, I can only take piece by piece there's that pressure in his mind. Then, of course, there's losing the fortune. Okay. Now, does Sandra ever tell us what he did to her? Other than being an absolute stunning moron asking to bury a body in her backyard?

[16:30] Meg: What I read about Sandra..

[16:32] Jessica: Which sounds like a dirty euphemism go ahead. Sorry.

[16:35] Meg: What I read about Sandra was that she was subservient, and that when he divorced her, it was because he was tired of her and that she was abused, but didn't seem to have that much of an issue with it, if you know what I mean. Like she thought it was normal to be abused, and then there's AIDS. And then there's AIDS. Look, he grew up in an abusive family. Apparently, his father beat him up all the time, and I think he carried that into his adulthood. Not an excuse, obviously.

[17:13] Jessica: No, it's just like you know what it is? It's the secrecy of the crossdressing and presumably gay sex. Unless it was intravenous drugs. But this guy just had so; the exhaustion and the mental strain of hiding.

[17:33] Meg: Your life and also controlling these women in his life.

[17:38] Jessica: Well, because that's all he felt he could really control, because he was at the mercy of his desires or fetishes or proclivities or whatever you want to say about it. I don't want to have any empathy for this person. But when I think about what was this person tap dancing around with? What was he juggling so that he felt he could at least breathe once every, once a week, or whatever it was, that's so fucked up.

[18:12] Meg: Yeah. And I don't think it's about having empathy. I think it's just trying to figure it out. And that is certainly understandable because it is a hot mess.

[18:21] Jessica: That is one of the hottest messes that you've brought to the table. And you know what's interesting is also because it's Durstian.

[18:30] Meg: So, Durstian, on so many levels yes.

[18:32] Jessica: Is that it doesn't get more coverage. I know Durst was particularly bezonkers and it went on for such a long period of time, but this is like just an explosion of madness.

[18:48] Meg: If you wanted to make your wife disappear, it just wasn't that hard. And apparently it happened.

[18:55] Jessica: And that's why I'm not married. I don't want to be disappeared.

[19:04] Meg: No. These friggin detectives.

[19:06] Jessica: Yeah. So many of your tales send me into intensive therapy. And this one, it's just as disturbing. But there's something about it that is just riveting. Like, I will be thinking about this, and I know I should not get hung up on this, but the detail of the kids names, it's so interesting because it's like, who names their children after aspirational soap opera people who are, by the way, not good people in the soap opera. It opens the door to a bit of speculation about what Diane was like sure. And what was going on with her, which has absolutely no bearing on whether or not she should have been dispatched in the way that she was. But she doesn't have a voice in this at all. We don't get to know her. And so that's the only detail that I can cling to, is the way she named her kids.

[20:13] Meg: You've got too much money. That's not even real money, because it can disappear in a heartbeat. You've got a value system that is dependent on that life. And then you've got an asshole husband who you're not leaving because the life.

[20:29] Jessica: The life or maybe that wasn't why she wasn't leaving. Maybe she thought he was going to kill her with the abuse. Who knows? There's so many different things that it could be. Poor Diane.

[20:42] Meg: Poor Diane.

[20:43] Jessica: That's a terrible story, but fascinating. And I must admit it's another one that I've really enjoyed.

[20:55] Meg: Jessica, usually I might peek and see if you've got some books lying there or other research materials, and today I didn't see anything, so I really have absolutely no idea what you're going to talk about.

[21:07] Jessica: Well, one of our loyal listeners, Mark. Yes. He sent me an article, and he thought that it might be useful.

[21:17] Meg: Okay.

[21:19] Jessica: It was. Thank you, Mark. But it also wound up being useful in a way that I didn't expect, and I know that he most likely did not expect. But who knows? Maybe. I don't know. He's a very smart man. I'm going to start with two things. One statement and one question. The statement is yet again, our topics crossover.

[21:41] Meg: Yes.

[21:42] Jessica: And beyond the fact that it's just the 80s, this one's a little more connected. But here's my engagement question for you. If I woke you up in the middle of the night, shook you awake and said, who's the Mayor of New York to you?

[21:58] Meg: Who is Ed Koch?

[21:59] Jessica: Yes. So we're going to talk about Ed Koch today.

[22:02] Meg: Okay. Is it from the article this week?

[22:04] Jessica: Yes.

[22:05] Meg: Which I have been saving. So this is great. I have not read it.

[22:09] Jessica: Okay. So for those of you who are not us, did not grow up in New York, Ed Koch was a really, really big deal as a Mayor. He was a roll up the shirt sleeves, get in with the people, go to subway stations and shake hands and say his classic line, "How am I doing?" He really wanted to know.

[22:39] Meg: Huge personality.

[22:40] Jessica: Huge, very tall man. Also, like, a very big physical presence and very big personality. And quintessentially, New York. Remember all those I love New York ads? In one of the many versions, they had Ed Koch eating a hot dog. Like, I can't think of anything more New York than Ed Koch eating a cart hot dog. And he was well respected. He was known to be capable and smart, and he took over the city when it was fear city and an absolute dump. And he was part of what pulled it out.

[23:16] Meg: And I would say he had the reputation for not censoring himself.

[23:19] Jessica: Not at all. Not censoring himself. He was very authentic.

[23:24] Meg: Yeah. And there's something about that, that whether you agreed with him or not, you trusted.

[23:29] Jessica: Yes. You knew that it wasn't going to be a line. You weren't going to get a line.

[23:34] Meg: He wasn't slick.

[23:35] Jessica: Correct. Oh, my God. No, he was not slick, but he was brilliant and savvy. When I read the article that was in The New York Times last week, it made me think about a lot of things. And the article in the Times was about Ed Koch, who was notoriously a bachelor, about him being gay.

[23:54] Meg: It's confirmed.

[23:55] Jessica: I'm not going to get into the article's details. I'm just going to say that because I know you want to read it, and I think that people should read it, like, go read the article. But the only way, in my opinion, you have a total confirmation is if Ed rises from the dead and makes a proclamation.

[24:10] Meg: Fair enough.

[24:11] Jessica: But the people who are closest in his life opened up and told stories about it and how it was really a struggle for him and how he had to make the decision not to have a relationship for most of his adult life and that his only regret in his old age was never having had a partner or a companion. And he was set up on a few dates and whatever.

[24:40] Meg: Things with men met here and there.

[24:42] Jessica: But he never really found his person. And so I was thinking about this. The world has changed a lot. I was thinking about how young people today might read that article and think, what a coward. Especially because he was the Mayor during the AIDS crisis. And there were a lot of people who were really pissed off because it was sort of if you were in New York City, I guess it was an open secret that he was gay. Like, he lived in the West Village. He was a single man.

[25:13] Meg: What I have read, not this article in particular, but that he kept intentionally kept a distance or his people told him that he shouldn't address the AIDS crisis because it might blow up his identity issues.

[25:27] Jessica: And he did not ignore it entirely by any stretch of the imagination. He was not a Ronald Reagan. His city, his city was blowing up. Like, he was definitely doing things, but not enough for the activists in the city. In fact, one thing I read in that article or was it I think it was in The New Yorker I read an article in The New Yorker about this too. He lived in the same building as Larry Kramer. No. Yes. Of ACT UP fame. And Larry Kramer had a dog. And they would get into the elevator with Ed Koch and Larry would say to his dog, look, honey, that's the man who killed all of daddy's friends. Oh my God, can you imagine? Larry Kramer did amazing work, but that deserves a punch in the face. Like, I think it's so brilliant. Anyway, so I thought, you know, for people who did not grow up in the 70s, you know, prior to the 80s, they may not really understand what was at stake and why someone had to make a really big choice if they were in public office. That either you became a radical activist to make change or you were completely in the system and those two things could not overlap. Just not going to happen. And so I was doing a little bit of research about what his trajectory was and what was going on in the world with politicians during that time period. So, you know, he had his first run for Congress in 1968. Right.

[27:11] Meg: Gosh, like another whole different universe.

[27:13] Jessica: Exactly. In another lifetime. And I mean, for those of you out there who liked watching Mad Men, there was a whole storyline about how the gay character, I think played by.

[27:24] Meg: Bryan Batt oh, the one who does the illustration. Yes. Graphic artist.

[27:29] Jessica: He had to be closeted or else he was really going to lose his job. And this is the time when Ed Koch was trying to build his career.

[27:39] Meg: Good point.

[27:40] Jessica: And just if he started to have some ideas that maybe he could break down some boundaries. Do you know what happened in 1978?

[27:49] Meg: No, I don't.

[27:50] Jessica: Well, it was the first time that there was that the streams crossed and politics and activism intersected in San Francisco in the form of Harvey Milk. Oh, wow. Is that when he was and so in 1978, Harvey Milk, an openly gay man who was running to be on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco and was from The Castro District, the gayest neighborhood in the history of gay neighborhoods. He actually won. And the celebration was beyond belief because it was a celebration for a lot of different things and among them not just that it was a gay man. It was the acceptance of something that is not, the acceptance of something that was considered other outside of that neighborhood at the Castro. And same year he was shot to death, he was murdered by Dan White.

[28:49] Meg: Who got off with the Twinkie defense.

[28:51] Jessica: With the Twinkie defense, the very famous Twinkie defense which was for those of you who do not know it, his lawyer successfully argued that Dan White's brain was undernourished and malfunctioning because he ate so many Twinkies and junk food and and

[29:08] Meg: That that caused him and that brain damage

[29:11] Jessica: Damage caused him to murder Harvey Milk. And just so you get an understanding of what the real climate was, that was enough to get Dan White off. And he was also a council member. He was a colleague of Harvey Milk.

[29:26] Meg: He walked down the hall in my memory, yes.

[29:29] Jessica: He walked down the hall with a gun. So this is the environment that Ed Koch was in and having to make decisions with this in mind and the idea of doing your civic duty and doing the best for your constituency, whoever they might be, was fraught with how do I make myself available to them? Now, obviously, you have to have a pretty high regard for what you can bring to the table. And there are a lot, I'm sure, that we'll get some comments back from people about how great a mayor he was or was not. If he was just a genius marketing machine.

[30:08] Meg: I mean, we know already that he didn't do so well with the whole Yusuf Hawkins situation.

[30:13] Jessica: Precisely. But he did do other things. He was part of bringing Times Square back. He was getting money back into the city. He was getting the Bronx rebuilt. So a person in 1983, the improbably named Gerry Studds which you would think would be a poor name I mean, come on. S-T-U-D-D-S. Gerry Studds was outed. He was a Congressman. And he was outed. From where? For I don't remember actually. I didn't write it down, for having an affair with a Congressional page. That was 1983. Congressional page is not like a child. That's a college graduate working.

[30:51] Meg: Okay.

[30:52] Jessica: I'm just saying it's not like a kid.

[30:54] Meg: I didn't think it was a child.

[30:56] Jessica: I was thinking that anyway, so Gerry Studds.

[30:59] Meg: Then I would have issues with it.

[31:01] Jessica: Yeah. Well, clearly he was outed, which also brought up another thing for me with Ed Koch, which was he wasn't ever really outed. No one did it. His circle was so trusted and so tightly knit around him that the people who had actual dirt never said a thing.

[31:25] Meg: Wow.

[31:25] Jessica: He did, you know, have a sort of beard relationship with former Bess Myerson. Bess Myerson. Bess Myerson, who wound up having her own legal scandals, but she was his arm candy for every event, and they were very, very good friends.

[31:43] Meg: A listener actually wanted us to cover the Bess Myerson/Ed Koch situation, which I was going to do next week.

[31:51] Jessica: I'm just touching on it now. So I'm going to pass the torch because I'm just mentioning that..

[31:56] Meg: Maybe I Won't do it next week, but we will definitely do it.

[31:58] Jessica: He went through the same motions that other gay men who had some public profile did, but still no one did anything. That is interesting, which is fascinating to think about what that loyalty is.

[32:13] Meg: Because he must have had political enemies who knew it, but they just didn't go after him in that way, I think.

[32:20] Jessica: Well, actually, they did. There was one person, I can't recall if we talked about it on the podcast. I think so, actually, Mario Cuomo. When he was yes. When he was running against Koch. Yes. And Andrew Cuomo was his as his son was getting a leg up by being the person in charge of the campaign. They had signs all over New York City that said vote for Cuomo, not the homo. And interestingly people didn't like it. And forever after it happened, Cuomo either denied that he did it or occasionally say, well, it happened, but I wasn't okaying it. I didn't sign off on it.

[33:05] Meg: Sure.

[33:05] Jessica: So that was the extent of it. And the fact that in this long career that's it and that it was rejected is really kind of fascinating. And then it took until 1987 for Barney Frank to actually come out on his own volition as a Congressman. And I don't remember what state he was with either, do you?

[33:24] Meg: I don't. Bad.

[33:25] Jessica: Me. We're bad. Anyway. So think about that. So Ed Koch, from 1968 to almost 1988, that's 20 years of having to make a hard choice and making that choice to serve the city. The crossover. Have I already mentioned what the crossover is from yours? I was interested when you were talking about the nut bag, what's his name?

[33:50] Meg: Joe Pikul. Joe Pikul.

[33:52] Jessica: And that we were discussing that the pressure he was under to keep his sex life and his fetish under wraps could be enough to send him into a murderous range. It's a little much, but clearly it was an issue for him. And imagine so Ed Koch if he had lived a full life or tried to, the pressure would have killed him. And I think that's another interesting thing, that it's not just the public perception, it's the rigors of of leading a double life can kill you, can send you over the edge. But so, anyway, I was going back to why I was sort of musing over Ed Koch and his life and how he made the choices that he did and thinking about what would younger people today think about this? And I thought, you know, revisionist history is so toxic. And making comments about him in statements and this article in The New York Times, I think did sort of a decent job with him, but there were still a lot of digs about the choice that he made. I was like, we cannot judge that from this perspective that we have. We're right now in a different world. To go back to Larry Kramer. Larry Kramer was the one who really spearheaded outing people. Remember outing? Outing was like the bane of so many high profile men's existence, because if anyone could get a scrap of information about you, you were announced to the world as being in some ways and in many people's minds unacceptable, and you're done, your career, your life is dead. Canceled. Yes, it was the ultimate canceling. And that was a political move. I think that people have reframed that as like, hey, yeah, just own your gayness. And it's like, no, that wasn't being done out of pride.

[35:47] Meg: That was blackmail.

[35:49] Jessica: Blackmail. That was, I'm going to take you down if you don't do this. Because if you deny being gay, you're denying AIDS, which is, by the way, not wrong, but also not right, as with all things gray area.

[36:01] Meg: Okay, but good point, Jessica.

[36:04] Jessica: Outing was celebrated, I understand, one of the most rightfully angry groups in America having that drive to be that destructive and aggressively pulling back any veils, but it's also a despicable thing to do.

[36:24] Meg: They considered it an emergency, right?

[36:27] Jessica: So political act that came out of the AIDS crisis. And I just wanted to put this article in The New York Times in context with a lot more empathy for the closeted men of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Being in the closet for a lot of people was a way to stay alive, literally, and not just in their careers. And I read a little note here that's even a little cute for me, its silence equals death, which was ACT UPs slogan. You know, Ed Koch silence was life. Silence was going to give him the opportunity to do something with the life, you know, his God given life.

[37:05] Meg: I think that's a really good point, Jessica. And I mean, that's also what this podcast is trying to do, too, is that we're trying to put events that happened into a bigger context. Right.

[37:16] Jessica: And I'm not saying that anything that didn't support ACT UP and AIDS activism and research was good.

[37:24] Meg: We're not taking sides.

[37:25] Jessica: No, you'd have to be a major maniac to say that. I'm just saying that the loudest and splashiest stuff is what people remember. I forgot what movie this is from, but all those people living lives of quiet desperation were doing it for a reason. It wasn't laziness and it wasn't necessarily cowardice. And to have on your basically on your deathbed your biggest regret, being not having love, that illustrates like that was a really, really important and big choice that he made with his eyes open.

[37:57] Meg: Ed Koch will definitely come back in many stories and we're going to hear about different sides of him in different situations. And I'm really glad that we have this part of him.

[38:08] Jessica: Well, I'm glad to have brought it to you. Yeah. And I know Mark very well. I know that Mark probably sent it to me just to piss me off a little bit so I could be like, and furthermore, why would anyone do that stuff? It just highlights in such a short period of time how much things have changed. I have a friend who tells me frequently about her teenage daughter, like young teenager, her teenage daughter's gay best friend who is the sassiest boy you have ever heard of and sasses all the other boys in school and they're like, you go, girl. And I'm like, what? What is happening in the world?

[38:46] Meg: That was not my experience in high school.

[38:49] Jessica: But yay, that does happen.

[38:56] Meg: Jessica, you have a message for people I believe.

[38:58] Jessica: I do. It would be a public service announcement, but it's also kind of a podcast service announcement. Right.

[39:08] Meg: And completely self serving.

[39:10] Jessica: Yeah, but what I think is sort of fun is that we're starting to have fans and we love them dearly, and we want this podcast to get as big as it can so we can do as much lunacy and cover as much fun stuff as possible. Although admittedly today's was a little more somber than others. But we really need your help and would be so very grateful if our listeners could get on Apple podcasts and rate and review us positively. But please rate and review because having that activity being current is a big part of bringing in more listeners and then our being able to do more and more to amuse all of you guys.

[39:59] Meg: Yes, exactly. And also I'm going to say please go to the Instagram because we have a lot of fun with the Instagram.

[40:07] Jessica: Oh, do we have a new contest coming up?

[40:08] Meg: I got to come up with one.

[40:10] Jessica: All right. I think it might be contest time. You're right. I think that in a very short period of time, we're going to hit another milestone.

[40:17] Meg: We are. We're really close to we might be at 2000 by the time this airs. So yeah, let's have a contest.

[40:25] Jessica: Yes, we're going to have a celebratory contest giveaway for our 2000th download and so check out the Instagram. Meg, I can't wait to see what you cook up this time.

[40:36] Meg: Thanks, Jessica. This has been a delight.

[40:38] Jessica: I love you.