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

[00:19] 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,

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

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

[00:35] Meg: So should we tell people what they are actually saving the date for?

[00:38] Jessica: I believe we should.

[00:40] Meg: All right, Last week, we told y' all that you needed to save May 14, 7pm to 9:30pm because we had a big announcement. And the announcement is we're having a party.

[00:54] Jessica: We are having a party to celebrate our 50,000th download. A lot of downloads. It's kind of amazing, kind of shocking. And thank you. Thank you to everybody, whether you are here in New York City or, as we recently learned, Scotland, Vietnam, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Australia, England, Massachusetts.

[01:22] Meg: There.

[01:22] Jessica: There are lots of places.

[01:23] Meg: Staten island, and just a few people in the Bronx. What's up, Bronx? No, love.

[01:29] Jessica: Yeah, the Bronx. We're gonna. How. Tell us how we can reach you, right? How help us help you?

[01:36] Meg: What does the Bronx need from us?

[01:39] Jessica: Well, we're gonna find out, hopefully.

[01:41] Meg: But back to the party.

[01:42] Jessica: The party is. Is at KGB Bar in the East Village at the Red Room. And we have talked so much about New York City nightlife in the 80s. We're just sort of pulling together a little slice of what that was like on May 14th. So come on down, and you, too, might wind up behind a velvet rope for a little longer than you want it to be. Or maybe we'll let you ride.

[02:18] Meg: Jessica, you're familiar with a soapbox, correct?

[02:25] Jessica: In many, many ways, both literally and figuratively. It's one of my favorite kinds of boxes. Yes. What.

[02:33] Meg: What. What's something you get up on a soapbox about?

[02:37] Jessica: Oh, God, so many things. I mean, it's like, what day is it? Things I get up on a soapbox about people who. This is now, like, do you remember in the Mikado, I have a little list and, like, the long list of people who. He's like, these should be executed. And it's like, as. As ridiculous as people who eat peppermints and puff them in your face. So my. I. I don't like people who. It's a lot of, like, public space stuff. So, like, I don't like people who are on the subway and listening at full blast to whatever their music or their game or their film. Film or whatever it is. I don't like the people who drag race on these weird little ATVs down Lexington Avenue. And they roar so loudly that Alfie wakes up in the night and farts in surprise. Oh, my God. Like, these are the things I don't need. But of course, I also, you know, on my soapbox, because I love to be on a soapbox. I'm not a big fan of people who get on soapboxes. Oh. Oh.

[03:45] Meg: Well, first of all, before I get on my soapbox.

[03:48] Jessica: Oh. But then I'm a fan of yours, so it'll all be fine.

[03:52] Meg: But I love that you brought up the Mikado, because we are probably the last generation that will know anything about the Mikado, because no one does the Mikado anymore.

[04:03] Jessica: Yeah, it's not really. Peace.

[04:06] Meg: It's not at all.

[04:07] Jessica: Although having said that, I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast before, but one of my favorite movies. I can't believe, I can't remember if it was Mike Newell or Mike Lee who did Topsy Turvy about the making of the Mikado.

[04:22] Meg: Can we see that? Is that okay?

[04:24] Jessica: Oh, hell yeah.

[04:25] Meg: All right.

[04:25] Jessica: Absolutely. But what's so fascinating about it is why they did this light opera about Japan. Because it was at exactly the moment when Japan opened its doors and became an international. Well, it became a player on the international trade stage. And so there was a World's Fair in London and the Japanese government sent women in full kimono and. And doing a tea ceremony. And so Gilbert and Sullivan were so shocked and surprised and, and, and excited by it. That was the genesis of the Mikado.

[05:03] Meg: Great.

[05:03] Jessica: It's another fun fact from the 19th century that I can share with you.

[05:07] Meg: Topsy Turvy. Topsy Turvy, which I have never seen, but I've heard tell of.

[05:11] Jessica: It's. I think it's from the 90s. It's really, really good. Cool.

[05:17] Meg: Well, my sources today are again, I apologize in advance for my soapbox.

[05:24] Jessica: I'm actually now very excited. So I think I'm going to take off my list of things that I don't like. People on a soapbox. So let it rip.

[05:35] Meg: Okay. I hope you will still feel that way. Well, if you will know. Okay. Right, exactly.

[05:43] Jessica: All right.

[05:43] Meg: My sources are New York Times, New York Magazine, the documentary Bad Faith, and another documentary, God forbid, the sex scandal that brought down a dynasty. Do you know about either of these documentaries?

[06:03] Jessica: No, I'm very excited to learn about them.

[06:06] Meg: Bleak stuff. Alrighty. In April 1980, Dan C. Foray. It is spelled F O R E. Is it for. Is it foray? I don't know. I'm going to say foray.

[06:21] Jessica: Okay.

[06:22] Meg: All right. He was the preacher of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Bensonhurst. And he got a call from a Reverend Robert Billings. Reverend Billings extended an invitation to Dan to attend a meeting in Washington of religious and political leaders to discuss how America was falling apart morally. This is 1980. Now, a year earlier, 1979, Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich had founded the Moral Majority, an organization that joined the political right and evangelical Christians in a mutually beneficial alliance.

[07:10] Jessica: Now, say one more time, the year that was founded was 79. Yep. Reagan. All right, please continue. Like, oh, Newman Reagan.

[07:22] Meg: All right, so we're gonna go back in time a little bit. In the wake of the civil rights movement, white Christian nationalists realized that their days were numbered unless they could somehow reclaim the pulpits. Martin Luther King Jr. And other civil rights leaders preached brotherly love and the golden rule. But the leaders of the Moral Majority were more about fire and brimstone. Sinners go to hell and only true believers are saved. And that segregation is not only desirable, it is biblical. They said that out loud. Up to that point, the traditional Baptist principle was was to separate religion and politics. And the First Amendment states very clearly that religion should not be dictated by the state. But in the 70s, the Supreme Court ended tax exempt status for segregated private schools and decided in favor of busing to desegregate public schools. And suddenly, white Christian nationalists realized they had to organize fast or risk extinction. And their plan get Christians angry and scared. Now, they knew that the overt message of pro white supremacy was not going to coalesce the numbers they needed. It was somewhat out of vogue after the civil rights movement, so they workshopped other rallying cries. Pro family, on its face, was something most people could get behind, but that phrase was really just an umbrella for anti abortion, anti feminist, and anti homosexual agendas. Interesting that in the 70s, evangelicals did not oppose abortion.

[09:24] Jessica: Really? Really.

[09:27] Meg: The Moral Majority at this point gave preachers talking points to push on their congregations. And the goal was to co opt evangelicals into a voting block and tell them to vote Republican. I feel ill. Dan C4A. Remember our.

[09:44] Jessica: Yes. Yes, four, four.

[09:46] Meg: Yes. Our Bensonhurst preacher was actually originally from West Texas and raised in California. He worked in agricultural management and was not particularly religious. But at an evangelical conference in Illinois that he attended with his wife who had already been saved, he found God. This is a quote from Dan. I realized I was going to hell unless I got saved. Three months after that, he left his job to go to Bible college in Chicago, and five years later found himself preaching in Bensonhurst. Now, the Moral Majority had a lot of work to do before the 1980 presidential election. Jerry Falwell had a television show, the Old Time Gospel Hour, on which he raided politicians according to how they stood on, quote, moral issues. And he wouldn't mince words about those he felt were lacking. At that April meeting In Washington in 1980, Dan C. Foray was charged with heading up the New York branch of the Moral Majority. Did you realize that the Moral Majority found its way to the tri State area?

[11:03] Jessica: No.

[11:05] Meg: This is a quote from Dan. The name of the game is votes. First you get a local chairman, then you organize a moral action committee. Then you organize your telephone tree. You've got a woman who loves to talk, and most of them do. You get a woman to be head of the telephone tree. That was his plan.

[11:30] Jessica: I'm already so offended.

[11:34] Meg: The Moral Majority's pro family platform was this. One, a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion and favoring the death penalty. Two, prayers in schools and tuition tax credits for parochial education. Three, strong support for Israel. Four, opposition to the Equal Rights amendment, sex education, and homosexual rights.

[12:02] Jessica: I don't mean to sound funny. All of that was so disturbing that I sort of started to have, like, white noise in my head as you were saying it. And I kind of need you to do that one more time.

[12:13] Meg: Really?

[12:13] Jessica: Yeah. All right.

[12:14] Meg: Constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion and favoring the death penalty, prayers in schools and tuition tax credits for parochial education. Strong support for Israel and opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, sex education, and homosexual rights.

[12:33] Jessica: Okay.

[12:33] Meg: The Moral Majority also had an agenda that they were less public about. I wonder if you're gonna guess what it is. Suppress the vote. According to Paul Wayrich, quote, leverage goes up as voting populace goes down.

[12:51] Jessica: Hmm.

[12:52] Meg: Interesting. Yes.

[12:53] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[12:54] Meg: And a vibrant liberal democracy works against the overall plan of maintaining white patriarchy.

[13:03] Jessica: Literally out loud said this. Why? Digression. Why is that not put front and center with Democratic candidates now? Why are they not reminding people of this? I know you don't have an answer.

[13:24] Meg: I. I mean, I have a guess.

[13:27] Jessica: Hit me.

[13:28] Meg: I think they're afraid of offending people because people don't like to be told that they're racist or told that they are leaning towards fascism. They don't like to be spoken down to. It's. It's a delicate little game. Right.

[13:47] Jessica: I think that the way that you just said it is so factual that there's no shaming. It's. There was a very specific, calculated, like, this has been happening since 1979. This is not a new thing. This is not a reaction to something that's current. This is not something that is from Trump and his cronies. This is a continuation of something that started with people who are no longer considered good folk.

[14:26] Meg: So why.

[14:28] Jessica: Yep, there I was about to get on a soapbox. Please continue.

[14:35] Meg: I will. With no time to lose, Dan Foray started appearing on radio shows and staging debates with feminists and members of the aclu. He claimed the Moral Majority was a non denominational political lobbying group. But he would frequently hold the Bible over his head, claiming that society was damned unless it conformed to the word of God in the way that he interpreted it. This is a quote. In New York, a lot of times you have to speak before very intellectual type crowds. I try not to get caught up in big words and complicated messages. I believe simplicity is profundity. I prepare for these meetings by studying appropriate passages in the Bible. If it's going to be a meeting about abortion, I try to bring it back into a spiritual box. If it's on obscenity, I do the same. If it's on homosexuality, the same. I always try to put what I'm saying into a spiritual box.

[15:45] Jessica: Can we put him in a spiritual box? Is that okay?

[15:49] Meg: But other New York religious leaders were unimpressed. This is a quote from Rabbi Balfour Brickner. What an intellectual cretin he is. He has a skimpy, undereducated, distinctly Protestant fundamentalist view of the Bible and absolutely no knowledge of the Old Testament. The man didn't even know that the King James Version was a translation of a translation of a translation. I asked him on the radio what language the Bible was written in originally, and he didn't know. His kind of religion is designed to keep the American people spiritually infantile. I don't know why the press is so interested in him. And that was Rabbi Balfour Brickner.

[16:37] Jessica: Love him.

[16:39] Meg: The New York politicians weren't very impressed either about the Moral Majority. Republican Senator Alphonse d' Amato said, quote, I don't take them very seriously. They don't have any great leverage in this state. I think the more they pontificate, the more the more foolish they seem and eventually a tide of revulsion will overtake them. Now, d' Amato wasn't wrong about Dan Forey in particular. While he was able to get a chorus of amens from a crowd while condemning the evils of communism, he also stuck his foot in his mouth. Two very impactful times when Rabbi Alexander Schindler suggested Dan Fore and the Moral Majority was helping to foster religious anti tolerance. Dan countered, quote, I love the Jewish people deeply. God has given them talents he did not give others. They are his chosen people. Jews have a God given ability to make money, almost a supernatural ability to make money. They control the media, they control this city. That did not go over well.

[17:54] Jessica: I wish my face could see right now, oh my God. The guilelessness of it is what's like, what the.

[18:04] Meg: And when people rightfully went, what the did you just say? He was like, I meant it as a compliment.

[18:13] Jessica: He then claimed, it's like, you're not as ugly as I thought you were. It's a compliment. What are you upset about?

[18:18] Meg: He then claimed Roman Catholics were not really Christians in the eyes of God. You know, there are a lot of Jewish people and a lot of Catholics in New York.

[18:30] Jessica: Big mistake.

[18:31] Meg: Big mistake. He had been given this golden opportunity to bring together right leaning religious groups with their mutual distaste of homosexuality and abortion. But not reading the New York City Room. He offended them beyond repair.

[18:52] Jessica: That's that. It's, it's almost masterful. A masterstroke from Mr. Fore.

[19:00] Meg: Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich pulled Dan Fore out of New York and pretty much gave up on the Moral Majority, planting its flag in the Tri State area. But even though the Moral majority disbanded in 1989, the movement and the strategies that put it in power in the 1980s have been hard at work ever since. Once oil billionaires and military contractors joined the unholy alliance because of no taxes, no regulations. This gave strength to the Heritage Foundation Project 2025, Turning Point USA, the MAGA Movement and groups like the Proud Boys, all born from the Moral Majority's dream of a white Christian nationalist country.

[19:50] Jessica: Any idea of where Dan Fore is now?

[19:53] Meg: I do know and I read his obituary.

[19:59] Jessica: That's a great way to begin. Well, he's not here.

[20:04] Meg: He, I, I think he went to Tennessee or West Virginia, I'm not sure. But he, he went to a more accepting area. And his obituary and the comments, you know, when you find the obituary that people can write in are glowing. They talk about what a wonderful man he was, how giving he was to his community. Somebody actually wrote in who said, I remember you from my youth when I lived in Bensonhurst and you were one of the kindest people I ever met.

[20:39] Jessica: Well, you can be seriously dumb and kind at the same time.

[20:42] Meg: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. But it's, it's part of the problem, isn't it?

[20:48] Jessica: Anti intellectualism and what that breeds. Yes, it's a problem. Yeah.

[20:53] Meg: And so, yeah, I guess my question would be how, how did New York escape? How did it not fall under the moral majority, I think influence. I mean it certainly hasn't escaped this time around.

[21:06] Jessica: What do you mean?

[21:07] Meg: They walk amongst us. I mean MAGA people are everywhere.

[21:12] Jessica: Yes, but they haven't captured New York City politically. I know that they are. They walk amongst us. But, but it's, it hasn't swept away who we are. True.

[21:25] Meg: I, I, I think that the movement now has a hell of a lot more power than even when Reagan was in charge.

[21:32] Jessica: Well, there's more money. I mean the bottom line is billionaires. There are billionaires. And once you have individuals with that much money, so it's no longer about what super PAC have, what lobbyists do I need. I don't need shit. I'm one person with billions of dollars and I will hammer away at whatever my message is that I want to get out there or I will simply buy my way into X, Y, Z, whatever.

[21:58] Meg: You know, we, we're not going to talk about the Tea Party because that happens after the 80s. But there are a whole lot of people out there who really kind of don't mind the idea of an authoritarian government, which is crazy to me.

[22:15] Jessica: I think that they don't. I mean, honestly, I, what I believe is that this is, this is all the product of anti intellectualism, of, of devaluing education, of the decay of the educ, the public education system. When you have people like what's her name, Linda McMahon in charge of education. Like, I guess to answer your question, why didn't this happen in New York, New York and Los Angeles? They are uniquely places where people who are progressive and looking to express themselves go. So you have populations that are already seeking individuality. There's, and they're seeking anonymity to some degree. It's like I just left my, you know, tiny town in Arkansas where I'm going to get harangued and harassed and have the shit kit kicked out of me daily because I am fill in the blank. Right.

[23:14] Meg: So these are people who are not conforming.

[23:19] Jessica: They're, yes. And they're, they are predisposed to fighting anyone who's going to challenge their ability to be who they truly are. So I think that's what that's about. This is a unique population of strivers, intellectuals, artists, not people who are for the moral majority. High concentrations of gays, high concentrations of women who are working and putting off being parents. There's. It's just. There's, like, everything that they could possibly look for. Not here. Interestingly, complete side note, but not. I was looking at the Times, I guess it was yesterday, and there is an article about how teenage pregnancies and teenage mothers. The fertility rate for teenagers has dropped radically in, I believe, in the country, but definitely in New York, but I think it was in the country. And I was like, oh, my God. You know, I read this and I was like, fertility. Is it something that they're. Is it the hormones and the milk? What are they drinking and. No, it's that so many women are now surpassing men in their education and striving. They're having their children later and teenage girls are getting educated out of whatever. The idea was that that was a way up and out. Right. So I thought that was really very, very interesting. So to your question about why not New York? You know, New York was leading edge on a lot of those things.

[24:58] Meg: And let's hope that the backlash against that, which is basically to take away the choice that women have when and how they have their children. Roe v. Wade. Hello.

[25:10] Jessica: Let's.

[25:11] Meg: Let's hope that that backlash that it stays are numbered because I. I'm over it.

[25:17] Jessica: No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow. As we all know in our current state of total fuckery, no one knows what's gonna happen tomorrow. But looking at what's been happening around this country over the last month, two months, with Democrats flipping county after county after state after county, and, and the unbelievable joy that I took in seeing that the county that Mar A Lago is in, flip Democrat, I. I just, like. I hold it to my heart, to my bosom to keep me warm at night, knowing that that is a flicker of an answer to what you're talking about.

[25:59] Meg: And to that end, they will try to suppress the vote. Oh, yeah. And we need to be ready for that and counter that in whatever way we possibly can. Soapbox over.

[26:14] Jessica: I liked your soapbox.

[26:15] Meg: Thank you.

[26:25] Jessica: Are you a maximalist or a minimalist, Meg?

[26:30] Meg: Oh, I'm going to say minimalist. Do you agree?

[26:38] Jessica: Hmm. I don't know if I would. I think that you're extremely neat and tidy. I think you are very, very good about that. Everything has a place. There's a place for everything. But you like your things.

[26:55] Meg: I do. I do like things.

[26:57] Jessica: And things mean a lot to you.

[26:59] Meg: True.

[27:00] Jessica: And it's one of your great charms.

[27:02] Meg: I collect things.

[27:03] Jessica: You do. And they have meaning. So do you have Collections that are, you know, like multiples of a particular thing or is it just you see things you like and you collect them?

[27:16] Meg: I would say both. One thing that I do collect a lot of are smiskis. You have this crazy look on your face. They're like little figures that are bald and glow in the dark. Some of them do. And.

[27:35] Jessica: Oh, those little guys.

[27:36] Meg: Yeah, little guys. They're fun, sunny angels, but really SME skis are my love.

[27:42] Jessica: Sneezkis. Smeaskies with an M. Like Mary.

[27:46] Meg: Yeah, sneezkis.

[27:47] Jessica: Okay.

[27:48] Meg: They come in little mystery boxes. And I like to think that you get the one you need.

[27:55] Jessica: Okay, I love that.

[27:58] Meg: So I can collect them and not open them. And then if I really need one

[28:02] Jessica: that day, what do they do? What's their things that you need? Like, what's the function of this miski?

[28:08] Meg: They all have different vibes and moods. They're doing different things. It's just like your little pal. You get the one you need.

[28:16] Jessica: Oh, that's very sweet. Well, you know, I love my little radish person that you gave me.

[28:20] Meg: Oh, he's a sunny angel. Or she.

[28:22] Jessica: Or they, that's a sun. They, that's a sunny angel.

[28:25] Meg: Uh huh.

[28:26] Jessica: Oh, it's very cute. I too collect things, as you know, and I would say, like you, I really, really like my things. And there's no shortage of things here. But also there's a place for everything and everything.

[28:42] Meg: Neither of us is a hoarder, God forbid.

[28:44] Jessica: Oh, good lord, no, no, no, no. There's a. There's a point at which you have to just be like, I just don't have space for this, so this can't continue. Yeah. I collect vintage clothing, I collect typewriters. I have more books than any human being should ever have. I collect weird 19th century games and images and photographic viewers like that. So we all have our shtick, right? Well, a person who really loved to collect and couldn't be said to be a hoarder because of the amount of space that was available for what was being collected. But let's face it, maximalist at heart was Andy Warhol. Hmm. So Andy Warhol, who died Feb. 22, 1987. We all know about Andy Warhol, we all know about the Factory, we all know about his. Some of his weirdo art that was not the big pop art stuff. He was very repressed in his sexuality in a lot of ways, which gave way to making all kinds of films with people like Joe d', Alessandro, where it was this fetishistic kind of thing. He would get obsessed with people and then throw them away, unlike his things. But he rubbed people the wrong way. And one of those people was Valerie Solanus. True. And Valerie Solanus shot him.

[30:22] Meg: She sure did.

[30:23] Jessica: She sure did. But that's not what killed him.

[30:25] Meg: I know it is not.

[30:27] Jessica: She shot him in like, what was it, 1978?

[30:29] Meg: I think it did. I mean, what I heard was that he died from complications that were. That originated from her shooting of him.

[30:39] Jessica: But he, though very, very talented and very interesting and very forward thinking in many ways a bit of a nutter. And that nuttiness showed itself in ways that were not so great and some ways that were great. After he was shot by Valerie Solanas, he kind of went dark for a while. And then in the 80s, he resurrected, basically by championing other artists, young artists, among them, as we all know, Jean Michel Basquiat. But it was at that time, in the 80s, so 1987, that he wound up having gallbladder problems. And he went in for what was considered to be a routine surgery and died of a heart attack on the table at New York Presbyterian, which was a shock. I remember that happening. And I remember thinking, oh, but he's so old. Like, whatever. And then realizing, wait, maybe he isn't. And I didn't remember that feeling of mine until I was looking at this information today, frankly. And he was 58. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's really young. Oh, my God. But the reason that I did a quick little recap or recall of his demise was that on April 15, 1988, Sotheby's did an auction of the entire contents of his home.

[32:09] Meg: And where was he living when he died?

[32:12] Jessica: He was living in an Upper east side townhouse.

[32:15] Meg: That's what I thought.

[32:16] Jessica: Thought, I wonder if it's true. I know it's not. It can't possibly be. Must be apocryphal. But do you ever remember hearing the rumor that he had a snap in his head and that's how the wig got snapped?

[32:29] Meg: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[32:30] Jessica: That was a good one. So Sotheby's got the great, unbelievable good fortune of doing the Andy Warhol auction. And what was so bananas about that auction is that, you know, his vibe was this sort of minimalist, super restrained thing where he. It was, you know, about him focusing on other people. It wasn't stuff. But no, first off, his townhouse, I think it was on East 68th street, super bourgeois. And it was filled to the brim with with antiques, jewelry, art, almost no pop art, nothing. The world that he created and that he came from, other than Roy Lichtenstein, he didn't really have much interest in. You know what he did have an interest in? Cookie jars. Yes, he had hundreds and hundreds of cookie jars in this auction. He also had a silver Phantom Rolls Royce. He had more watches and timepieces than any human being could ever imagine. There was a Charles Rennie Macintosh partly paper wrapped table that when people went to look at everything, basically went unnoticed because it was surrounded by art deco chairs and obscured by unopened crates filled with crockery, glass wristwatches and silver. There was a Ruhlman desk covered in Cy Twombly paintings. Is it Thumly or Twombly? Twombly. I think it's Twombly. I think Tumbly diamonds. But plastic jewelry. Also Rolexes, Movados and Fred Flintstone plastic quartz watches.

[34:29] Meg: Oh, that doesn't surprise me.

[34:32] Jessica: What surprised? Well, what surprises me is that it's the. Like it's not everything. You'd think it would be mostly kitsch, right? Very, very not kitsch. 1940s jewelry. When all of this started coming together for Sotheby's, Diana Brooks, Sotheby's president, said that the Warhol events could attract the largest crowd in Sotheby's history and that the auction total might exceed the presale estimate of 10 to 15 million. Although it's so hilarious to think about that as the. Because there the estimate for the rolls Royce was $90,000. What? And I was like, what are you talking about? You people. There is an entire section of French art deco. There were 36 brilliantly colored and spatter lacquered vases, screens and painted panels, two leather covered sofas, two leather covered chairs, two parchment wrapped tables, 12 wrought iron chairs with rounded backs and elegantly scrolled feet, perfume bottles by Lalique, color washed lamps by Tiffany, geometric furniture and glittering silver tableware by Joseph Hoffman. It just goes on and on. There were outsized rings from the 40s, 50s and 60s with fake emeralds. He was very into fake giant gems collectibles, which went on view that week, numbered 7,789 items. That's just the collectibles. Wow. Think about that for a second.

[36:11] Meg: Right? You're saying like, and not his artwork and nothing else, and not his furniture and not his actual apartment.

[36:17] Jessica: And when we say collectibles, that's Chaskas, right? He had 7,789 tchotchkas, including cookie jars, including cookie Jars that looked like exuberant pigs, a wide eyed owl, a frowning tramp, a mustached chef, a laughing lamb and others. There were other curios, including Bakelite radios, a black top hat advertising ephemera lithographs, a Japanese suit of armor, Charles Eames molded plywood and plastic chairs, and a Lucas Samaras mini sculpture of a Warhol Campbell soup can filled with glass and plastic tchotchkas. All of this. And I could go on and on and on, but I was, look, I was reading this and there's so many items and they were all in his house, Meg.

[37:13] Meg: Right.

[37:13] Jessica: They were all in the table. Did you house.

[37:15] Meg: Did you know that he wrote in his diary every single detail of every day?

[37:21] Jessica: Yes.

[37:22] Meg: I mean that in and of itself it seems related.

[37:25] Jessica: It's obsessive compulsive. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is definitely.

[37:29] Meg: I mean, like every person he sat next to at every restaurant, Bizarre details.

[37:35] Jessica: There was so much about him that seemed like he didn't even believe that he existed unless he could be defined by what was around him. He was so obsessed with other people and what he thought was cool. Like that was how he, like he collected the beautiful and the strange. And unlike the cookie jars would get rid of them. The cookie jars, I suppose, didn't talk back and, and I can't believe that it was all an act. But he seemed so empty and that the observation and the stuff gave him his value. And you know, there is so much that he, he wrote and others have written about him that he was, you know, he really felt that he was wildly unattractive. He thought he was incredibly ugly and he was pockmarked and he had all of that stuff going on and the balding and whatever. I think that with the wig, you know, and the glasses and the uniform, that's the ultimate armor. So the Japanese suit of armor. I was also like, ooh, it says so much. Look at that.

[38:47] Meg: The documentary is wonderful and it is based on his diaries and they have Bill Irwin doing the voice of Andy Warhol, but doing it in a very flat way.

[39:02] Jessica: Oh, really?

[39:03] Meg: So it doesn't have a lot, you know, Bill Irwin is. Oh, express it. No, the, the way that they do it is very intentionally, very flat so that you fill in for yourself what he would sound like. And they do talk about his childhood. Now I'm thinking, I just, I just want to see it again.

[39:21] Jessica: Well, growing up very poor.

[39:22] Meg: Yeah.

[39:22] Jessica: And. But he went to Carnegie Mellon and he became a fashion illustrator to begin with. I'm sure. You've seen his shoes, the shoe drawings. They're adorable. They estimated that over 50,000 people would see the exhibitions of his stuff before the auction block was hit. More than 25,000 people viewed the Sotheby's traveling show of the exhibit in Tokyo, London, Cologne, Frankfurt, Chicago, Santa Fe and Los Angeles. They were shocked to find that there were no Warhol artworks at all in the sale because his heirs were not stupid. Who were his heirs? I don't know. I think. I think it was family. I do. I don't. I mean, there's a foundation, but whoever it was, they knew sell those separately for billions of dollars. Don't put it with the Chagas about Fred Flintstone. We don't need the Fred Flintstone PEZ dispenser next to one of. Thanks, Andy, for that one. That's great. It was on view. This whole thing was on view in waves through April 30 at Sotheby's on York and 72nd Street. Back to Yorkville. I'll follow up by telling you what the total take was. I think it was well in excess of the 15 million estimate. And the catalog, Just to get an idea of how much shit there was, the catalog for this one show, six volumes. Could you imagine? Whoa. Could you imagine living in that space? So Andy Warhol is weird enough, right? He's a weird motherf cker. So he has his man friend, whoever he is.

[41:04] Meg: I actually, I can't remember his name, but I do remember who he is.

[41:08] Jessica: Who is he? Who was he? Is he a was? Is he an is? I think he's. Does he walk amongst us?

[41:13] Meg: I think he's a was.

[41:15] Jessica: Okay.

[41:16] Meg: And he was one of the models in the preppy handbook.

[41:22] Jessica: Get out of town. Well, you know, once you say it in the processes, I'm like, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, it kind of does.

[41:29] Meg: And they had a long term relationship. It was not like friends with benefits kind of thing.

[41:36] Jessica: They. They were very in a committed relationship,

[41:39] Meg: connected with each other for a period of time. I'm not sure if it was during that time that Andy Warhol died. For some reason, I think he was not in a relationship when he died. But again, I need to see the.

[41:54] Jessica: I will. You know what?

[41:55] Meg: The documentary again is so interesting.

[41:59] Jessica: Do you remember the title of it?

[42:00] Meg: No, but it's based on his diary, so it might be.

[42:03] Jessica: Oh, it is. It's the Andy Warhol Diaries.

[42:05] Meg: Yeah.

[42:05] Jessica: Yes. Thank you for that. So, yeah, so I just, you know, I read this and I was thinking about him And I was thinking, you know, this is again, one of these, like, as a New Yorker, you grow up here, you walk around the streets, you see people who other. Like, in a million years, other people would be like that. Like, that person doesn't even really exist. That's just a fantasy of an idea. And there they are. And Andy Warhol, I think, continues to fascinate because nothing about him was overt. Everything was hidden. But careful. What you did see was so carefully designed to be viewed.

[42:48] Meg: He was so curated, one might say.

[42:50] Jessica: I know. I always try to avoid saying, sorry, I'll say it for you. That's okay. Thank you. It was intentional. Everything about him was so intentional. And so what really just caught my fancy about reading, you know, about this particular Sotheby's auction was nothing was private. So after his death, this incredibly careful intentionality was suddenly laid out on giant tables in his home. Fred Flintstone, the Fred Flintstone detail. Obviously, the person who wrote the article was like, I see you, Andy. I see you.

[43:31] Meg: I know you've got cookie jars.

[43:33] Jessica: I do, I do. And they are filled with cookies because that's what should be in them. But I have a very, very dear, close friend who has actually been in the auction world for quite some time. And her thing, she's a pop culture person, but her thing is she does the estates. And sometimes before that person has died of unbelievably famous people like Elizabeth Taylor. She has explained to me that it is one of the most interesting jobs in the world for exactly this reason. That there is the incredibly carefully designed public Persona. And then when you see their stuff, you're like, you live this way. Like, what? And another one that it. Another thing it made me think of is I. I follow this woman on Instagram who's a makeup artist who is obsessed with. With Marilyn Monroe, but also with all vintage makeup. So she's always going to auctions and getting this stuff. And she has purchased a lot of Marilyn Monroe's makeup that she used, like, half used stuff.

[44:44] Meg: Oh, my goodness.

[44:45] Jessica: And the state of some of it and some of the stuff that she talks about and, like, I would think

[44:50] Meg: it would spoil over time.

[44:52] Jessica: Well, she's not wearing it. These are more like Auberg, but, you know, you can still see what the color is. And she, like, tries to match the color and, like, is Fire and ice from 19. Whatever what it is now. But you see how filthy these people were. And it's like, why is this used cotton ball in with this lot of things? Because, like, you see that these people who are doing the auctions just grab everything off the dresser, Right. It's just like voomp in a box. There it goes. And you're like. So you really hung on to all your used cotton balls now, didn't you? What you gonna use those for later? I don't know. Okay, bye. So, yeah. So Andy Warhol, his stuff. I'm sure that there's something that I can find that's visually entertaining to put on the Instagram, but it captured my imagination,

[45:54] Meg: So I have a tie in.

[45:55] Jessica: I'm very excited.

[45:57] Meg: We both did stories that were partly based on documentaries. Oh, my God.

[46:02] Jessica: That's a really good one.

[46:04] Meg: The Andy Warhol Diaries, which I want to go and watch again. And God forbid. The sex scandal that brought down a Dynasty, which is about Jerry Falwell Jr. And how he liked to watch his wife have sex with a pool boy.

[46:22] Jessica: Can't we just say cuck like normal people?

[46:24] Meg: And you need to watch this, because unlike other documentaries about the Moral Majority and all the power, all the yuck, all the unholy alliance that we see around us, the Dynasty does fall. And there's something about that that's incredibly entertaining because it's also a sex scandal.

[46:43] Jessica: So, please, I'll do things that you hope will happen to these people.

[46:47] Meg: Yes. Yes, there is hope.

[46:49] Jessica: Marvelous. God forbid mine, my tie in was that both your subject and Andy Warhol had a very different private and public Persona. Ooh. And that they were very, very careful about what people could see and what they couldn't. Well beyond what the average celebrity did or did not do.

[47:14] Meg: Nice.

[47:16] Jessica: Look at us both really into our stories today.