March 17, 2025 • 45 mins
Jackie and Jen are reminiscing about pop culture moments that defined their childhood.
What did Jackie’s parents tell her as a kid that made her scared of Darth Vader from Star Wars?
Plus, what major iconic band visited Jen’s school?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, it's Jackie Goldschneider and Jen Fessler, and we
are two Jersey Jays coming at you.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
So funny, jack yeah saying two Jersey Jays me or
you say it, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What, We're two Jersey Jays whoever says it. So, But
we have a special episode for you guys today because
we were talking and reminiscing and we were like, let's
do an episode about like all the things we were, like,
all the things that made our childhood so memorable and
so special because people love that stuff, like the nostalgia
(00:34):
and everyone has these like shared experiences, right right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I mean we also we were talking about pop culture
maybe you know, and we will we want to do
an episode on just what's going on today. But as
we were talking about pop culture, we were like really
thrown back to our childhood and that pop culture seems
so much more important than today. And I've right so
much to say about it, because when I was thinking
about the pop culture that I loved, like so many
(00:59):
things came flooding back.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
But let's start at the start. We had different childhoods.
You were raised in Texas. I was raised in Staten Island.
So let's talk about yours first. So yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
A very tumultuous childhood, to say the least.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It was.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
My parents were divorced and I moved to Texas when
I was nine. My mother was remarried. We'd actually moved
around a lot when I was a baby. I was
born in Louisiana. My sister was born in Columbus.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Ohio, and so moved to Long Island.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like most of the Jewish friends I have now, it's
either Long Island or Jersey or the city or Connecticut,
but anyway, for us, it was Texas. So we moved
to Sugarland, Texas. My sister was eight and I grew
up in Sugarland. I graduated from high school in Houston.
It was actually performing Arts High School, and then I
(01:51):
went to college at UT Austin and graduated, and then
moved as quickly as I could to New York City.
So a little bit of a different, you know, bringing
for sure. And you know, I had and I still
am best friends with my cousins. My mom is an
identical twin, so my aunt has two daughters, and so
the four of us always been like sisters. But we're
(02:11):
always back and forth visiting them on Long Island, and
I think that it's so interesting, and I was always
so envious, like I wanted to live on Long Island.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But some of the.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Like some of the songs, some of the like I
bet that we're going to like know a lot of
the same stuff or at least like reminisce about things
that were special to us, and it'll be the same.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Even though I grew up in Texas, right, even conservative
also there? What was it conservative there in Texas? Yeah, yes,
I mean conservative. I lived in Sugarland, Texas, not when
I went So when I went to high school, I
went in to try out to go to the school
in the middle of Houston. It was a magnet school,
meaning they were pulling from all different areas of Houston,
(02:54):
and so the school it was such a different experience
than going to sugar Land Junior High or to you know,
Clement's High School. So the performing arts school it was.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Remember, so we're talking about going back to nineteen eighty
two when I started high school and there were tons
of kids were we were all a bunch of like
performing arts and visual arts freaks, like you know, the
boys were out about being gay as opposed to like
sugar Land, where you know, things were not at that right, right,
(03:30):
right level, but it was got boys were out about
being gay. They were like they so a lot of
like very cool kids from all different walks of life,
and it was just very granola and very arty and
very we all love each other and oh wow, it
(03:54):
was a great high school experience, very different from like
a typical high school experience.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Right, Yeah, it was like a kid when you were
a kid kid, like was your home like sort of
buttoned up or was it like loud?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And my home was not a happy place growing up,
So whether or not, I don't know what to No,
I wouldn't say that it was conservative in any way.
It was just very chaotic and my mom my dad
left my mom when I was like three, and then
my mom remarried and then they got divorced and then
(04:30):
remarried again, and he died he had a heart attack.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But also.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Just it wasn't there was no Brady Bunch. If we're
going to talk about pop culture back then, it was
not that kind of a scenario at all. Quite quite different.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, Well, I grew up in Staten Island and I
moved when I was almost fourteen and I moved to
New Jersey, but Staten Island was the most mad place
to grow up. It was just like the houses were
all really close together, and all your like family and
best friends lived like on the same block, and everyone
(05:10):
was just always together, like outside, all the kids on
my block there was like twenty of us. We played
manhunting each other's backyards at night. We were but it
was gritty, like Staten Island was a little bit gritty.
I was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and I moved
to Staten Island as a baby, and it was just
like I'll tell you, my next door neighbor was my
(05:32):
very best friend in the world. And my parents don't
know the story, and I don't know if they listen
to my podcast, but we used to when we were
like ten years old. We started. We would walk around,
but ten years old, walk around the streets and pick
up old cigarettes and relight them and smoke. Oh my god,
I was so bye. Oh to this day, I'm not
(05:54):
just thinking about it. But we before I had a pool.
My brother and I used to fill up green, big
green garbage cans and get it and we used to
fill it up with water from the host. It was like,
and no one cared stat and it was just like
a free for all. Can I tell you a funny
story though? When I think of my childhood in Staten Island,
so my my parents are like a little like crazy
(06:17):
right there. They're wonderful, right, But anyway, so my dad,
I used to not like to go to sleep when
I was a kid, and I still don't sleep that well.
But outside my room there was like a light, right,
like a street light, and I guess it was controlled
by like a city grid or what time the lights
(06:38):
come on, what time they go off, And it used
to come on every night at nine o'clock. But I
didn't know that that was controlled by another like entity, right,
So my father used to tell me that the light
outside my room was the Darth Vader light, and Darth
Vader when the light came on, it meant Darth Vader
was in the area looking for children who weren't sleeping,
and that, oh my god, if I was a wait
(07:00):
Darth Vader, darth Vader would bite my arm off. So,
oh my god, every night at nine o'clock, whether or
not I was tired, I was like my eyes were
fucking shut, and I was like shuddering under the because
the light would come on. It was terrifying. And then
one time my parents took me to somewhere like Atlantic City,
Ocean City, whatever, and we went to this like they
(07:21):
had like a carnival, and there was like this little
ride and we went into this ride and it was
like a spaceship that shut and Darth Vader came out
and I freakd o you poor little things? Oh my god,
Oh my god. I still remember it was so vivid.
But Staten Island was so fun.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The parents like the things that they got away with
quote unquote, I guess, I mean I org and even
just like adults.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So I went to sugar Land.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I started out in whatever elementary school and it was
called I don't remember sugar Lyne Junior.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
But anyway, so at this elementary school, I was nine
years old. If you were bad, you had to go
to the principal's office and you would get popped. He
had a big paddle in a way. Yes wow, now
like sitting on and like you have to imagine that,
did day, sweetheart bend over the table because I'm gonna
(08:24):
smack you with this paddle?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Can you imagine this shit. I can't believe even back then, Like,
I can't believe because I'd never my I don't think
my parents would ever be okay with like someone hitting me.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I don't think I ever got hit for whatever reason.
Maybe my mom wrote a letter, maybe they had to
have permission, but it was always kind of looming.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And so this was we're talking about nineteen seventy eight.
I mean, you weren't even born yet. No, I was born.
I was born in seventy six. Oh you were all right, Yeah,
I'm a baby seventy six. I was born in sixty eight,
so or only eight years apart.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, but I mean imagine like and also like you,
even in Sugarland, we used to run around, you know,
playing war with forts, and I was always outside. I
mean this that you hear. We all have this kind
of the same story. I mean, the world is so
different now you have to have organized playdates. My mother
name never made me a playdate.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You kidding me? Now? I remember all these these kids,
and I wonder what happened to them. A lot of
them are not on social media. I was always boy crazy,
and so I've looked just to see what they look like.
Now like the boys that I had to pitchbrushes on
a lot of them I can't find. But there was
even in kindergarten. I went to Montessori School in Staten Island,
(09:42):
and I, at five years old, was my first crush
and I was just infatuated with this kid, Jerome, and
I drew hearts all over his picture in my yearbook
at five years old, Jackie.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I was in love at five years old and I
was the first. I was the only kindergartener that got
to the first grade play to play Susie Snowflake because
I had to try out and dance, and all I
could think about was Philip Wilner, who I'm now I
facebooked him years and years later. I gave him when
we moved to Texas. I mean he was to me then.
(10:17):
He was a little guy with glasses. All the girls
loved him, and I think I gave him my hamster
like before we moved to Houston. And oh but that's
the reason why I got to be Susie Snowplake, because
he picked me to dance like in choir with him.
I don't know, I just remember the obsession and I
was like you, I was five starts early.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, I mean, I guess for some people it starts early.
For I don't know, Rachel, I did my daughter.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
My mother used to get upset because Rachel would follow
when workers would come in when my mother was babysitting.
She would go stand like the window in the back
and watch them working in the backyard, like we had landscapers,
and it would bug my mother, and it bugged me
that it bugged my mother. I'm like, what do you
think here is happening? I think Rachel wants to you know,
like gross, But she was just for whatever reason, she
(11:06):
used to like follow there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Like in Texas, there are like different names for like
the types of groups. Like in Saten Island, there was
I guess you would call it now like their version
of goth. They called him a critter. So like a
critter was somebody who was like a cool goth, like
you wore like the dark jacket. You were all like emo,
(11:30):
you are like leather and like you listen to heavy
metal and like the only thing I wanted out of
life was to be a critter. And then the but
if you like weren't cool and you were a critter,
you were just like a dirt bag. Like everyone would
just call you it, everyone call you a dirt peg.
We did not just want to have that critter. The
problem is that I had I was like darkened emo
(11:51):
and like had this big hair and my hair was huge, enormous.
And then when I moved to New Jersey my freshman
year of high school, people weren't quite so over the top,
Like my hair was really big, and my family was
really loud, and like, I just think that I from
the jump did not fit in there and had a
(12:12):
really really hard time in high school. Sounds like you.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Had despite really really yeah, well yes, but in elementary school.
At one point my mom and my first stepfather they
separated and so we moved in with my dad in
New York City, my sister and I and he had
apartment in the city, and we ended up going to
(12:37):
private school like Horace Man. I mean, there was so
much moving around for us. And then we went back
to my mom when she got divorced and we started
Sugarland Junior High and I remember it was so it
was awkward, it was so horrible. I felt so like
a fish out of water. First of all, we were
(12:57):
like the only Jewish girls in the neighborhood much less
like the school, right, And I remember like my mom
dropping me off at a class and she went because
this is like how they talked back then, and my
mother waved, She's.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Like bye pussy bye pussy cat.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And I had like you, I mean, this is these
are the days before carrot. And I used to sit
behind this girl, Carrie and struggling junior high, and she
would go like she would with the back of her hand.
She would just like go her down her hair like
this and it was all smooth and silky. And I
would put mine like this and it had like a
big frizzy hard ridge and then another ridge, and I
just remember all I wanted was to have like that smooth,
(13:38):
silky hair. It was like, I mean, I guess junior
high's not easy for anyone. I don't think that my
kids would look back and say it was so great necessarily,
but I don't remember it being very fun. Yeah, we're
totally getting it's like our whole childhoods and we're forgetting
all about pop culture stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But I know we could talk about pop culture, but
I so I moved it high school. Well, we're going
to talk about pop culture in a second, but I'm
all good. I moved in high school to New Jersey,
and I had a really hard time in high school.
I did not fit in there, and I think from
the beginning I was sort of like lost, and I
(14:16):
never I just never found myself. But I when I left,
I kind of left forever. I don't really go back.
But my sweet sixteen I just invited like the whole
freaking school because I didn't care. I had it in
like a wedding venue. It was so big and fancy,
and I invited this guy from like the next town
who I had a huge crush on, and he was older,
(14:37):
he was seventeen. He drove already, and he came alone,
and my friend Jen hooked up with him, and I got,
so you put this. I feel like I've read this
in your book. Is this in your book? I don't know.
I might have just told you. But I had this
like slam book, like a sign in book at my party,
and like you could sign in and write a little
message on it. And she wrote me like a chapter
(14:59):
at the end of the book, all about why I
shouldn't be mad at her and why she liked him first.
And I was just the whole experience was just so miserable.
And I wore this pink taffeta dress that was so
ugly and I was really overweight and I couldn't find
a dress so I had it made, and like it
was just horrible. It was just horrible, horrible. Yeah, high
(15:23):
school was my escape. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It was like because again it was so we're talking
about Houston, Texas in nineteen eighty two, but it was
like again, I was a misfit and it was just
the land of misfits at my high school and we
all just were everybody accepted, everybody, you know, and it
was just I'm so grateful for that experience, but it
(15:45):
was a total nightmare in junior high and in elementary school.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And you still have a lot of high school friends.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
My three of my very best friends. I'm going to Houston.
I think I did I mention that to you. I'm
going to Houston, first time back since I left. One
of the three of them was in Houston, and we're
going to go to Rodeo. So I have to go
to California and then I'm going to go to Houston
because I've been wanting to just go to Rodeo with
her for so long. I'm going to go see old Dominion.
I am so excited. So again, I haven't been back
(16:14):
to Houston. Yeah, it's really but we all the four
of us get together every year. My friend has a
house in on the western Shore of Maryland. Eastern Shore.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh yeah, I remember you going last year.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, I got you over here. My mind is so lately,
I just can't keep a thought.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Pause. All right, So then let's talk about some pop culture.
So when I think of the things that got me
through the eighties, so I had I was very much.
My parents worked full time. I'm a strange. I've always
been a strange from my sister, my brother I love dearly.
He's disabled. And so after after a certain age, it's
(16:59):
sort of like it was, it was hard to like
socialize together as easily, you know, So I kind of
would disappear into my own world and just I watched
a lot of TV, read a lot of books.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, I read a lot of flowers in the attic.
It was that your generation or is it just mine?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah? Yes, and I and I love that. But what
I really loved, when I think of the books I
loved was I would devour the sweet Valley High and
Sweet Valley Trends series? Did you watch that? Did you
read that? Oh god? I was absolutely obsessed, And like,
I think about it because my kids don't love reading,
and they're smart kids, but they absolutely never read a
(17:41):
book ever since the schools. I guess at a certain
age they stopped like making you read a certain number
of minutes at night. And I don't think they've picked
them with books.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh, I mean everything is everything goes back to social media, right,
Like there was no we weren't communicating with our friends
at unless you know, you were on the house phone.
There was no cell phone and you had nothing to
do if like let's say, I mean I was grounded
all the time and for whatever reason, it was just
crazy in my house, and so I would just read.
(18:10):
I wouldn't be allowed to watch TV, so I would
read and I would Really I'm grateful for that, right,
It's like, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Oh and Judy Bloom did you read it? Obviously Judy
Bloom the best, the best, loved reading really and then
like you did you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Sneak like Wifey? I don't know that was like her
sexy book? Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Oh no. I also a fourth grade nothing. Oh. I
loved Yeah. But I also I loved are There God
is Me? Margaret? I loved Sneaking a dirty movie. I
loved it. Like when I saw Porky's for the first time,
I was like, what is this shit? I was? I
loved it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Wifey was a Judy Bloom book that was like spicy. Oh,
and then the other one was the one she wrote
about the girl she lost her virginity. Then they broke up.
Come on, remember I don't know. I was read everything
Beauty Bloom of.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I loved it. But TV was really like I
would plan every night around what was on TV. Different
strokes might have been my favorite. Okay, the episode when
and when I think of it, I think of the
episode where Arnold and his friend Dudley went to the
(19:22):
bike store bike store, do you remember this one? And
the bike shop owner tried to molest them? Do you
don't remember this? And it was such a pivotal episode
because I was horrified by it. But I also couldn't
believe what I was watching on Like TV, do you remember?
Stuff like that would come up?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Like good Times and where Janet Jackson she was like
she ended up living with uh JJ and like the
whole family. Did you watch Good Times?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah? I loved it, and she her mother took that
iron to her like was abusive. They were upstairs. I
don't remember.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I don't remember that. I mean that this is the
crap that used to like, yeah, keep me up at night,
but it was. I just remember being so horrified. I mean,
I guess my kids obviously have seen things on TV
that I'm sure they felt the same way about. But
there's so much that I think though back to I
was so young.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
My other favorite episode from childhood was the pilot episode
of the Wonder Years where Winnie and Kevin kissed and
I felt like I was having my first kiss. It
was the best episode. Oh god, I feel like I
want to watch it again today. It was the most
funny things.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
We're so yes, so we're eight years apart, and that
was so past my time, like this, Yeah, I mean
I watched it. Watch you probably watched like Dallas and
of course, and what was the one with Holkins Crest?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
What was the fancy line Falcon's crest? No, was it Dallas?
What am I thinking of? What the Dallas was? Fancy? Jr?
You ing?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Dynasty, Dynasty Dynasty. That's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, I never watched it, but all those things were
also like it depends when you asked me. When I
was little and we were living in New York, still
before we moved to Texas. This is I don't know,
age seven, eight, whatever. Every Saturday night we'd watch the
love Boat in Fantasy Island in front of the TV.
I think it was that, and my mom would make
us TV dinners or waffles. It was like the best
(21:33):
part the night was like think that, am I the right?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know what? I think that childhood When I think
back and I remind myself this of my kids now,
it's that it's the simple things that you really do remember.
You don't remember like if something cost a ton of
money or how fancy it was. You remember just feeling
safe and the things that made you feel safe were
the things that made you feel the best. You know. Yeah,
(22:02):
yeah it was yeah, I mean it was such. It
was just a simpler time. It really was without camera.
Although I do like knowing where my kids are and
being able to reach them, I do. I love that
there were no phones around and there were no cameras everywhere,
and you.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Just think, like that probably back then though you weren't
thinking like how do I reach them? It was there
in the neighborhood they were playing or you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I don't know, But.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Like, moving to Texas was such culture shock for me
because again I was at that kind of they're all
kind of pivotal ages. But I was nine years old
and we were plunk down right in the middle of Sugarland, Texas,
and I just remember missing Long Island so much, probably
much like you missed Staten Island. Like for me Long
(22:52):
I my parents were divorced when I was three, but
my cousins were there, and I had always just wanted
to go back. I think that's why I probably ended
up moving so quickly back to New York City after
I graduated college.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I just was like it always felt like my home.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And it's funny because I've never been back to Houston
since I left after I graduated college, and it feels
like New Jersey is my absolute home. Like I've spent
more time here than anywhere else, and this is I
just keep looking at my extension sticking out no time
to get the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Can I tell you two things that I was obsessed
with and growing up archie comics. I would wait until
I think they were released every Tuesday or Thursday, and
my dad would take me to the store and I'd
buy every single one and I would just devour them.
And actually, the very first time that I was published
was in an archie comic. I was just a kid.
(23:48):
They had this like writing contest in the back, and
I wrote an article and sent it in and they
published that in the back of an Archie comic and
I was I felt so high. I was so excited.
And then in high school, actually, I don't know if
I ever told you this, I was and I still am.
I just don't talk about it, but absolutely obsessed with
(24:08):
the Beatles. Like every inch of my room was covered
in Beatles posters. I wore this jacket I still have it.
That was an airbrush picture of John Lennon. On the
back was a turquoise jacket and it had I had.
I would cover it in pins. I would just go
to vigage stores all day. I'd go to Beatlemania twice
a year. My mom would just drop me off at
the meadle Lands Hotel and I would just roam around
(24:29):
all day and all I wanted to be was a hippie,
and I just I knew every word of every Beatles song.
I knew how to play every song on the piano.
It brought me a lot of comfort. I was very
lonely in high school, super lonely, and the Beatles were like,
as long as I had them, I didn't care. I
think I just needed something to escape into. But I
to this day absolutely love their music. That is that's
(24:50):
so interesting because I like something that was so important
to you right back then, that you were so obsessed with,
and I mean now I don't even know that about you. Yeah,
I had a lot of that, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean I remember going to certain movies like Footloose,
my sister too, and when it was over we were
we would cry that Kevin Bacon wasn't our boyfriend? Or
how about Sound of Music? Were you a Sound of
Music girl?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Not really? So? Sound of Music was.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
My all time instill is my all time favorite movie,
and I watched it, but they didn't. There was no
such thing until I was probably in high school. We
didn't even have forget about like, we didn't have Netflix,
we didn't you weren't able to watch that movie until
it came out on your network TV once a year
at Christmas time, right, well, speaking of I was a
Blockbuster video that was like but I remember just oh
(25:37):
it was the.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Smell of a video store. Oh my god, I loved it.
I love the smell of like the paper boxes. And
then you had to ask for the video, but like, no,
if the movie was in stock, the black cassette was
behind the box, and it was so exciting to like
see the movie you wanted and then the video was
actually there. Yep. That was the best in sant Island.
(26:00):
It was called selective video. And then Blockbuster took over everything.
But you know what, I remember so much, like these
sounds were like the most exciting for me was the
intro of an HBO movie when you were a kid,
and it was like you go from like a living
room and suddenly the camera's like soaring over a neighborhood
and then it goes up into the sky. Do you
(26:21):
remember this? And it's like the Superhero music? And I
don't remember there being HBO when I was little. Yeah,
And then like the big silver HBO letters were like
turning in the sky and then they burst into like
a technicolor. You don't remember that it was like like
a punch of fucking wall. It was so excited to me. Yeah,
it was the best.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I mean, I remember which which studio is with the
roaring let the Roaring Lion. Oh mgm mgm like that
those those are you know. That's back when I was
a kid. We were watching Wizard of Oz, which was
could have watched it all day every day. Sound of
music was my absolute, absolute favorite. And again like you
(27:01):
had to wait for the holidays for this stuff to
come on.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
You couldn't just And speaking of the holidays, I used
to call that one. There was a one eight hundred
number for a one nine hundred number, sorry, which charges
a lot of money for Santa, and I was like
the only little Jewish girl in my neighborhood. Instead, I
never was Italian, and I would just call Santa over
and over and over. I didn't know that I was
racking up. That is so cute. That is so cute.
(27:25):
I don't remember my childhood phone number, by the way,
I don't remember my kids' names half the time, but
I remember childhood phone number.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You want to say it or maybe it's uh, maybe
you don't want to No, No, it was somebody nine four, eight, eight,
five six one.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I doubt it's anyone. Sorry, I remember the numbers.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And I said this to my family the other day
of this guy who I dated right before Jeff, And
like I, I don't know why I will always know
his phone number.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It's very strange. I couldn't remember. I can tell you
anybody else childhood phone number, his cell number, No, his
his office number. We don't you think it was cell phones? Oh?
And we have done here? And what do want to say? This?
You watch?
Speaker 2 (28:07):
This is what it was Happy Days, love Boat and
Fantasy Island.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Oh my god, I really I watched Saturday Nights, but
I was a little young for it. I liked it,
I didn't love it. I loved stupid shit, Like what
was the spin off of The Cosby Show with Lisa
Bonett where they went to college?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
The college college. Yeah, it was Lisa Bonet. It was
Lisa Bonett. I wasn't into that different.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Different world. Oh it was so good? Oh is not
my thing so good?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Back then there were so many like when I think
about Happy Days, you don't watch your first concert, not
really with all things, I want a concert on the radio.
And it was yes, And I didn't even know their
music at all. But when I won, I remember, I
know the days the radio would have a contest and
you'd have to pick up your phone and call and
(29:01):
call and call and call and call.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And I won it.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
For me, it didn't matter what it was. I remember screaming,
I couldn't believe that I won. Oh, and then back
you probably were, so it was like a whole new
wave era. Maybe in the eighties you had some of that,
but like it was Duran Duran and Boy George. So
my high school, we had to collect the most PoCA
Cola tabs or something and then you could have Duran
(29:25):
Duran come to your school. So we were pretty small school.
They came and I remember it was as if, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Most incredible. It was like out of body that Duran
Duran is huge and they're still around. I still kind
of hear them sometimes, but that they were coming to
our school was it was just everything.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, I loved I did love Duran Duran, but they
were more like my older sister loved them more. I
loved buon Jovi. I had a life sized poster of
bun Jovi on my door, my bedroom door, and he
was the first concert I went to. And actually I
was really really like enthralled by the idea of hookers
(30:09):
when I was little, say what and what does that mean?
I don't know, Like my parents when they used to
take us to see a play in the city and
we used to drive down the West Side Highway. I
was like my eyes were peeled for hookers. I thought
they were the most interesting human beings in the world.
And like, if I saw a woman standing on the
side of the road, I would just ask my parents,
is that a hooker? She a hooker? And I thought
(30:30):
everyone at this Bonnjovie concert, So I was young, and
we went with my mom and my mom's friend and
her daughter who was a little older, and her daughter
had some friends there, and they were dressed in like
skimpy clothes, and I thought all the women there were hookers.
I just I just was so intrigued by the idea
(30:50):
of hookers.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I went on a teen tour I guess I was
high school, and we went to Amsterdam and they had
the red Light District, and I remember that being the
most that we went to, like five countries and five
weeks something like ridiculous, And but that was the most.
Maybe like you, I was obsessed with hookers. But that
was like the most fascinating part of the whole trip
(31:14):
was seen like these women in the windows with their
red lights on.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I know. I think because you start to realize, like
when you're home, you feel like everyone is like you, right, yeah,
and then when you step outside and you start to
realize there's a bigger world out there, everything is just
so interesting. Yeah. Yeah, But I loved I loved bon Jovie.
I loved Debbie Gibson so much. Oh my god, Debbie
(31:40):
Gibson everything about her, her perfumes, her music. And she
was young. I think she was like.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Around I had like share Barbie dolls like I was
like that was my generation I was.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I had Michael Jackson trading cards. Did you have? Oh god,
I love them. I had Michael Jackson trading cards everywhere
all over my room. And the clothing. See this is
why I hoard my clothing now, is because I wish,
but I want nothing more than my fucking hot doggers
back did you ear hot doggers? But it's like this
parachute material fluorescent jumpsuit.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I remember when I'd go to Long Island would buy it.
They were called hot doggers, but they were like literally fluorescent,
like they were like all those different like as bright
as you can with that.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I have a picture of me in mine with my
big hair on like a phone with like a spiral
cord in my childhood bedroom. It was the best. We
had these pants called skids, did you have? I remember, yeah,
I love them. And you used to do French cuff
them and wear like four pairs of scrunchy socks with them.
And then we had everyone wore with like a Champion
(32:46):
sweatshirt and it was like the coolest avenage sweashirts was
so like hard and stiff. Oh yeah, and used to
wear them like in college.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I was, you know, I was big girl, and the
only thing I remember wearing is be you. I started
out at Austin like you, but I wear the BU
sweatshirts down to my knees with eg's weren't what the
socks were those scrunchy eg's at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I don't remember if they were egs, but they were
like big scrungey socks and you wore like a bunch
of pairs like kiled onto each other, big scrunchies.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Oh my god, such a cat fashion, right, but those things.
I think I wore one of those to Melissa Gorga
is the first. I don't know if that was the
first scene, but season thirteen, remember she had that roller
skating eighties roller skating party. Yeah, and I think I
wore that out, but I wore those like.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Oh no, I need to go back and look at
what you wore. What do you do with all your
li like stuff from the show that, like, is not
something you could wear again? Throw it out or give
it away? Give it away? Do not really throw it out? Yeah,
you know what I have a problem with. I know
this is taking a totally different turn, but like in
my closet, if I have things that I wore and
(33:56):
I had a bad episode, I don't want to wear
them again, even if they're Did you watch the after
school specials on ABC? Of course? Oh my god? The
lead in song to that, if you go back and
listen to it, I don't remember it. How did it go?
(34:16):
Do you remember? It was like instrumental, It was like
a trumpet speaking of just songs that opened up you
know Schoolhouse Rock? Did you we school House Rock? I did? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I watched a lot of cartoons too, like Sunday morning.
How about the comics on Sunday morning and cartoons on
Sunday morning. Like we got so excited.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I used to take like a mixing goal and put
in every single type of cereal that I had, like
an entire bucket of milk, and sit one foot from
the TV and just watch all more Muppet babies and
Fraggle Rock and the he Man and Chira. It was
(35:00):
just the best. Yeah. I did not know.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
There was no sitting with the big tub of cereal.
My mother would not have allowed for that. But I
just remember like just being so happy. It was Sunday
morning and the I'm reading Wendy the comic, like the
comic strip.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Did you read Wendy Wendy? I don't remember. I remember
we are on such It's so funny the difference eight
years can make. I mean Kathy, I mean Kathy, excuse me,
excuse me? I met Kathy. Yes, my god, I can't. Yes,
it was about so comics.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I think the comics are gone. There are comics, they're
they're in your phone. I mean the comics are all yeah, right, yeah,
I mean it's did you ever try to get your
kids to watch the movies that you watched, and.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I'm so I've always been so frustrated.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It's so at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willie Wonka
in the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I beg them so they don't love it the way
that you did, and then it's such a disappointment. I know.
I was like that too. Like my dad used to
get so excited to show me movies and I would
watch them and be like, I like, I don't want
to be watching this, Like I know his favorite movie
of all time is Blazing Saddles, and like I just
didn't think it was that funny. And also it's really
(36:19):
like insulting and like it's not like today. It would
never fly and I just couldn't. I couldn't wrap my
head around it. He used to love Bridge on the
River Qui and like it just didn't care.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Well, I mean, yeah, that would have been a lot.
But I remember wanting my kids to watch everything from
Pippy long Stocking to Pete's Dragon, Sound of Music, Willie Wonka,
like all of these that had they have such a
place in my mind and heart, you know, and it
(36:52):
was such an escape also, right, Like it wasn't like
you could always go get into your bed and put
on Netflix. It wasn't like that. It was very special
when you were like very into a TV show and
you had to wait all week for it to come around,
or a movie and you actually had to go to
the movie theater, and you know, it was such a treat.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Although I will tell you my kids do love the
original Karate Kid, but I showed them so does my husband.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Do you know that Jeff Fessler watches Cobra what is
it called Cobra Kai, Cobra Kai?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, well, episode em same movies over and over and
over again. And I just read something that said that anxious.
He doesn't have anxiety, like one of the very few
people I know that without anxiety. But I heard that
anxious people watch the same things over and over again
because they know the outcome and it makes them feel safe.
That makes a lot of sense to me. However, this
man will watch the Shawshank Are you talking about Evan? Yeah,
(37:47):
he doesn't have anxiety, but he will watch certain movies
like I think he must have seen this. He watches
the Showshank Redemption probably on a weekly basis. I mean
it's also on TV like every week by amazing movie.
But I don't know. I watch it every watches it NonStop.
Anything with Will Ferrell, he's seen a hundred times. That man,
Oh my god, he's He's probably the funniest human I've
(38:11):
ever been. Love of real life? Do you watch?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I definitely watch sitcoms on like TikTok like now because
obviously because the algorithm, like it's a constant barrage of
Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld and so even shit's creak like.
Those are the things that I when I'm like laying
in bed at night, I don't want anything too intense.
I like for all that, Like it's true, you know
(38:37):
how it's going to end. There's something comforting about it, right.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, what are you watching now? Are you watching White Lotus? Yes?
I'm not that thrilled with it, though, Are you really
I like it? I'll tell you. I love the storyline
about the three friends. Yeah, of course, that's the only one.
The problem that with this season's White Lotus to me
is that it's dark. But it's not. I don't it's
nothing else. It's like the other the other season. I
(39:03):
feel like they're planting the seed.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No I know, but the other seasons were also funny
or also touching in some way or a lot about
like just dynamics people's relationships. I get that that is
sort of with but like between the father that's so
uptight because he's about to get busted for I don't know,
fraud or mondy whatever he did. And then there is
(39:26):
then there is the family and wait, there's the family
with the father, and then that kid, the younger kids whatever,
the three girl. I like watching the three girls. Then
there's oh, then there's the guy with the snakes. Yes,
and it's just like I feel like it's yes. I
feel like I'm always like on the edge of my
seat now with White Lotus. Whereas like there were breaks
(39:47):
from it when Jennifer Coolidge would just be Jennifer Coolidge
and you would it was so much fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I don't feel like I'm having fun watching it this season. Well,
I know season I thought season one was okay. I
think season two of White Lotus is one of the
best shows I've ever seen in my life. Really felt
like I was in Italy. Yeah, I loved it. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And also that's the other piece of it is that Thailand, right,
it's in Thailand this season, which is so beautiful, but
they just haven't set everything looks so related and scary.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yes it does. I will say, you don't see as
much of the beauty of Thailand as I would have hoped,
But I'm gonna give it some time. I did not
watch the latest episode yet, so I have did you
watch last night? I have to watch that. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Also, I think Real Houses of Atlanta was then on
last night the premiere episode.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
So did you watch? No, but I will. I don't
watch that many of them anymore. I don't know. I
don't know why I do. I do. I love Potomac,
I didn't want. I watched OC and Potomac. I didn't
watch anything else. I don't love Beverly Hills this season. No,
we don't. It's okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I'm just a little bored. Yeah, okay, I like the
new Dree, but yeah, I'm not I'm not as into it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I don't know. Is she different now that she's getting
divorced Lauritu, Yeah, she's very different this season. That's like
the whole kind of theme of it is Dreek comes
back with a vengeance, so she sort of was you know,
the villain for the past few seasons, and now she's like,
I'm not having it. You and the train you rode
in on, and she's like lighting her cigarette in the
(41:20):
car and like kind of fun to watch. Well, you
know what, we maybe we'll do a pop culture episode
of like today's stuff, like what we consider the best
today and the movies and the TV shows. But really
my expertise is not like the nineteen eighties pop culture.
Oh man, I just spent so many hours just watching
(41:42):
TV and watching movies over and over. Flash Dance and
the Slash and everything was just so amazing, and I
just I loved all like the character. I just Molly
Ringwald gave me so much hope that I could be
yes my own back. I saw that they're getting together.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Did you see that that the oh say, Almost Fire
cast is about to get together or something? There reuniting
a breakfast club sane almost Fire.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
All of those loved it. Andrew McCarthy, there was like
no one cuter than him. Not to me, I had
never could I never got the Andrew McCarthy thing. Really,
it was Rob Low.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Rob Low, Rob Low, that's like the only gorgeous but
he's still a little Amelio Estevez. Yes, loved Judd Nelson,
such good movies. Yeah, I know, this was really fun.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Let's do a pop culture of today for another episode.
There's one question I know that we wrote down that
I think, yeah, is very interesting.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
There's one thing about your childhoo. I mean, this is
kind of a deep question that you would change. What
would it be?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Oh God, which I actually I.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Think I probably thought of that question because it's kind
of stupid, but because there's like so much stuff looking
back that you would maybe think this was a sad time,
this was a tragic, traumatic, you know, period of time.
But the truth is now we are who we are
because of those things that happened. I definitely wouldn't change
the fact that we moved around.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I moved not only to Sugarland, then I moved to
Greater Houston. Then we like.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
But I feel like today I am at any given moment,
I could move and I would. I love New Jersey
and I love where that my kids got to grow
up in the same town and this is places or
you know, this is really where our roots are. But
I always felt like, if let's say Jeff got transferred,
it wouldn't throw me that much I could make it work.
(43:38):
And I think that part of that was being such
a fish out of water. I mean you probably felt
that way from Staten Island to Jersey. But like, there
are things that were so uncomfortable and sad. But again,
I mean, as long as we're here to talk about them,
I guess a lot of nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah. I think I had a really miserable high school experience,
and I think even though it shaped me, it did
traumatize me, and pieces that that are still definitely left over.
I think I would have oh, well, god, I wish
I would have learned that dieting is not all or nothing.
I really had no role models when it came to
health eating, and so when I decided that I wanted
(44:17):
to lose weight, I like really did unhealthy things. And
I think I would go back and maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, everybody in my family was we are all it
was all about weight all the time.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
We need everybody about that. Yes, all right a lot,
but all right, this was so much fun. I love that.
I'm going to go back and watch some old TV.
Now I feel like nostalgic, But this was fun when
I was young, Yes, But all right, guys, I hope
you enjoyed it. We will see you next time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I was like Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days.
Alright you guys, Bye bye bye m m hm
Hey, guys, it's Jackie Goldschneider and Jen Fessler, and we
are two Jersey Jays coming at you.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
So funny, jack yeah saying two Jersey Jays me or
you say it, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What, We're two Jersey Jays whoever says it. So, But
we have a special episode for you guys today because
we were talking and reminiscing and we were like, let's
do an episode about like all the things we were, like,
all the things that made our childhood so memorable and
so special because people love that stuff, like the nostalgia
(00:34):
and everyone has these like shared experiences, right right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I mean we also we were talking about pop culture
maybe you know, and we will we want to do
an episode on just what's going on today. But as
we were talking about pop culture, we were like really
thrown back to our childhood and that pop culture seems
so much more important than today. And I've right so
much to say about it, because when I was thinking
about the pop culture that I loved, like so many
(00:59):
things came flooding back.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
But let's start at the start. We had different childhoods.
You were raised in Texas. I was raised in Staten Island.
So let's talk about yours first. So yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
A very tumultuous childhood, to say the least.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It was.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
My parents were divorced and I moved to Texas when
I was nine. My mother was remarried. We'd actually moved
around a lot when I was a baby. I was
born in Louisiana. My sister was born in Columbus.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Ohio, and so moved to Long Island.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like most of the Jewish friends I have now, it's
either Long Island or Jersey or the city or Connecticut,
but anyway, for us, it was Texas. So we moved
to Sugarland, Texas. My sister was eight and I grew
up in Sugarland. I graduated from high school in Houston.
It was actually performing Arts High School, and then I
(01:51):
went to college at UT Austin and graduated, and then
moved as quickly as I could to New York City.
So a little bit of a different, you know, bringing
for sure. And you know, I had and I still
am best friends with my cousins. My mom is an
identical twin, so my aunt has two daughters, and so
the four of us always been like sisters. But we're
(02:11):
always back and forth visiting them on Long Island, and
I think that it's so interesting, and I was always
so envious, like I wanted to live on Long Island.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
But some of the.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Like some of the songs, some of the like I
bet that we're going to like know a lot of
the same stuff or at least like reminisce about things
that were special to us, and it'll be the same.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Even though I grew up in Texas, right, even conservative
also there? What was it conservative there in Texas? Yeah, yes,
I mean conservative. I lived in Sugarland, Texas, not when
I went So when I went to high school, I
went in to try out to go to the school
in the middle of Houston. It was a magnet school,
meaning they were pulling from all different areas of Houston,
(02:54):
and so the school it was such a different experience
than going to sugar Land Junior High or to you know,
Clement's High School. So the performing arts school it was.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Remember, so we're talking about going back to nineteen eighty
two when I started high school and there were tons
of kids were we were all a bunch of like
performing arts and visual arts freaks, like you know, the
boys were out about being gay as opposed to like
sugar Land, where you know, things were not at that right, right,
(03:30):
right level, but it was got boys were out about
being gay. They were like they so a lot of
like very cool kids from all different walks of life,
and it was just very granola and very arty and
very we all love each other and oh wow, it
(03:54):
was a great high school experience, very different from like
a typical high school experience.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Right, Yeah, it was like a kid when you were
a kid kid, like was your home like sort of
buttoned up or was it like loud?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And my home was not a happy place growing up,
So whether or not, I don't know what to No,
I wouldn't say that it was conservative in any way.
It was just very chaotic and my mom my dad
left my mom when I was like three, and then
my mom remarried and then they got divorced and then
(04:30):
remarried again, and he died he had a heart attack.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But also.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Just it wasn't there was no Brady Bunch. If we're
going to talk about pop culture back then, it was
not that kind of a scenario at all. Quite quite different.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, Well, I grew up in Staten Island and I
moved when I was almost fourteen and I moved to
New Jersey, but Staten Island was the most mad place
to grow up. It was just like the houses were
all really close together, and all your like family and
best friends lived like on the same block, and everyone
(05:10):
was just always together, like outside, all the kids on
my block there was like twenty of us. We played
manhunting each other's backyards at night. We were but it
was gritty, like Staten Island was a little bit gritty.
I was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and I moved
to Staten Island as a baby, and it was just
like I'll tell you, my next door neighbor was my
(05:32):
very best friend in the world. And my parents don't
know the story, and I don't know if they listen
to my podcast, but we used to when we were
like ten years old. We started. We would walk around,
but ten years old, walk around the streets and pick
up old cigarettes and relight them and smoke. Oh my god,
I was so bye. Oh to this day, I'm not
(05:54):
just thinking about it. But we before I had a pool.
My brother and I used to fill up green, big
green garbage cans and get it and we used to
fill it up with water from the host. It was like,
and no one cared stat and it was just like
a free for all. Can I tell you a funny
story though? When I think of my childhood in Staten Island,
so my my parents are like a little like crazy
(06:17):
right there. They're wonderful, right, But anyway, so my dad,
I used to not like to go to sleep when
I was a kid, and I still don't sleep that well.
But outside my room there was like a light, right,
like a street light, and I guess it was controlled
by like a city grid or what time the lights
(06:38):
come on, what time they go off, And it used
to come on every night at nine o'clock. But I
didn't know that that was controlled by another like entity, right,
So my father used to tell me that the light
outside my room was the Darth Vader light, and Darth
Vader when the light came on, it meant Darth Vader
was in the area looking for children who weren't sleeping,
and that, oh my god, if I was a wait
(07:00):
Darth Vader, darth Vader would bite my arm off. So,
oh my god, every night at nine o'clock, whether or
not I was tired, I was like my eyes were
fucking shut, and I was like shuddering under the because
the light would come on. It was terrifying. And then
one time my parents took me to somewhere like Atlantic City,
Ocean City, whatever, and we went to this like they
(07:21):
had like a carnival, and there was like this little
ride and we went into this ride and it was
like a spaceship that shut and Darth Vader came out
and I freakd o you poor little things? Oh my god,
Oh my god. I still remember it was so vivid.
But Staten Island was so fun.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The parents like the things that they got away with
quote unquote, I guess, I mean I org and even
just like adults.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So I went to sugar Land.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I started out in whatever elementary school and it was
called I don't remember sugar Lyne Junior.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
But anyway, so at this elementary school, I was nine
years old. If you were bad, you had to go
to the principal's office and you would get popped. He
had a big paddle in a way. Yes wow, now
like sitting on and like you have to imagine that,
did day, sweetheart bend over the table because I'm gonna
(08:24):
smack you with this paddle?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Can you imagine this shit. I can't believe even back then, Like,
I can't believe because I'd never my I don't think
my parents would ever be okay with like someone hitting me.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I don't think I ever got hit for whatever reason.
Maybe my mom wrote a letter, maybe they had to
have permission, but it was always kind of looming.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And so this was we're talking about nineteen seventy eight.
I mean, you weren't even born yet. No, I was born.
I was born in seventy six. Oh you were all right, Yeah,
I'm a baby seventy six. I was born in sixty eight,
so or only eight years apart.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, but I mean imagine like and also like you,
even in Sugarland, we used to run around, you know,
playing war with forts, and I was always outside. I
mean this that you hear. We all have this kind
of the same story. I mean, the world is so
different now you have to have organized playdates. My mother
name never made me a playdate.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You kidding me? Now? I remember all these these kids,
and I wonder what happened to them. A lot of
them are not on social media. I was always boy crazy,
and so I've looked just to see what they look like.
Now like the boys that I had to pitchbrushes on
a lot of them I can't find. But there was
even in kindergarten. I went to Montessori School in Staten Island,
(09:42):
and I, at five years old, was my first crush
and I was just infatuated with this kid, Jerome, and
I drew hearts all over his picture in my yearbook
at five years old, Jackie.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I was in love at five years old and I
was the first. I was the only kindergartener that got
to the first grade play to play Susie Snowflake because
I had to try out and dance, and all I
could think about was Philip Wilner, who I'm now I
facebooked him years and years later. I gave him when
we moved to Texas. I mean he was to me then.
(10:17):
He was a little guy with glasses. All the girls
loved him, and I think I gave him my hamster
like before we moved to Houston. And oh but that's
the reason why I got to be Susie Snowplake, because
he picked me to dance like in choir with him.
I don't know, I just remember the obsession and I
was like you, I was five starts early.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, I mean, I guess for some people it starts early.
For I don't know, Rachel, I did my daughter.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
My mother used to get upset because Rachel would follow
when workers would come in when my mother was babysitting.
She would go stand like the window in the back
and watch them working in the backyard, like we had landscapers,
and it would bug my mother, and it bugged me
that it bugged my mother. I'm like, what do you
think here is happening? I think Rachel wants to you know,
like gross, But she was just for whatever reason, she
(11:06):
used to like follow there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Like in Texas, there are like different names for like
the types of groups. Like in Saten Island, there was
I guess you would call it now like their version
of goth. They called him a critter. So like a
critter was somebody who was like a cool goth, like
you wore like the dark jacket. You were all like emo,
(11:30):
you are like leather and like you listen to heavy
metal and like the only thing I wanted out of
life was to be a critter. And then the but
if you like weren't cool and you were a critter,
you were just like a dirt bag. Like everyone would
just call you it, everyone call you a dirt peg.
We did not just want to have that critter. The
problem is that I had I was like darkened emo
(11:51):
and like had this big hair and my hair was huge, enormous.
And then when I moved to New Jersey my freshman
year of high school, people weren't quite so over the top,
Like my hair was really big, and my family was
really loud, and like, I just think that I from
the jump did not fit in there and had a
(12:12):
really really hard time in high school. Sounds like you.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Had despite really really yeah, well yes, but in elementary school.
At one point my mom and my first stepfather they
separated and so we moved in with my dad in
New York City, my sister and I and he had
apartment in the city, and we ended up going to
(12:37):
private school like Horace Man. I mean, there was so
much moving around for us. And then we went back
to my mom when she got divorced and we started
Sugarland Junior High and I remember it was so it
was awkward, it was so horrible. I felt so like
a fish out of water. First of all, we were
(12:57):
like the only Jewish girls in the neighborhood much less
like the school, right, And I remember like my mom
dropping me off at a class and she went because
this is like how they talked back then, and my
mother waved, She's.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Like bye pussy bye pussy cat.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And I had like you, I mean, this is these
are the days before carrot. And I used to sit
behind this girl, Carrie and struggling junior high, and she
would go like she would with the back of her hand.
She would just like go her down her hair like
this and it was all smooth and silky. And I
would put mine like this and it had like a
big frizzy hard ridge and then another ridge, and I
just remember all I wanted was to have like that smooth,
(13:38):
silky hair. It was like, I mean, I guess junior
high's not easy for anyone. I don't think that my
kids would look back and say it was so great necessarily,
but I don't remember it being very fun. Yeah, we're
totally getting it's like our whole childhoods and we're forgetting
all about pop culture stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But I know we could talk about pop culture, but
I so I moved it high school. Well, we're going
to talk about pop culture in a second, but I'm
all good. I moved in high school to New Jersey,
and I had a really hard time in high school.
I did not fit in there, and I think from
the beginning I was sort of like lost, and I
(14:16):
never I just never found myself. But I when I left,
I kind of left forever. I don't really go back.
But my sweet sixteen I just invited like the whole
freaking school because I didn't care. I had it in
like a wedding venue. It was so big and fancy,
and I invited this guy from like the next town
who I had a huge crush on, and he was older,
(14:37):
he was seventeen. He drove already, and he came alone,
and my friend Jen hooked up with him, and I got,
so you put this. I feel like I've read this
in your book. Is this in your book? I don't know.
I might have just told you. But I had this
like slam book, like a sign in book at my party,
and like you could sign in and write a little
message on it. And she wrote me like a chapter
(14:59):
at the end of the book, all about why I
shouldn't be mad at her and why she liked him first.
And I was just the whole experience was just so miserable.
And I wore this pink taffeta dress that was so
ugly and I was really overweight and I couldn't find
a dress so I had it made, and like it
was just horrible. It was just horrible, horrible. Yeah, high
(15:23):
school was my escape. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It was like because again it was so we're talking
about Houston, Texas in nineteen eighty two, but it was
like again, I was a misfit and it was just
the land of misfits at my high school and we
all just were everybody accepted, everybody, you know, and it
was just I'm so grateful for that experience, but it
(15:45):
was a total nightmare in junior high and in elementary school.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And you still have a lot of high school friends.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
My three of my very best friends. I'm going to Houston.
I think I did I mention that to you. I'm
going to Houston, first time back since I left. One
of the three of them was in Houston, and we're
going to go to Rodeo. So I have to go
to California and then I'm going to go to Houston
because I've been wanting to just go to Rodeo with
her for so long. I'm going to go see old Dominion.
I am so excited. So again, I haven't been back
(16:14):
to Houston. Yeah, it's really but we all the four
of us get together every year. My friend has a
house in on the western Shore of Maryland. Eastern Shore.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh yeah, I remember you going last year.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, I got you over here. My mind is so lately,
I just can't keep a thought.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Pause. All right, So then let's talk about some pop culture.
So when I think of the things that got me
through the eighties, so I had I was very much.
My parents worked full time. I'm a strange. I've always
been a strange from my sister, my brother I love dearly.
He's disabled. And so after after a certain age, it's
(16:59):
sort of like it was, it was hard to like
socialize together as easily, you know, So I kind of
would disappear into my own world and just I watched
a lot of TV, read a lot of books.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, I read a lot of flowers in the attic.
It was that your generation or is it just mine?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah? Yes, and I and I love that. But what
I really loved, when I think of the books I
loved was I would devour the sweet Valley High and
Sweet Valley Trends series? Did you watch that? Did you
read that? Oh god? I was absolutely obsessed, And like,
I think about it because my kids don't love reading,
and they're smart kids, but they absolutely never read a
(17:41):
book ever since the schools. I guess at a certain
age they stopped like making you read a certain number
of minutes at night. And I don't think they've picked
them with books.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh, I mean everything is everything goes back to social media, right,
Like there was no we weren't communicating with our friends
at unless you know, you were on the house phone.
There was no cell phone and you had nothing to
do if like let's say, I mean I was grounded
all the time and for whatever reason, it was just
crazy in my house, and so I would just read.
(18:10):
I wouldn't be allowed to watch TV, so I would
read and I would Really I'm grateful for that, right,
It's like, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Oh and Judy Bloom did you read it? Obviously Judy
Bloom the best, the best, loved reading really and then
like you did you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Sneak like Wifey? I don't know that was like her
sexy book? Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Oh no. I also a fourth grade nothing. Oh. I
loved Yeah. But I also I loved are There God
is Me? Margaret? I loved Sneaking a dirty movie. I
loved it. Like when I saw Porky's for the first time,
I was like, what is this shit? I was? I
loved it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Wifey was a Judy Bloom book that was like spicy. Oh,
and then the other one was the one she wrote
about the girl she lost her virginity. Then they broke up.
Come on, remember I don't know. I was read everything
Beauty Bloom of.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I loved it. But TV was really like I
would plan every night around what was on TV. Different
strokes might have been my favorite. Okay, the episode when
and when I think of it, I think of the
episode where Arnold and his friend Dudley went to the
(19:22):
bike store bike store, do you remember this one? And
the bike shop owner tried to molest them? Do you
don't remember this? And it was such a pivotal episode
because I was horrified by it. But I also couldn't
believe what I was watching on Like TV, do you remember?
Stuff like that would come up?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Like good Times and where Janet Jackson she was like
she ended up living with uh JJ and like the
whole family. Did you watch Good Times?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah? I loved it, and she her mother took that
iron to her like was abusive. They were upstairs. I
don't remember.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I don't remember that. I mean that this is the
crap that used to like, yeah, keep me up at night,
but it was. I just remember being so horrified. I mean,
I guess my kids obviously have seen things on TV
that I'm sure they felt the same way about. But
there's so much that I think though back to I
was so young.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
My other favorite episode from childhood was the pilot episode
of the Wonder Years where Winnie and Kevin kissed and
I felt like I was having my first kiss. It
was the best episode. Oh god, I feel like I
want to watch it again today. It was the most
funny things.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
We're so yes, so we're eight years apart, and that
was so past my time, like this, Yeah, I mean
I watched it. Watch you probably watched like Dallas and
of course, and what was the one with Holkins Crest?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
What was the fancy line Falcon's crest? No, was it Dallas?
What am I thinking of? What the Dallas was? Fancy? Jr?
You ing?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Dynasty, Dynasty Dynasty. That's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, I never watched it, but all those things were
also like it depends when you asked me. When I
was little and we were living in New York, still
before we moved to Texas. This is I don't know,
age seven, eight, whatever. Every Saturday night we'd watch the
love Boat in Fantasy Island in front of the TV.
I think it was that, and my mom would make
us TV dinners or waffles. It was like the best
(21:33):
part the night was like think that, am I the right?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
You know what? I think that childhood When I think
back and I remind myself this of my kids now,
it's that it's the simple things that you really do remember.
You don't remember like if something cost a ton of
money or how fancy it was. You remember just feeling
safe and the things that made you feel safe were
the things that made you feel the best. You know. Yeah,
(22:02):
yeah it was yeah, I mean it was such. It
was just a simpler time. It really was without camera.
Although I do like knowing where my kids are and
being able to reach them, I do. I love that
there were no phones around and there were no cameras everywhere,
and you.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Just think, like that probably back then though you weren't
thinking like how do I reach them? It was there
in the neighborhood they were playing or you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I don't know, But.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Like, moving to Texas was such culture shock for me
because again I was at that kind of they're all
kind of pivotal ages. But I was nine years old
and we were plunk down right in the middle of Sugarland, Texas,
and I just remember missing Long Island so much, probably
much like you missed Staten Island. Like for me Long
(22:52):
I my parents were divorced when I was three, but
my cousins were there, and I had always just wanted
to go back. I think that's why I probably ended
up moving so quickly back to New York City after
I graduated college.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I just was like it always felt like my home.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And it's funny because I've never been back to Houston
since I left after I graduated college, and it feels
like New Jersey is my absolute home. Like I've spent
more time here than anywhere else, and this is I
just keep looking at my extension sticking out no time
to get the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Can I tell you two things that I was obsessed
with and growing up archie comics. I would wait until
I think they were released every Tuesday or Thursday, and
my dad would take me to the store and I'd
buy every single one and I would just devour them.
And actually, the very first time that I was published
was in an archie comic. I was just a kid.
(23:48):
They had this like writing contest in the back, and
I wrote an article and sent it in and they
published that in the back of an Archie comic and
I was I felt so high. I was so excited.
And then in high school, actually, I don't know if
I ever told you this, I was and I still am.
I just don't talk about it, but absolutely obsessed with
(24:08):
the Beatles. Like every inch of my room was covered
in Beatles posters. I wore this jacket I still have it.
That was an airbrush picture of John Lennon. On the
back was a turquoise jacket and it had I had.
I would cover it in pins. I would just go
to vigage stores all day. I'd go to Beatlemania twice
a year. My mom would just drop me off at
the meadle Lands Hotel and I would just roam around
(24:29):
all day and all I wanted to be was a hippie,
and I just I knew every word of every Beatles song.
I knew how to play every song on the piano.
It brought me a lot of comfort. I was very
lonely in high school, super lonely, and the Beatles were like,
as long as I had them, I didn't care. I
think I just needed something to escape into. But I
to this day absolutely love their music. That is that's
(24:50):
so interesting because I like something that was so important
to you right back then, that you were so obsessed with,
and I mean now I don't even know that about you. Yeah,
I had a lot of that, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean I remember going to certain movies like Footloose,
my sister too, and when it was over we were
we would cry that Kevin Bacon wasn't our boyfriend? Or
how about Sound of Music? Were you a Sound of
Music girl?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Not really? So? Sound of Music was.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
My all time instill is my all time favorite movie,
and I watched it, but they didn't. There was no
such thing until I was probably in high school. We
didn't even have forget about like, we didn't have Netflix,
we didn't you weren't able to watch that movie until
it came out on your network TV once a year
at Christmas time, right, well, speaking of I was a
Blockbuster video that was like but I remember just oh
(25:37):
it was the.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Smell of a video store. Oh my god, I loved it.
I love the smell of like the paper boxes. And
then you had to ask for the video, but like, no,
if the movie was in stock, the black cassette was
behind the box, and it was so exciting to like
see the movie you wanted and then the video was
actually there. Yep. That was the best in sant Island.
(26:00):
It was called selective video. And then Blockbuster took over everything.
But you know what, I remember so much, like these
sounds were like the most exciting for me was the
intro of an HBO movie when you were a kid,
and it was like you go from like a living
room and suddenly the camera's like soaring over a neighborhood
and then it goes up into the sky. Do you
(26:21):
remember this? And it's like the Superhero music? And I
don't remember there being HBO when I was little. Yeah,
And then like the big silver HBO letters were like
turning in the sky and then they burst into like
a technicolor. You don't remember that it was like like
a punch of fucking wall. It was so excited to me. Yeah,
it was the best.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I mean, I remember which which studio is with the
roaring let the Roaring Lion. Oh mgm mgm like that
those those are you know. That's back when I was
a kid. We were watching Wizard of Oz, which was
could have watched it all day every day. Sound of
music was my absolute, absolute favorite. And again like you
(27:01):
had to wait for the holidays for this stuff to
come on.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
You couldn't just And speaking of the holidays, I used
to call that one. There was a one eight hundred
number for a one nine hundred number, sorry, which charges
a lot of money for Santa, and I was like
the only little Jewish girl in my neighborhood. Instead, I
never was Italian, and I would just call Santa over
and over and over. I didn't know that I was
racking up. That is so cute. That is so cute.
(27:25):
I don't remember my childhood phone number, by the way,
I don't remember my kids' names half the time, but
I remember childhood phone number.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You want to say it or maybe it's uh, maybe
you don't want to No, No, it was somebody nine four, eight, eight,
five six one.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I doubt it's anyone. Sorry, I remember the numbers.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And I said this to my family the other day
of this guy who I dated right before Jeff, And
like I, I don't know why I will always know
his phone number.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It's very strange. I couldn't remember. I can tell you
anybody else childhood phone number, his cell number, No, his
his office number. We don't you think it was cell phones? Oh?
And we have done here? And what do want to say? This?
You watch?
Speaker 2 (28:07):
This is what it was Happy Days, love Boat and
Fantasy Island.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Oh my god, I really I watched Saturday Nights, but
I was a little young for it. I liked it,
I didn't love it. I loved stupid shit, Like what
was the spin off of The Cosby Show with Lisa
Bonett where they went to college?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
The college college. Yeah, it was Lisa Bonet. It was
Lisa Bonett. I wasn't into that different.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Different world. Oh it was so good? Oh is not
my thing so good?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Back then there were so many like when I think
about Happy Days, you don't watch your first concert, not
really with all things, I want a concert on the radio.
And it was yes, And I didn't even know their
music at all. But when I won, I remember, I
know the days the radio would have a contest and
you'd have to pick up your phone and call and
(29:01):
call and call and call and call.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And I won it.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
For me, it didn't matter what it was. I remember screaming,
I couldn't believe that I won. Oh, and then back
you probably were, so it was like a whole new
wave era. Maybe in the eighties you had some of that,
but like it was Duran Duran and Boy George. So
my high school, we had to collect the most PoCA
Cola tabs or something and then you could have Duran
(29:25):
Duran come to your school. So we were pretty small school.
They came and I remember it was as if, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Most incredible. It was like out of body that Duran
Duran is huge and they're still around. I still kind
of hear them sometimes, but that they were coming to
our school was it was just everything.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, I loved I did love Duran Duran, but they
were more like my older sister loved them more. I
loved buon Jovi. I had a life sized poster of
bun Jovi on my door, my bedroom door, and he
was the first concert I went to. And actually I
was really really like enthralled by the idea of hookers
(30:09):
when I was little, say what and what does that mean?
I don't know, Like my parents when they used to
take us to see a play in the city and
we used to drive down the West Side Highway. I
was like my eyes were peeled for hookers. I thought
they were the most interesting human beings in the world.
And like, if I saw a woman standing on the
side of the road, I would just ask my parents,
is that a hooker? She a hooker? And I thought
(30:30):
everyone at this Bonnjovie concert, So I was young, and
we went with my mom and my mom's friend and
her daughter who was a little older, and her daughter
had some friends there, and they were dressed in like
skimpy clothes, and I thought all the women there were hookers.
I just I just was so intrigued by the idea
(30:50):
of hookers.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I went on a teen tour I guess I was
high school, and we went to Amsterdam and they had
the red Light District, and I remember that being the
most that we went to, like five countries and five
weeks something like ridiculous, And but that was the most.
Maybe like you, I was obsessed with hookers. But that
was like the most fascinating part of the whole trip
(31:14):
was seen like these women in the windows with their
red lights on.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I know. I think because you start to realize, like
when you're home, you feel like everyone is like you, right, yeah,
and then when you step outside and you start to
realize there's a bigger world out there, everything is just
so interesting. Yeah. Yeah, But I loved I loved bon Jovie.
I loved Debbie Gibson so much. Oh my god, Debbie
(31:40):
Gibson everything about her, her perfumes, her music. And she
was young. I think she was like.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Around I had like share Barbie dolls like I was
like that was my generation I was.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I had Michael Jackson trading cards. Did you have? Oh god,
I love them. I had Michael Jackson trading cards everywhere
all over my room. And the clothing. See this is
why I hoard my clothing now, is because I wish,
but I want nothing more than my fucking hot doggers
back did you ear hot doggers? But it's like this
parachute material fluorescent jumpsuit.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I remember when I'd go to Long Island would buy it.
They were called hot doggers, but they were like literally fluorescent,
like they were like all those different like as bright
as you can with that.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I have a picture of me in mine with my
big hair on like a phone with like a spiral
cord in my childhood bedroom. It was the best. We
had these pants called skids, did you have? I remember, yeah,
I love them. And you used to do French cuff
them and wear like four pairs of scrunchy socks with them.
And then we had everyone wore with like a Champion
(32:46):
sweatshirt and it was like the coolest avenage sweashirts was
so like hard and stiff. Oh yeah, and used to
wear them like in college.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I was, you know, I was big girl, and the
only thing I remember wearing is be you. I started
out at Austin like you, but I wear the BU
sweatshirts down to my knees with eg's weren't what the
socks were those scrunchy eg's at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I don't remember if they were egs, but they were
like big scrungey socks and you wore like a bunch
of pairs like kiled onto each other, big scrunchies.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Oh my god, such a cat fashion, right, but those things.
I think I wore one of those to Melissa Gorga
is the first. I don't know if that was the
first scene, but season thirteen, remember she had that roller
skating eighties roller skating party. Yeah, and I think I
wore that out, but I wore those like.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Oh no, I need to go back and look at
what you wore. What do you do with all your
li like stuff from the show that, like, is not
something you could wear again? Throw it out or give
it away? Give it away? Do not really throw it out? Yeah,
you know what I have a problem with. I know
this is taking a totally different turn, but like in
my closet, if I have things that I wore and
(33:56):
I had a bad episode, I don't want to wear
them again, even if they're Did you watch the after
school specials on ABC? Of course? Oh my god? The
lead in song to that, if you go back and
listen to it, I don't remember it. How did it go?
(34:16):
Do you remember? It was like instrumental, It was like
a trumpet speaking of just songs that opened up you
know Schoolhouse Rock? Did you we school House Rock? I did? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I watched a lot of cartoons too, like Sunday morning.
How about the comics on Sunday morning and cartoons on
Sunday morning. Like we got so excited.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I used to take like a mixing goal and put
in every single type of cereal that I had, like
an entire bucket of milk, and sit one foot from
the TV and just watch all more Muppet babies and
Fraggle Rock and the he Man and Chira. It was
(35:00):
just the best. Yeah. I did not know.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
There was no sitting with the big tub of cereal.
My mother would not have allowed for that. But I
just remember like just being so happy. It was Sunday
morning and the I'm reading Wendy the comic, like the
comic strip.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Did you read Wendy Wendy? I don't remember. I remember
we are on such It's so funny the difference eight
years can make. I mean Kathy, I mean Kathy, excuse me,
excuse me? I met Kathy. Yes, my god, I can't. Yes,
it was about so comics.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I think the comics are gone. There are comics, they're
they're in your phone. I mean the comics are all yeah, right, yeah,
I mean it's did you ever try to get your
kids to watch the movies that you watched, and.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I'm so I've always been so frustrated.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It's so at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willie Wonka
in the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I beg them so they don't love it the way
that you did, and then it's such a disappointment. I know.
I was like that too. Like my dad used to
get so excited to show me movies and I would
watch them and be like, I like, I don't want
to be watching this, Like I know his favorite movie
of all time is Blazing Saddles, and like I just
didn't think it was that funny. And also it's really
(36:19):
like insulting and like it's not like today. It would
never fly and I just couldn't. I couldn't wrap my
head around it. He used to love Bridge on the
River Qui and like it just didn't care.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Well, I mean, yeah, that would have been a lot.
But I remember wanting my kids to watch everything from
Pippy long Stocking to Pete's Dragon, Sound of Music, Willie Wonka,
like all of these that had they have such a
place in my mind and heart, you know, and it
(36:52):
was such an escape also, right, Like it wasn't like
you could always go get into your bed and put
on Netflix. It wasn't like that. It was very special
when you were like very into a TV show and
you had to wait all week for it to come around,
or a movie and you actually had to go to
the movie theater, and you know, it was such a treat.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Although I will tell you my kids do love the
original Karate Kid, but I showed them so does my husband.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Do you know that Jeff Fessler watches Cobra what is
it called Cobra Kai, Cobra Kai?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, well, episode em same movies over and over and
over again. And I just read something that said that anxious.
He doesn't have anxiety, like one of the very few
people I know that without anxiety. But I heard that
anxious people watch the same things over and over again
because they know the outcome and it makes them feel safe.
That makes a lot of sense to me. However, this
man will watch the Shawshank Are you talking about Evan? Yeah,
(37:47):
he doesn't have anxiety, but he will watch certain movies
like I think he must have seen this. He watches
the Showshank Redemption probably on a weekly basis. I mean
it's also on TV like every week by amazing movie.
But I don't know. I watch it every watches it NonStop.
Anything with Will Ferrell, he's seen a hundred times. That man,
Oh my god, he's He's probably the funniest human I've
(38:11):
ever been. Love of real life? Do you watch?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I definitely watch sitcoms on like TikTok like now because
obviously because the algorithm, like it's a constant barrage of
Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld and so even shit's creak like.
Those are the things that I when I'm like laying
in bed at night, I don't want anything too intense.
I like for all that, Like it's true, you know
(38:37):
how it's going to end. There's something comforting about it, right.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, what are you watching now? Are you watching White Lotus? Yes?
I'm not that thrilled with it, though, Are you really
I like it? I'll tell you. I love the storyline
about the three friends. Yeah, of course, that's the only one.
The problem that with this season's White Lotus to me
is that it's dark. But it's not. I don't it's
nothing else. It's like the other the other season. I
(39:03):
feel like they're planting the seed.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No I know, but the other seasons were also funny
or also touching in some way or a lot about
like just dynamics people's relationships. I get that that is
sort of with but like between the father that's so
uptight because he's about to get busted for I don't know,
fraud or mondy whatever he did. And then there is
(39:26):
then there is the family and wait, there's the family
with the father, and then that kid, the younger kids whatever,
the three girl. I like watching the three girls. Then
there's oh, then there's the guy with the snakes. Yes,
and it's just like I feel like it's yes. I
feel like I'm always like on the edge of my
seat now with White Lotus. Whereas like there were breaks
(39:47):
from it when Jennifer Coolidge would just be Jennifer Coolidge
and you would it was so much fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I don't feel like I'm having fun watching it this season. Well,
I know season I thought season one was okay. I
think season two of White Lotus is one of the
best shows I've ever seen in my life. Really felt
like I was in Italy. Yeah, I loved it. I
love it.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And also that's the other piece of it is that Thailand, right,
it's in Thailand this season, which is so beautiful, but
they just haven't set everything looks so related and scary.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yes it does. I will say, you don't see as
much of the beauty of Thailand as I would have hoped,
But I'm gonna give it some time. I did not
watch the latest episode yet, so I have did you
watch last night? I have to watch that. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Also, I think Real Houses of Atlanta was then on
last night the premiere episode.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
So did you watch? No, but I will. I don't
watch that many of them anymore. I don't know. I
don't know why I do. I do. I love Potomac,
I didn't want. I watched OC and Potomac. I didn't
watch anything else. I don't love Beverly Hills this season. No,
we don't. It's okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I'm just a little bored. Yeah, okay, I like the
new Dree, but yeah, I'm not I'm not as into it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I don't know. Is she different now that she's getting
divorced Lauritu, Yeah, she's very different this season. That's like
the whole kind of theme of it is Dreek comes
back with a vengeance, so she sort of was you know,
the villain for the past few seasons, and now she's like,
I'm not having it. You and the train you rode
in on, and she's like lighting her cigarette in the
(41:20):
car and like kind of fun to watch. Well, you
know what, we maybe we'll do a pop culture episode
of like today's stuff, like what we consider the best
today and the movies and the TV shows. But really
my expertise is not like the nineteen eighties pop culture.
Oh man, I just spent so many hours just watching
(41:42):
TV and watching movies over and over. Flash Dance and
the Slash and everything was just so amazing, and I
just I loved all like the character. I just Molly
Ringwald gave me so much hope that I could be
yes my own back. I saw that they're getting together.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Did you see that that the oh say, Almost Fire
cast is about to get together or something? There reuniting
a breakfast club sane almost Fire.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
All of those loved it. Andrew McCarthy, there was like
no one cuter than him. Not to me, I had
never could I never got the Andrew McCarthy thing. Really,
it was Rob Low.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Rob Low, Rob Low, that's like the only gorgeous but
he's still a little Amelio Estevez. Yes, loved Judd Nelson,
such good movies. Yeah, I know, this was really fun.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Let's do a pop culture of today for another episode.
There's one question I know that we wrote down that
I think, yeah, is very interesting.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
There's one thing about your childhoo. I mean, this is
kind of a deep question that you would change. What
would it be?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Oh God, which I actually I.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Think I probably thought of that question because it's kind
of stupid, but because there's like so much stuff looking
back that you would maybe think this was a sad time,
this was a tragic, traumatic, you know, period of time.
But the truth is now we are who we are
because of those things that happened. I definitely wouldn't change
the fact that we moved around.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I moved not only to Sugarland, then I moved to
Greater Houston. Then we like.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
But I feel like today I am at any given moment,
I could move and I would. I love New Jersey
and I love where that my kids got to grow
up in the same town and this is places or
you know, this is really where our roots are. But
I always felt like, if let's say Jeff got transferred,
it wouldn't throw me that much I could make it work.
(43:38):
And I think that part of that was being such
a fish out of water. I mean you probably felt
that way from Staten Island to Jersey. But like, there
are things that were so uncomfortable and sad. But again,
I mean, as long as we're here to talk about them,
I guess a lot of nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah. I think I had a really miserable high school experience,
and I think even though it shaped me, it did
traumatize me, and pieces that that are still definitely left over.
I think I would have oh, well, god, I wish
I would have learned that dieting is not all or nothing.
I really had no role models when it came to
health eating, and so when I decided that I wanted
(44:17):
to lose weight, I like really did unhealthy things. And
I think I would go back and maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, everybody in my family was we are all it
was all about weight all the time.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
We need everybody about that. Yes, all right a lot,
but all right, this was so much fun. I love that.
I'm going to go back and watch some old TV.
Now I feel like nostalgic, But this was fun when
I was young, Yes, But all right, guys, I hope
you enjoyed it. We will see you next time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I was like Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days.
Alright you guys, Bye bye bye m m hm
Hosts And Creators
Jackie Goldschneider
Jennifer Fessler
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