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

[00:18] Jessica: 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 rip from the headlines and.

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

[00:35] Meg: And who did we just hear from today?

[00:38] Jessica: Our darling, true BFF of the podcast.

[00:43] Meg: Nick, whose idea it was to do the Watch Party of Splash.

[00:48] Jessica: Indeed. And unsurprisingly, he contacted us about Splash.

[00:54] Meg: And he's got a lot to say. Do you want to read what he wrote?

[00:56] Jessica: I shall. Oh, my gosh. He says, loved the Watch Party. Among my favorite child movies of the 80s. Girl, you were a teenager, but you didn't mention the significance of her arrival at the Statue of Liberty. She's an immigrant. She is literally alien. She's welcome. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Everyone mentioned it in the 80s, and it is even more obvious now.

[01:26] Meg: I hear you, Nick.

[01:27] Jessica: Indeed. Then he takes issue with my commentary about how she's infantilized in blue and pink colors. He says blue and pink. They are also Caribbean colors. They filmed all the underwater scenes in Eleuthera, famous for its pink sand. Note also that her tail is orange. She's a tropical fish out of water. Thanks for the friend of the podcast. Shout out. And oh, my God, your mom. And oh, my God, Jess. Fishtown. It's the empire of the mer people. I mean, did you ever think that Nick was the biggest fan of Splash that you knew? No. And I know so many things about him. And this is just proof that the longer a friendship goes on, the more opportunity there there is for delightful surprises.

[02:21] Meg: This is truly a delightful surprise. But this came in very early this morning, and it made my day.

[02:27] Jessica: Yes. We began our day with Nick's commentary. And now, Nikki, I know you're listening. I'm going to give you a little challenge. She found him in Cape Cod. How is she a tropical fish? She is a, to the best of my understanding, a cold water, saltwater North Atlantic fish.

[02:50] Meg: But, Jessica, it's a fairy tale.

[02:53] Jessica: I know, but you can't say she's a tropical fish.

[02:55] Meg: Well, she's coloring.

[03:00] Jessica: Scratch. Em. No. Anyway, Nikki, Nick, thank. I can't say. Nicholas, thank you. Thank you for participating.

[03:12] Meg: I know that you also wanted to mention the other thing that you were exposed to today. Today being February 12th. Today 11th. Okay.

[03:24] Jessica: Yes. So what I said to you before we started the podcast is that, look, we are politically aware and vocal People in the podcast, but this is not a political podcast. Fair the main thrust of what we do. But I feel very strongly that with what is going on at the moment on Capitol Hill and, you know, obviously all over this country with the Epstein files and the GOP epic failure on every front, every single one, like there's not a single pro good step they not take. They've not had a good on good footing on anything. But I think that it is important to note what is happening and that Pam Bondi. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been being questioned by. I don't know what the committee title is to justify the complete abandonment of women and girls who tried to report what had happened. And it's so horrible. I know that I'm speaking in a very halting way. I. Every time I start talking about this, my mind starts going blank because it's so hideous. But during this hearing, like a rat and you. We love talking about rats and pigeons and cockroaches, but this is not a good rat story. Bondi is responding to these very pointed questions like a trapped rat, only highlighting that the only response to a direct question about why the survivors and the not survivors were not listened to is to start screaming at whoever has put the question before her, fully displaying that she is not an employee of the American people, but instead serves Trump. But it's an amazing display of disintegration. And if you did not watch it live today, you might want to take a look.

[05:37] Meg: I will absolutely do that. I will update myself on what you have described because it sounds very alarming. On the bright side, and there is one.

[05:49] Jessica: Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

[05:51] Meg: The grass people in Bad Bunny super bowl halftime.

[05:56] Jessica: If there's anything that could be, please make me a grass person. Yeah, anything that could be an antidote to Pam Bondi. It's the grass people. They were magnificent. They flowed. They were. They were divine. And just again, quickly. Damn, that was amazing. It was so fun.

[06:16] Meg: He.

[06:17] Jessica: That was a protest of such refinement and thorough messaging that, you know, it's chef's kiss could not be better. 11 out of 10. So.

[06:41] Meg: We've discussed this topic on the podcast before. It is your engagement question, so I will ask you again. Did you want to go to boarding school?

[06:52] Jessica: What?

[06:52] Meg: Was going to boarding school when we were growing up in the 80s.

[06:57] Jessica: Oh, boy, that's a good one.

[06:59] Meg: I mean, just keep it personal. Like, did you want to go?

[07:02] Jessica: Well, that's why I said sigh. That's a good one. I wanted out of my house. Like nobody's business. But I was, as you know, a year younger than the rest of our class. And I look back on how I was and how I interpreted stuff and how I handled things and I can see in hindsight as an adult that I was not mature enough to make the choices that might have been right for me. My parents actually asked me after I had a terrible sophomore year and they asked me if I wanted to go to boarding school. And despite the fact that I did, I was so offended at the suggestion because they, I, I can wanna get rid of you, but how dare you wanna get rid of me? That I, I actually recall having a total fit meltdown, you know, you'll never, never get rid of me. I'm all in. So that was my reaction.

[08:07] Meg: For the best, probably. Don't you think?

[08:09] Jessica: Well, as an immature person, does it count that I'm still a year younger than our peer group? Can I still be immature based on that at this age?

[08:17] Meg: Okay.

[08:18] Jessica: No. I think that I would not have done well. I really wanted to go, but I don't think I was ready for it.

[08:24] Meg: Yeah, I'm not sure how it would have sat with me, but I did love being in New York during those years.

[08:32] Jessica: Definitely.

[08:33] Meg: Right.

[08:33] Jessica: I mean, did you want to go?

[08:36] Meg: It was a passing thing because so many people in our class were doing it. FOMO a little bit, but nothing more than that. I loved Nightingale. I loved the city.

[08:47] Jessica: I had also relatively recently come over from Fleming and I think the idea of changing again would have been just too much.

[08:57] Meg: All right, buckle your seatbelts, my dear.

[09:01] Jessica: Click.

[09:02] Meg: This is not a happy story and it's a complicated story, so also, hang in there.

[09:10] Jessica: All right, I'm going to sit back. You can always do this. I'm going to try not to assault the microphone.

[09:17] Meg: Yeah. I mean, please, if you have something to say, say it. Just know that there are going to be some twists. My sources are the New York Times, Time Magazine and Best Intentions. By Robert Sam Anson. On Wednesday evening, June 12, 1985, Edmund Perry and his brother Jonah headed back to their apartment on West 114th street near 8th Avenue in Harlem after playing a one on one basketball game at a local school's court. They had bet that the loser would take the winner to a movie, but as it turned out, neither had any cash on them. Jonah had just finished up his sophomore year at Cornell. Edmund had graduated From Exeter on June 1st and had a full scholarship to Stanford starting in the fall. And Edmund had a summer job lined up at a brokerage House on Wall Street. Both Perry boys were African American and part of A Better Chance, an organization that recruits smart kids from underserviced communities and arranges for them to attend the country's most prestigious schools. At 9:30pm the boys were headed along 113th street and Morningside Drive when they encountered Officer Lee Van Houten. The police officer was on plain clothes duty. People had been breaking into the parked cars of doctors who worked at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital to rip out the radios. Did your parents ever have a car in the city?

[11:01] Jessica: Oh, absolutely. But it was garaged.

[11:03] Meg: Okay. Our car, we, we didn't have it. I don't think we had it well into the 80s. We had it in the late 70s, early 80s, and my parents did the whole alternate side of the street parking thing and it was broken into all the time. And finally they were like, having a car in the city is a headache because if you don't have an affordable garage, ugh, what a pain in the ass that is. It's either super expensive or you have to go 20 blocks to get to your garage.

[11:34] Jessica: Exactly. Yes.

[11:36] Meg: But you had a country house, so it makes sense that you had a car.

[11:39] Jessica: Yeah, and also my parents building has a garage in it, and so tenants get first crack at having spots.

[11:47] Meg: Fabulous. All right, so, yeah, point being ripping off radios out of cars, that was a, that was a thing.

[11:57] Jessica: I mean, so much so that people had signs in their cars that said no radio.

[12:00] Meg: Right. And also joyrides. Once our car was stolen for like a few hours and then returned. That was also a thing.

[12:10] Jessica: Wow.

[12:10] Meg: I know.

[12:11] Jessica: If only they had had social media to stare at.

[12:19] Meg: That's a good one. All right, back to this. Back to this story.

[12:22] Jessica: It's a grim story. Whenever you have a really grim story, your voice is so laden with just a heavy cloud. I'm ready for the grimness.

[12:36] Meg: So Officer Lee Van Houten was on plain clothes duty. The NYPD sent Officer Van Houten and three other plainclothes cops to try and catch the burglars in the act. Officer Van Houten was alone, though. The other three cops were in an unmarked station wagon a couple blocks away. Protocol is that backups keep sight of the cops they are working with. But in this case, no one had their eyes on Van Houten, who was dressed like a hospital intern. Van Houten was 24 years old and had been on the force for two years. He'd been part of the street crime unit for three months. According to Van Houten, when he turned the corner onto Morningside Drive along the park. And before I finish this sentence, Morningside Drive along the park. That was an incredibly dangerous strip in this city in the 80s and some say now always as well, because once something happens, you can jump into the park and disappear. My father used to ride his bike. He was a professor at Columbia, and we were on East 92nd. And he would ride his bike to work every day and he would ride it along Morningside park. And he would always talk about how kind of scary it was. And Toby and I took the M4 to our piano lessons on the weekends. And the M4 would cross right along the strip that I'm talking about right now to get to the west side. And we were always told, like, don't even look out the window. It is so dangerous. Do not make dangerous contact.

[14:27] Jessica: Okay, well, also, it's a very deserted strip.

[14:31] Meg: Sure is.

[14:31] Jessica: There's. There's nothing on it but residences. And so. And. And they're not doorman. They're all older buildings with, you know, like, ornate grill, front door buzzer, no doorman. So there's no. There's. You're stuck. If you're alone, you're alone.

[14:52] Meg: Okay, so Van Houten turns the corner onto Morningside Drive along the park, and he was jumped. This is according to him. He was jumped by two men who grabbed him by the neck, knocked him down and pummeled and punched him, shouting, give it up. Van Houten pulled his gun and shot three times, hitting Edmund in the chest. Jonah ran off. Edmund was rushed to St. Luke's where he died in the operating room at 1:55am Jonah and his mother Veronica, who taught at a local Head Start program, which is similar to A Better Chance, and served on the community school board, showed up at the hospital. Jonah did not admit to being at the scene of the shooting, but rather claimed he had heard about it from a local drug dealer. Van Houten was also treated for bruises at St. Luke's and released. The entire event made no sense to anyone. The Perry boys had never been in any trouble. Edmund was described as, quote, a city kid, but not a tough kid. He was the light of his mother's eye. This is according to his mother. He had a thirst for knowledge. He used to tell me, mom, I'm going to help my people rise. Friends from Exeter didn't believe Van Houten's story. Quote, eddie was too smart for that. The cop must have just killed him. But Van Houten was also well educated and squeaky clean. He had no record of commendations or disciplinary action. He wasn't gun happy, and he was devastated by what happened. He said he thought they were going to kill him. The city rapidly took sides, one side condemning street violence, the other condemning police brutality. Civil rights lawyer C. Vernon Mason represented the family. And this is what he said publicly. Quote, why would a young black man, a young man clearly on his way up, on his way in the fall to his choice of three of the finest colleges in the country, attempt to rob anyone? Mason argued that this event fell into a pattern of police violence against young blacks and Hispanics. But a Manhattan grand jury refused to indict Van Houten and called it a justifiable homicide. And then Jonah was indicted as an accomplice to the mugging. To those who trusted the system, it became evident that the Perry boys had tried to mug Van Houten. But why? Biographer Robert Anson's son was a student and at Exeter. And he knew Edmund and was shocked by the killing. It was so out of character. Robert Anson spent months investigating Edmund's short life, looking for answers to this mystery. There were only a handful of black students at Exeter. A young filmmaker who was also part of A Better Chance explained her experience as a girl of color at an elite boarding school like this. Quote, a white girl can look spacey and people will say, oh, she's being creative. But if you walk around campus with anything but a big smile on your face, they'll wonder, why is she being hostile? You always have the sense of being examined. When your mama works for him, she can at least go home at night. But when you're at prep school, you're always on like a 24 hour a day cultural attraction. Quote, kids would always be asking me about my hair. How do you keep it up? What happens when it gets wet? Can I touch it? It never dawned on them that I found these questions offensive. Why would it? If you are a kid born with a silver spoon in your mouth and grew up on a big estate with servants, then no one has ever said no to you in your life. That's the problem with the white wealthy in this country. They don't know any limits. If you are black, you are there for their pleasure, to provide them with an experience. Sometimes I think that's how these scholarships are sold to white parents. By God, their kids are going to be well rounded. They're going to have Rossignol skis and long boots and a black roommate for an experience.

[19:34] Jessica: Wow. Not wrong. Damn.

[19:39] Meg: Okay. On his yearbook page, Edmund Wrote a note to his school, quote, it's a pity that we part on less than a friendly basis. Work to adjust yourself to a changing world. As will I. Wow. But regardless of his mixed feelings about Exeter, he, by all accounts, understood the value of his opportunities. He believed in his ability to show that we are something in a society that has given us an inferior image, said his friend Andre Francois, a former teacher, said at his funeral, quote, edmund's life was a symbol of success to all those who had encouraged, supported, coached and applauded as he began his long climb up the rough side of the mountain. At Jonah's trial, Alton Maddox claimed the whole incident was a frame up by the police department. To cover for Van Houten, who was drunk. The prosecution brought in two witnesses. One said Jonah told him that he and Edmund had just gone up on the hill to rob someone. And that Edmund had jumped the wrong way and been shot. The other witness claimed Jonah told her that he tried to beat up a man who turned out to be a detective. Maddox tried to discredit the witnesses, saying both were trying to gain favor with the police. He called one of the witnesses a lady of the night. As you know, Alton Maddox is not one of my favorite 80s people. Because of his involvement with a Twana Brawley debacle. He was very much about getting political advantage from black people's legitimate grievances. And some would say for the good, but certainly not for Tawana's good. But that's my opinion. Anyway, that's a callback to another episode.

[21:43] Jessica: Our shared opinion. Yes.

[21:45] Meg: Okay. Jonah did not take the stand. In the end, the jury members were not convinced by the prosecution or the defense, but found the case against Jonah weak enough to find him not guilty. And then, in 1989, New York City settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Veronica Perry, charging that Officer Van Houten had been improperly trained and supervised. And that the city had, quote, permitted a pattern of illegal beatings and shootings of minority people. The family brought a $145 million lawsuit, and the city settled for 75,000. So there are all these different results from these lawsuits and from these trials. And none of them end up telling us what the fuck happened. I think what they do tell us, because they contradict each other. Is that it's a much more complicated and nuanced story. Then this is the bad guy over here, or this is the bad guy over here?

[22:53] Jessica: Well, I think what's interesting about this story is, number one, you are right. It isn't possible to say, here's the bad guy, here's the good guy. Because there just. There is insufficient evidence. But what's even more peculiar is that. Forget the morality of it. Don't know what happened. It's so unclear. Like, I have a million questions about, like, ballistics, what angle. At what angle was the kid shot? Where. Where was Houghton on. Was he on the ground? Like, was he. Like. I've watched CSI enough. I know a few of the questions to ask. What about the incident provided evidence that could have been used to paint a picture. And there just doesn't seem to be any picture of the event. Jonah's silence is also. You could say he's not gonna incriminate himself. He's just gonna stay silent, and that's it. But you could also say he's totally innocent, but the minute he opens his mouth, it will be interpreted as. As incriminating for. So it's because of the time, Right? So it is baffling and mystifying. But there are so many stories that you and I have heard personally about people who came into the prep school system through Prep for Prep or Head Start, or what was the one that.

[24:26] Meg: A Better Chance. A Better Chance, which is still in existence.

[24:31] Jessica: All of them make total sense. Like, it's. It's a good thing. But the thing that really has always struck me is that there doesn't seem to be a part of that program that trains the schools and the. The students for how to incorporate a kid who, by definition of the program that they're in, doesn't. Air quotes belong.

[25:02] Meg: I love that you just said that, because I don't know much about A Better Chance. I just read their website this week, but I do have experience with Prep for Prep, which brought a lot of kids to Nightingale, brought a lot of kids to Allen Stevenson. And I do know that what they do is they prepare the whole family of the kid, including the kid, and they do give a lot of support. But to your point, what about the community they're coming into? The onus is on them to assimilate and not on the community that they're coming into. These fancy schools they're coming into, or the communities they're coming into to adjust in any way.

[25:48] Jessica: How about do one better than adjust? How about if first off, the way that it has traditionally been done from our experience is it automatically sets up an adversarial relationship. You've got a family being prepped for how to handle, essentially, a hostile environment. Right? It's. Yeah, you got. You're gonna have to sink or swim. So we're gonna tell you how to, how to swim. How about if it had been understood maybe, maybe it is now that all kids need the same support system if they're going to be in the same community. The kids who were not prep for prep had the school as a support system. Not every kid in the school is the same. They all have some kind of supervision. There's some teacher, there's somebody who sees the kids at these prep schools because there are very few kids in a class. Right. The fact that the kids who were given a better chance were not treated the same by being understood as needing a support system that is tailored to them is insane.

[27:05] Meg: I'll also throw something else out to you that became very clear to me when I was working at Allen Stevenson for many years. The smartest kids in the class were the ones who were commuting over an hour from, you know, outer boroughs for this opportunity. And I'll tell you, some of those parents and some of those kids who were white kids and white parents who had been there since kindergarten were a little threatened by these super smart, driven, ambitious, great kids.

[27:43] Jessica: You know what, what a good point because I vividly recall there being a few people who I know when we're not recording this, we might discuss who it was mind blowing that they were still in the class. It's like you might need.

[28:01] Meg: You mean some of the kids who were there since kindergarten?

[28:03] Jessica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:04] Meg: Oh, we should say that most of the these programs, they bring the kids in around ninth grade.

[28:12] Jessica: Right. So they're high schoolers.

[28:13] Meg: Yeah, sometimes earlier. Alan Stevenson, they brought them in earlier.

[28:17] Jessica: But yeah, there were some kids who were really dumb as a box of rocks and, and that must have been scary.

[28:27] Meg: I think the other thing I wanted to say, I think I've kind of said this already, is that when you have people who are using a complicated situation as something that's going to propel them in some way or they can use this to, you know, say this is what's wrong with the world. And polari use a story that's complicated to polarize. You never figure out what the fuck happened and what the actual issue was. Well, and that's very upsetting because it remains a mystery.

[29:01] Jessica: Well, I, in my opinion, when things like that happen, it's by design that being silenced, the way that it was handled, the way that it was, there's, there's. And we will never know what it is, but there's a reason that all of the kinds of evidence that we're talking about? Like, where is it that it wasn't. It wasn't there. Which makes it polarized. Well, what the frig did Houghton do? Like how? Like all that we know is that he says he was being jumped and then he squeezes off three rounds.

[29:35] Meg: No, it is more complicated. They get him down on the ground, it's two to one. His story makes sense. I'm telling you, it makes sense. And he's down on the ground and he said, he said he was a police officer and they kept beating him up and he pulled his gun. Now, I don't, I. We do know that some police lie. It is very.

[29:57] Jessica: Well, they weren't in Suffolk county, so that at least gives them a little more credibility.

[30:03] Meg: But this kid in. This kid, this man and this police officer in particular just had not even a hint of that kind of thing on his record. And according to everyone was just distraught over what happened. Now, do you think you should shoot an unarmed person?

[30:24] Jessica: I think not, no. I think that remorse is a really good thing, but it doesn't mean that you're not guilty of doing something wrong. It's great that you have remorse. You're not, you're not a monster. You're not Pam Bondi like you, actually, you're. You have a conscience. Great.

[30:44] Meg: He could have been. I mean, why am I doing devil's advocate for him? But he could have been killed by being beaten up, by being kicked in the head, et cetera, like that.

[30:55] Jessica: Absolutely.

[30:56] Meg: How one can die.

[30:57] Jessica: Could you have shot him in the kneecaps? Well, you know, all of these things I'm saying, like a. What's the training? You know, the other thing that occurs to me, this is one of my favorite, you know, fun facts, is that, you know, human brain doesn't stop developing until you're 26.

[31:13] Meg: Right.

[31:14] Jessica: So putting kids on the street with guns as law enforcement, I'm like, your brain isn't done cooking.

[31:24] Meg: You have such a good point there. We're Talking about a 24 year old who was on the force for two years, three months in this particular off duty job. Also, where the hell is his backup? What's a friggin.

[31:39] Jessica: Yeah. What happened to the guys in the station wagon? Were they disciplined?

[31:42] Meg: And then a couple of teenagers.

[31:45] Jessica: Yeah.

[31:46] Meg: Who possibly were doing something really fucking stupid.

[31:50] Jessica: Yeah, absolutely.

[31:52] Meg: But if they weren't black, if they were a couple of white kids doing something stupid, would they have been shot? That's another question.

[31:59] Jessica: Well, I think if. Well, if he was saying he really thought he was going to Die. And he had that much remorse. But who knows? Maybe.

[32:07] Meg: But maybe he thought he was going to die because he thought they were black people.

[32:09] Jessica: What I think is that if he had. If he had shot a white kid, he would have been in jail. I think that. That everything. And obviously it's why they won a civil suit, hinged on, well, they look guilty, which. And we've had so many conversations, and you've done enough. Not enough, but so many stories where it's like, well, they're black. They're obviously guilty. Let's move on.

[32:35] Meg: But actually, they found him not guilty. Jonah. Not guilty.

[32:38] Jessica: Right. I guess what I'm saying is, in this case, not going after Houghton is a version of They're a little guilty. He's not guilty.

[32:48] Meg: Right, right.

[32:48] Jessica: By virtue of him being not guilty.

[32:51] Meg: They'Re a little guilty.

[32:53] Jessica: Chill, Meg, I have an engagement question for you.

[33:07] Meg: Okay, I'm ready.

[33:08] Jessica: Do you have a favorite cartoon character from the 80s? I don't care, just a favorite cartoon character.

[33:16] Meg: Lumpy Space Princess, who you were for Halloween once.

[33:20] Jessica: Yes. Remind me where she's from.

[33:23] Meg: Adventure Time, which is like a Cartoon.

[33:26] Jessica: Network Adult Swim kind of thing.

[33:29] Meg: Yeah.

[33:29] Jessica: Well, I'm glad you chose an adult cartoon. Do you want to know who mine is?

[33:33] Meg: Yes.

[33:34] Jessica: From South Park. Lemmy Winks.

[33:37] Meg: I don't know South Park.

[33:39] Jessica: Okay, so a little bit of backstory. One of the absolutely hilarious parts of south park is that I believe it's the principal, but it could be a teacher has. He's gay and he has a leather harness. No. Well, yes. No, no. He. He has. He's in a BDSM relationship.

[34:04] Meg: Okay.

[34:04] Jessica: And he has a partner who, like, you know, like, old school Greenwich Village. Like, leather guys.

[34:14] Meg: Yes.

[34:14] Jessica: With the hat and the harness and the leather pants. Yes. So he has one. His name is Mr. Slave.

[34:21] Meg: Oh, my goodness.

[34:21] Jessica: Okay. And Mr. Slave, the only thing that he says is Jesus Christ whenever anything happens. Jesus Christ. So you'd think that Mr. Slave would be my favorite character, but no. My favorite character is Lemmi Winks, the gerbil who gets introduced up Mr. Slave's ass.

[34:43] Meg: Are you kidding me?

[34:45] Jessica: No. And they have this whole legend of Lemmy Winks, who goes on an epic.

[34:50] Meg: Journey into the colon of the.

[34:53] Jessica: Through the digestive tract of Mr. Slave, who's like, Jesus Christ. Every now and then, as Lemmy Winks goes on his journey, and on his journey through the digestive tract, Lemmy Winks encounters ghosts. The ghosts of other small animals who didn't make it out.

[35:11] Meg: But.

[35:11] Jessica: But Lemmi Winks is going to find his way out. And the whole. The whole joke of it is that the animation looks like the 1970s cartoon of the Hobbit.

[35:21] Meg: Okay?

[35:22] Jessica: So, you know, it's the epic quest and all of that, but of course, it's also a joke about this urban legend.

[35:29] Meg: Are you going to tell this story?

[35:31] Jessica: Yes. Oh, my God. I can't believe you're gonna do this. I can't believe you're. But I'm going in directions that you don't even know. So tell the world.

[35:41] Meg: They may have forgotten.

[35:42] Jessica: Lemmy Winks, by the way, makes it out of Mr. Slave and becomes the gerbil King. Just. Just. So that's good news. The joke of the gerbil up someone's ass is from an urban legend that first made its way into public consciousness in 1984, and it was that heartthrob actor Richard Gere had to go to the hospital because he had had a gerbil shoved up his ass voluntarily as a sex thing. Because apparently, according to this urban myth, it feels great to have a gerbil bumping up against your prostate. Now, of course, this does not address the fact that gerbils have claws and teeth. And so eventually I heard as the. As the urban legend went around in the 90s, it was like, oh, it had been declawed, okay? Like, it was morphin.

[36:41] Meg: That's just not fair.

[36:42] Jessica: It's just not that. More gerbil.

[36:44] Meg: Declaw your gerbil.

[36:46] Jessica: And I was telling someone about this recently who's younger than we are, and he was like, you know, I've heard that. But when I was a little kid and I heard it, I just couldn't understand how they would have gotten the gerbil in him. And without missing a beat, I was like, oh, it was a habit trail. And he was like, they stuffed a whole habit trail up his ass?

[37:09] Meg: No, they came in joints so you.

[37:12] Jessica: Could get a gerbil have to go through the whole habit of the problem, right? And I was like, well, maybe there was a funnel. I don't know. But, you know, it's a habit to. So we got lost in that for a while. Who are you talking to, Will.

[37:29] Meg: Oh.

[37:30] Jessica: But even more hilarious, in South Park a few seasons later, Lemmi Winks has someone else sort of join him in the club of people who are inserted up Mr. Slave's ass. And it's Paris Hilton.

[37:46] Meg: Oh, that's not nice.

[37:47] Jessica: Stuffed up his ass and asked to take the same journey as Lemmy Winks did. With the same song play. They had a whole song about Lemme winks. Oh, lemme Winks going on his journey. They did the whole thing as Paris Hilton. Now, okay, why are we talking about the famous gerbil story? And by the way, my research has yielded that in the history of ever, no one has ever gone to the ER with a rodent in their ass.

[38:20] Meg: I'm really happy to hear that.

[38:22] Jessica: Yes, it is. It has been.

[38:24] Meg: Because it's not even fair to the rodent.

[38:27] Jessica: No. And did you know that it became a verb? Gerbling entered the public consciousness around 1984.

[38:33] Meg: Why? Why did our collective consciousness want to go there?

[38:37] Jessica: Well, because we're all sick fuck. But I will tell there's a reason why. All right? And I'm going to get there in short order. What I love about urban legends is when they really get into the details. So, like, the declawing of the animal as. As an innovation in later telling is great. I also love that people get very specific about which hospital he went to as a Cedars Sinai. Well, you know, frequently.

[39:04] Meg: That's actually why he married Cindy Crawford was to debunk this rumor.

[39:10] Jessica: Well, what I read is that they, after they married, he put an ad out in. I guess it was the LA Times with her.

[39:20] Meg: Yes.

[39:20] Jessica: And they were debunking it.

[39:22] Meg: But I'll tell you, because he was so, so deeply upset by this rumor.

[39:26] Jessica: Well, it never hurt his career, interestingly. But he had an inkling about who started the rumor.

[39:34] Meg: Tell me.

[39:35] Jessica: So get a load of this. In 1974, Richard Gere was cast in and filming the film the Lords of Flatbush.

[39:47] Meg: Okay.

[39:48] Jessica: Do you know this film?

[39:48] Meg: Yes, I do.

[39:49] Jessica: Good movie.

[39:50] Meg: Yeah.

[39:51] Jessica: In that film is a young Sylvester Stallone.

[39:56] Meg: Yes.

[39:57] Jessica: On set, Sylvester Stallone was in his streetwear and was wearing some new trousers. And apparently young Richard Gere dropped food on him. Like dropped a tray of food accidentally on Sylvester Stallone's pants. The rumor started circulating apparently in actor world long before 1984. And Richard Gere credits Sylvester Stallone with having started the rumor. Yes. He took out the ad in the LA Times because it had spread like wildfire. Because how couldn't it? In fact, the heat between Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere was so bad that Richard Gere was fired from the film. And I believe Perry King was hired to replace him.

[40:53] Meg: All right, so he's not on screen in the Lords of God.

[40:56] Jessica: Never. No.

[40:57] Meg: And Sylvester Stallone had that much sway in 1974?

[41:01] Jessica: No, no, I think it's about the Power of a rumor. He credits him with starting it so.

[41:07] Meg: He would get fired off the movie and just.

[41:10] Jessica: Just to harass him. It was that they, they were so. Their animosity towards one another was so outrageous.

[41:17] Meg: I mean, they're both pricks.

[41:18] Jessica: Yes, they are both pricks. And by the way, I found this out too in my research. When I say Richard Gere, I should be saying Richard Tiffany Gere.

[41:27] Meg: Why?

[41:28] Jessica: Because his middle name is Tiffany. Why? I don't know. I don't know. I was like, like mall singer Tiffany or like jewelry Tiffany. Like is that. Is that a family thing? So that, that must require a little bit of. Of research. But his name is actually Richard Tiffany Gere. Sorry. Okay, so why would this be a rumor that persists? Right. So now I brought it into the 80s because. Let me winks long after the 80s brought it back to the 80s with the first recording of the rumor circulating was in 1984.

[42:09] Meg: Okay, great recording.

[42:11] Jessica: Oh, oh, people, you know, putting it in writing in one way or another. Now why would people have picked on Richard Gere? Why would this be something where it's not that they would pick on him? Why would they believe.

[42:26] Meg: Also went along with the fact that he was gay. That was a big deal.

[42:30] Jessica: Right? Which he apparently is not.

[42:31] Meg: No, he's not.

[42:32] Jessica: Right. So I'm now going to talk about the gay thing. I found out why people were saying he's gay. There was a trifecta of facts, of events, of engagements that helped that. I'm going to go in reverse order. I guess it was in 1980, American Gigolo was released in that film, which I always just remember as you know him with the women and the murder and all that.

[43:05] Meg: Apparently he's a sex worker. With women.

[43:08] Jessica: He's an American Gigolo. Yes, but with women. However, there is a scene where he is sent by his pimp to go to a man's house, okay. As rough trade. He's. He's advertised as rough trade. So. Meaning there's gonna be some smack, less tickle and gay sex. And the character is like, no way. Not doing this. Not interested. But him in the context of a gay encounter is there also. And I don't know, I think this is after that, but it might have even preceded it. Richard Gere is a longtime follower of the Dalai Lama.

[43:55] Meg: Okay. Yes, I did.

[43:56] Jessica: He's a Buddhist. A devout or avowed. Avowedly devout Buddhist. And one of the quite right. Do gooder things that Richard Gere was involved in was raising money for AMFAR and Equity Fights AIDS and the.

[44:15] Meg: Got it.

[44:15] Jessica: And so he raised a lot of money for AIDS research. So that strike two in the minds of the Dum dums. Boo. But here, what I'm about to share with you is actually the first thing I found that got me to. Wait a minute. I've gotta do the gerbil story. In 1979, a play was produced in the west end starring Ian McKellen, called Bent. It is the story of two men in love in Germany in the 30s. In brief, it is the story of Max, played by Ian McKellen. He and his boyfriend have a threesome with a man who is murdered by. By the Nazis. And it puts them intention, like targeted, but it puts them on the radar and they go in hiding.

[45:16] Meg: I see what you're saying.

[45:17] Jessica: They go in hiding.

[45:18] Meg: It exposes them as homosexual.

[45:20] Jessica: Exactly. They go into hiding. And then after a while, they are discovered and they are sent to Dachau on the train to Dachau, Max's lover. He is ordered by the Nazis to take his glasses off and they crush the glasses. Now that he has deficient eyesight, he is now to be exterminated. And so they begin beating him to death on the train.

[45:47] Meg: Horrible.

[45:48] Jessica: And they go to Max and they make him finish the job.

[45:53] Meg: Oh, my God.

[45:54] Jessica: And the. There's another guy on the train who's wearing a pink triangle. And he explains, we are the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst in this. Be forewarned. This is what. This is why this happened. This is what's coming for you. And so when they get to Dachau, Max decides that he is going to say that he's Jewish, because that's better.

[46:16] Meg: Oh, my God.

[46:17] Jessica: Than being gay. Then the play goes on with him in Dachau and how Max does or does not reconcile himself to what has happened and what his fate is and all of that. So that's Ian McKellen. However, same year, it opens on Broadway, and Richard Gere plays Max. Okay, so he is in an explicitly gay role, which he had no problem doing. I encourage people to look into the play, read about it, because it's terrifying. And I remember there have been revivals of it. There was a revival in the 90s. And I remembered the play, and I remembered that it was devastating. Like, people were absolutely on the floor.

[46:59] Meg: I mean, that sounds it, but that.

[47:02] Jessica: Is where I believe Richard Gere's descent into gerbiling began. Because very, I think, very bravely, you know, he was an emerging actor at the time. Not a lot of Hunky actors were going to play gay.

[47:17] Meg: I have to tell you, Jessica, even in College, so late 80s, I knew actors who said in my class at Brown who were like, I'm never gonna play gay. No way. Like, oh, my God, what is wrong with you? But I mean, part of the concern, besides, I think homophobia was also like, I'll get blacklisted.

[47:39] Jessica: Oh, absolutely, yes. And, you know, Ian McKellen, gay.

[47:45] Meg: But did he wait to come out? I think he waited.

[47:47] Jessica: He waited to come out. But I'm just saying, as a personal choice, it's a different choice than what Richard Gere was doing. And so Richard Gere was just like, look, this is what I'm gonna do. And he was a Broadway actor before he was known as a film star.

[48:04] Meg: Pretty boy movie star.

[48:06] Jessica: He was in the original 1971 Grease as Danny Zuko. What? I know Richard Gere. I know. Anyway, so he had a really different mindset in the 70s, and this was 1979, and the play ran into 1980.

[48:25] Meg: And then the 80s smacked him in the face with all this innuendo.

[48:30] Jessica: Yes. So 80s, from Danny Zuko in the original cast of grease in 1971 to Lemmy winks on South park, the legend of Richard Gere never dies.

[48:43] Meg: Well, it's worth noting, too, that a lot of 70s movies had innuendo. It was a darker vibe in film where you could have things happening that were on the edge.

[48:55] Jessica: Well, I mean, this is one of my favorite topics of all time with film, that the studios were hemorrhaging money. They weren't doing well, and it was the rise of the independent filmmaker, and they were able to talk about what they wanted to talk about. So you have a much richer kind of storytelling than when the studios were so very involved.

[49:16] Meg: And then the 80s are so square.

[49:20] Jessica: Plastique. American Gigolo was not. That was 1980. And right on the Cusp. Right on the cusp and worth noting. We've talked about this before, about playing gay Al Pacino's turn in Cruising.

[49:36] Meg: Good point. And what about the movie I'm walking here?

[49:41] Jessica: Midnight Cowboy.

[49:42] Meg: Midnight Cowboy.

[49:43] Jessica: And yes.

[49:43] Meg: Seeped in gay innuendo.

[49:45] Jessica: Yes. And in addition to Cruising and Midnight Cowboy and Bent and this one scene in American Gigolo, Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine played lovers in Mousetrap. I love that. I saw that in the theater. I. Everyone, darling.

[50:06] Meg: It was so good.

[50:08] Jessica: I saw it on the 86th street between 2nd and 3rd Theater.

[50:11] Meg: Maybe we even saw it together.

[50:14] Jessica: And I was with Nina.

[50:15] Meg: Oh, what a great movie.

[50:16] Jessica: They kissed the entire audience erupted and that was normal. And we were squealing and like, ew. Oh my God.

[50:27] Meg: And of course, it was shocking.

[50:28] Jessica: I look back on it now and I'm like, Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve were making out. Like, how random is that? And like, they were both hot actors. Like, good for them. I mean, really good for Michael Caine.

[50:43] Meg: He was also. The timing of it in this murder mystery story is very good.

[50:50] Jessica: Yes, it is impeccable. So my contention is that Richard Gere gave to AIDS foundations. He played gay in bent. He was in a gay sex scene, or a thwarted one in 1980, and Sylvester Stallone decided to start a rumor. That's it. And the reason that I believe it, you know, there's the famous story that I know is true, that Sylvester Stallone was so broke when he was writing Rocky, which is right after Lords of Flatbush, that he had to sell his dog.

[51:27] Meg: Oh my God.

[51:27] Jessica: And then he got his dog back. Okay, but he. He sold his dog. So imagine if you're in that situation and your pair of pants gets mustard all over it. I mean, maybe not the all time sophisticate. Maybe Stallone was like, that's the living end. I cannot.

[51:47] Meg: I'm just so glad to hear that no gerbils were actually harmed in any of this.

[51:54] Jessica: I think for all of us.

[51:54] Meg: Ridiculousness.

[51:56] Jessica: I mean, you can go on Reddit and just look up things doctors find in people's asses. The. The array is endless. It will continue to change as more household objects are invented, but never has there been a gerbil.

[52:21] Meg: Last week, Jessica, you promised us that you would go onto Reddit and tell us what Reddit had to say about having sex with a fish.

[52:34] Jessica: Mermaid.

[52:35] Meg: Mermaid. I'm so sorry.

[52:37] Jessica: So Reddit does not disappoint. So I'm going to do a quick reading from three different sources, and I really hope I can get through it without having a complete meltdown. So in the no Stupid Questions subreddit, the question is, how do you fuck a mermaid? Okay, there you go. And someone writes, I never thought I would have to type this, but here it goes. Have to. Mammalian sea creatures exist, dolphins, whales, etc. So it would make sense if mermaids applied there too. The main difference between mammal non mammal sea creatures is actually the way they move their fins. Non mammals swim with their fins side to side, while whales and dolphins move their fins vertically. That's how mermaids swim too. As did Daryl Hannah and Splash.

[53:34] Meg: True.

[53:34] Jessica: And being a mammal, now I'm going to use a word that I don't use, but I'm going to say it. And being a mammal means pussy. Also, it's fantasy. It's not even real, so you can really make up whatever you want. I hope that cleared things up. So that was one answer that was very entertaining here on Shitty Movie Details Subreddit People for ages have wondered how mermaids fuck the shape of water 2017 demonstrated how fish men can have penises and screw human women. Meanwhile, the Lighthouse 2019 revealed the existence of mermaid Fussy that can take human dick. Stop it. In this essay I will. And then it says someone writes, I need you to submit a video essay or a full research paper about this. And then later on someone writes thesis board review. Colonial stares in disbelief through the entire dissertation, including diagrams, animations, and a rather impressively modeled 3D print. The chair says, get out. Secretary vomits in trash can New professor that just got hired. Wait, I have questions. The invention Because I love people sometimes the invention of the word fussy is. It will have me crying. I spared you. In the subreddit, after that's typed, someone writes, wait, what is foot? Oh no, never mind. I figured it out. So yay. Oh, and there's one other group that suggested just like an Angler fish, in which I believe the female's genitalia eats the entire male and it's sort of praying mantasy. I didn't get into it. They had me at fussy.

[55:37] Meg: Seriously, you can't outdo that.

[55:40] Jessica: Anyway, that is the answer. The quote answer to the question.

[55:44] Meg: Thank you, Reddit. And the quickest tie in ever for our two stories about Edmund Perry and.

[55:53] Jessica: The rumor about the Chirbal stories that don't add up.

[55:59] Meg: Thank you, Jessica.

[56:01] Jessica: Thank you, Meg. Sa.