EP. 88
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DO I KNOW YOU? + X-RAY CHIC
[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, where we still live.
[00:29] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.
[00:33] Jessica: And I do pop culture.
[00:34] Meg: So yesterday, Jessica, I did a short film that was based on a short story by Pete Hamill.
[00:41] Jessica: No.
[00:41] Meg: Isn't that interesting? And how about this as a crazy little thing that happened. We were filming on location in a library, and I'm looking at the books, waiting to, you know, for my entrance or whatever, and I'm like, oh, we're in the New York history section.
[00:58] Jessica: Get out.
[00:59] Meg: Just where I love to be and also where Pete Hamill loves to be and right there was a book that Pete Hamill had written an introduction for. I just felt like it was kismet, but it was also, I'm such a clever person. Because I pointed it out to the other actors, and they were like, how do you know that? That's so crazy.
[01:22] Jessica: You're like, because I'm not a dummy.
[01:25] Meg: Well, it's a huge coincidence.
[01:27] Jessica: Well, no, I mean, it's. Well, you know, I've been watching a lot during my various illnesses of the last several months. I watched all of Inspector Morse or Morse, then went back to. Well, not back. And then I started watching Endeavour, which is the prequel to Inspector Morse. Everything in Endeavour is him being like, oh, look, there's this random thing, and here's this other random thing. And now I'm going to save three women from peril because I noticed these two things that are totally unrelated. So you, my darling, may have to become an amateur detective. I think that's in your future.
[02:10] Meg: It's possible, too, that I agreed to do this short film because of the Pete Hamill connection. So it might not be a complete coincidence.
[02:19] Jessica: Well, no. I mean, you were standing in a particular spot that wasn't, that's coincidence.
[02:24] Meg: Coincidence. That's true.
[02:25] Jessica: It's all coincidence. I'm giving you the. You are a sleuth.
[02:29] Meg: But also, yeah, New York history everywhere.
[02:32] Jessica: I have become obsessed, rather predictably, with a few Instagram accounts that I suppose we should do a nod to, yes, follow, but also give a shout out, because one of them is all photographs of New York. I've seen a lot of stuff from the New York Historical Society. These are not from the New York Historical Society, and they are amazing. Like a group portrait of the domestic servants from a house in Brooklyn. And I'm like and what was so kind of marvelous is that each one was holding something that indicated what their job was. Very interesting. And like, there's, there was another one of a, of a house on Columbus Avenue and 80th Street that was, to call it a house was generous. It was basically a shack.
[03:24] Meg: I think I might have seen this picture. And you're like, oh, can you see the L? Columbus, The L behind it? I've totally seen that photograph.
[03:33] Jessica: Yes. It's shocking, right? You're like, Columbus and 80th. What? Unsurprisingly, I'm with you because.
[03:41] Meg: Well, it is kind of. This is what we did a lot of Dante.
[03:44] Jessica: All right, well, so, yeah, back to.
[03:46] Meg: We are interested in the things we're interested in. Who knew? Have you ever become obsessed with a stranger?
[04:09] Jessica: Wow, that's like. Have you ever been mentally ill? I'm happy to say no, I have never been obsessed with a stranger. Unless you count, you know, an actor during my adolescence as a stranger.
[04:29] Meg: Absolutely. Celebrity worship. Yeah.
[04:32] Jessica: Yeah. You know, I was very into Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson before they both revealed that they were cuckoo bananas.
[04:40] Meg: It is a shame we lost them.
[04:42] Jessica: I know. Really lost them, like hard. Like, they just. That's like.
[04:48] Meg: They were so handsome.
[04:49] Jessica: It's like my visual is of them on the deck of an ocean liner waving. We're waving from the pier, like, bye, off you go into the wild blue yonder, you crazies. See ya never again. Oh, my God. That's very cool. And you know what? I really, really loved the book The Professor and the Madman. It's one of my all time favorite books. And the movie was on one of the 8,000 movie channels that I subscribed to during COVID that I still pay for even though I don't watch them. But one of them was showing the film and I was like, is that Mel Gibson? God **** it, I can't watch it. And then it was actually. I was like, oh, it's Sean Penn. I was like, oh, God **** it. He's also ******* crazy. And then I was like, no, it's both of them. Oh, my God, this is ruined. It's been ruined for me. I can't.
[05:56] Meg: Stop disappointing us pretty boys.
[05:58] Jessica: There are too many crazy. I still can't get over Sean Penn going to New Orleans with, like, a dinghy to go find people after Katrina.
[06:06] Meg: Well, that's, that's good. Is better than bad things that other people have done.
[06:13] Jessica: Well, no. Yes. Well, his heart was in the right place, but his execution is so consistently capital DUM, like doesn't even merit the B. Just. Okay. Are we? Are we? Are we? Yes.
[06:32] Meg: You have. You have answered my question, and I feel your engagement.
[06:38] Jessica: I'm engaged.
[06:40] Meg: On October 16, 1981, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated when she was just five years old, took the stand at Manhattan Criminal Court at the trial of Kevin King. She was 24 years old and had recently graduated from Harvard University and had returned to New York, where she had grown up off and on, sometimes in Greece, sometimes in New York, because after the death of her father, they were moving.
[07:12] Jessica: Aristotle?
[07:14] Meg: Yeah, they moved to Greece for a little bit. But basically, New York was her home base. Her mother still lived at 1040 Fifth Avenue. Back on August 18th. so we're now at October 16th. but back at August 18th, Caroline had been having lunch at the cafeteria at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where she worked. Kevin King approached her and asked if she was Caroline Kennedy and if she remembered him from San Francisco. She replied that she was Caroline Kennedy, but had never been to San Francisco. Kevin didn't want to let her leave, but she excused herself eventually, saying, listen, I don't know you, and one of us is going to leave now. She was rattled by the interaction, especially because she noticed him gripping a piece of paper with her home address on the Upper West Side.
[08:06] Jessica: Good God.
[08:07] Meg: So terrified, she went straight to her mother's place, a block and a half from The Met. She'd been receiving letters from a man she did not know, and that had alarmed her. They didn't make sense. They contained obscenities and a marriage proposal. After the assassinations of her father, uncle and barely escaping with her life when an IRA bomb exploded under the car of Conservative Member of Parliament, Sir Hugh Fraser while she was staying with him and his family in London, she was understandably scared of strangers trying to hurt her. Did you know that? About the IRA bomb?
[08:42] Jessica: No.
[08:43] Meg: So she had some internship at Sotheby's in London, and she was staying at Sir Hugh Fraser's, and the IRA wanted to kill him, and they put a bomb under his car, and they were coming out to get in the car, Sir Hugh Fraser, his wife, and Caroline Kennedy, when it went off before they got in it, and it ended up killing their neighbor while he was walking his dog. So she escaped death, but their next door neighbor and his dog didn't. Oh, my God. But by minutes, quite rightly rattled.
[09:17] Jessica: Yeah.
[09:17] Meg: That night of August 18th, Kevin King convinced the doorman at Caroline's Upper West Side building that he was a friend of hers, and knocked on the door of the apartment she shared with two housemates, including film producer Andrew Karsch. Andrew answered the door and insisted Kevin leave. Kevin would not be deterred. After being expelled from the building, Kevin kept calling the apartment on the phone incessantly and kept trying to get past the doorman. He showed up on the doorstep the next day. Caroline drove, because she spent the night at her mom's , right, she drove past her home in a cab the next morning, saw him in front of her apartment, and that was the last straw for the police, who picked him up for trespassing. Now, you realize she does have Secret Service.
[10:10] Jessica: Oh.
[10:10] Meg: But somehow, even they kept telling him, go away, go away. But he kept coming back. There was nothing.
[10:17] Jessica: Well, that doesn't sound like they're doing a terribly good job.
[10:20] Meg: I mean, I'm not sure they're allowed to, like, beat him up. Well, they could beat him up.
[10:24] Jessica: They could grab him by the upper arm and march him away from the building.
[10:29] Meg: I think they did, and I think he just kept coming back.
[10:33] Jessica: Cattle prod.
[10:37] Meg: Even after his arrest on August 20, two of Kevin's letters managed to find Caroline. Like, why are they letting him write Caroline Kennedy from his jail cell? I don't understand, but maybe we're going to get to that in a second, actually, because, like, the word stalking wasn't really a thing then. It was just.
[10:57] Jessica: It was just a man's right to follow a woman around.
[11:01] Meg: But you know what I mean, There wasn't a term for what's happening right now.
[11:04] Jessica: I find that really weird.
[11:08] Meg: And it is. This is after John Hinckley Jr. This is after John Lennon was assassinated. Those were both deranged stalker people, and yet
[11:17] Jessica: Were they called unrealistic enthusiasts?
[11:21] Meg: Well, I feel like the country was still trying to figure out what's going on with these guys.
[11:28] Jessica: Oh, God.
[11:30] Meg: So two letters managed to find Caroline, and in one of them, he wrote, "I've never backed off from my purpose before my arrest to play an active part in your life." Kevin was taken to Bellevue, given a psychiatric evaluation, and was found fit to stand trial, and the trial was expedited. Kevin King, who was 35, was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal trespass. See, there's nothing on the books about stalking.
[12:01] Jessica: Right.
[12:02] Meg: Originally from Palo Alto, he went to Stanford University undergrad and UC Hastings for law school. His wealthy parents. He came from a family of lawyers, hired an attorney for him, Albert Felix, but did not arrange for his $25,000 bail.
[12:17] Jessica: Interesting.
[12:18] Meg: Oh, I think they knew. They knew. They're like, maybe you should stay there.
[12:23] Jessica: Yes, we need you supervised.
[12:27] Meg: Kevin dismissed his lawyer, which was his right.
[12:30] Jessica: Yes.
[12:31] Meg: Because he wanted to defend himself.
[12:33] Jessica: Yes. That's the sign of a true cuckoo do when you're like, no, I'm going to do my own defense. And then please tell me that he did. Like, he did that thing where he's like, I'm going to put myself on the witness stand. Self, what do you think? Well, self, let me have a little conversation with you.
[12:53] Meg: What he did do. I'm not sure he did that. What he did do, though, is he waived his rights to a jury trial and he rejected a plea that would have released him on parole. Because, remember, criminal trespass. I mean, none of that is actually that big of a deal. They're not recognizing the big picture here. There's nothing on the books that says, oh my God, this is going to get worse and worse and worse unless it's dealt with. So they get him. It's probably also why the Secret Service couldn't do anything more dramatic or the police couldn't. You know, like, there's just nothing to pin him on. So actually he could have just, if he'd been in his right mind, pled and been let off on the streets. But why would he want to do that? You see, Kevin wanted to meet Caroline. And because he had the right to defend himself, he also had the right to cross examine Caroline Kennedy.
[13:44] Jessica: Stop it. Oh, in a way, it's kind of genius. In a sick, sick, massively ****** up way.
[13:52] Meg: Yeah. It's not in his best interest, but.
[13:55] Jessica: But it is in his best interest because that's his goal, right? That's what he wants.
[14:01] Meg: And he got it. He got it. Kevin. Blonde, blue eyed, dressed in a wrinkled blue prison shirt, trousers and sneakers. There's a cartoon or, you know, a court sketch that I will post on the Instagram made his opening statements and when Caroline Kennedy was called to the stand, he giggled nervously, broke into laughter, then seemed agog that he was mere feet away from her. Finally.
[14:29] Jessica: This is so unpleasant.
[14:32] Meg: Caroline wore a purple turtleneck and a plaid skirt and made sure never to make eye contact with Kevin. She looked down at the ground or straight in front of her as she answered his questions on cross examination. He asked her about the day he approached her at the Met. Do you recall looking at me? Your face looked different. Caroline responded, I tried not to look at you. You were staring at me without blinking.
[14:59] Jessica: One of the signs.
[15:01] Meg: While Kevin was at Bellevue Hospital, he managed to send additional letters to Caroline, one of them asked, why don't you marry me? We can borrow some rice from your mother's wedding.
[15:12] Jessica: Oh.
[15:16] Meg: Another one. Next time I'll **** all your relatives unless you marry me.
[15:19] Jessica: What? Oh, wait, wait, wait. I mean, it's grotesque, but I'm going to **** all your relatives.
[15:27] Meg: Well, now he's angry, too.
[15:28] Jessica: I know, but it's so. It's so. I can't believe I was about to say this. This is almost as good as we're interested in the things we're interested in. Like, gee, that's fine. Okay.
[15:41] Meg: In court, referring to the letters, he asked Caroline, did you take it seriously as to constitute a scare? She answered, yes. Then he asked, would you say the card was humorous in some respects? Caroline responded, no. He called all the witnesses liars, including Caroline and Andrew Karsch and the staff from the Met and the tenants of Caroline's Upper West Side building. Caroline insisted she had never been to San Francisco, but Kevin countered, have you ever sent a friend or third party to California to impersonate so that I would be misled? In '65, '75 and '80? Caroline answered, no. Kevin closed with, I withdraw my offer of marriage. That's all the questions I have.
[16:33] Jessica: Oh, that's a relief.
[16:37] Meg: Now he's angry.
[16:38] Jessica: Crazy.
[16:39] Meg: The assistant DA asked Kevin, didn't you get arrested to meet Caroline Kennedy here in court? And Kevin said, yeah, that's true. It was kind of a last resort. Judge John Bradley found Kevin guilty and ordered him to undergo extensive examination at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for a period not to exceed 30 days, noting that his condition had deteriorated considerably. So he was fit enough to stand trial and fit enough to defend himself, but then over the course of the trial, they were like or maybe not. Kevin broke down and had to be restrained. He insisted the gay community was exerting influence to prevent him from seeing Caroline Kennedy. I don't intend to change my mind he shouted in court. Kevin's mother, who attended the trial with Kevin's father, burst into tears. In January, three months later, Kevin was found mentally unfit to be sentenced and was ordered confined to a psychiatric institution in Palo Alto.
[17:55] Jessica: Good.
[17:56] Meg: So I think it seems obvious that the family of lawyers from Palo Alto said, hey, we can take it from here. We promise that he will be well cared for in this mental facility that is close to our home. Interesting. I did a bit of a deep dive.
[18:13] Jessica: Unsurprisingly. What then happened?
[18:17] Meg: I'll just say, he walks amongst us.
[18:19] Jessica: No, no.
[18:20] Meg: In Palo Alto, though. And his mother. I read the obituary for his Mother who seemed like a lovely, lovely person. I mean, it seems like a very good. I mean, the guy just, he was schizophrenic. What you gonna do? And hopefully he had a lot of care. I mean, there's no reason to be locked up for the rest of your life if you actually get better.
[18:39] Jessica: Yes.
[18:41] Meg: As long as you actually get better. Yes. Thank God he was locked up before he did something horribly violent.
[18:48] Jessica: Well, hell yes.
[18:49] Meg: Right. Now, listen to this. Interesting, right? A month before Kevin was sent back to California. So the trial has happened and they're waiting for the sentencing. Caroline was on the stand again. She's only 24, testifying against photographer Ron Galella.
[19:10] Jessica: Ron Galella. He is like, by the way, any celebrity photo you see from the '70s and '80s is him and one of the most famous photos of her mother.
[19:21] Meg: Yes.
[19:21] Jessica: Is. Was taken by him.
[19:23] Meg: Yes. And. Yeah, that's going to become relevant in a second.
[19:26] Jessica: Oh, okay.
[19:27] Meg: Jackie had filed a complaint against the paparazzo for taking close range photos of Caroline from a car on Labor Day on Martha's Vineyard. A 1975 court order had banned Ron Galella for life from approaching within 25ft of Jackie and 30ft of Caroline as a result of his basically stalking Jackie Onassis while she was in New York. His actions on Labor Day was in violation of that court order. And this is from Caroline while she was on the stand. She's on the stand again. What the hell? "I was frightened. I noticed my heart beating very fast. I didn't know what he was going to do and it made me nervous, sort of in a panic." She was terrified his car would force her off the road as he passed. He was taking pictures within a couple of feet of her. And this is again from her. "Since Galella has proved unpredictable, he has posed a danger in the past. I just wanted to get away from him." So the whole thing is just a dangerous situation then. Okay, so that happened. So she was on the stand again. I mean, this is not a good year for her. Well, yes, it's hard to be Caroline Kennedy.
[20:41] Jessica: The Kennedy Kennedy family generally.
[20:44] Meg: Well, how about this? Okay then. In 2011, 41 year old Naeem Ahmed, an unemployed New Yorker studying for the taxi driver examination, pled guilty to stalking and aggravated harassment of Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy's 20 year old daughter. So here we go again. He sent her love letters, flowers and chocolates for two years from when she was 18 and studying at Yale University. One e-card said, I know your shape, your sound, your warmth and your taste. Wishing you a lovely weekend, honey bunny. Sincerely yours, hubby Naeem.
[21:27] Jessica: Oh, my God.
[21:29] Meg: Even after taking a plea deal that barred him from contacting her or her family ever again, he said, I still love her. It is unconditional. And he walks amongst us.
[21:40] Jessica: I wish that the expression on my face could be communicated right now. That is. It's nauseating. That's actually the word I was searching for. It's nauseating. It's so fear inducing just knowing that that's how things work.
[21:57] Meg: Yes.
[21:58] Jessica: And I'll.
[21:58] Meg: I mean, I was gonna look up. I was assuming that laws must have changed dramatically since the '80s. And now, of course, you could send somebody like this to jail. Not really. Not easily. And he had the same bail as Kevin King.
[22:13] Jessica: Really?
[22:14] Meg: From 1981. $25,000.
[22:16] Jessica: Good Lord. You know, you asked me the engagement question. Have I ever been obsessed? Now, what I'm about to describe does not even remotely live in the same universe as what you're talking about with the Kennedy's. A friend of a family member of mine had borderline personality disorder and would in his manic phases, become obsessed with me and write me letters. And they were never overtly threatening, but it was definitely, I'm in love with you and da da, da, da, da. And it was. That was enough to make me very nervous. And I, you know, I had to. And mercifully, when I finally contacted him, I was like, you know what? This is not gonna happen. And then the family member got involved as well. And the loss of that friend was frightening enough for, for the would be stalker to stop. So. But really, you know, that crumb was terrifying. So I can't imagine what she was feeling.
[23:24] Meg: Right. And these are her formative years. And then to have it happen to her daughter, I just can't. Interesting little factoid. California was the first state to pass an anti-stalking law in 1990. A year after four women in Orange County were killed despite temporary restraining orders against men who were following them. And New York apparently has one of the strongest anti-stalking laws in the country. But obviously not so strong.
[23:53] Jessica: Well, the problem about a stalking law and about restraining orders is that what do they really do? So you have to have someone who's not violent get too close or do whatever for you to then go back to the police and say, this is what's happened. But if you have a restraining order or temporary restraining order, that doesn't mean that that person has in any way been kept from getting to you.
[24:18] Meg: Absolutely no. And just to define stalking for us, this is what the California law says, willful, malicious, and repeated following and harassing of another person. And most of these laws require some credible threat of violence. And now, of course, we've added onto ye olde timey stalking, the whole concept of cyber stalking, which is even more difficult to identify and prosecute.
[24:50] Jessica: Good Lord.
[24:51] Meg: But the problem's still there.
[24:52] Jessica: Yeah, I'm just nauseated.
[24:54] Meg: But a specific stalking, it's bad. I was talking to my mom on the phone today, and she was like, so what's the theme today? I said stalking, but then I was like, oh, but not like, you know, jealous ex boyfriend stalking, which is horrible. Like he's never met her before and is obsessing over her kind of stalking. Which is a different category.
[25:17] Jessica: Yes.
[25:18] Meg: It just as violent.
[25:20] Jessica: It adds an element of delusion that's. That's frightening because it's so un. It's unknowable. You can't understand it. Like what?
[25:29] Meg: And you can't reason with it.
[25:31] Jessica: Right. Let's hope we get through 2024 with no stalkers. I don't know.
[25:36] Meg: It's not another thing.
[25:37] Jessica: It's not a resolution.
[25:37] Meg: Put it on the list.
[25:38] Jessica: Yes, exactly. Okay.
[25:51] Meg: Okay.
[25:51] Jessica: I have a question for you. So it's January.
[25:55] Meg: Indeed it is.
[25:56] Jessica: It is the new year. What do you think the most popular, I guess we would say New Year's resolution is?
[26:06] Meg: Lose weight. Yes. I mean, that's such a, is that boring?
[26:08] Jessica: No. Correct.
[26:10] Meg: Okay.
[26:10] Jessica: And that's what we're going to talk about today is. Yay. Is losing weight in New York City '80s style.
[26:19] Meg: Okay.
[26:20] Jessica: Okay. So I had a really interesting conversation with one of the BFFs of the 'cast, my dear friend Suzanne, who listens every week. So, Suzanne. Hi. And we were having a really interesting discussion about the, the why it's so important for women to be thin. Why is thinness so important? And in my completely usual, predictable way, I launched into a monologue about the history of opulence and how do you signify wealth? And that in the 19th century, when food was scarce, one of the ways to show that you were wealthy was to have a little plumpness to you, as well as having, if you were a white woman, milky white skin, because that meant you were not outside laboring in any way. So those are like, you know, just two signifiers and how after the First World War, things changed and women's fashion changed, and then suddenly leisure was about being sporty and being, you know, in the South of France, and having a tan was a big thing, and being able to wear the clothing that was sort of the signifier of sportiness and female liberation, was you had to be really thin to be in these little scanty outfits. So we were talking about this, and I started to think about how every January I say to myself the same thing, which is, this is the year I'm going to be really thin. Not just thin. Really thin. And. And then I started thinking, like, when did I first start to have this maladjusted headspace? And I realized, oh, the '80s because I and you started college in 1987. And I gained the freshman 15. And so at first, my freshman 15 was eliminated because I had mono. So that was, like, helpful. Helpful. And our other BFF of the 'cast, Nick, always teased me that I had body by mono instead of Body by Gilda. Yeah. So. But then it crept back on. And I don't know if I ever told you this, but I was so unaware of what, you know, gaining weight was because I was barely pubescent by the time I got to school. You know, and I've said on this podcast before, like, when I was at Dorian's, I looked like I was nine. So it was, you know, always a weird thing for me. So I didn't, you know, I had, like, no body. And so I genuinely thought when I got to school that they were fat people and thin people, and it didn't matter what you did. That's just who you were. It's like having brown hair, not brown hair. So it was a bit of a shock when I realized that if I ate three omelets a day with cheese at what was at Kenyon College called extendo lunch and ordered fried chicken sandwiches with mayo all night, getting high and studying, not in that order. I don't know. Suddenly I jumped over the line into chubby. And I was like, this is. It was a mystery to me. So I embarked on what it would take to lose weight. And I started. As I was ruminating about this, I was thinking, like, what was going on in New York at the time? Like, what was my model for all of this?
[30:08] Meg: I do remember a lot of fads, obviously. And when I did finally learn how to eat properly, I realized how wrong I had been my entire childhood. I mean, I didn't realize the whole carb concept. I didn't get that that, like, carbs are actually. You can eat too many of them.
[30:32] Jessica: I think that there was so much that we did not know. And so, yes, so much missing. Not just that we didn't know because we were young. Also, like, it was. It was beginning of our of our obsession. But yeah, there was a lot of bad information out there. I'm going to talk.
[30:49] Meg: Certainly the obsession started early. I mean, you're talking about dieting in college, I was dieting when I was like 10. Oof bad. I know. And not in a healthy way. I mean, it was just sort of. Let's try not eating this. Let's try.
[31:08] Jessica: Was that self motivated or did. Were you?
[31:10] Meg: Absolutely. And please, I, I won't cast aspersions on people calling me fat, but first of all, I wasn't.
[31:20] Jessica: And no, yes, I. I was there. I saw you. You were not.
[31:23] Meg: And yet I felt like people commented on my body a lot. I think we all had that experience where people were always going, oh, your shape is different than other shape. Like it was just always being assessed. I felt like I was always being assessed and from a very young age because I got boobs before other people and that kind of felt like fat.
[31:52] Jessica: I don't think I got my boobs until like menopause. Like, what are these things that I'm dealing with here, bra? Why? Oh, I see. Well, you are in the majority. And by the way, I know exactly who said what to you. I know.
[32:09] Meg: Oh, yeah. I mean, I wasn't even thinking about her.
[32:11] Jessica: Oh. But I.
[32:13] Meg: But yeah, that's another example that I wasn't even thinking about.
[32:17] Jessica: Yes, see, but I remember because I'm on your. I'm on your side.
[32:21] Meg: Thank you.
[32:22] Jessica: Well, thanks to **** sympathizer Wallis Simpson.
[32:27] Meg: Oh, she was very skinny.
[32:29] Jessica: Well, she is the one who coined the phrase, you can never be too rich or too thin. And in one masterstroke, she ****** generations of women. In 1987, back to when my madness began, Tom Wolfe, in his book The Bonfire of the Vanities, coined the phrase or the term social X ray.
[32:52] Meg: Yes.
[32:52] Jessica: And thus began the way that people identified the upper social echelons of New York socialites, which some of whom were the same women who, if you watch, if you like that, what's his name, Ryan Murphy Feud. His new thing is Truman Capote and The Swans.
[33:15] Meg: And we've covered that on the podcast.
[33:16] Jessica: Yes, yes. And so his Swans were among the people who adhered to that.
[33:24] Meg: Yes. They were very skinny.
[33:25] Jessica: Yes.
[33:26] Meg: And they were basically clothes hangers.
[33:28] Jessica: Exactly. They aspired. This is a joke that Nick and I had for a long time. But they were just trying to return to their birth weight. That was, that was the goal. If I can get down to 8lbs 6oz, I win by death. That's it. But those women. Yes. Of the Swan variety famously didn't eat at La Cote Basque for lunch every day. But they are part of, as we know, a long history of dieting. But they had their own special ways. But there's been a long line of cuckoo diets. But do you know where they began? Not with a woman, with a man. Lord Byron, obsessed with his appearance and his weight, born 1788, died, I believe, 1824. Do you know what diet he got very into that he created? You're not going to believe this.
[34:28] Meg: What?
[34:28] Jessica: The apple cider vinegar diet.
[34:31] Meg: Oh, interesting. I definitely tried that at some point.
[34:35] Jessica: Oh, my God, did, like, the lining of your stomach fall out?
[34:38] Meg: No. You know, I'll try anything. I know it sounds horrible.
[34:43] Jessica: No, it sounds normal, actually. Sounds like every other woman in this country. He began the fad. In the 1930s, the Dukan Diet came along. Then there was Scarsdale Medical Diet, which we talked about. Atkins, F-Factor, the Master Cleanse, and my favorite
'80s diet aid, Nikki Haskell Star Caps. Now, if I will put the ad up, but when you see the ad, you'll be like, oh, my God, Nikki Haskell aspired to be one of the New York social X rays. Yes, we've talked about her and she was, as you may or may not recall callback, one of the first stockbroker female stockbrokers. She loved being a jet setter and was LA based and New York based, and she wound up being the force behind Star Caps.
[35:41] Meg: What is Star Caps?
[35:42] Jessica: So they were diet pills.
[35:44] Meg: Oh, is it like caffeine pills?
[35:46] Jessica: Well, wait for it. She brought them out in 1986. She claimed that they were a combination of Peruvian garlic and papaya and that they were super effective and would just have the fat melt right off of you.
[36:04] Meg: Question.
[36:05] Jessica: Oh, yes, I'm sure there are. Yes.
[36:08] Meg: First, does it work? I'm kidding.
[36:11] Jessica: Well, yes, and I'll tell you why.
[36:13] Meg: But my second question, was she producing them and selling them or she was just a fan? She found them and then was she promoting them?
[36:22] Jessica: She created them.
[36:23] Meg: She created.
[36:24] Jessica: She created them and she promoted them. All right, now, interesting. Side business. Not only. And she was a hustler. Like, good for her. She was a hustler.
[36:33] Meg: She definitely.
[36:34] Jessica: She made things happen. Is she still with us?
[36:37] Meg: She might still be with us.
[36:38] Jessica: No, actually, I think I looked it up.
[36:39] Meg: Up at some point. Anyway, go ahead. So I think she's on Instagram.
[36:42] Jessica: Garlic and papaya, interestingly, were her recipe for success. And not only were women trying to get thin, who were trying to get thin really interested in these, but you know who else loved them? NFL players, football players got really into them. Well, it's one word. It starts with an A and it ends with amphetamines. Excuse me? It starts with an A and ends with amphetamines. So unsurprisingly, they worked very, very well. But eventually someone got wise and they were taken off the market. So that was the. That was the end of that.
[37:26] Meg: I do remember some girls in Glee Club chowing down on, do you remember they were like grapefruit pills. That. It was the grapefruit diet, but you could do your grapefruit in pill form as long as you had. And they. I. I'm holding up my fingers for two inches, right. That's how big each pill was. And you had, as I recall. And I did try this, okay. Like 12 a day. And to swallow those kinds of large pills and to swallow so many of them. But it was a fad. And I remember. I'm not going to say who it was in Glee Club because I do remember who it was, but somebody swore. There's someone not in our grade in the grade ahead who came back from summer. Yes. Came back from summer.
[38:09] Jessica: I just want. And I want listeners to know. I just. I just mouthed the name to Meg.
[38:15] Meg: That was it. She came back from summer. She had lost a lot of weight, and it was because of these grapefruit pills that of course, I tried. I don't remember them being as effective for me. I just remember it being so hard to take so many of them.
[38:29] Jessica: Well, she nauseated herself brilliantly, I'm sure. So who's gonna eat when you're, like, rolling on the ground in an acidic frenzy? That sounds horrible.
[38:38] Meg: Just the size of the pills.
[38:40] Jessica: Well, yeah, but that's not good. It's bad.
[38:43] Meg: Not good. Like, maybe that's it. Like, your body's working over hard to digest. And so. I don't know. I don't know.
[38:51] Jessica: I don't know either. But I love that answer. That's like the best science that we've come up with on this podcast.
[38:59] Meg: That's the point, is that all these fads, it was like there's pseudoscience behind it. That was like. That makes sense. Why not?
[39:06] Jessica: Well, and that's every diet. And in fact, just as an aside, I've become very partial to a young guy. I think his name is Sean Casey. He's an Irish lad who has like. He's a. He's a fitness person, a trainer. But he was so appalled at what he's seeing people do for diets that he made sort of a, he has a mission to make it clear to people there's only one way to lose weight and that is a calorie deficit. And the only way that people lose weight is if they are burning more than they are taking in. And he said, and all of these diets might work just because they are keeping you from taking in the calories, but it's just calories in, calories out. So I love. He's sober now and like he turned his life around and he just bought his mom a Mercedes or a Tesla. I'm like, I follow him on his. I love him, I love him.
[40:05] Meg: You are up to date.
[40:07] Jessica: I support him, I think he's great. But Nikki Haskell, you know, she's a bit of a climber. So who was it that she was aspiring to? Well, one of the queens of the social X rays was Nan Kempner.
[40:21] Meg: Yes.
[40:21] Jessica: Who was told by her mother in 1942 that she was a bit chubby. So at a tender age, what did she start doing? Smoking. So that's another thing. Even in the '80s, I don't know if you remember, but I do. There was a lot of smoking. I remember.
[40:39] Meg: Oh, there was so much smoking.
[40:41] Jessica: Everyone smoked and everyone knew. And when I say everyone, I mean our peers and everyone knew. You get thin from smoking.
[40:49] Meg: Well, it keeps you from eating.
[40:51] Jessica: Yes, indeed it does. Jackie Kennedy, also famously thin. This made me laugh. I researched that one of her solutions to keeping calories down was that she would have cheeseless risotto. Oh, why bother? Seriously, like, just stop.
[41:09] Meg: Don't do it, Just don't.
[41:11] Jessica: On the same topic of diet pills, I also found an article in The New York Times from 1982, February of 1982, about how the year before 10 billion doses of a particular diet pill were consumed. The diet pills contained a chemical called Ephedrine. It gave people strokes and yet they still kept taking it. And it stayed on the market. The FDA did not pull it until the aughts when it became very obvious that it was one of the ingredients used to make meth.
[41:49] Meg: Oh, I do kind of recall this. What was it called again?
[41:53] Jessica: Ephedrine was the was one of the brand names. It was PPA, phenylpropanolamine.
[42:00] Meg: But this was just over the counter.
[42:02] Jessica: Yeah, over the counter. Ayds was my all time favorite. I think we've talked about it before, haven't we? It was chewy, it was like, it was a proto gummy and it was chocolatey or caramel.
[42:16] Meg: It was like a little like Lego of chocolate. Chalky chocolate, substance of texture.
[42:24] Jessica: Right. And it was spelled A, Y, D, S
[42:27] Meg:This is true.
[42:29] Jessica: And maybe three years after it launched the AIDS crisis.
[42:35] Meg: Bad timing just for everybody.
[42:37] Jessica: Just blew up. Yes. And they were like, maybe we should just take this off the market. Because like, how do you rebrand that? No, you, you can't. We were just kidding with the Ayds thing. We're going to call it Skinny. Yeah, that doesn't work, forget it. So what would you do in the '80s if you did not want to or could not starve yourself? Which is what these people did, by the way. I took a page from the social X rays books and I can't remember where I read this, but one summer during college, I was at home, I was like, I'm gonna lose more weight. And the genius idea was to cut up an iceberg lettuce, head of lettuce. And then it would be like squares of, of this. It was like, it's just like potato chips. Dip it in some vinegar. That's tasty. Oh, honey, I know. Isn't that sad?
[43:36] Meg: That's so sad.
[43:37] Jessica: But that was what these women did. Like they went through these unbelievable efforts. It's like when the smoking wasn't enough, when the self loathing wasn't enough, when the fashion wasn't enough, an iceberg a head of iceberg lettuce. Also, the whole social X ray and fashion thing. Everyone, I would imagine in our age group, or most women who are listening to this will recall from the Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt's character is explaining how she got so thin for the Met Gala to get in her dress. And she says, oh, I eat nothing. And then when I think I'm going to faint, I eat a cube of cheese. So that's what we're dealing with. But if you didn't want to do that, what would you do? You were finally forced to go to the gym. Now, I thought that I knew about gym culture in New York and I was wrong. There was a gym called The Vertical Club. Are you familiar with this?
[44:31] Meg: I don't think so.
[44:31] Jessica: Well, it's interesting because it was so high end and such a place for celebrities that there's almost no paper trail and no photographic evidence of it. Just a little bit. I know it was the place to be. It was the self proclaimed Studio 54 of fitness. And it operated like it was a club, like a, like a dance club. And it was very much obviously a pickup scene.
[45:03] Meg: Do you know where it was?
[45:04] Jessica: It was on 61st Street, East 61st in a renovated parking garage.
[45:11] Meg: Fascinating.
[45:11] Jessica: And it had had many floors, it was tall. So get it. The Vertical Club.
[45:18] Meg: Got it.
[45:18] Jessica: The instructors were mostly dancers, the aerobics instructors. So there was like a big showbiz flair feeling to it. The aerobics style was very like Broadway. And also because they were dancers, they were frequently at dance clubs like Palladium.
[45:39] Meg: Okay.
[45:40] Jessica: Danceteria. And they brought their dance partners, their friends, rom the club world.
[45:45] Meg: Yeah.
[45:46] Jessica: Into The Vertical Club.
[45:47] Meg: Got it, got it, got it, got it.
[45:49] Jessica: So one of them described what she would wear and just because, you know, fitness fashion is so far from this, for those of you who don't know. And this was normal. Her outfit was two pairs of black tights, one over the other to create an opaque, like leggings.
[46:07] Meg: Oh, because you didn't have leggings back in the day.
[46:10] Jessica: Right. A belted thong leotard, leg warmers and sneakers. A good look. So The Vertical club started in 1984 and it had all kinds of celebrity clients like Cher, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Valerie Simpson. Solid as a rock. Thank you. Fabio. And more. They were given the kind of, I guess not, it wasn't anonymity, but they were left alone, as you would be at Studio. Exactly. So they loved it.
[46:48] Meg: They wouldn't be gawked at.
[46:49] Jessica: Exactly. Interestingly, Billie Jean King was also part of it, giving it, at least as I was researching it, more of a sporty legitimacy, a legit vibe. Exactly. She trained an Olympic tennis player at The Vertical Club on their courts. And not only were these people coming straight off the dance floor, but there were also a lot of people who had aged out of club life. And this was the next step for them.
[47:17] Meg: Get their exercise.
[47:18] Jessica: The other fascinating thing is because we're talking about appearance, women were finally climbing the corporate ladder, but you had to look a certain way if you were going to get promoted. And so women's fitness and needing to look like a kick *** hard body, but also being as conventionally attractive as possible was part of the '80s corporate upswing for women. Which is like, oh, it was a step forward and yet a step down. Right.
[47:50] Meg: You had to a pencil skirt. There's no way around that.
[47:53] Jessica: There was nothing else. It was horrific. The instructors were unsurprisingly targeted by a lot of the guys as the people to pick up. And they even tried to sugar daddy them, which did not go over terribly well. It was the beginning. And after the '80s was over and a lot of the people who were the instructors either aged out or for the men they died because there were a lot of instructors who were gay. And that gave birth to '90s fitness clubs, particularly. I don't know if you remember this, David Barton Gym. Sure. That it was all about one on one attention. So can you be too rich or too thin in the '80s? Definitely not.
[48:45] Meg: I would say, yes, you can be too rich and yes, you can be too thin.
[48:49] Jessica: And you're sticking to it.
[48:50] Meg: I'm gonna stick to it.
[48:51] Jessica: I'm definitely going with you can be too thin, too rich. Well, it depends on what your goal is.
[48:57] Meg: Lose your perspective. It's not healthy.
[49:00] Jessica: Ah, but, but those who are that rich, do they want perspective?
[49:04] Meg: I don't care what they want.
[49:05] Jessica: It's bad for them, you know?
[49:06] Meg: What?
[49:06] Jessica: Them. Exactly. Exactly. Now just.
[49:09] Meg: They act like lunatics.
[49:10] Jessica: Yes, well, that we don't. We don't condone. As a quick aside, just to wrap up the social X ray thing, a couple of years ago, I was on the Madison Avenue bus and passing by, I don't know if it was Valentino, it was Halloween. And they did their windows as skeletons dressed in the outfits. And I was like, I know that some window dresser was like, I have an idea. Yeah, that's it. So there you go.
[49:50] Meg: Tie us in.
[49:51] Jessica: Only one woman could do it. It's a Jackie Kennedy Onassis kind of situation. She is a victim of stalking, as was her daughter. And she was both too rich and too thin.
[50:03] Meg: It's almost too perfect.
[50:05] Jessica: Well, there you go. She's. She is.
[50:09] Meg: She's the real deal.
[50:10] Jessica: She really. That they broke the mold.