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

[00:17] Jessica: I am Meg, and I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live and where we

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

[00:31] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: Guess what? I bet you know already.

[00:40] Jessica: That's an infinite number of guesses. I don't know what. Meg.

[00:45] Meg: Giuliani has been given his last rights.

[00:49] Jessica: I knew that he was in the hospital. I knew he had been rushed off. And here's clearly what I think of Giuliani. Knowing that he was in so much trouble, I promptly forgot about it. So he's been given last rights.

[01:05] Meg: Yesterday, he was given his last rights. And. Yeah, but he's hanging on. He's in Florida. Hanging on in Florida. We probably shouldn't say anything else.

[01:17] Jessica: Is that because you're looking at my face? You're looking at my face.

[01:20] Meg: There's something we'll regret and we don't want to put out in the universe.

[01:23] Jessica: Yes, you don't want to put out some bad mojo when someone is on their way out. And I think just the intensity with which we're staring at one another says everything. So that is news. Yes, that is happening.

[01:54] Meg: So, Jessica, I was on the Upper east side two days ago because my friends were reaffirming their vows on their 30th wedding anniversary.

[02:05] Jessica: Oh, how sweet.

[02:07] Meg: At the Church of the Heavenly Rest.

[02:09] Jessica: Sweet.

[02:09] Meg: It was a beautiful ceremony. And after the ceremony and the little celebration, Joe and I stopped by. What is it? I don't even know what it's called. It's where Jackson Hole used to be.

[02:23] Jessica: So that's where Madison and 91st.

[02:27] Meg: 91st, right. But what's it called now? Anyway, we stopped by for a glass of wine and a little cheese.

[02:32] Jessica: Oh. Oh, the Eli's.

[02:33] Meg: Eli's.

[02:34] Jessica: Eli's.

[02:34] Meg: It's the Eli's, the glass of wine. The most expensive cost. Guess how much the glass of wine cost.

[02:41] Jessica: $30.

[02:41] Meg: It was 25. So, yeah, with tip. Yeah, sure. What the actual. And I kept sitting there going like, joe, you don't understand. I used to sit here for hours, smoking, eating a greasy mushroom Swiss burger.

[02:57] Jessica: Mushroom Swiss burger. Help me, Lord. That was the best.

[03:02] Meg: I know. The reason I bring it up is because that was just a favorite hangout spot.

[03:08] Jessica: Yes, it was. We. We spent many, many hours, days, years there. It was. Yes, it was great.

[03:16] Meg: And now, you know, you have to pay $25 for a glass of wine. There, but at least it's still there so we can go and have our memories. Can you think of a favorite hangout spot like that?

[03:28] Jessica: Cedar Tavern.

[03:30] Meg: Oh, nice. When I was still around, isn't it?

[03:33] Jessica: No, it isn't. It's gone.

[03:34] Meg: Oh, too bad.

[03:35] Jessica: I think it's a Mexican restaurant. Oh, Cedar Tavern was the best. Of course, it had been around since time began, but I came to know it when I was in law School on 12th Street. And it was, it was part of what made law school tolerable. So yeah, I loved Cedar. And that bar, by the way, was so magnificent. It was carved from what I, the lore that I was privy to from like one giant tree. Like it was one continuous piece of wood. And it was so magnificent that it was one of those things that got purchased by like another bar when it closed so you could make a pilgrimage

[04:16] Meg: that you said that. Because it's true when people are opening up bars or closing bars, you frequently hear about, oh, I reclaimed the bar from myself.

[04:27] Jessica: Yeah, Architectural salvage.

[04:28] Meg: Yeah, architectural. And that, that's such an important part of opening up a new establishment.

[04:35] Jessica: Yeah, you want the good vibes of that long standing previous joint.

[04:42] Meg: All right, well, that's a great lead in to my story. My sources are Vanity Fair. I regret almost everything. By Keith McNally and the New York Times.

[04:55] Jessica: Okay.

[04:56] Meg: In 1985, Nell Campbell came to New York for a two week visit. She stayed with her old friend Keith McNally and his wife Lynn Wegenecht in a four floor walk up in Soho. Keith and Lynn had already opened Odeon, that was in 1980, and then Cafe Luxembourg in 1983. And so far they had the golden touch. Both restaurants were adored by patrons and critics alike. Keith had met Nell when she was in the Rocky Horror Picture show and they'd stayed close when Keith moved to New York in 1977. And Nell traveled all over the world and in and out of New York. Nell had been with Rocky Horror from the very beginning in the early 70s when it was a stage show playing at the 60 seat Royal Court Theatre in London. She'd been spotted by the director and writer while she was tap dancing to 1930s show tunes to entertain her customers at a soda shop in Knightsbridge. Of course, they cast her as Columbia, the gold bedazzled, androgynous girlfriend of Eddie, played by Meatloaf, who was also in the show from the beginning. Keith McNally, a theater kid himself, was running the spotlight for Rocky Horror when he met Nell and they became fast friends. Rocky Horror took off As a stage play and eventually a cult classic film. And Nell went with it the whole way. But by the early 80s, she was adrift. This is a quote. Everyone always went on about my fantastic talent and what an original I am, but no one knew what to do with me. They'd give me cameos in movies, but no one was willing to take a risk. Keith McNally took that risk. So over dinner one night while Nell was staying with Keith and Lynn, they all started grousing about Nell's frustrating acting career. And Keith casually suggested she open her own nightclub. And this is a quote from Keith. I felt that given her witty, flamboyant manner, Nell would be very much at home running a club. In fact, it should be an extension of her home, According to Nell, she thought, why not? I saw myself as the woman in Dance with a Stranger, you know, with a little bar and an apartment upstairs. Then they told me we had one week to find the place. They soon found a vacant electronics shop on West 14th and 8th Avenue. Quote, totally rat infested with concrete walls and wires everywhere, linoleum on the floor. We had to rip everything out and start from scratch. Keith raised $850,000 to create, quote, a nightclub for people who don't like nightclubs. Mostly because Keith didn't like to dance. So the ground floor had tufted velvet sofas, oriental rugs, beaded chandeliers, red leather booths, a jazz band and a 30 foot mahogany bar. It felt like the somewhat shabby in the best way drawing room of an English aristocrat. The floor below had a lounge, two bars and a small funky dance floor. They also put in two staircases connecting the two floors to encourage constant circulation between the two contrasting spaces. Keith didn't highly publicize the opening in October 1986, but nevertheless, word got out. 500 people were turned away. The first night clubs in the 80s would often hustle celebrities past the hordes of civilians lined up at the Velvet Row. Celebrities never paid to get in. They were subsidized by everyone else who paid up to 20 bucks if they didn't have one of those party passes. But Keith had a different concept for his unusual nightclub. Everyone, no matter who, had to pay the five dollar entrance fee. Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Calvin and Kelly Klein. Lauren Hutton and Rupert Everett found this amusing and played along. Madonna was incensed and called Keith a fucking bastard.

[09:34] Jessica: Cher over $5. Yes, okay.

[09:37] Meg: Cher was turned away at the rope because she was wearing too much fringe. Michael Douglas was kept waiting along with all the other hopefuls lined up on 14th Street, Keith got a call one afternoon from Bill Cosby's assistant letting him know that Cosby was planning to come to Nell's on Sunday to listen to jazz and he did not want any special treatment. Keith passed this on to his staff. So when Cosby showed up that Sunday, he was treated like everyone else. He sat at the bar, ordered a couple of drinks, listened to some jazz, and left. Three days later, Keith received a, quote, incredibly nasty letter from Cosby complaining about the rude service he'd received at Nels and promising he would never return. And Keith was actually pretty happy about that.

[10:33] Jessica: No comment.

[10:34] Meg: November 1986, a month after Nels opened, Barney's hosted a fashion show to benefit St. Vincent's Medical Center's AIDS ward, one of the city's only wards dedicated to AIDS patients. The fashion show featured Levi's jean jackets customized by designers and artists like Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier, Paloma Picasso, and Yves Saint Laurent. The models were the bon vivants of the time. Madonna Iman, Debbie Harry, Fran Leibowitz, John Sex, Andre Leon Talley, Polina Porizkova, and Nell Campbell, the hostess of the hottest club in town. When Nell, quote, vamped and camped down Barney's five story spiral staircase in a denim jacket sprinkled with diamante by David and Elizabeth Emmanuel, who designed Princess Diana's wedding dress, the audience jumped to their feet chanting, nell, Nell, Nell.

[11:45] Jessica: That's. I just got chills. Crazy good for her.

[11:49] Meg: When asked by Vanity Fair how it felt to be the it girl of New York's nightlife, Nell said, fabulous, fabulous. No doubt about it. As I lie in my bed at five in the afternoon deciding what frock I'll wear tonight, and I'm enormously grateful to Keith and Lynn for having the foresight, I think I'll start performing at the club. One song a night when least expected. That baby grand isn't there for nothing.

[12:19] Jessica: Love, love, love Nell. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about Nels several times. And recently when I was doing a little bit of research about Nels, for reasons that will soon become evident, I was interested to see how many clubs tried to fill that space afterwards.

[12:43] Meg: Oh, I know. And it was twilo someplace called Na. Chris Noth opened that. That didn't work.

[12:51] Jessica: Yeah. And to me it was just so interesting because it's like. And it's not just this space. It's always like. And I love that you started talking about Jackson Hole because it's like whoever takes the space afterwards wants the mojo, and you can never do it. Like it's entirely attached to the person who started it. Right. So like Nell with Nels, I think what everyone knew and they picked up on, it wasn't just that she was fabulous, it's that she was a true hostess. You were going to Nell's, not a nightclub called Nels. Right. And that's a really, really important, big difference. And I've talked about a dear friend of mine from Kenyon who had one of the first, you know, hipster bars in Williamsburg on Metropolitan. And she did the same thing. Like, she was, in some ways like Nell. She was a larger than life redhead. And she knew to show up and be the party, you've gotta be the party as a human being. So those kinds of nightclubs just, you know, will it ever come back? Wouldn't that be marvelous if someone had enough charisma to be that person?

[14:09] Meg: Who could it be that I was talking about when it was at its heyday, but seven years later, it was still chugging along, but wasn't the hottest place in town anymore.

[14:19] Jessica: Right.

[14:19] Meg: But David Hershkovitz, I think that's how you pronounce it.

[14:22] Jessica: Who, the TV guy?

[14:24] Meg: No, he was a editor of Interview magazine. And he said, well, one of the great things about Nels was that even when it wasn't crowded, it didn't feel empty. It just always felt cozy and perfect.

[14:38] Jessica: You felt lucky to be there in the space without all the people. And then if all the people were there, that was the show.

[14:46] Meg: And Michael Musto said that he heard rumors about. I mean, Nell would stay all night and she would go home at dawn, basically in its heyday. And that he had heard that she vogued naked one night on a tabletop. And she was like, I don't remember being naked, but maybe I was. I hope I was, you know.

[15:08] Jessica: Well, again, we've had this conversation many times, but, you know, to punctuate that story, no cell phones, no cameras, no iPhones. No. No ubiquitous iPhones. The legend lives in the story. You had to be there. Just kind of fabulous.

[15:26] Meg: And I hate to tell you what it is now. Do you want to hear it?

[15:29] Jessica: Oh, it's some shit box. Yeah, I. Tell me.

[15:32] Meg: Downstairs, it's now been separated into two sp spaces. It's no longer the same establishment. And downstairs is Stash Nightclub. Just the name alone makes you go, ew.

[15:44] Jessica: It's like. It's. It's bad. Whatever the interpretation of that word is, it's equally Unpleasant.

[15:50] Meg: An upstairs Snap sports bar. I mean, it just couldn't be different.

[15:57] Jessica: You know what? I. I saw that. I was trying to remember why I had a queasy feeling when you said, you know what it is upstairs? I saw that it's, like, spicy.

[16:07] Meg: And it's such a weird location, especially then because it's a couple avenues away from Meatpacking and it's a couple of avenues away from Union Square and everything that was hopping in Union Square. It was nowhere. It was. Yeah, nowhere. But again, and right between Chelsea. It's right on the edge of Chelsea, really.

[16:28] Jessica: But, you know, the other thing is the development in New York City has made what Nel's was impossible. It was a destination club. And there were restaurants, there were clubs, there were bars that were destination. So you had to schlep to get there. There was nothing else around. You were there to be there, and you were there for the night. And being there for the night created a vibe that it was a. It was a party, like everyone. It was like getting on. I was about to say a cruise ship, but right now, that might not be the best analogy, but it was like getting on a boat and, you know, enter. Getting away from the harbor for four hours or five hours or six hours or whatever you were gonna commit to. It was an experience, not just, oh, I'll meet you there.

[17:20] Meg: So do you wanna talk about why I told this story today?

[17:24] Jessica: Yes, I do. Okay, so our big party is next week.

[17:29] Meg: It's when this comes out. It's called this week.

[17:32] Jessica: Sorry. My God, in two days. It's two days.

[17:36] Meg: It's on Thursday, May 14th.

[17:39] Jessica: And when we were trying to figure out what kind of party to have to celebrate our 50,000 downloads, which is now more than 50,000, we were thinking, what nightclub did we love? If we could be, who would we be? And we said, I think simultaneously. Nels.

[17:58] Meg: Yeah. Which also another thing that I read in one of these articles when they were trying to describe this very unique thing that had just popped up was it's not like limelight, it's more like Elaine's.

[18:12] Jessica: Yes. It's a salon. Yeah. And so with that in mind, that is with our short timeline and bursting imagination, how we are reconceiving KGB Red

[18:26] Meg: Room on Thursday at 7 o'. Clock.

[18:29] Jessica: So please come and please encounter some of our own red velvet robe madness.

[18:36] Meg: Right. And if you want to be inspired about what to wear, just Google Nels. And, you know, that's the vibe we're going for. Yay. Join us, Jessica. Have you heard of the redacted reading room?

[18:59] Jessica: No. What's that?

[19:01] Meg: An exhibit. An art exhibit that put all 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files. They bound them together in 3,437 volumes of books, and it's on display in Tribeca. It opens this Friday, which means, like, it's already opened. Once you hear this podcast, it. It will have opened. David Garrett, one of the organizers, says the goal is to push for the release of all the files and make sure they are properly redacted to protect Epstein's victims, not witnesses or co conspirators. Wow.

[19:38] Jessica: You know, there have been a lot of conversations in the press and social media about using the word revolution. And I find it very interesting because, you know, we think of that in a historical context, right? Like American, French, you know, ooh, eat the rich. You know, burn that building.

[20:01] Meg: Oh, are we going to eat the rich?

[20:02] Jessica: I'm not very hungry right now. But are we. But if we have to, I will. But spirit. Oh, well, what. What I was just going to say is that this. This is what the revolution looks like. It's. It's independent media and it's.

[20:18] Meg: And it's art.

[20:20] Jessica: Jinx. Buy me a Coke. And I.

[20:23] Meg: You saw the Jeff Bezos piss bottles, right?

[20:25] Jessica: Oh, yes, I absolutely did. And that's. That's my point, is that people are. How can I express this? Trying to just collect myself. There's rage that's violent, but then there's rage that is clear and has a point and clever and is sticky because of that. And so I'm finding it interesting and particularly effective because the target of all. Not all of this, but a lot of the rage. Trump is so sensitive to social media and to media and to art and to representation. He's a perfect target. And so stuff like this, like the redacted reading room, I think it's just brilliant. And it. It is, in a way, like, you know, the famous line, the revolution will be televised. It's happening.

[21:18] Meg: I feel it.

[21:19] Jessica: I feel it. And the. The fucking Bezos met bullshit. I feel so disappointed that the people who went. Who really need, they. They need nothing. They don't need more publicity. These are not people who need what that Met Gala purports to give them. And yet they went and supported something so rotten, genuinely rotten, that it's. It is dismaying. And I'll. I'll admit I saw the footage of Madonna, who, you know, I frequently will go to the mat for, but I saw her there in her outfit with her ship on her head. And I was just like, no, enough. My friend Kelly from London texted me, what are you wearing to the Met gala? And I said, I'm wearing an Amazon box with suspenders. And then I was like, why didn't anyone do that? They should have done. They should have done that. God damn it.

[22:23] Meg: They should have done that.

[22:24] Jessica: Anyway, so, yeah, anyway, eat the rich.

[22:28] Meg: I, I, I. Eat the rich. I feel it in the air, too. I think it's, I think it's time. The time is here. What do you have for me today?

[22:37] Jessica: Speaking of Nell, I have another fabulous woman.

[22:41] Meg: Oh, fun.

[22:41] Jessica: I would like to speak about. And this is a fabulous woman who came up in my. Frankly, it was part of my, My rabbit hole. My Nell's rabbit hole. Cause I've been looking at Nell's things because of our upcoming. So she didn't have anything to do with Nell Campbell. But if you go, as you well know, you go down any rabbit hole and eventually you find people who are of that person's ilk. So this is someone I had never heard of before. The person I'm going to talk about today is named Kembra Fowler. Do you know who that is?

[23:16] Meg: I do. Not at all.

[23:17] Jessica: I had never heard of her. And apparently she's a really big deal. So Kembra Fowler started her life in California, in LA, 1961. And her dad is a really famous surfer. He basically surfed off into the night one one day. And her mom raised her in Northern California and then back in la. And that was not her scene. She was bound for New York. Her father was the surf king, her mother was a beach beauty. And she had her very young. She's a little, a little groundless, a little shifty. She didn't have a very traditional structure in her life. But she being in San Francisco, she was exposed to a lot of art and an art scene there. Mill Valley was where she was, which was very cultured. And she eventually made it back to la, where her mother married finally, and she married a lawyer who represented punk rockers. Interesting artistic childhood. Not traumatic, nothing fucked up. She was just offbeat and interesting and interested and wanted to find new things to do. So she went to New York City. She was very studious and wound up at the School of Visual Arts.

[24:36] Meg: She on my block.

[24:37] Jessica: Yes, exactly. She got really immersed in the East Village scene. Tell me, do you know about abc? No. Rio.

[24:47] Meg: I've heard of it, but I don't know.

[24:48] Jessica: So, again, a scene I had never heard of. She was part of that, which was an arts collective that started in the early 70s and exists to this day and now has its own building. And it was originally in a space that was like. Like a grocery store, but the letters in neon were blacked out. Oh, and so we've talked about the ear bar here. Right. So it's the same thing. It became known as ABC Nor, because that's all that was left.

[25:17] Meg: Amazing. So they used that as a. Like a factory.

[25:23] Jessica: It was like studio. Yeah, well, it's. It's a. It's an ongoing arts collective, so multimedia people.

[25:29] Meg: Were they creating the art there or were they displaying it there?

[25:33] Jessica: Both. Okay, Both. So like a whole community of all things art. And she started making low budget films with her friend Gordon Curtie. Live performances at Danceateria. She performed xs, the opera Opus at Pyramid.

[25:51] Meg: So performance art is her medium.

[25:54] Jessica: She started in film and fine art and moved into performance art. But it's never one or the other. She's a multidisciplinary person. She was even a Calvin Klein model. Cause she's very beautiful. But what's very interesting about her beauty. We'll talk about that in a second. Is she didn't give a damn about being beautiful. And being a model was not for her. So she got to New York, was a film buff, and while she was at sva, was going to see black and white films and old movies all the time. But she was also really into punk. And she kept going to a club called Hurrahs, which we've spoken about. Yes, exactly. Which is filled with legendary punk people, which is where she started to get her concept of punk and being anti establishment and what that would mean for her. But she was also, because she was living on the Upper west side, which is where Harrah's was going to the Metropolitan Opera and she was going to the Metropolitan Museum. And so she was taking in everything. When I started reading about her, I was reminded of Karen Finley and all of these female performance artists of the 80s who at the time seemed completely inexplicable to me. That's true. And I've told the story on this podcast before of how at Kenyon, Nick and I giggled our way through Karen Finley shitting a yam on the stage and then pretending to be a vagina. And we were like, teehee, ridiculous. So I'm reading about Kembra and I'm like, oh, my God, I think I finally get it. Her whole thing was, who is she, what is she, and what does she care about? She wasn't looking at a Message from the outside. She was looking within herself. And because of this background of a beautiful mother and having her own rather transcendent beauty, she decided to destroy it. Not in a real way. She didn't do anything to physically harm herself, but she took away the things. So I think she was a blonde to this day. Straight dead black, dyed hair, makeup, drag queenie, but all black and very severe. She started experimenting with clothing and what would make her ugly, but make her feel revolutionary and like herself. I'll. I'll give you some photos to put on the website. But she transformed herself and she looked insane. And she wound up having a band called the Horror of Karen Black because she was just obsessed with Karen Black as a musician.

[28:50] Meg: Who wouldn't be?

[28:51] Jessica: But it's. She's the person who's always in that band. And she has two other people with her, always women, and they did something brilliant. So I don't know if you're familiar. Playboy magazine in the 50s and 60s had a cartoon character that sort of pranced through the pages of the magazine. It was called a femelen and it was like a little imp, but a woman nude, very buxom, big, big boobs, big butt, big black bouffant and little black boots and gloves. And she was the ultimate. Otherwise naked, otherwise totally naked. And this sort of impish femininity, but completely created by men. Kembra. She never says this outright. I put the pieces together myself when I saw the photo. The horror of Karen Black actually was even covered by Playboy at one point. They performed completely nude.

[29:52] Meg: Oh my God.

[29:52] Jessica: Painted every bit of flesh painted in a matte color. Purple, red or blue. She was frequently blue with a big black bouffant. Black opera gloves, black lace up patent leather boots above the knee with white laces and blackened teeth.

[30:14] Meg: What?

[30:14] Jessica: And black eye makeup girl. And scary as fuck. This sounds very scary and genius. Like, can you. Like you're going to do this female punk band and make it performance art. So she was known for doing things like cracking an egg filled with paint on her naked vulva during her show. Because why not?

[30:38] Meg: Why not, why not? It makes a statement.

[30:40] Jessica: It does. She also, very famously, because it was photographed many, many times, painted the inside of her apartment the same red as the bricks of Lower east side buildings.

[30:54] Meg: Ooh, that is an interesting red.

[30:56] Jessica: The entire thing is just monochromatic red. She's a minimalist. She says, she says, I don't want things around. So it's red and black and white and any. She has no more Than eight books in her apartment at a time. You know, like in school you do contact paper covers for your books. So she recovers all of her books in black and white only. No writing, nothing, so that they look correct for the space.

[31:26] Meg: I love it.

[31:27] Jessica: She, to this day, is known for painting her body and using her body to do stamps on paper. Her butt in different colors down the page. And she gleefully does this at art openings, like at the opening for her own exhibits.

[31:49] Meg: So she's still in New York.

[31:50] Jessica: Yeah, and still running around naked. Oh, my God.

[31:54] Meg: We should invite her to the party.

[31:55] Jessica: I agree with you, but she's really. She's so smart and she's so phenomenal. And there were a couple of other things about her when I was reading about her, because she's born in 1961, so she's nine years older than I am. So frequently the pop culture stuff that I talk about on this podcast brings us back to aids. Because everyone who was creative and an artist was affected by it personally, their own health died or their world was affected by it. And she is exactly in the right age group to have it be devastating. Be a perfect word. And so these are her words, what she said about this. She says her comment on the 80s period. All through the 80s, I was making Super 8 films with like, Jack Smith, Mike Kuchar, Nick Z, the Cinema of Transgression, Richard Kern. I was in Jack Smith's last movie that he ever made called Shadows in the city. But the 80s was AIDS. It started a few years after I was in school. It's a holocaust, the memory of which I still live with. I'm never not upset about aids. I cry, and if not outwardly, I think about AIDS every day. Day I celebrate all my dead friends. Every day I realize I'm here just as icing on the cake. I lost everyone in the 80s. It pushed me to do more extreme work, to be as honest as I could. Then it's not the horror, excuse me, the voluptuous horror of Karen Black. Then the voluptuous horror of Karen Black formed in 89 and we went on tour for 10 years. So I love. So I described this visual image to you and that that was her reaction to aids. And it's like, so, women, what are we gonna do as an extreme artistic gesture in the face of so much death? And that was how she experienced it and interpreted it. And then she was in another show with someone else's show, but she participated where she was wearing boots, a T shirt, and her vagina was Sewn shut.

[34:10] Meg: Oh, my God, honey.

[34:11] Jessica: And she did it a couple of times. Now, I haven't seen this artwork. I would imagine it wasn't entirely her skin. Like, I think it had to have been something else again, like.

[34:23] Meg: But the visual, that's what it looked like.

[34:25] Jessica: And the point about growing up and being a young person in New York at that time and the sexual response to aids, that wasn't mentioned by her explicitly as part of that. But I was like, it all is of a piece just so completely clearly that I thought it was really fascinating.

[34:47] Meg: Can't wait to look at the pictures and listen to the music. I hope we can get the music.

[34:51] Jessica: And my dear friend, sometime listener of this podcast, Dan Buckspan, I know, is a fan of this band. He's into very hardcore stuff, so I'll ask him to weigh in. What we were talking about right before the segment was, the revolution is already here, and it's art. And here's something that she had to say about that on Gratitude, Beauty and the Ups and Downs. It's a luxury and a privilege and a pleasure to be able to do the kind of artwork that you want without going to jail for it. In other cultures, the kind of art that I do, you couldn't do. I like art for art's sake. I believe that art makes things more beautiful. I'm interested in making beautiful things. One might perceive hanging upside down on a cross or sewing your vagina shut and these extreme performative gestures is not beautiful, but is what I perceive to be beautiful. I'm not really interested in art theory or art criticism. In other words, I'm not making art that addresses art history or addresses an art problem. Her concept, she had a philosophy called availableism, and she started this when she was at sva. And the meaning of it is making use of what's available with the aim of fostering a radical view of femininity and beauty. The ceremonial treatment of her Kembra's body in transgressive acts continues to mark the contemporary cultural landscape through her collaborations in film, photography and fashion. So I love her. I don't know if I would ever want to listen to her music in any extensive way if I want to watch her vagina being sewn because I could barely handle shitting a yam. But everything that she stands for is everything that the Met Gala was not. And so she is my current crush. I'm excited to learn more about her and see more of her work.

[36:53] Meg: All this incredible art came out of the 80s, mostly because of the Reagan era in response to all the things that were happening in the Reagan era. So that's something for us to look forward to, isn't it? All the amazing art that's going to be made as a result of the shit show that is happening right now in this country.

[37:16] Jessica: I hope so. And I hope so, too.

[37:18] Meg: I have faith.

[37:19] Jessica: What's interesting also is that performance art was so much a thing of the 80s, right. And it. It came to be because of a bunch of other influences and theater and people starting to understand, like, that there are multimedia opportunities. Like, there are ways to cross over and collaborate. So that was very specific, the use the ubiquitous. And I know that I bitch about it a lot, but the ubiquitousness of the iPhone for video and still photography, I'm betting that that's going to be the medium. Like, when I think of the 80s with art, there are a million things that you can think of and you can. And we talk about Basquiat a million times on this podcast, and we talk about sort of primitivism and all of that, but to me, it's performance art. And I feel like what you are saying is so true and that this is really an extension of performance art. It's just filming it easily and on the fly. So I agree with you. I think it's going to be very interesting 10 years from now to see, like, what this was. And I do also believe that independent journalists right now and the way they're using social media, that that is a form of performance art that will be seen that way eventually.

[38:38] Meg: Watch this space. So the tie in.

[38:51] Jessica: Fabulous ladies.

[38:53] Meg: So fabulous.

[38:54] Jessica: And not just fabulous. Scene makers.

[38:58] Meg: Yeah, individuals. They weren't imitating anything. They created themselves. And everyone couldn't take their eyes away.

[39:07] Jessica: They couldn't help but be themselves. There was no other choice. And I. Yes, I love it. I love them both for that.

[39:14] Meg: So really exciting and inspiring.

[39:17] Jessica: Very.

[39:18] Meg: Let's do that. Are we doing it?

[39:21] Jessica: I. I think we.

[39:22] Meg: I think they seem so bold and brave. I don't know if I'm that bold and brave, but it's something to aspire to.

[39:28] Jessica: I was just thinking, like, what would our version of bold and brave be? And I know it doesn't involve sewing anything, and I'm not ready to paint my ass publicly.

[39:42] Meg: What is Jessica Dorfman Jones's performance art piece?

[39:47] Jessica: Me in a room. I know what it is already. Okay? It's a totally white gallery space, but there's a glass box in the middle of it. A big one. Like a. Like a room within a room and I'm sitting on it.

[39:59] Meg: On the box?

[40:00] Jessica: No, sitting in it. On a chair, complaining. And. And. Can we turn you off? No, no, no. But you can give me a topic, and I'll just be like, really? All right, Jessica, you know, we've talked

[40:18] Meg: about going to Central park and setting up a booth.

[40:21] Jessica: You know what? That's our performance art. And can we do that this summer?

[40:26] Meg: Yes, we can definitely do it.

[40:27] Jessica: And we'll film it.

[40:28] Meg: I'm so excited to do it, actually.

[40:30] Jessica: I am, too.

[40:30] Meg: Yes, we'll film it and put it on the YouTube.

[40:32] Jessica: Yes, I think. Meg. Wait. Seriously? This just happened here, right? Yes, right here.

[40:38] Meg: See?

[40:38] Jessica: Breaking news.

[40:39] Meg: Thank you, ladies, for inspiring us.

[40:41] Jessica: That's all it took, talking about them. So maybe anyone who's listening will also talk about them and research them and be inspired.

[40:49] Meg: Very exciting. So we're having our party next week, and that means we will not be recording a podcast. We're going to take the week off with all of our crazy party planning, and we will see you on May 14th.

[41:02] Jessica: KGB red, room, 7 to 9:30.

[41:05] Meg: 7 to 9:30. Very excited.

[41:07] Jessica: And we'll be back the following week. Yay. Yay.

[41:16] Meg: Sa.