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

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

[00:26] Meg: where we still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture. So, Meg.

[00:36] Meg: Yes.

[00:36] Jessica: Speaking of pop culture, we have two movies to quickly talk about in our intro today, one of which is very sad, and the other one is ridiculous. So we go from the sublime to the ridiculous on this one. The Lovely. Lovely. By. By all people's accounts, actor Robert Carradine died yesterday. We're mentioning him because he was a lovely human being, but also because he was Louis Skolnick in Revenge of the Nerds.

[01:06] Meg: Revenge of the Nerds, which is a beloved movie.

[01:10] Jessica: Very problematic. Oh, my God. Yes, it's very problematic.

[01:14] Meg: And yet I love it, you know,

[01:16] Jessica: because it's so over the top.

[01:18] Meg: Nothing is sacrist. Oh, my God.

[01:21] Jessica: It's so sexist. But nothing is sacred. Like, I think that, you know, every single person is made fun of.

[01:29] Meg: Like.

[01:29] Jessica: Like, there's no cool person. There's no actual cool person in the whole movie because they make fun of the jocks, and the jocks are horrible. They're. Yeah, but horrible people. But, like, they're basically represented as being mentally deficient.

[01:46] Meg: Like.

[01:46] Jessica: Anyway, it is a problematic film in a lot of ways, but it's so beloved that you can't really turn your back on it. But he was.

[01:53] Meg: I think it was also a little racist, now that I think about it. But anyway, look, I don't know.

[01:57] Jessica: It was the 80s.

[01:58] Meg: It was national Lampoon time. It was that kind of aesthetic.

[02:03] Jessica: Yes. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and admit that even though they were nerds, I actually always thought Robert Carradine was kind of cute.

[02:13] Meg: They made him really cute somehow. He had the makeover.

[02:18] Jessica: He had the oh at the end glow up.

[02:20] Meg: That kind of worked even as.

[02:22] Jessica: As the totally nerded out. But I saw some photos that his daughter posted on Instagram. He was 20 years old when she was born, and he raised her by himself.

[02:33] Meg: Oh, my goodness.

[02:34] Jessica: And he was really cute. I was not wrong. But he was like a child. And she said that in her memorial piece about him, that they kind of grew up together. It was very sweet.

[02:47] Meg: So it's very sad news.

[02:48] Jessica: Rest in peace to Robert Carradine. Now the ridiculous is.

[02:53] Meg: We heard from Nick about Splash again.

[02:58] Jessica: Thank you, Nick. Who knew that this would be the topic that would never die.

[03:02] Meg: He says, after listening to the episode that we did, when we did the watch party of Splash, and Jessica was really going a little micro on. How could Daryl Hannah as the mermaid be unfurling maps in the pirate ship under the sea?

[03:22] Jessica: That would. That would still have ink intact.

[03:24] Meg: Yes. I thought it was a little silly for you to be doing that, but

[03:29] Jessica: are you picking on me?

[03:31] Meg: Not in the least. I let Nick do that for me. He says, oh, Jess, please. Did you not see the fact that she has maps? And maps is in all caps. You complained about them because you also said, how could she have found him in New York City?

[03:50] Jessica: My complaint was not, how did she find him after I realized there were maps, it was that those were paper maps with ink on paper. And how could they possibly. From a pirate ship? And I understand that the entire film is a suspension of disbelief. Trust me, I get it. But there are just some things that I'll go with. The idea that mermaids exist, the ink being into, the paper being into. So anyway, that.

[04:17] Meg: So then Nick follows up with. Next thing I know, you'll be saying that Jack's charcoal sketch on paper couldn't have survived the sinking of the Titanic.

[04:26] Jessica: And the reason he says this is because we saw Titanic together, which I've said on this podcast before we sat in the Ziegfeld, I believe is the Ziegfeld, and watched that movie. And when that charcoal picture came up, I remember being like, dick, that is bullshit. So, yes, it is. It is an ongoing pet peeve. But, Nick, I really hope that next week you find something else to talk about regarding Splash. I'll be wa. Jessica.

[05:07] Meg: Meg, have you ever witnessed a crime?

[05:12] Jessica: That's a very good question. Well, definitely misdemeanors, because I live in New York City, so, I mean, I've witnessed all kinds of crimes. What kind of crime are you talking about?

[05:26] Meg: The kind of crime that results with somebody screaming and the police coming and everyone gathering around.

[05:34] Jessica: Yes, I saw someone get her bag snatched and then assaulted in a fist fight on the subway platform. And everyone. There was a melee that instantly burst out, and then police came running off the trains and. And subdued it. So I.

[05:55] Meg: So somebody tried to grab her purse on the.

[05:58] Jessica: On the platform.

[05:59] Meg: That's done. Yeah.

[06:02] Jessica: Well, that's junkie behavior. I would say it's not well thought out.

[06:05] Meg: So they didn't know each other or anything?

[06:07] Jessica: No, but it became a bit of a beat down pretty quickly. Oof. And very uncomfortable.

[06:14] Meg: What was your response as a bystander?

[06:18] Jessica: Well, it was Mixed. Part of it was, oh my God, I have to hide in the corner and make sure nothing happens to me. And the other part of me, and this is, of course, the true New Yorker, was, God damn it, you're holding up the train, jackass. So that was my mixed response.

[06:37] Meg: But you stuck around.

[06:39] Jessica: Well, I had to. I was on the train and the train was being held. Where am I going to go? And I'm not going to get off the train onto the platform where this nonsense is taking place. Also, I've, I've said this on this podcast before. I was in a really ridiculous way, mugged. I had someone jump me in the street. When you were a kid, a teenager. Yeah, right.

[07:01] Meg: I remember that.

[07:02] Jessica: Yeah.

[07:02] Meg: That's a callback.

[07:03] Jessica: So, you know, crime. But I, I haven't ever seen anyone like shoot someone or like shoot someone. I don't know.

[07:14] Meg: I'm glad.

[07:15] Jessica: But I know that you've, you've been mugged. What? Where are we going with this though?

[07:18] Meg: Well, I'll tell you in a second. My sources are the New York Times and the United Press. On Thursday night, March 11, 1982, Bill Zanker discovered that his adult education center, the Learning Annex, had enrolled its 100,000th student. 28 year old Bill had founded the learning annex two years previously while he was in film school. At the new school, he figured he could teach some film courses on the side to make some money. Friends of his said they'd like to teach a pottery course and a seminar on getting through job interviews. And suddenly Bill had what could be called a school. He invested his five thousand dollar bar mitzvah money, got a basement office and started printing a catalog that advertised night classes that would meet one to four times total and cost about $40. Classes included hot air ballooning, how to lose your regional foreign accent, stop smoking, now your own greeting card business, firewalking, art of flirting, beginning stained glass chutzpah, the new ancient power principle, and how to cheat on your spouse. Now I thought that was kind of interesting. Didn't you write a book called the Art of Cheating?

[08:48] Jessica: I did, but I would like to be clear that it was not just about cheating on your spouse. It was 20 different ways to be someone who cheats. It could be cheating the system, it could be cheating on a diet, it could be cheating death, anything. So cheating. But cheating on your spouse was the first entry in the book. Because I was like, let's get this one out of the way first.

[09:15] Meg: You could have been a teacher at the Learning Annex.

[09:17] Jessica: There Are so many things I could teach at the Learning Annex. You have no idea.

[09:22] Meg: At the first lesson of that class, how to cheat on your spouse, the teacher asked, how many of you paid for this class with a credit card? When three quarters of the hands went up, she said, wrong. How are you going to explain the credit card bill? Now think up some other class that you can claim you went to. The Learning annex was marketed to yuppies and was often used as a way to meet friends or potential love interest who shared your interests.

[09:52] Jessica: Like cheating on your spouse.

[09:54] Meg: Well, you know, they're single or about to be. Classrooms were rented from local schools or provided by the teachers, so the overhead was pretty low. The Learning Annex mostly served as a middleman, connecting teachers with students, taking a percentage of the tuition fee. This is a quote from Bill Zanker. We're a marketing company. We happen to be marketing education. Really what it all was about was the catalog. Do you remember the. What do you call those things on the corners?

[10:29] Jessica: The newspaper machines, the vending machines.

[10:31] Meg: Right. But they have like for free things. They have a door. They don't. You don't. You don't put money in.

[10:37] Jessica: Right. You just open it. There's still one on my corner right here for a Spanish language, like local newspaper.

[10:42] Meg: Okay. And they had that for the Learning Annex. And so they were blue.

[10:47] Jessica: I remember they were blue with learning annex stenciled on them.

[10:51] Meg: So really that was his big offering to the table was the fact that he would print this catalog and that your class would be advertised in the catalog that many people would be picking up on the corners from these little newspaper kiosk kids.

[11:08] Jessica: Yeah.

[11:10] Meg: By 1987, the learning annex had franchises across the country. There were about 50 for profit, not for credit, independent learning centers across the country. Of those, 15 were learning annex branches. Now we have masterclass or YouTube lessons. Bill got there first by selling how to books and tapes, which were even more profitable than the in person classes. But back to 1982, young Bill Zenker and his friend who taught data processing, John, good friend, had a fantastic idea of how they could celebrate their 100,000th student and promote the Learning Annex in a spectacular way. They would throw $10,000 off the empire state Building. Bill called it our way of profit sharing. They managed to get $7,000 in cash and stuck labels on each $1 bill that read, the learning annex loves New York. Then he had 3,000 checks made for $1 to cash. Now I was like, why didn't you just get $10,000 in cash?

[12:32] Jessica: Because he didn't have the other $3,000. And those were 3,000 checks he was going to bounce.

[12:37] Meg: Maybe. Or if you throw 10,000 ones, you lose every single one of them. If you throw, if some of them are checks, maybe someone will pick em up, maybe they'll stuff em in their back pocket, maybe they won't even cash them. You have a chance of a check just sort of going missing.

[12:58] Jessica: Okay, so you, it's still a savings strategy.

[13:01] Meg: Yeah.

[13:01] Jessica: Okay.

[13:02] Meg: But yeah, at first I was like, maybe he couldn't withdraw that. Maybe he didn't even have it. But yeah, interesting.

[13:09] Jessica: They just were looking for a 30% savings.

[13:11] Meg: Yeah. He planned to throw $5,000 off at 1pm and 5,000 off at 2pm he let the press know about the stunt. So by 12:45, there were television crews, photographers and reporters gathered at 34th and 5th. The folks at the Empire State Building had heard that they were coming and printed and posted a statement at all the entrances and on lamp posts outside that read, the Empire State Building does not condone the dropping of dollar bills from its observatory this afternoon or any time. This crass publicity stunt causes crowd activity that could pose a very serious safety hazard to people on the street. The police and the building security staff have been alerted and we will do everything in our power to prevent this senseless activity.

[14:05] Jessica: Senseless?

[14:06] Meg: Senseless.

[14:06] Jessica: It's marketing, you ridiculous person.

[14:10] Meg: In the meantime, 28 year old Eddie Jewell and 34 year old Salo Bandez were not on the press release list and had no idea that film crews and spectators and police would be gathered at the exact time that they planned to rob the Bankers Trust branch in the lobby of the Empire State Building.

[14:34] Jessica: Oh boys. Oh boys.

[14:37] Meg: They entered the bank at 12:45, fired a warning shot into the ceiling, vaulted the counter and scooped up as much cash as they could before rushing into the crowd. Outside. A bank guard and plain clothes police ran after them shouting hold up, hold up. Eddie and Salo didn't get far. Dennis Gross, a store detective at B. Altman's, tackled Eddie and Officer William Senecki held his gun to Eddie's head while Eddie shouted, shoot me.

[15:22] Jessica: Best dramatic reading A.

[15:25] Meg: Both the robbers were subdued, disarmed and arrested. Quote, in one of the most heavily photographed arrests of recent times. In the meantime, Bill and John got out of a taxi at 34th and 5th with five clear plastic bags filled with money. Chaos ensued with confusion over what bags of money were part of the bank heist and what bags were part of the promotion. Empire State Building security refused Bill and John access to the tower. They had made it into the lobby. Bill protested, as far as we know, it's not a crime. Nobody's going to get hurt. They still don't know that the bank heist just happened.

[16:13] Jessica: Okay.

[16:13] Meg: By then, bystanders started chasing Bill and John around the lobby, grabbing at the bags of money. Hiram Nevies of Brooklyn got $9. George Rivera of Manhattan got $3. I was gonna grab more. But the cops came, frightened for their lives. At this point, Bill and John leapt into the arms of the police, who took them into custody for their own safety. When asked by the press if this was a particularly crazy day for the police, Sergeant Peter McNulty of the Midtown south precinct replied, you should try working here full time.

[16:56] Jessica: You can't make it up. No, that's great.

[17:00] Meg: As for Bill, quote, we never imagined there would be a mob scene. We didn't want that to happen. We wanted to be good to New York. We just thought it would be a nice street celebration.

[17:14] Jessica: Oh, really? You sent out press releases? We didn't think there would be a crowd. I don't know where everyone hates goodness now. A free money call. Hmm.

[17:27] Meg: Before you think that, Bill Zanker seems like a charming rascal, not really a marketing genius.

[17:36] Jessica: Clever boy.

[17:38] Meg: He happens to be the man who still walks amongst us.

[17:42] Jessica: Oh, no.

[17:42] Meg: Behind Trump's 8 billion billion dollar crypto coin and those bizarro nft digital trading cards of Trump as a superhero, Wild west sheriff and astronaut.

[17:55] Jessica: All right, lock him up. Get rid of him. Bill Zanker. Boo. So, just as a quick aside, the Learning Annex is such a New York institution that to this day, it is frequently a punchline amongst at least some of my friends with me, where if you do something, well, the next line is, so what'd you do? Learn that at the. Go to the Learning Annex for that. So although we. We have to now despise Bill Zanker, at least he gave us a punchline. Something. I'm trying to find some good news there.

[18:44] Meg: No, I mean, it's a bummer. He did, in fact, have a pretty good idea.

[18:48] Jessica: And, you know, there was even a Sex and the City episode where she does a learning annex.

[18:53] Meg: And it. It was a punchline. Why would for profit, not for credit education be a punchline? It isn't anymore. Now it's ubiquitous. But at the time, it was like.

[19:06] Jessica: What do you mean?

[19:07] Meg: Like, do you get a certificate? Like, education was so linked to institutions that the idea of learning something outside of an institution felt a Little, maybe. Scammy.

[19:21] Jessica: Yeah, it felt scammy and frivolous and.

[19:25] Meg: And what you have, you have to have someone teach you how to. To do that. Well, yes, actually you do. If you don't know how to do something like, I don't know, make a cocktail, you have to have somebody teach you how to do it.

[19:38] Jessica: Well, I mean, who's gonna just know how to do stained glass off the top of their heads?

[19:41] Meg: Exactly.

[19:42] Jessica: Honestly. But yeah, it had a weird kind of fly by night also. Cause like, who are these people teaching these classes anyway? Like, that was part of the sketchiness of it, right? That it was like, if you're not part of an actual academic institution, is this just like the guy who's the flasher on the subway platform is now showing up with like, here's how to flirt, ladies?

[20:08] Meg: Well, maybe. And in one of the articles I read, he did make sure, and this will not be surprising, that the mix of class offerings included some crazy things like how to cheat on your spouse, things that make people go like. And some, like, completely legit things that people wouldn't scoff at at the time, which is like, yes, I do want to know how to throw a bowl on a pottery wheel.

[20:33] Jessica: I swear to you, I was about to say throw a pot before you even said anything. I'm not joking. You. Like, please, types exist for teach me violin in four lessons or less.

[20:47] Meg: Violin.

[20:50] Jessica: Well, I. I am going to take us back to 1981. Today. I'm doing a slight twist on one of my favorite things to talk about. So let us begin. On October 16, 1981, Harvey Fierstein's torch Song trilogy, starring Harvey Fierstein and Matthew Broderick, debuted at the Richard Allen center on West 62nd street to Great acclaim. And it became a hit that continues to be performed today. Exactly one month later to the day, November 16, 1981, Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily We Roll along opened on Broadway, closing after a disastrous 16 performance run. So I read that and I was like, all right, what did Frank Rich have to say about this? Who is the reviewer? What? What? But before I did that, I actually looked at the review of the revival that just won. Did someone win a Tony for this?

[21:59] Meg: People love Merrily We Roll Along. It has definitely become a fan favorite, but at the time it was not.

[22:07] Jessica: It was definitely not successful. So I'll talk about why Frank Rich indeed felt that it stank. And then what makes a musical that as a theater person, I'm going to involve you in this what makes a musical that tanks so badly do so incredibly well 40 years later? What is it now? Is it? Yeah. 40 years later. A little more.

[22:33] Meg: Well, I mean that. Do you want to ask me now?

[22:34] Jessica: No, no, no. We're going to get into it. But anyway, so on November 17, 1981, Frank Rich said the following things. As we all should probably have learned by now to be a Stephen Sondheim fan, is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals. Usually the heartbreak comes from Mr. Sondheim's songs. And sometimes the pain is compounded by another factor. For some of Mr. Sondheim's most powerful work turns up in shows that fail, like Pacific Overtures or Anyone Can Whistle. Suffice it to say that both kinds of pain are abundant. In Merrily We Roll along there are half dozen songs that are crushing and beautiful, and the show that contains them is a shambles. Merrily We Roll Long has been adapted by Mr. Firth, who wrote the book from the second George S. Kaufman Moss Hart collaboration, A Broadway curiosity of 1934. While the new version is rewritten and updated, it repeats the defects of the original text even as it adds more of its own. Now we're getting into my favorite snark territory. The plot of Merrily We Roll along is about three people in show business and where their arc of success and failure takes them and their friendship. In the original production, they say we never learn why the characters reach the sad state they're in at the outset of the show. But we do know how they fell apart. But that's not enough. We keep waiting for some insight into these people that might make us understand, if not care about them. But all we get is fatuous attitudinizing. Mmm, Frank, rich, chewy, yummy, fatuous attitudinizing about how ambition, success and money always lead to rack and ruin. There's another difficulty as well. The book's tone often seems as empty as its characters. Meanwhile, the emotional basis of the friendship is lacking. I mean, this just goes on and on. It's in fact, I wrote in the margin of one of the bits of the review. Oh, no. Perhaps the libretto's most unfortunate aspect is its similarity to James Goldman's far fuller one for the Sondheim Prince Follies that also gave us bitter middle aged friends disappointed in love and success who reunite at a showbiz party. But it had everything the new version does not. Most notably a theatrical metaphor that united all of its elements as well as reasonable choreography by Michael Bennett. Now, this interested me because we've talked about this on the podcast before. Even the set gets panned. They're in a gym and they're bleachers. And it says, eugene Lee's set is a high tech jungle gym of bleachers surrounded by gym lockers that looks as if it's left over from Runaways, which we've talked about. Liz Suedos 1978 play. As has been true of some other recent Prince shows, the choreography by Larry Fuller is uninspired to the extent that it exists at all. And it just gets worse and worse and worse. Oh, at one point, he refers to one of the actors, Ms. Morrison. Her heroine is attractively plump and sassy. I was like, that feels like it's not aging well as I read this. And again, terrible. This one's voice breaks. This one does this. At the end of it, it says Sondheim's searing songwriting voice breaks through once more to address, as no one else here does, the show's poignant theme of wasted lives. But what's really being wasted here is Mr. Sondheim's talent. So I'm like, oh, my God, you know, okay, so who was in this benighted show? Like, who. Who had a moose murders situation of like, I'm opening in a show and then I'm closing the show immediately. Now, I am not a Broadway aficionado, but as I went through the cast, I only recognized one name, and it's a bit player, and that person is Giancarlo Esposito. So for those of you who are not familiar, he played Gus in Breaking Bad. The devilish, scary Gus. Anyway, so I was really taken or struck by the fact that in 1981, this play, which just swept Broadway, was such an absolute stinker. So looking at the cast, I was like, hmm, what does that have to do with anything? In brief, everything. The review of the new one is. To be a fan of the work of Stephen Sondheim, as Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times, is to have one's heart broken. And it goes on and on about how awful the original book was and all of the original problems and the fact that Sondheim threatened to leave the theater after the reviews of Merrily We Roll Along. But what it then goes into in great detail is Jonathan Groff and how he is so magnetic, he is so phenomenal in every aspect of his performance that it's impossible not to like this show. The accolades for his acting are no less. He's described as having cold blooded rage that it's terrifying. It's no longer, as it seemed in 1981, the story of the gradual, almost inevitable dimming of youth's sweet illusions, but rather the story of their falsity in the first place. And that is also what really struck me, is you have to have the right play or musical for the right time. And as we talk about on this podcast so frequently, these are some bleak times that we are living in. And the idea that this show could now resonate so many years later because there is this nihilistic, bleak tone to the work, that these friendships are doomed. They're. They're never gonna fail, and success is what will ruin you, and that there is kind of no future. It's like, oh, my God, is that what people are reflecting on? So, as a stage person, Meg, I'm involving you now. What do you think could make a musical that is really essentially the same? The book was changed a little bit, but not much. Other than the casting, what do you think can make a play have such a different reception?

[28:46] Meg: Well, I think we have to start by saying that the idea of failure and success, when you're discussing the arts, is slippery territory. And so when work is judged basically on the opinion of one man, which is what happened in 1981, one man who loved to hate watch, as you have shared with us a number of times, and didn't give a fuck if that meant that the show was going to close in a matter of, I think it was two weeks that Merrilee. We roll along.

[29:24] Jessica: Sixteen performances would be, I guess, two weeks.

[29:27] Meg: Y. And my understanding, I don't know a lot about the details of the making of it. I do know that it was not a fun experience, that people weren't really working so well with each other. But then, yeah, a hate watcher comes in and everything, you know, gets shut down, surprisingly, because, you know, people are in love with Stephen Sondheim, but also because it is a story about the nuances, in fact, of a lifetime of making work. Isn't it interesting that somebody comes in and says, this sucks? There's no nuance in that. Thanks, Frank. Now flash forward. Right. And we've had some time to have that show marinate. I saw a school production of it at Brown when I was there as a student. People love the music. So it's just a question of, like, how to make the book work and, frankly, how to make a very nuanced story work. It's not so straightforward, and I think it's very clear that people figured it out this time around, and maybe to your point, you need the timing to be right as well.

[30:43] Jessica: I think everything you said is very intelligent and well considered and comes from a depth of knowledge and experience. And I do think that, you know, living in very bleak, a bleak moment as we are right now. Actually, you know what I just watched maybe like two weeks ago, I watched the Purple Rose of Cairo with Will and he had never seen it and I hadn't seen it in a long time. And I know Woody Allen is.

[31:09] Meg: I can't do him anymore.

[31:11] Jessica: I know, I know, I know. Very, very problematic.

[31:14] Meg: In fact, didn't we say, can we now finally cancel him with the Epstein files? Must I, must I still watch Woody Allen movies?

[31:23] Jessica: No, you don't have to. However, I did.

[31:26] Meg: Okay.

[31:26] Jessica: And you know, the Purple Rose of Cairo is all about the transformative nature of art. In that case, cinema during the Depression and a time when, as we all know, that's the golden age in many ways of Hollywood musicals. You know, the absolute fantasy of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and all that kind of stuff because people had nothing else to hang onto and it made them feel better. I find it really interesting that my, for me, the interpretation of such a bleak show being something emotionally bleak and you know, however Jonathan Groff was described, his performance was described, but terrifying that people, I think they look for comfort in something that's recognizable on stage in a kind of like, I'm not alone, I'm not the only person who feels so rotten or I'm not the only person who feels betrayed, which is a big theme in that show and it's

[32:32] Meg: a good time for cathartic work.

[32:35] Jessica: Look, I would go to watch Jonathan Groff, you know, find the most banal thing and put it in there, you know, open an envelope. But bleak shows for bleak times. See, and I didn't talk about politics, I went right around it, I kind of talked through it, but not about it. Although tonight is the State of the Union.

[32:59] Meg: Oh my God. I think it's. Can I make a prediction that no

[33:02] Jessica: one will be in the audience said all.

[33:05] Meg: I think something really big is going to happen. I think.

[33:08] Jessica: Do you think he's going to have a.

[33:09] Meg: Do you think a total stroke, friggin meltdown is going to happen and everyone's going to be. Their jaws are going to be on the floor because they're going to be like what do we do? I think it's going to be epic. I think 25th amendment,

[33:28] Jessica: my crossed. I'm crossing my fingers so hard that they've become little Twisted twigs of fury.

[33:36] Meg: Yeah, he was barely coherent yesterday. Oh, God.

[33:40] Jessica: What happened? Do I want to know what he said yesterday?

[33:44] Meg: He started talking about Mamdani asking people to shovel snow. And then he turned to somebody in the audience and said, I fixed your eyes.

[33:55] Jessica: What?

[33:56] Meg: Yeah, this woman who is in the audience. He was like, how are your eyes? I fixed your eyes.

[34:01] Jessica: What?

[34:01] Meg: And total silence from everybody going, what is happening here?

[34:07] Jessica: He's losing it. I fi. Well, he continues to lose it, worse and worse. I fixed your eyes.

[34:15] Meg: Incomprehensible.

[34:17] Jessica: Damn. Well, no. He can't sustain a state of the union. He's not gon. Like, he can't get through three sentences. So. A state of the union.

[34:26] Meg: Are you going to watch tonight?

[34:28] Jessica: I think I have to.

[34:29] Meg: Okay, text me is something major.

[34:31] Jessica: Oh, so you're averting your eyes because you can't.

[34:34] Meg: I have plans.

[34:39] Jessica: You're like, take your miserable life to the television. You're boring ass shit. And watch a lunatic blather. I think that. You know what I think? I think he's. Oh, my God. You know, it would be amazing. What? Okay, so remember the scene in A Few Good Men when you can't handle the truth? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, we need that bad guy on the wall. And you can. I think that's, like, he might go full Epstein. He might start referring to it. Wouldn't that be interesting? I'm just, like, writing the screenplay in my head, like, yes, I did put that boy on that wall like that. What if. What if, like. Like, remember how on the Jetsons when their maid Rosie started to, like, have a malfunction? Their robot maid, that, like, a screw would fall out of the side of her head, like, her quote ear. Or like, she. He's gonna do a full Rosie the Maid. Like, a couple of springs and nuts and bolts are gonna start flying out. And. And I do think that at an absolute minimum, there will be a stream of non sequitur nonsense and to the point where it's frightening. Like, it will frighten because people don't respond well to abnormal, right? So you have, like, a. A brief episode of him acting like a nut, and then his press secretary, you know, Carolyn Levitt, like, whisks him off, you know? But in this situation, there's no whisking him.

[36:15] Meg: There's no whisking unless they get a

[36:17] Jessica: vaudeville cane and, like, you know, like a.

[36:20] Meg: That's my point.

[36:21] Jessica: And yank him off the stage.

[36:23] Meg: It only ends when he ends it.

[36:25] Jessica: Exactly.

[36:26] Meg: Oh, my God.

[36:28] Jessica: I know. Who do we know Are all Major networks.

[36:31] Meg: And can you see Vance in the background just sort of quietly crawling off

[36:35] Jessica: like the dance, doing like a Muppet walk. Like I'll be over there. I'm not really sure. Remember when I said I didn't like him and I said that all the Epstein fathers files should be investigated? Yeah, I'm back to that now. I'm back in that. That's the JD Vance I want you to think about.

[36:51] Meg: You know that both he and Johnson are like taking Xanax right now so that they will not start twitching. Dude, they are behind him right now.

[37:01] Jessica: They, they have, they are just mainlining something like they're doing eight balls all by themselves. Just. I saw some comedians doing some kind of like a, a podcast, but on a stage thing. And one of them, I forgot exactly how he put it, but he was like, well, nobody likes Vance because of his recessed profile. It's like his nasally recessed profile. And I was like, he's right. Oh my God, that's the couch fucker's creepy looking. Cause his face is pushed. Oh, I don't know. So yeah, they're all. I, I, I'm happy to, I'm not going to live stream it, like live text it to you, but if anything truly. I love that I'm saying this to you. If anything truly terrible happens. No, no. When things that are truly terrible happen, I will text you. Thank you. You're welcome.

[38:07] Meg: So, so how's this for a potential tie in?

[38:10] Jessica: Oh, I'm so excited because I am stumped.

[38:13] Meg: In the early 80s, both the learning Annex and Merrily We Roll along were underappreciated. And I like that now we're like, damn. Good idea.

[38:28] Jessica: Yes. I, you know what? I think that that is excellent and I definitely can't do any better. A plus.

[38:42] Meg: Yay. Yay.

[38:43] Jessica: Yes. That is the tie in.