[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. We. Where we still live and where we

[00:28] Meg: podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:33] Meg: Okay. So, Jessica, do you want to talk about what's happening right now that I'm

[00:37] Jessica: learning to cheat to the camera right now? Yes. Yes. It's very exciting. We are being filmed, you know, moving into a new era of the podcast where we can be seen by others, which, you know, is not my favorite

[00:50] Meg: thing in the universe, but this is so much fun.

[00:52] Jessica: It is.

[00:52] Meg: People can see our expressions and our eye roll and how we physically respond to our stor. Yes.

[00:59] Jessica: Which means just a lot of limp laughing and falling over, but, yes, I'm. I'm very excited. This is delightful.

[01:05] Meg: Yeah. And what we're hoping is that we can, you know, clip out a few little fun things to share, maybe on the Instagram, but definitely we'll put it up on YouTube, which we need to give a little bit more love. We need to provide more love for our YouTube.

[01:21] Jessica: The YouTube. Yes. I think, again, it's all about our

[01:25] Meg: growth now that we have hit, oh, 50,000 downloads. And we're so much more than that now.

[01:31] Jessica: We're like 50,001. And it's amazing that one means everything.

[01:38] Meg: Yeah.

[01:38] Jessica: Whoever that is, thank you very much. So. Yeah, it's very. Yeah. So why not move into the new era of fabulousness?

[01:46] Meg: One cool thing happened.

[01:48] Jessica: Just the one, because all the. This week is really, really lacking in fabulousness.

[01:56] Meg: But New York magazine re released their story on Crispo, the art dealer. Really, who was into all of that leather stuff and murdered this kid in the 80s. And we did a story about that on our podcast. And as desperately seeking the 80s on Instagram, I said, oh, I can't wait to reread this. We talked about it on our podcast, and then somebody else wrote, what's the name of your podcast? And I gave the information the title of the episode and everything. And that episode has indeed been listened to quite a few more times this week as a result.

[02:35] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[02:36] Meg: I know.

[02:37] Jessica: Marketing market. Wait. Mind blown.

[02:41] Meg: Well, sometimes you kind of feel like you're throwing things out. And does anybody hear?

[02:45] Jessica: I'm not making fun of you. I'm making fun of the fact that the two of us are like, we're in our bubble, and whatever happens is astonishing to us. But, well, Done. Well done for doing that.

[02:58] Meg: And thank you, New York Magazine, for being. I feel like there's a lot of sort of flashback to 80s stuff right now.

[03:05] Jessica: I mean, we've been zeitgeisty for three years now.

[03:09] Meg: It feels like it. So that's a good example.

[03:11] Jessica: That is a wonderful thing.

[03:13] Meg: Shall we start? Yeah.

[03:16] Jessica: Okay.

[03:16] Meg: I'm excited for my story.

[03:19] Jessica: I'm excited for your story, even though I have no idea what it is.

[03:22] Meg: It's a follow up.

[03:23] Jessica: Oh, my God. Actually, I have a story today that will require follow up.

[03:28] Meg: Oh, awesome. Two parter.

[03:31] Jessica: It could be like an eight parter. So I'm excited for you.

[03:35] Meg: Overwhelming. All right.

[03:36] Jessica: That's how I feel too. I feel very overwhelmed. Okay. Okay, I'm ready.

[03:40] Meg: Great.

[03:50] Jessica: Meg, before we begin, I just that it would be interesting to note that we are not in our usual space.

[03:56] Meg: Oh, that's true.

[03:57] Jessica: We are not in the office.

[03:59] Meg: No.

[03:59] Jessica: We've moved into the living room for today. And how weird is it to look out the window at New York as we're talking about the city? I find that very. I don't know, it all feels more real looking out of, like, the water towers. Is it affecting you at all?

[04:19] Meg: Thank you for mentioning that. And I will absolutely take that into account.

[04:22] Jessica: I'm just trying to bring up everything that will be unsettling for us.

[04:26] Meg: And also, we gussied ourselves up.

[04:29] Jessica: Yes.

[04:30] Meg: We put on lipstick and, you know, did ahars.

[04:33] Jessica: Did Ahahar. Yes.

[04:35] Meg: My engagement question is, would you be interested in sharing with us a rebound story?

[04:43] Jessica: Which one? Jesus Christ. How about the fact that I married one? Is that good enough? That's a good one. Yes. Hideousness. I had a relationship with someone who was one of the great loves of my life that was, you know, it was long drawn out and went on and on for almost two decades, off and on. And then we were finally together, and then it ended so disastrously that it really might be the subject of my next book. Like, I might finally have the distance. And then in a fit of total derangement, I was asked out. Well, it wasn't deranged to ask me out. I mean, let's be honest. I was asked out by someone who seemed to understand my magnificence.

[05:34] Meg: Who then how much. How much longer after the breakup?

[05:38] Jessica: Well, the breakup had gone on for a long. Like, it petered out for a long time, but it was just a couple of days after the very. No, no, no.

[05:47] Meg: Okay, so you were single lady for two weeks. Single lady for two weeks.

[05:51] Jessica: Well, single's a very malleable word. You know, my dating life has been. There are overlap. Okay. Anyway, so this person asked me out, and I was very attracted to him. I thought he was very cute. And he was, until he turned into Uncle Fester, literally. So we got married, and I.

[06:14] Meg: You married your rebound?

[06:15] Jessica: I married the rebound because I married him when I was 36, and I had internalized the insanity that so much, so many women in our generation were subjected to, which was being told, oh, my God, you're gonna be left on the shelf to rot, so you have to get married. And I. I. My mother actually told me this, and I tried to be glib and say that I was a Twinkie and that I would always exist. I would never rot in my little plastic wrap. She disagreed, and so I. I married the rebound, who turned out to be an absolute jackass and did very bad things. And then one of his worst sins was that he went from being this really cute snowboarder to being literally looking like Uncle Fester overnight. Short period of time, I would say probably three years was the full transformation. Yeah. He would do things like have a bowl of ice cream and melt an entire cup of Jif peanut butter and pour it over as though it were sauce. And I was like, you know, this isn't going to end well. And that sounds like.

[07:24] Meg: So. So.

[07:25] Jessica: So he eventually had a heart in sand. I shouldn't laugh.

[07:28] Meg: Were you still married to me?

[07:30] Jessica: No. No. But he bizarrely sent me a photo of himself in the hospital with all the tubes, and I was like, this is not gonna make me feel anything for you. Good. So that's one of my rebounds.

[07:42] Meg: Thank you for sharing.

[07:43] Jessica: Does that fit the bill?

[07:43] Meg: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.

[07:45] Jessica: Are you horrible? Come on. No, no, I love it. Oh, God. Now I feel you delivered. You delivered. You're ashamed about my candor.

[07:55] Meg: No, it's wonderful.

[07:56] Jessica: We all appreciate it. All right, well, write in if you like. If you appreciate my candor, write in. So, yes, I was honest. There you go. That's right.

[08:04] Meg: All right. Thank you very much.

[08:05] Jessica: My pleasure. My sort of pleasure.

[08:07] Meg: My sources are the Andy Warhol Diaries. That was the documentary that I keep talking about. That is so great.

[08:17] Jessica: It captivated you.

[08:18] Meg: It's in four parts, I think it's in four parts. And it's produced by Ryan Murphy, who sometimes gets it right. I'm just saying.

[08:29] Jessica: Okay.

[08:29] Meg: He. He sometimes. He really does a great job. And this was the case in this documentary. Highly recommend it.

[08:37] Jessica: Okay.

[08:37] Meg: I believe the website for the Warhol which is the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1981, Andy Warhol was going through a bit of a life crisis. He had just broken up with his boyfriend Jed Johnson, with whom he'd had a 12 year relationship. Jed had taken care of Andy after he was shot by Valerie Solanis and had decorated his gorgeous townhouse on 66th street and helped raise his short haired dachshund Archie.

[09:12] Jessica: God.

[09:13] Meg: And was beautiful, by the way, of course.

[09:15] Jessica: Raised the baby and was beautiful and decorated the house. What did Andy do? What did Andy do to alienate.

[09:23] Meg: I'm about to tell you, I'm feeling

[09:24] Jessica: that Andy is wrong. Go ahead.

[09:26] Meg: In many ways, Jed nurtured and nested, but Andy was restless. Jed thought Andy's preoccupation with Studio 54 and the celebrity culture and hedonism of the late 70s was a waste of his time and talent. And after months of discord, Jed moved out of the townhouse on December 21, 1980. So really it was.

[09:54] Jessica: That was his Christmas gift to Andy.

[09:56] Meg: They'd been bickering for a while, but really it, it was Andy's pivot from the factory to just wanting to hang out with celebrities in the wild. That was part of it. And I, and I think he wasn't. His work wasn't as he was not at his peak or he was, he was transitioning. He was trying to like figure something out that he was fascinated with. And what it came across as was like a waste of time. Like, what are you doing? Like why aren't you making art? You're like hanging out with like Diana Ross. What is happening? When in fact it was possibly what he had to do to get to the next stage of his art. But whatever, it did not work for Jed. So he goes. Andy was devastated and found himself unmoored emotionally and professionally. He was in his 50s.

[10:56] Jessica: We know what happens in your 50s alone. Gak.

[11:01] Meg: Trying to assess his life's work and figure out what to do next. He lost 25 pounds, maybe due to depression or possibly his vanity, as you talked about a couple weeks ago, three weeks ago. He'd always hated how he looked and aging didn't help, but at least he could be skinny. He had control over that. So he started just shrinking in what some called a midlife crisis move. He joined the Zoli modeling agency and was in ads for Sony, Vidal Sassoon and a feature in Vogue called Makeup Key accessory idea. It's not like he was saying I Andy Warhol, what do you call it when you pitch a product or whatever. As a celebrity, I'm.

[11:54] Jessica: Oh, an endorsement.

[11:56] Meg: Yeah, it wasn't an endorsement. He was just the guy in the ad.

[12:01] Jessica: Very bizarre.

[12:02] Meg: So he wasn't paid for the endorsement, he was just paid as any run of the mill model was paid.

[12:10] Jessica: Although that seems so Warholian, doesn't it?

[12:13] Meg: It does.

[12:14] Jessica: It's like some weird meta immersion. I am them, they are me. I'm in front of the camera, I have the camera. Like, that seems like a very.

[12:27] Meg: It's the same thing with the Studio 54 thing, I think it's like circling around a new idea for his art. Well, this is before he started really hanging out and nurturing like Basquiat, Scharf and all those guys.

[12:46] Jessica: Well, it's also kind of interesting if you think about the mission of the Factory where he was saying, I'm making stars, and then trans. Part of the transition was that he was ingratiating himself with people he had not made. He was going into the mainstream celebrity instead of saying, oh, Joe d' Alessandro is so gorgeous when he's naked and not naked. Now he's a superstar because he's in one of my fakacta films. And so that actually kind of makes sense.

[13:15] Meg: It does, actually. Especially when you think about what he, the art that he did end up doing next. But yeah, like this is a period where he's just kind of circling around and trying to figure it out. Right. And he's been dumped, he's alone and he's 50 something.

[13:34] Jessica: Okay.

[13:35] Meg: His longtime friend, photographer Christopher Makos, had introduced Andy to John Gould, an executive at Paramount about a month before his breakup with Jedi. And John was just Andy's type. Tall, waspy, Harvard graduate, athletic from old New England money, Hollywood connections. And on top of everything, he was a twin. And he was obsessed with twins.

[14:06] Jessica: That's eerie. Being obsessed with twins is, is a bit bonkers, don't you think?

[14:14] Meg: I, I, Yeah, I, Yeah, sure, yeah.

[14:16] Jessica: No, yeah, I mean, to me it's all like dead ringers and like, you know, some weird weirdness. Anyway, sorry.

[14:23] Meg: And this guy, John Gould, he photographed him. There's so much footage of him. And I gotta say, he is striking for somebody who is not in the entertainment industry or is not a model or who doesn't make money from his looks. He's incredibly compelling.

[14:42] Jessica: How did he, as a Hollywood executive. Just saying, your looks do matter, I guess.

[14:49] Meg: Andy started actively pursuing John now that he's a single guy. Right. Sending him a dozen roses to his office every day.

[14:58] Jessica: Oh, cringy.

[14:59] Meg: A little and just four months later dictated this to his diary because, you know, Andy Warhol's diary was not. He didn't write it down physically himself.

[15:09] Jessica: It was a tape, right?

[15:10] Meg: He dictated it to his secretary, quote, got up early and it looked beautiful out. But I'm in this period where I think, what is it all about? You do this and what does it mean? And you do that and what does it mean really? I'm in a strange period. I put off telling the diary about my emotional problems because last Christmas when I was having all the fights with Jed and he moved out, I couldn't face talking about it and now I'm living alone and in a way I'm relieved. But then I don't want to be by myself in this big house with just Nina and Aurora, his maids and Archie and Amos, his dogs. I've got these desperate feelings that nothing means anything and then I decide that I should try to fall in love and that's what I'm doing now with John Gould. But then it's just too hard. I mean, you think about a person constantly and it's just a fantasy, it's not real. And then it gets so involved, you have to see them all the time and then it winds up that it's just a job like everything else. So I don't know. But John is a good person to be in love with because he has his own career and I can develop movie ideas with him, you know, and maybe he can even convince Paramount to advertise an interview too, right? So my crush on him will be good for business.

[16:37] Jessica: That's the most Andy Warhol statement ever made by him or anyone else. That's so perfectly transactional.

[16:48] Meg: And John did very much enjoy Andy's company and he managed to find a place for Andy in his life which wasn't easy given all he had to juggle. We're talking about John. John was vice president of corporate communications for Paramount Pictures and marketed the Warriors, Urban Cowboy, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flashdance, to name a few. By day he was a straight executive. By night he frequented the baths, which is where he met Christopher Makos. Andy loved that John could pass as straight. This is another quote from the diary. I love going out with John because it's like being on a real date. He's tall and strong and I feel that he can take care of me and it's exciting because he acts straight, so I'm sure people think he is.

[17:46] Jessica: That's so sad and self annihilating.

[17:50] Meg: John, as we talked About a few weeks ago was one of the models for the Preppy Handbook, the ultimate guide for passing.

[17:59] Jessica: By the way, I joined the Preppy Handbook group on Facebook.

[18:03] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[18:04] Jessica: And I found out, I think, last night that I was accepted into the group. So there might be something about John Gould in there, obviously.

[18:12] Meg: Ooh. Oh, I'm sure there is.

[18:13] Jessica: I'm sure there is.

[18:15] Meg: John's privacy was extremely important to him, and he made Andy promise not to talk about him in the diaries. So there is no confirmation that they were ever physically intimate. While John did move into the townhouse in 1983, he never received mail there and also maintained his own apartment at the Hotel des Artistes. Really? I know.

[18:39] Jessica: Tony. Hmm.

[18:41] Meg: Always seeming to keep one foot out the door.

[18:44] Jessica: Well, if you want to keep Andy Warhol interested, is that not the perfect way to do it? Andy Warhol was.

[18:52] Meg: I'm not sure if he was trying to keep him on the line.

[18:55] Jessica: Oh, I don't know if he was trying to. I just.

[18:57] Meg: He was ambivalent about the nature of the relationship.

[19:01] Jessica: Be that as it may, I just mean Andy Warhol's personality was such that I think he was more comfortable pressing his nose to the glass than actually being fully adored by somebody.

[19:12] Meg: Oh, most probably, yes. Okay. You know, early in their relationship, Andy told his diary, quote, john was back in town, and he said he thought I was going away. So he'd made plans to go away for the weekend. And so I guess my whole relationship's fallen apart. He said he'd call me and didn't, which was mean. I have to pull myself together and go on. I have to get a whole new philosophy. I don't know what to do. I watched Urban Cowboy and John Travolta just dances so beautifully. It was a really good movie, a Paramount movie. So that made me think more about John, and I felt worse. I cried myself to sleep.

[19:56] Jessica: There's so much about Andy Warhol that really is like a teenage girl. Like a tween even, isn't it? He's like, oh, you know, like me. I'm gonna sob into my pillow. That was mean. I'm a John Gould, apparently. Okay.

[20:10] Meg: I mean, he's just. He's heartsick.

[20:13] Jessica: I know, but there's something very stunted about Andy Warhol, you have to admit. I mean, whatever.

[20:19] Meg: I was hoping that this story would

[20:22] Jessica: make me love him and just make

[20:24] Meg: you see him as a flesh and blood.

[20:27] Jessica: It does.

[20:28] Meg: Person.

[20:28] Jessica: No, it does. And, you know, we've had many conversations about mean girlism on this Podcast.

[20:36] Meg: You mean girling Andy Warhol?

[20:37] Jessica: I mean girling Andy Warhol, but I feel like he mean girled so many people. I mean, let's just talk about what he did to Edie Sedgwick. Let's just begin there. So I just feel like I don't have that much remorse for mean girling him.

[20:49] Meg: Okay.

[20:50] Jessica: But I'm sorry that he had a relationship hiccup.

[20:54] Meg: Also, Andy hated that John went to the baths.

[20:58] Jessica: Well, he was right about that.

[21:01] Meg: Well, okay, so many of his friends and colleagues were dying, either from drugs, alcohol, general hard living, or the gay cancer. And there's a period in his diaries where it's almost like every other entry is reporting on somebody's death. And some of them are, you know, ODs. I mean, so many of those people that he worked with and came up with in the 60s, they just kind of got wiped out, out in the early 80s for a variety of reasons.

[21:38] Jessica: So that's very horrible.

[21:40] Meg: Right. And here he's having his midlife crisis and suddenly feeling his own mortality after also being shot.

[21:48] Jessica: Well, and also that. I mean, what, what is striking me is that the aloneness, you know, from, from the, the loss of the boyfriends is enhanced by the constant dropping of all of these people. Absolutely. Which is unlike a breakup. Definitely non negotiable. Right.

[22:09] Meg: So Andy became very protective of his health. He told his diary, quote, I'm going to the doctor who put crystals on you, and it gives you energy. John's gotten interested in that kind of stuff. He says it gives you powers. I think it sounds like a good thing to be doing. Health is wealth. And then, quote, the New York Times had a big article about gay cancer and how they don't know what to do with it, that it's epidemic proportions. And they say that these kids who are having sex all the time have it in their semen. And they've already had every kind of disease. There is hepatitis 1, 2 and 3, and mononucleosis. And I'm worried that I could get it by drinking out of the same glass or just being around these kids who go to the baths. And then in February 1984, Andy dictated, quote, did a personal errand for John, but he made me promise not to put anything personal about him in the diary. And as it turned out, the personal errand was taking John to New York Hospital to treat his pneumonia. John was released two weeks later, but then readmitted the next day and stayed another two weeks. When he came home, Andy instructed his housekeepers, Nina and Aurora, Quote, from now on, wash John's dishes and clothes separate from mine.

[23:40] Jessica: But who could blame him?

[23:41] Meg: I know.

[23:42] Jessica: Who knew anything at the time? Nobody.

[23:44] Meg: John bounced back from his bout with pneumonia.

[23:49] Jessica: Wow.

[23:49] Meg: But his relationship with Andy began to suffer. He spent more and more time in Los Angeles. Andy gave him the COVID story on Shirley MacLaine in Interview magazine and encouraged Jean Michel Basquiat to paint his portrait. Oh, I know. All in an effort to lure him back. But John had moved on, reportedly dating the president of Paramount's daughter.

[24:17] Jessica: What?

[24:19] Meg: By December 1985, Andy and John were no longer speaking.

[24:24] Jessica: Oh, no.

[24:25] Meg: Less than A year later, September 17, 1986, John died of AIDS related pneumonia at cedars Sinai in LA. He weighed 70 pounds and was blind. He denied even to close friends that he had AIDS. And he was just 33.

[24:46] Jessica: That was chills. 33. God. That's the thing about all of those stories that. Oh, God, that's very distressing. Although, because I am who I am, I'm like, he's very successful, very young.

[25:03] Meg: Well, I mean, he had a lot going for him.

[25:06] Jessica: Clearly. He did. It's just. Wow. That was not what I was expecting him to be in his, like, maybe early 40s.

[25:13] Meg: No, just a dashing young man just climbing that ladder. Yeah.

[25:18] Jessica: Andy Warhol is a really. I vacillate between thinking that he was really complicated and extraordinarily simple. You know, his, his obsession with fame, his obsession with celebrity, his low self esteem, you know, his worries about his own looks. All of those things are just. There's so much of it that it seems complicated, but at the end of the day, it's kind of like just an insecure guy.

[25:48] Meg: Oh, absolutely. And I think again, I'll just, you know, promote the documentary.

[25:52] Jessica: It.

[25:53] Meg: It definitely shows him, you know, all those complexities. It doesn't shy away from the fact that didn't always treat people so well and didn't always have his values, maybe in the right order, but it also definitely reveals him as being a very human person, most probably on the spectrum.

[26:16] Jessica: You know what? Right. Yes. Oh, okay.

[26:20] Meg: I thought that was just.

[26:21] Jessica: No, it's.

[26:21] Meg: Everyone knew that.

[26:23] Jessica: That makes perfect sense. He, you know, and now that you've said it, he reminds me of someone, I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast, who I knew, gay, very uncomfortable with his sexuality, very uncomfortable with being physical. Like Andy Warhol, who at one point in a philosophy class was engaged in this lengthy description, or more like a justification of why a life, a physical life was unnecessary. And he was Basically campaigning for the idea that being a brain in a jar was the way to be.

[27:10] Meg: Wow. Wait, where do you know this person?

[27:12] Jessica: At school.

[27:13] Meg: Okay. Yeah.

[27:14] Jessica: And it always stuck with me. And he was, in hindsight, clearly on this bedjam in. In one way or another. So.

[27:20] Meg: But do. Do watch it. And especially it's like the third or the fourth. I mean, they're all. Each of the segments of the documentary are labeled, but the stuff that I found most interesting was the midlife crisis stuff.

[27:36] Jessica: Well, it's so interesting that that's what you're talking about because I had a conversation with a woman who I met very recently talking about her midlife crisis, her expectations of what. What was in store for her after a breakup, bad breakup, you know, kids are out of the house, you know. Did you watch the. The Rachel Vyse and what's his name, John Slattery thing on. On Netflix called Vladimir?

[28:10] Meg: No, I did not.

[28:11] Jessica: The whole show opens. The first episode opens with her saying, I'm. I'm paraphrasing, but I'm 55 and I'm invisible. I will never be looked at by a man again. I will never, you know, and here are the comforts of that, but here's the reality, and it's awful. And that's what this woman was talking about. And then it turned out to be absolutely not the case. And her. Her life went in an entirely different direction, so.

[28:34] Meg: Well, that's good news.

[28:36] Jessica: Oh my God. No, no. Like at some point I feel. I feel like she should even be on the podcast because what happened in her life was like the stuff of deeply empowering films or, or like, wow. But anyway, the midlife crisis is. I feel like, let's make that outdated

[28:58] Meg: or at least that it's not a negative thing. That it can be something that's transforming to something positive.

[29:03] Jessica: Rebirth. Absolutely. So I said earlier that this story that I have for you has lots of different threads and lots of different follow ups. You did?

[29:23] Meg: Oh, right. You said it was like you could

[29:25] Jessica: have multiple eight parts. Yes, I'm sifting through all of that because there's just so much. But as a quick overview, some of the participants in this particular story are. Michael Alig.

[29:40] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[29:41] Jessica: Yes. James St. James.

[29:43] Meg: Uh huh.

[29:45] Jessica: Vito Bruno.

[29:47] Meg: Yes.

[29:48] Jessica: Michael Musto.

[29:50] Meg: Love him.

[29:51] Jessica: The Hacienda Club in London.

[29:54] Meg: Okay.

[29:55] Jessica: The birth of rave culture. You know, we've talked about the different kinds of parties that happened around the city, and we talked about Chip Ducket and those people who would hand out the flyers. And we've Talked about flyers and we've talked about DJ Stretch Armstrong, who has this whole collection, who's part of, bizarrely, our circle, very tangentially, but I was remembering that there was another kind of flyer and it was really mysterious. Do you remember seeing around the city on lamp posts and whatever. There were like these really cryptic signs that were up that were like, there's a party happening. Call this number. Okay. Or, you know, like, do be at XYZ place. And then you'll get more information.

[30:44] Meg: I love that.

[30:45] Jessica: Do you remember this?

[30:46] Meg: No, I don't, but I think it's a fantastic idea.

[30:49] Jessica: Well, and what's also what. What struck me about it as I was, you know, remembering is that everyone got together for what I'm about to describe with no cell phones, right? No nothing. It was be here and see what happens. So there was like a very adventurous air about it, which is why these parties were called outlaw parties. Okay. Ooh. Okay. And so in 1989, there is an article in the Times, Outlaw Clubs Move to an Elusive Beat. And what it talks about. And I thought that outlaw parties were just what I'm going to describe in a moment. But outlaw parties lived in a lot of different kinds of modalities, if you will, in the city. And one of them, which makes me laugh so hard because this is so clearly a pre Giuliani kind of thing, is people just set up clubs and didn't get their cabaret license or liquor license or whatever, and they operated as a club and were known as such. And then oops, maybe sometimes a cop will show up and then you're shit out of luck, right?

[32:03] Meg: Or you just move it somewhere else.

[32:05] Jessica: Well, that's what eventually happened or was. Was happening simultaneously. But these. These guys were featured in this article, were not that smart and they had invested a lot of money into having this space. But what they should have been doing, as described in this article, is following the lead of two separate outlaw parties called Payday and Hundred Thousand Dollar Bar. I think. Okay, yes, $100,000 bar. They were illicit nightclubs that kept a low profile and operated only one night per week. And that's what all of these things did. So they moved around. If it was Tuesday, it was, you know, Payday. Okay. If it was Thursday, it was Hundred Thousand Dollar Bar. On and on and on and after.

[32:59] Meg: Candy bars.

[33:01] Jessica: Indeed. So they were always keeping away from the authorities. Now, I remembered these clubs as actually being outdoors, that these were outdoor events and people would just congregate like under a bridge or whatever. But these were Actually, in dedicated spaces, they had really popular DJs. Which explains DJ Stretch Armstrong. Still a junior? No, no. At that point he would have been a sophomore in college.

[33:31] Meg: Crazy.

[33:32] Jessica: And it's where, and this absolutely killed me in this article, the writer says that it's a very fashionable thing in the East Village on the Lower east side. And the music features in quotes house music and describes it as a disco like mixture of pop music with a strong underlying beat. They did very well. They played music that was more adventurous. They didn't have to worry about who was going to come back necessarily, because there were so many people who were dying to go to these things that if you didn't like the music, guess what? There was going to be someone else who wants to come in and do this. So these, these were going on and the cops were really nervous about them. Not necessarily because of just people congregating or because there wasn't a liquor license, but this is a callback to your Happy Land Social club that these illegal parties were happening outside of Manhattan in the other boroughs. And they were frequently where drug conflagrations would take place. So there were gang problems, drug dealing problems, and people were getting shot left and right all over these. So they were worried that these parties in the city were going to go in the same direction. Amazingly, they never ever did.

[34:57] Meg: Okay.

[34:58] Jessica: But the people who were doing them were inspired by what was happening in la. This was happening in la, but also what was happening in London. And what was happening in London was more sort of this outdoor thing that I just described, which eventually became not long after the. And it's because it was DJs. There were no bands playing. It was the birth of rave culture. So that was all part of this. Now, with that in mind, the infamous party that you could actually see video for online, the one that if you look up outlaw party online, you will find Michael Musto. Tons of people talking about this one party that Michael Alig threw. Okay, so I'm just going to read this to you. Before he was convicted for murder in 1997. Oops.

[35:54] Meg: Oops.

[35:54] Jessica: Michael Alig was a New York City party boy. One of the original club kids. The movie Party Monster with Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin later recreated the outlaw parties as described in the Village Voice. Back to Michael Musto as bashes illegally held at some public space or other where everyone showed up on time for a change, knowing the cops would come and bust it up the second they got wind of it in 1989. And I just love this so much. Get a visual of this. Alec hosted one such party at a Times Square McDonald's at 3am it was a greasy night to be remembered.

[36:37] Meg: Oh my God. That's what. So it's like a flash mob or something. They just all show up at this McDonald's and throw some music on and. Yes.

[36:45] Jessica: And do drugs. And that was the other thing is that, you know, these were the kids who are part of the limelight world. And I know you've been to. You went to the limelight, as did I. No one was drinking. And that's one of the reasons that Peter Gation wound up going to jail was that he was in on the drug dealing going on in the club. So you would find some very tweaked out club kid. And I think I've talked about the it twins on this podcast before. Two very gender bendery looking guys who were dressed identically with long braids holding lunchboxes. And if you went up to the IT twins, they would open their lunch boxes for you and you could have a snack in. In the. Usually in the world of ecstasy or acid or God knows what else. But that's. Yes. At 3:00am What a wonderful thing to go to McDonald's because you don't need, you don't need to cart liquor around with you. Drugs are very portable. So that's, that's how these proto raves were forming. Taking place. Michael Musto said about it that there was one that was in honor of a club DJ's birthday. We've been told to meet at a West side parking lot, though that turned out to be just a holding area. From there we were sent to an abandoned elevated train tracks a few blocks away. Which, by the way.

[38:13] Meg: Yeah, the High Line.

[38:14] Jessica: The High Line, yeah. Where the weeds, decay and rickety structure were as terrifying as the. As the club kids begging to get photographed in it. I was actually relieved when the police came. That's like, when, you know, that's like the Andy. Your Andy Warhol midlife crisis is like, thank God the cops are here. Okay. I was actually relieved when the police came and I could return to the relative safety of a plain old sleazy nightclub. And yet these things were always kind of thrilling and special, I must admit. The one at a McDonald's, however, will always be forever seared into the memory. It was the rare worthwhile trip to a fast food joint and it really shook things up. But he says while Michael Alig got a huge amount of credit for putting together this outlaw party, that was the definitive Outlaw Party. Michael Musto was very pissed off because he was like, he did not invent this. Vito Bruno did. Vito Bruno, his original entree into the nightclub scene was managing. Oh, God, is it called Galaxy 2000? It was where Saturday. I'm doing this. Saturday Night Fever was filmed with a light up floor.

[39:30] Meg: Oh, fun.

[39:32] Jessica: Yes. So he's from back in the day. He had been managing Night Fever.

[39:36] Meg: Wow. So he must be long in the tooth.

[39:39] Jessica: Yes. He was much older than everybody else there. Michael Musta was like, no, no, no. Give credit where credit is due. He did unbelievable parties. At the time, Vito Bruno was interviewed saying, pizza a Go Go was padlocked three times. He was the manager. Clubs are often opened in buildings that are old and dilapidated and not up to code. Hello, Happyland Social Club. The kids can't afford to get the buildings up to code. So he's now talking about the people who are sort of edging in on what he had originally originated in New York, which was these. These kinds of. Of outlaw clubs. And he's looking down on the kids, like, get your shit together because you know you're going to be in a death trap. The landlords want them out because they want to upgrade and they want to do that when the clubs attract street traffic to once desolate neighborhoods. So these kids were even part of, of the gentrification, which I'm sure they were not thrilled with because now people knew that these neighborhoods existed and that there was a hotness to it. So James St. James was part of Michael Alec's crew and the one who wrote Disco Bloodbath that Party Monster was based on. And he had something to say about it. He said there was a man named Vito Bruno who started the Outlaw Party. So he's giving credit where credit is due. This was in the 80s and I remember Vito was just fantastic. He's still around and he's still wonderful, but kind of scary. And I remember Michael and I went to him saying, Mr. Bruno, will you break our kneecaps if we do an outlaw party? And he gave us his blessing to do them. The first one that we did was at McDonald's. Now here's a great little spoiler. In 2020, do you know what Vito Bruno got up to?

[41:31] Meg: No, I don't.

[41:32] Jessica: As a member of the Republican party and conservative party and the Independence Party, he ran for election to the New York State Senate to represent District 22. And he lost in the general election. And that was not his first attempt to be in public office. Probably with a lot of support. From some people who were a little bit questionable and easy to find on Mott street outside of their own kind of social club, if you know what I'm saying. It was his second attempt. His first one was in 2017.

[42:08] Meg: So he's with us.

[42:09] Jessica: Oh, he walks amongst us. So then I was looking up Vito Bruno. So all of these characters, like, they could have their own episode unto themselves. But Vito Bruno is really fascinating to me because he managed to be right on the edge of the mob and right on the edge of club culture. Now it seems like that would be obvious, but this club culture particularly is not the right one for someone like that. And there's this great photo of Vito Bruno in. I think it was details, lying on a divan with a tiger stripe rug in front of him. And he looks like the. The quintessential sleazoid concept of opulence.

[42:57] Meg: Oh, man.

[42:59] Jessica: And so this.

[43:00] Meg: Please send me that picture. I will post it.

[43:02] Jessica: Actually, I can show you right here.

[43:04] Meg: Oh, my God.

[43:05] Jessica: Look at that. Look at that creature. That's crazy. What I love is that I have no idea why this person really hated him so much, but it's my next rabbit hole. There is a blog, a blog that's called Gale Wynn Massey at blogspot. This person fucking hates Vito Bruno. And it has.

[43:25] Meg: This is a fanta. Are you sure you want to spoil the story?

[43:27] Jessica: All I'm saying, I'm getting it at this, all right, that this person, and yes, Vito Bruno walks amongst us, refers to him throughout this blog post as Ratto Vito. So I'm saying. I'm just saying that's what we're gonna stop.

[43:42] Meg: Yes, you have to do a follow up.

[43:43] Jessica: But all of this led me, and this is why I loved it, because I was like, oh, ho Hum, James St. James and Michael Allen, whatever. You two enjoy your stupid makeup on Jenny Jones show. Like, whatever. Yes, yes. Drugs. And then I find Michael Musto, of all people, saying, no, no, Vito Bruno is the shit. And then, wait, he's in the mob and is scary and thinks that he's going to be a senator. Like, okay, where is the. The film about this guy?

[44:20] Meg: This is all a teaser for your next story. Please.

[44:25] Jessica: We're coming for.

[44:36] Meg: So when you were talking about those flyers. Yes, we made flyers for our event.

[44:42] Jessica: Yes, we did.

[44:44] Meg: Where are we going to put them?

[44:46] Jessica: I guess we're going to put them all over the city.

[44:48] Meg: We have to put them on the city. I think we need to put them on posts, lampposts.

[44:53] Jessica: That's what we should do. All right, so now if you're walking around New York City and you see the two of us, take a picture.

[45:00] Meg: If you pass a lamppost with the flyer for our velvet rope party, which again is May 14th at kgbredroom from 7 to 9:30, take a picture of it and we will post it on

[45:15] Jessica: the Instagram and we'll let you go straight to the front of the line.

[45:18] Meg: Oh, absolutely.

[45:20] Jessica: That's it. That is your vip. If you do that, you're a VIP status. We will create like the Michael Todd room just for you. Perfect. That will be done.

[45:30] Meg: Do we want to do a tie in?

[45:32] Jessica: There are a couple of tie ins. You know what just occurred to me as I was thinking like, God, what's the tie in? You know that those club kids actually really remind me of Andy Warhol. There's something about the incredibly self conscious created and not quite marketing.

[45:50] Meg: Yeah.

[45:50] Jessica: Not quite of this universe look.

[45:52] Meg: Yeah.

[45:53] Jessica: That it's kind of like they opted out of life, out of normalcy with this physical transformation.

[46:03] Meg: There's a very similar vibe. Absolutely. Inspired by.

[46:08] Jessica: Yes. But I feel like there's something about the pathology behind all of it that's really similar. So maybe that's for our next episode as well, is our DSM 6. I think at this point. Analysis of Andy Warhol, the club kids and people with probably spectrum related problems.

[46:28] Meg: Well, well done, Jessica.

[46:30] Jessica: Well, thank you very much. Well done, Ned.

[46:32] Meg: This is really fun and thank you. Thank you, John, who is, who is filming us right now. This wild experiment that we are doing

[46:41] Jessica: and it's happening just as the light is fading. I feel very Norma Desmond about it.