236. Wounded Water Buffalo

"Beginner's Love," chapter 1! Welcome to 1983, a world of minivans, Chicken McNuggets, Return of the Jedi, and Norma Klein of course! Molly and Jody highlight the pop culture, music, TV, movies, and noteworthy inventions of that epic year and plunge into the first chapter of this racy YA novel. Join us for dramatic readings, nostalgia, comedy, and a couple wise moments here and there. Thank you Blume Heads Lisa B. and Attia for their amazing letters! It's a Judy Blume book club. Join us every week!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi, I'm Jody and I'm Mollie, and you're listening to
the Bloom Saloon.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's a Judy Bloom book Club way to mirror, you know,
yes and yes Annie, Yes, And so.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
We are here with a new book, Beginner's Love by
Norma Klas. We are so excited. We're just going to
do chapter one today because we have a ton of
background on nineteen eighty three to bring your way. But
in case you missed it, the reason we're doing this book, well,
first of all, the Bloom has voted. Second of all,

(00:52):
it ties directly into fudge Mania because if you remember,
hot librarian Isabelle was reading Beginner's Love because Jude's is
a diehard Norma fan and they were friends.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh I love this. That's such a good tie in.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Ooh is that how we choose our next I mean,
of course we're gonna continue with the Judy books, But
do we choose our non Judy books based on the
ones that are like that might have a little easter
egg or tie into the previous.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh that's so smart. Oh my god, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Maybe because now this book is making I mean spoiler,
that's making me want to read endless love.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Oh my god, I have a like mini special report
on endless love.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Oh we have so much goodness this episode. So we'll
read a couple letters. We'll give you the usual not
so current events of nineteen eighty three, the pop culture,
music movies, all that good stuff, and we'll get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
But first we have to start with the segment that
we start every episode with, which is what is the
most Judy bloom thing that happened to you this week?
A segment we call the Judy Minudi. So, Jody, what's
your Judy Minudi this week? I?

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Oh, god, yeah, this one's a tough one. This week,
I think probably we went to an arcade. There's this restaurant,
I don't know if it's a chain. It's called Plank
and it's like an American fair restaurant but has a
bowling alley and like a video games and you know,

(02:27):
pinball and stuff. So we went there because we had
family with kids visiting, and at first I was like, Oh,
it's gonna be so loud and annoying, but then it
was actually really fun. It's been a while since I
like played pinball, and it made me think of Fix
and Caitlin doing arcade stuff in Summer Sisters. Whether or

(02:50):
not they actually went to an arcade in Summer Sisters,
I don't remember, but I feel like I feel like
they could have. It's by the Merry Grounds right, exactly right,
it's right next to the merrygro round and there's like
a bell ringing right.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah that sounds right. Please bloomhead who rereads Summer Sisters
every summer? Did we get it right?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Let us know, please we have it. Used to be
bloomhead Becky that would read it every summer, and now
we've had several bloomheads tell us that they now read
it every summer. So that's great.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Someone just messaged us about it this week, so yeah,
they keep reading it.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Amazing. What's yours, Molly?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I had a couple of different ones, but one just
happened to me today. I grew up with a babysitter,
like a regular like every day, like pick you up
from school and make dinner and like that kind of stuff.
I had a babysitter probably from when I was three
till when I graduated high school. Probably yeah, with like

(03:49):
a brief intermission between, but so like this person was
like a member of our family. She's like one of
my best friends, Like we really grew up together, and
ever since I moved back to LA, like, I get
lunch with her every now and then and we hang out.
And she said today she's like, Oh, I'm having brunch
at my house. You should bring your mom. I haven't

(04:10):
seen your mom in all these years. Let's all hang out.
And so I brought my mom And it was so funny.
The duty blue moment that happened to me was my
mom and my babysitter. Within like seconds of talking to
each other, they both started crying from like happiness and
overwhelm with like emotion of seeing each other. And it

(04:32):
was just so funny to be like, wow, moms, do
be mom and in front of you, and then just
to be like the like it made me feel like
a kid in that situation because I was like, wow,
both of these women really raised me to like all
genuinely almost an equal degree, And so it was funny
to see them both like queening out with each other.

(04:54):
And by queening out, I do mean crying and affirming
each other. So that was cute.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I love that way. So did you cry?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
I think the reason I think this this feels Judy
Bloom to me is because I didn't cry because I
thought it was so funny that it was happening seconds
into the conversation, just full seconds. Like my babysitter saw
my mom and she's like, I just it's so nice
see you, because like you taught me how to be

(05:23):
a mom and a woman. And my mom was like, no,
because you are the one that made sure that I
could do my job and my kids are so safe.
It's like, oh my gosh, you guys. Literally the door
is still open and you guys are doing this. This
is so sweet and so funny. So yeah, that's moment.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I need to ask you about the uh the Margueritaville
estate sale or whatever you went to.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Thank you so much. So around the corner, my my
friend Pricellda, who's my babysitter. She lives in the valley,
and I was driving to her house and I saw
this huge yard sale and I was like, I gotta
get my hands in this yard sale. Yeah, once we're done.
So it was a huge yard sale, and it became
clear very quickly that the owners of this house or

(06:12):
whoever had recently passed who they were selling their goods
off was a huge parrot head because they had a
shirt from every Margaritaville ever. I know, if you would
answered your text, I would have buy you all.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
It's like, what was I doing that barred me from
seeing that? Because I would have been.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Like, take a photo, take a video.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
I would have gone at it.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
There was I would have bought one if I saw
one that was like really really good, but they were
all pretty standard. I mean, you know, it's just Margaritaville
is as Margaritaville does. But the piece of Margaritaville merch
that I did snack and you can have it if
you want, but if you don't want it, I'll keep it.
But I was thinking of you when I bought it.
I bought a box of Margaritaville Christmas cards, so if

(06:58):
you want to, they're yours.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Well, you know, we do the Bloomhead Chris mixed to
card exchange that so we I don't think we did
it last year, but the past few years before that
we did. And it's great, like a handful of bloom
Heads are like in it to win it. And so
this is what we send Molly.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Perfect genius. And I will say, like my thing has
been buy paper goods by wrapping paper. Buy this stuff
at estate sales because it's so cheap and it's so fun.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I got that. I got some Valentine's Day cards,
I got a bunch of birthday cards. I got a
picture frame, I got two books. I got all that
stuff for like eight books. So a thrill and a joy.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh that sounds like the perfect Saturday.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
It really really was. And now I'm here with you,
so even more Yay.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
All right, uh bloomheads, It's time for us to turn
to you to see what you have to say. And
this is one of the best Judy minudies I've ever read, says.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Hi, Jody and Molly. I'm through by the return of
the pod and loving the addition of Mollie, whom I've
been a rabid fan of ever since she read her
grade school essay about the terrorism. Okay, if you're new
to the pod, which why would you be? I'm new
to the pod, but there was an episode during Styally J.
Friedman where I admitted that in elementary school I wrote

(08:18):
fan fiction about how I could have stop nine to
eleven anyway for mental health reasons. I'm completely off social media.
So I'm not sure if you're still putting out the
call for bloomhead's most Judy bloom moments, but just in case,
here's mine, which might be a little TMI, if there's
such a thing in the Judy verse. As an older bloomhead,
I found it necessary to get pelvic floor physical therapy

(08:41):
without putting too fine a point on it. A recent
cold with a bad cough convinced me to go asap.
A PSA for bloomheads with vaginas, especially those who have
given birth. Cageles really are important. Everybody take a sect,
do them right now. As a part of it, I
have to use these weights for fifteen minutes a few
times a day. Picture a heavier, very smooth silicon tampon

(09:04):
worn as you walk around or stand doing dishes or whatever.
Definitely an indoor sport. I was working from home about
to finish one of my fifteen minute sessions when the
guy was supposed to arrive two hours later to fix
the dishwasher magically appeared early. I was wearing wide leg

(09:26):
pants and I couldn't run to theat. I had to
walk him through the problem, which involved bending over, holding
onto the wait for dear life, desperate to keep it
from possibly escaping and thudding to the ground, and probably

(09:48):
took around three minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
Fortunately I was successful and my physical therapist was very
impressed by my progress. I am convinced the spirit of
Judy with me. Love you all so much and all
you do love and other et cetera. Bloomhead Lisa, w oh, boy,

(10:10):
that's so funny. God bless you and you're tight. Oh
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
But that's impression of a thud on the.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Floor, I know. I like that she included the detail
of wide leg pants in the kitchen, like going down
like elevator, Like.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Oh yeah, there's no skinny jeans stop in that.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
I've always wondered what those weights are like, and you
described it very well, thank you. I always thought they
were a little more like like Bucky balls or something.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, I'm picturing a ball shape myself, but a tampon
seems like much easier to grip.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Like sounds more feminine. I do know of a woman,
a friend's mom, who did too many key goals, like
she kind of got addicted to key goals and now
she has to do pelvic floor therapy to like undo them. Like,
she's too strong down there and it's causing problem.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
So I am making inhuman noises right now. That's so bad,
true life addicted to kig.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Right, Oh, so bad, because you're like the more the better, right.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Oh, got too strong. I'm scared to know how she
found out that she's too strong. I will I will
say one time I was at the guy at college's
office and I get nervous, so I make more and
more jokes and I'm like, so, it's like the weirdest
thing ever happened to you in this job. And she said, oh,

(11:53):
one time, one time a lady shot the speculum across
the room.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Must have been this lady's mom. Holy shit, Oh.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
My god, She's like, get out of here.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, Sonny, God, bless God, bless us all.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Lisa w thank you so much for that much. I
have a letter. This is a very exciting letter, and
you'll find out why. Okay, Hi, Jody and Molly and
maybe Allison if she reads this letters. I'm Atiya pronounced atia.
So the problem here is that there's no like what

(12:44):
syllable do I put the accent on right. It's like
either atia or a tea or a tea. So I
said them all three ways. Hopefully one of those is right.
I'm pretty sure that I am part of the y
B s L Club aka the Youngest Bloom Saloon Listener Club.

(13:04):
I'm fourteen right now, so I'm definitely within the Judy
Prime reading age.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Oh no, a tyah, I'm sorry I said that thing
about type. I don't listen to that.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Look she's made in this car on the pod, she's
heard some things.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
I absolutely adore this podcast and have been listening for
about two ish years now. That means she started when
she was twel but okay, uh two ish years now
after hearing about it from Stuck in Stony Brook. Although
I have been listening for so long, I only recently

(13:41):
joined the Facebook group and have been intending to send
a letter for a while. This podcast has held a
big place of my heart, as Judy's books have. They
have followed me through middle school up to my recent graduation.
I would also like to say that I did a
huge presentation on go ask Al for my book choice
project for my gifted class. Although it wasn't the most

(14:05):
cage appropriate topic throughout the whole thing. Since I was
presenting to six graders at my school. I still think
it was a great book to choose for it. It
was more appropriate than my previous book report, which was
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Oh.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Growing up, my favorite books were Are You There? Got
It to Me? Margaret and Dean, although my favorites are
now Tiger Eyes and Summer Sisters, which I have read
for the past two summers and hope to make an
annual tradition and maybe a trip to Martha's b eventually.
Other books I would suggest would be The Perks of
Being a Wallflower? Oh my god, have you read that, Mollie?

Speaker 4 (14:43):
So?

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I read that when I was like younger than a tea.
I read that when I was like ten years old
because my theater camp boyfriend wanted me to read it,
and that was at that point like the raunchiest book
I had ever read. A lot of section it. I
was so so dumb that I was like, boy, they
misspell organism a lot in this book. So, yeah, that

(15:07):
is a That's a sexy book. I feel like I
get a perfect picture of who a Tia is based
on the stuff they're reading, and yeah, I relate totally.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
She says, thanks for all you do. I love this
podcast and can't wait for upcoming episodes. Sincerely, one of
your youngest listeners, a Tia.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
We hope we don't corrupt you too much, but based
on the books.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
You're reading, like you get one of us. Yeah, oh, welcome,
that's amazing and welcome, and yeah, we hope to hear
from you again as you progress through high school and beyond.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
We are getting into the world. Everybody set the way
back machine way back to nineteen eighty three, because that
is the year that Beginner's Love by Norma Klein comes out. Now, Jodi,
how old are you in nineteen eighty three? Four?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Mmmm mm hmmmm mmm nice? And you were how far
up in the bottom?

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah? I was but a speck of star dust Darling.
I was not even a dwinkle deer.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, yeah, I remember being four like parts of it.
Let's see, I was living in Connecticut. There was a
red carpet in my bedroom, red shag carpet. I played
with my neighbor's cat, who eventually got crushed under the
driveway door.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Oh, I know, it's like all these just you win some.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Awful So nineteen eighty three we're getting a little more
conservative in the US and the UK. We're in the
Reagan years. A Thatcher just got re elected in a
landslide election in the UK. The moral majority is here,
the televangelists are on the rise. There's you know, the
book banning and the free speech backlash and the censorship

(17:22):
of music, and it's a rebellion against the free and
easy seventies. But so that's bad. But the US is
also just coming out of a recession, so things are
looking up on that front. It's a very entertainment and
consumerism heavy year. So there's lots of things that lay

(17:44):
the groundwork for life as we know it today. And
it's pretty crazy how much of nineteen eighty three's innovations
are still a big part of our culture. Whoa like minivans,
Ugh Dodge came out with a caravan, and then we
had the Plymouth Plymouth Voyager and they were a huge
success with the carpools set like suburbanites had never seen

(18:06):
anything like this before. Rant dressing now, so we'll back up.
Ranch dressing had been around for a long while since
about the fifties, but It was always sold in those
powdery packets. It was mail order only by this couple
who like literally lived on Hidden Valley ranch in California. Oh,

(18:27):
so you had to order these packets and mix it
with buttermilk. It was a whole thing. But in nineteen
eighty three, the Chlorox brand, I believe, bought the recipe
for ranch dressing and like made it shelf stable with
all sorts of chemicals so you could get it in
bottles at your grocery store. So this is how America

(18:48):
fell in love with ranch dressing. And then the ranch
craze of like cool Ranch doritos and Ranch dip and
all the things continued throughout the eighties.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
God bless thank you for your service.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Les Hot take though. I do not like cool Ranch
at all, Oh do you?

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah? Okay, I love it. Oh.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
I was like, give me an orange dourrito any day.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, I will say, if you give me a choice,
I would prefer the orange the nacho cheese dury. But yeah, ah,
cool Ranch. Not be mad about it, okay.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
The Disney Channel started in nineteen eighty three. It was
available on Basic cable and the very first airing was
a show called Good Morning Mickey and it was like
a you know, a mashup of classic cartoons. But also
they were airing the old Mickey Mouse Club reruns, like
the black and white ones, and then some new shows

(19:40):
like Welcome to Pooh Corner, which was a live action
and puppet situation.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Ooh, I've never heard of this.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Let me look at me neither. It sounds great. I
love puppets, Mouser Size, which is a fitness show for children,
and uh, this show sounded very cool to me. It
was basically like news dispatches from Epcot Center. Was obsessed
with Epcot Center when I was a kid, Like Epcot

(20:07):
everything was like the height of chic. Yeah, okay, chicken McNuggets.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Everything I love.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, these were so revolutionary for McDonald, so popular. Mollie
as a McNugget fan, do you know the names of
the different nugget shapes?

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yes, there's the boot. That's the only one I know
because that's my favorite one.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Okay, Oh, because you bite off the like the little
foot part.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah. I like how you can like kind of kick
it in the saws and then eat it. It's like
the boot the round and I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
So the ball, it's probably the round one, and then
the bow.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Tie, the boot tie.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh wait, and then there's a bell. And I'm an
idiot because I never realized that they were all like
uniform shapes.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Oh that's horrifying but also terrific. Yeah, I think if
I have my brothers, I would like a boot or
a bone one is a bone shape the bow tie,
So the bow tie I think is interchangeably called a
bone because I'm looking at pictures and it says that.
But yeah, yeah, you know what my party trick is.

(21:23):
If I don't have time to make something to bring
to a party, I just get that like twenty McNuggets
and I arrange it on a lovely tray and I
bring it to a party on a lovely tray. It's
fun to bring.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Okay, maybe you can answer this. What are the dips
they have in this year of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, they have your regular BBQ. You got a ranch.
They have like a siracha ranch. Now that's pretty good.
They have a like for a little while, or we're
having the Seguan sauce. There are a bunch. I'm not
a frequenter, but yeah, they have a bunch of different kinds.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, well they started off with barbecue sauce, sweet and
sour sauce, hot mustard, and honey dip. And I'll have
to play some audio. But there's a wild employee training video,
Oh God, like introducing trainees to the McNugget and you'll

(22:22):
love this. It's food puppets.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
And my two favorite things.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Mm hmm. But it's a little bit racist and a
little bit sexy with because everyone.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Only one of those is my favorite thing.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
And then there's like, I don't know, it's a little much,
but very nineteen eighty three. All right, all right, and
I love this quote. One of the McDonald's execs said,
the four shapes we make the chicken nuggets in was
the perfect equilibrium of adaptability and fun. Three would have
been too few, five would have been like wacky, relax.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Hey they sound pretty good.

Speaker 5 (23:03):
Interesting. Well, if you guys are all made the same way,
how come you all look so different? Ah, that's because
we are different. We give you a choice of four
special sauces, and each one of them makes us taste
a little bit different.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Our sauces.

Speaker 5 (23:19):
They got four sauces. I wonder what they could be.
It's like we go through a whole personality change. Take Bobby,
for example, No regular McNugget now, but one dip in
that barbecue sauce and our chick on some tang.

Speaker 6 (23:37):
Here.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
Hey looks pretty good now, doesn't it. Yeah, great idea
barbecue sauce, and we got the sauces that'll take you
on a trip from the wild West to the far East.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Bagatto seu mcnuggat shame sweetman surace sauce. No here to
please mc donald frames. They're shutting here.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
It's called god shilla. Hey, fantastic sweetened sour sauce. Oh
why barbecue sauce, sweetened sour sauce. What else you got, McNugget. Well,
I got a sauce here and can turn old Sam
into a samurai.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Honey, I get the Gota callee.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
Ouh hot mustard sauce. Fantastic hot mustard. What a great idea.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
Barbecue sauce, sweet and sour, hot mustard. Gee, you said.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
You had another one McNugget.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
That's right, honey.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was just a plain.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
Jeane until I took my first dap in a soufle
coup filled with honey.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Goodbye. I love y'all very much.

Speaker 7 (24:54):
Wowye woa, wow, wow, were's a puppet?

Speaker 1 (24:59):
All right? In boring news, Microsoft word came out. Uh
the floppy disc came bundled with a mouse, so that
was exciting. And they were even given away with PC
World magazine. What Mario Brothers. It was a spinoff from
Donkey Kong and uh so Mario Brothers was first an

(25:21):
arcade game, but then quickly became a home console game
from the Nintendo Home System, which was called Famicom. And
this was a precursor to the nes which came out
a little bit later. And I didn't know this. Originally,
Mario and Luigi were meant to be carpenters.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Oh how do they get into plumbery?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I wonder Well, the developers felt that their mustaches made
them look more like plumbers instead.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh no, it's race Oh god.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh and Mario's original name was jump Man.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
That sounds like such a like uh oh, we have
to go to lunch soon. Draft it's like his name.
It's uh, well, it's jump Man, all right, get out
of here done.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
He does jump.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
They do be jumping.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
The Internet as we know it really came about in
nineteen eighty three. There's a bunch of technical stuff and
like protocols and abbreviations. I don't understand, but I know
that things happened in nineteen eighty three. Decisions were made
that made the Internet a thing that it wasn't before.
So thank you. CD players. Yeah, they had been commercially

(26:43):
available in Japan for a few months already, but in
nineteen eighty three they came to US shores. I bet
I'm having a lot of crossover with your culture.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Okay, So, but the thing I looked up was that
the first CD player you could buy was like seven
hundred and fifty dollars. Oh my god. Yeah, so you
had to really want it.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Speaking of expensive consumer electronics, cell phones came around. It
was the Motorola Dine Attack and it was the brick phone.
Like everyone knows the brick phone. It weighed two pounds,
but you know it did the job. You could call internationally,
and now people could stand outside and yell into their

(27:29):
phones and show people how rich they are. Cool because
it costs twelve thousand dollars in today's money, that's crazy, yes, okay.
And it took ten hours to charge, oh jeez. And
it had thirty minutes of talk time, So the phone

(27:49):
had been around like in production. But nineteen eighty three
was a landmark because the first consumer level call was
made from Chicago to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell,
who was in Germany. And I'm just dying to know
what they talked about. How's the weather?

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Like?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
They could probably relate on a hot dog level.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
On a hot dog.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh, I feel like Chicago loves hot dogs. Germany loves
hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, bang.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Bang boom, that's what they're talking. That's a conversation.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
They definitely talked about hot dogs. You're so smart. I
have a couple more things, Martin Luther King Junior Day.
This is the year became a federal holiday after years
of trying to get it passed through. But I didn't
realize this. This is nuts. It wasn't until the year
two thousand when it was formally observed by all states.

(28:42):
Oh my wow, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Boy, we got a three for for racism already in
the episode. Yeah great.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Two more things. Hooters. Yay, Do you have Hooters content
for me? No?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh, I just think that like in the way that
you would be interested in a yard sale full of
Margaritaville t shirts. I would love to find like a
thrifted Hooters shirt. Yeah, I would wear the shit out
of that. I just I'd love when things are kitchy
and sexy at the same time.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yes, would you wear the short shorts too little orange ones?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Of course I would. I would wear the like tan
nude tights with the like chunky tennis shoes. I love
that aesthetic. I love it.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Six dudes in Florida opened Hooters. It was an April
Fool's Day joke. They specifically chose the location because it
had already had like several failed restaurants and they thought
it would be a flop and just like so funny. Uh, Hooters,
I guess is still around. They did file Chapter eleven

(29:53):
bankruptcy earlier this year. But I'm like, who goes to Hooters?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I met someone in LA who said they biked all
the way from LA to Long Beach to go to
the Hooters, just as like a little fun side quest.
So I know at least two lesbians from Silver Lake
who did it recently.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
I can see that.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yes, I love a themed place. I'll go to almost
any themed place.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
So yeah, I want to go to a rainforest cafe.
So bad. And then lastly, I want to tell you
about the rise of Saturday morning cartoons.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Oh I also wrote something on this this is great.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Okay, well I'll let.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
You no, no, no, do it, dude, do it? No no, no,
go ahead. Okay.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
So we have the Reagan era deregulation of kids TV programming,
and that changed everything. So Reagan did not like anything
that stood in the way of unfettered business.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Boy, wonder what it would be like to have a
president like that. Sounds bad?

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Mm hmmm. He undid decades of rules and regulations that
limited advertising to kids. Basically, pre nineteen eighty three, cartoons
couldn't be seen as selling anything. Shows that also had
merch were viewed as commercials by the FCC, and they
were in jeopardy of being pulled off air. I mean

(31:15):
a lot of shows kind of found the loopholes and
the little workarounds, but in general, you couldn't be selling
things to kids. But after deregulation, the number of cartoons
with you know, licensed partnerships with toy companies and serial companies,
they rose three hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
This is like ya Gi Joe's Yah man's.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yes, And I didn't think about this, but it makes
so much sense that the storylines and the characters all
became super formulaic, and it was all like good versus Evil,
nothing too weird or innovative, because they had to adhere
to the brand standards of the toy company and they
were very, very cautious in Vanilla.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
But I will say the thing that I love about
that is, I don't know, have you ever seen this
Netflix show. It's several years old now. It's called The
Toys That Made Us?

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, it's like episodes, right, h I think.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
I've seen like good But they talk about like the
Masters of the Universe toys and Transformers toys and Gi Joe's.
And the thing I find so charming is that they're
like toys written by like copywriters and designers. And to me,
that sounds like the juiciest, tastiest, most fun job to

(32:34):
just be like, Okay, write a storyline for this cartoon.
What's his backstory? What does he look like? What does
he do? Go? Go, go, go go. So I'm chasing
the perceived high of that era, even though I know
it's bad to market to kids. I know it's not
good I want to be a copywriter in the eighties,
so best.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
No, that does seem really fun. I read or I
watched or I don't know. I somehow I'll found out
about how the Strawberry Shortcake was formed and it was
from greeting cards. Yeah, it was. It's just a big machine.
But that's what made us like, that's what we viewed
as quality programming. And but it makes sense why, you know,

(33:17):
we look back on shows from the seventies and we
were like, that's weird, like the sit and Marty Kroft
stuff and all the like trippy puppets and weirdo things.
And it's because like they were free to innovate and
you know, break the norm. And once we got to
the eighties, it was very h straight and narrow.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, but I mean there was still some good kids
Stevie happening in the In nineteen eighty three, that's also
the year that Reading Rainbow came out. Yes, one of
my favorite shows, Fraggle Rock came out. So yeah, I
love Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton as someone who I
would be just so starstruck to be, like to the

(34:00):
point of apoplexy. I couldn't talk to him, but I
would love to meet him as a peer. I would
love to meet him as a as a peon. I
don't care. I love LeVar Burtons so much. In terms
of non cartoon TV shows, there was The A Team,
The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, and then in

(34:21):
nineteen eighty three, The Mash Finale aired, and this continues
to be the most viewed television episode of all time.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
It was viewed.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, it was viewed by one hundred and five point
nine million viewers. Sorry, it was unseated by the twenty
ten Super Bowl, but it only edged out by like
one million more viewers. But for a long time.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
While, because we just have more people in the world
today and more people with access to TVs, So it
doesn't seem like the per capita adds, you know what
I mean, it doesn't feel fair.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Well, I wonder if it's that like now that things
are streaming, like people are watching things asynchronously. Yeah, Like
I feel like the only thing we would have been
able to clock is like who all watched like the
Game of Thrones finale?

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Maybe I don't know, but I think that's pretty cool
that that was, Like whoa that is a big thing
that happened.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
How did it end? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
If you think I'm gonna spoil Mash on this podcast,
You're wrong. I don't know, Okay, Okay, I do know
that it was like it wasn't canceled or anything. Like
they decided to go out like on a high, which
I kind of love when shows do that. So yeah,
that's pretty cool. Uh, that's all I have for TV.

(35:52):
Now for movies, So the top movies of nineteen eighty three,
number one top movie of nineteen eighty three is my
favorite Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi. Hmmm. And
that made two hundred and fifty million opening and converted
to today, that's nearly seven hundred million. Whoa, It is
a huge deal. And then if you think about it,

(36:14):
that was nineteen eighty three. There wouldn't be a new
Star Wars movie until like the Oughts. Let me see,
when did Phantom Menace come out? Oh?

Speaker 1 (36:22):
I think it was like ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, yeah, nineteen ninety nine, So it would be that
long before a new Star Wars came out, and so
that's a pretty big gap.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
But I love Return of the Jedi so much, So
that's cool. Let's see, we got TUTSI, we got Flash Dance,
et The Big Chill, all these huge movies. It's a
pretty good year for movies. Also a good year for music.

(36:56):
We've Got Every Breath You Take by the Police, Flash
Dance Slash, what a Feeling from Flash Dance, also Maniac,
which is my favorite Flash Dance song, which I used
to sing at karaoke as a youth. And if you
like Flash Dance, I think you should listen to the
episode of the podcast You Must Remember This in the
Erotic Eighties series about Flash Dance. It's really really good.

(37:19):
That whole series is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Oh I missed that. The Erotic Eighties series.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Oh, they're so good. They do erotic eighties and erotic
nineties and it's about how portrayals of sex in media
kind of says a lot about where we are sexually
as a culture. Is so good. Every episode is so
smart and so funny and sexy and fun. So yeah,
this is.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
A perfect partnership with us going through begins las.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
It is so you heard it here listen to You
Must Remember This. Erotic Eighties and Erotic Nineties is good too,
but less thematically relevant. More top music. We have Billy
Jean by Michael Jackson, Total Eclipse of the Heart by
Bonnie Tyler. That's another karaokey song that I see people do.

(38:11):
And then in general pop culture things, Cats wins best
Musical at the Tonys. Oh Cats, Cats. I go through
such phases. Sometimes I'm like, Cats so fun, I adore it,
and then sometimes I'm like, you get away from me.
But there there are moments Cats. Cats has its moments.

(38:32):
If I can say one thing about it, it hads
its moments.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
It has its moments. We performed skimbal Shanks the Railway
Cat in seventh grade. Oh my god, I still remember
all the words.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
They're gonna do a revival of Cats. I think it's next,
I think. And it's called like Cats the Jellicle Ball,
and it's instead of everyone being literal cats, they're going
to be sort of like eighties ball culture, like Paris's
burning style, and redo the choreography that way, and redo

(39:08):
the music a little bit that way. And that sounds amazing.
Some one is really good badly, So Cats is gonna
Cats is gonna have its day. We thought it was
done after twenty twenty, but it's kind of come back
in a major way.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
So that's incredible news.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, what else other pop culture things? Uh, David Copperfield
made the Statue of Liberty disappear on tv YE. I
watched it and was also astounded, and then I watched
the explainer and was still very impressed.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
It was like, the audience move.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Don't listen to this if you don't want the statue
of Liberty being disappeared spoiled. But yes, you're right. It's
like they had two curtains on either side of the statue,
and what they did is like they had the audience
on a thing that tilted them a little bit, so
one of the curtains covered the statue. It was moving slow,

(40:06):
so slowly they couldn't perceive the movement. But that's cool
as hell. I love that. Yes, And as someone who
has just recently gone to Las Vegas, I can tell
you David Cropperfield still doing shows. And then like last
couple little duties, Alice Walker is the first black woman
to get a Pulitzer Prize for the color purple. That's cool.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. And
I know that because that was my like history report
when I was in fifth grade, and my mom and
dad were so nice because you had to do the
report in costume. Actually, thinking back, did you have to
do it at costume or did I just decide to
do it at costume? Unclear? All I do know is

(40:53):
that my mom and dad bought me a jumpsuit and
sewed NASA patches onto it and I went into school
like that that day and that was awesome. So that's
so cute.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, wait, you didn't make a Sally Ride cake.

Speaker 7 (41:08):
You know.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
It might have been the same year as the main cake,
so I was really on one in terms of reports
that year, I guess. Oh geez, yes, that's all like
the pop culture stuff that I had. But wow, what
a fun year.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
It is a fun year, like despite the Reagan and
the Thatcher and the Cold War and all that stuff, Like,
this was the year that I feel like the eighties
started to feel like the eighties.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I love it. And speaking of things I love, let
me just give you a quick rundown on the little
things that I was able to find out about Norma Clin.
Norma Cline kind of hard to research, and you guys
ran into this problem before.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah we did, but before okay, shout out bloom had Karen.
Karen was a huge, huge Norma had, and I believe
she I have. This was I think like twenty nineteen
when we did domestic arrangements. But Karen had written us

(42:11):
with correspondence she had with Norma like she was a collago.
I to go back and look at Karen's messages, but
she gave us some good intel and that was basically
all we had.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
That's so cool. Please send it to me so I
can put it on our Instagram. The things I found
interesting from what I was able to learn about Norma
Klein is that she lived in New York most of
her life. She has a degree in Russian, which is interesting.
I thought that was cool. She's forty four when this
book comes out, but unfortunately she dies in nineteen eighty nine,

(42:48):
so she only lives like six years after this book.
Isn't that so sad?

Speaker 1 (42:54):
So sad? I knew she died young, but I couldn't
and it was like a brief illness, but like, yeah,
is it? Do we know?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Well? I saw that there is a Norma Cline obituary
in the New York Times, but it is behind a
pro wall. So if any Bluehead wants to gift us
that article, please or get it and take screenshots. I
desperately want to read it, so let me know. But yeah,
I think that'll be like you said when we were off, Mike,
I think that'll be like the project of this book

(43:24):
is like, let's learn more about Norma Cline as we
read Beginner's Love.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah. I think we are both very good internet sleuths.
We just need a little more time and a little
more Yeah, just more time, give us time.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
I'm gonna call this series. Okay, I have two pitches
for the names of the series. Would you like us
to call us? Oh? Oh, mining for Kline is one
name for the series? Or the other one is Paranorma
Investigation And and in this in this sense, and let

(44:01):
me just put further pitch on in that sense, it's
it's it's not like Para like oh like extra, it's
it's bada like in Spanish. So it's actually for Norma Investigation.
So those are the two options. One okay on Norma Investigation.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Parah Norma. Oh my god, how do you do it?

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Molly?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
You just two options? Just like that? Amazing?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
And I was doing a Cagel the whole time. Okay,

(44:54):
so it took me a while to understand this, but
I believe the person who's nary is Joel. Joel is
a boy, uh, and he's seventeen. Then we have Burger,
who is also seventeen. He's Joel's best friend. He's a
wanna be actor, and he's a current Riz Master Supreme,

(45:18):
which we'll get into. I know they're like, Burger is
a redheaded boy, and I'm like, sure, sure, sure. All
I can picture is Burger from Sex and the City,
who is Ron Livingston, So I will be picturing him
as Ron Livingston until.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Okay, I'm guchling. I'm like, wait, who's that?

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, Burger, Burger Sex in the City, are you not
a Sex in the City head. I did watch it,
but you don't have the mental illness I have where
I remember every single thing about every single episode.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Oh no, I'm the opposite. I watch something like three
times and then I can't tell you a thing about it.
But okay, Burger, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
That's who I'm picturing for Burger.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
And then we also have Hope, which is Burger's a
eleven year old sister. Then we have Knox, who is
Joel's lawyer, thirty plus year old brother who fucks around.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Wait he's a he's an oral surgeon.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Oh he's a I'm sorry, he's an oral surgeon.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Or wait, does your version have him as aition adjusted
for inflation?

Speaker 2 (46:18):
No, he's an oral surgeon. And oh, I'm sorry. I
was confused because Burger's dad is a lawyer. Maybe he's
an oral surgeon anyhow.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Then we have Leda who is blonde, wears a black hat,
is feisty, and a knitter age unclear. And Danielle her friend,
who has long dark hair. So that's the rogues gallery
we have going in this first chapter. I'll take the

(46:50):
first half of the first chapter. Also, this book is
dedicated to Richard Peck, who is a y a novelist
that's a content temporary of both Judy and Norma, and
he got the Newberry Metal in two thousand and one
for his novel A Year Down Yonder. It's fun to notice.

(47:10):
I think it's like very Judy thing to shout out
another author in your book. And it's cute that Norma
does that too.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, it makes me wonder like were they friends in
real life?

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Where they I know what I tried to find it,
find it all. The closest I found was actually Judy
talking about authors she likes, and she mentions Richard Peck
and Norma Klein in the same breath. So when we
do our Pada Norma investigation, maybe we'll find a link there.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
See, the problem with calling it pada normal is like
I can't. I have a tongue thing where I can't
roll my rs.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
So maybe we need to call it mining for clin Okay,
we'll call it mining.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Oh God, Okay, we'll figure it out. Maybe I'll just
practice my trill.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Okay. So chapter one starts out with a really good
first sentence, and I love a good first sentence. The
first sentence is my best friend Berger is in love
with Brooke Shield's eyebrows.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
I'm hooked, hooked, And.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Then the second sentence is even nicer, goes He says,
if he ever meets a girl with eyebrows like that,
he's going to marry her or anyway fall madly in
love with her. It's so good. And also sidebar, this
is triggering to me because I've had thick eyebrows in
my whole life. I used to get bullied for them.
But now they're back in style. But one time, this

(48:34):
stupid comedian boy came out to me and he goes, hey, Molly,
I want to start an eyebrow podcast about women with
beautiful eyebrows. And I was like, oh, thanks for thanks
for talking to me about about that, and he goes, yeah, anyway,
can you ask your friend Sam if she'll be on it? Motherfucker? No,

(48:55):
how are you You wanted Sam's eyebrows, not mine. That
was of great eyebrows, Thank you, And to Sam's credit,
she has good eyebrows too. But that made me mad
and it remains making me mad. So anyway, Burger and
Joel know each other because they're in the same high school.

(49:16):
But it's like a it's a high school that encapsulates
middle school as well, and it just recently started to
be a co ed school. But the only class that's
co ed so far is like fifth grade, so like
it must be that they just started incorporating that rule.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
I think the sixth graders were co ed too, because
they say something really weird about sixth graders.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yes, I will read it to you. It's really gross.
This makes me dislike Joel right away. So they talk
about so they're talking about how the school is integrated,
and they say the trouble is the way they're doing it.
They started at fifth grade, which is where the school begins,
so now only co ed grades are up through six

(50:02):
Maybe when we're about thirty, they'll have gotten around having
girls in the last year of high school, which is
where we'll be this year. Some of the sixth grade
girls aren't bad, but they aren't much older than Hope
you look more at them and realize that by the
tiny graduate college some of them may be terrific. Now listen,

(50:22):
when I was a sixth grader, did I hope high
school seniors were looking at me like this? Absolutely As
a thirty three year old woman, I'm like, get away
from these children. Nasty. Yeah, Atiya, don't ever, ever ever
let a high school boy oogle you. They have no
good intentions, Atiya, you are too good for them. Oh. So,

(50:49):
Burger and Joel are like trying to do something on
these last days of summer. So they go to go
see a movie. And this is how Joel Friend of
the Year, describes his friend Burger. He's around ten pounds
overweight and well not ugly, but no one would ever

(51:09):
suggest he enters a Robert Redford lookalike, contexts shut up,
he's so meat me. But what I like is that
he says this about Burger in the context of Burger
is always out to prowl with the gals. He said.
He talks to girls wherever he happens to be, whether

(51:30):
he knows them or not, and sometimes that can be embarrassing.
But I will tell you right now, those are my
kind of men. I love these like goofy, friendly dudes,
and I always have liked that, And I do think
that's like half the battle in meeting someone in the
real world. It's like you just can't be embarrassed to
talk to anybody. You just kind of got to talk

(51:51):
to everybody.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
So they're at the movies. They're gonna see the movie
Endless Love. Have you seen this movie?

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Jody?

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yes, Oh you have seen it. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Well, because of the Bloom Saloon. So we were reading
some book talking about the pop culture and the music
that came out that year. So maybe it was nineteen
eighty two or something, and the song my Endlessnusses that
was like number one, And then al was saying that

(52:24):
she had seen the movie, and I was like, I've
never seen the movie. So then I found it and
watched it, and it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
It seems crazy. I just watched the trailer and read
the Wikipedia, and I was like, how is this a movie?

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Endless love? When they were together, it felt as if
the outside world no longer existed, never stopped living, but
it did. I don't know what to do about this.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
I'm so happy to you you say that you're always
so definite with the children. Let's all be open about sex. Wow,
they certainly got the idea.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Damn it, that's not fair.

Speaker 7 (53:11):
The girl is fifteen years old. I don't want that, David.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
You and Jane won't be seeing each other for a while.
You can't do this want you're out.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
What the hell's going on?

Speaker 4 (53:34):
I started the fire.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I set fire to the house.

Speaker 7 (53:55):
And that k company and knee or anybody in my
family ever again. I'll tell them. You got to get
me out of here. I'm holding on day by day.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
It was a once in a lifetime thing, David, But
you have to let it go.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Brookshields, Martin Hewitt. Endless loves.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Harm.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
If love existed in the world the way it does
in the mind, it would last forever.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
And that's also base on a nineteen seventy nine novel.
But listen to the tagline for Endless Love. The tagline
is She's fifteen, he's seventeen, The love every Parrot fears,
which is funny because the tagline for Norma Kline Beginner's
Love is Joel is seventeen, shy and inexperienced. Lida has

(55:22):
a lot to teach him. And the person who was
reading Beginner's Love in fudge Mania is he who was
way older than Peter. So these authors are like, listen,
this is a book about age gap romance. Make no
mistake about this. We're telling you every way we can
possibly tell you.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
That's such a good point.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
And also Brookshields was sixteen in this movie. Oh like
in real life, Yeah for.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Brookshields, and that was I mean like she was an
old maid at this point in her sexy filmmaking. Yeah.
I read the Bookshieldsygraphy autobiography that came out. Oh, very
eye opening.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Poor Brookshields. Well, anyway, these two ya, who's are gonna
go see this movie? And in sort of Burger's gig
of talking to all these girls, he notices that two
girls come and sit right in front of them. And
one of the girls has blonde hair and a black
felt hat, and one of them has long, dark hair.

(56:28):
And so this is how the riz master does it.
The girls sit in front of the two boys. Burger
lean forward and tap the shoulder of the girl at
the hat. Uh, miss, do you think you could take
your hat off during the show? My friend here has
a seeing problem?

Speaker 1 (56:44):
What kind of problem? Where's his dog?

Speaker 2 (56:49):
I didn't see it was blind. He just can't see
through hats.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Tough move, then.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Real, sweetie, I guess she can't take your hat off
because she's gonna go bald at an early age. They
say girls who are on the pill start going bald
really early.

Speaker 8 (57:07):
They say boys who are too ugly to pick up
girls start getting softening of the brain in their teens.
Some of them can't even get into colleges like the
University of Southern Vermont.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
And listen, I know there's a zing there. Yeah, what
is the thing is happening? But I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
I don't either. Is it like like it t tech?

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Oh gosh, I wonder that's funny. I'll have to look
into that. But yeah, I like And also I think
she could have been a little smoother with the delivery.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
It was a little bit of a rambling comeback, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Which I relate to sometimes it's real you can't think
of it fast enough. But Cilia kind of like flirting
and doing this thing about the hat, and then the
movie starts. Joel's says, the movie is so boring, Like
he almost didn't notice that the sound had cut out
at a certain point because he just thought like it
was a quiet part in the movie. But eventually they

(58:10):
realized that, like, the soundtrack is off and the movie
is still going. The blonde girl with the hat gets
out knitting from her bag and starts knitting in the dark.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Yes, I love this amazing.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Uh. But eventually Burger takes matters into his own hands
and he walks up into the front of the theater.
He jumps up on the stage and he puts his
hands like a megaphone. Can everybody hear me?

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Oh no, now what?

Speaker 2 (58:43):
I just want everyone to keep calm, no need to panic.
The show be on in a couple of minutes. We're
having a few technical difficulties. Keep it cool, folks. I
just have a few words from the management. Would anybody
in a hat in the theater. Please remove it at once.
It's not that we want to inhibit your movements, just
health regulations.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Whom it him out?

Speaker 2 (59:07):
So when's the show gonna start? I told you just
be patient, okay, And while we're waiting, I'm gonna act
out some of your favorite scenes from the movies. There
was a whistle do it? Yeah? Go ahead?

Speaker 4 (59:22):
That was bad.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
That's why I gotta do keggls woo woo. No, how
about the sex scenes? Why not? And Burger starts taking
his shirt off. If you've got a great body, why
not show it? As Miss Piggy says, Now, all I

(59:47):
need is a little help from the audience. Is there
a young lady out there who'd like to join me?
Don't be bashful, girls. You don't have to look like
Brooke Shields though if you do, that's okay too. So
uh hey, Blondie, you with the knitting? Can you act?

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
I don't believe this? Shut up and get off the stage?
Will you shirk?

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Okay? So I'll act out the scenes by myself. It's
more fun with the girl. But and eventually they stop him.
Hilarious would have worked on me? Yeah? Yeah, oh love it?
And this is the description that Joel gives of the

(01:00:33):
blonde girl. He says, actually, she was small and not
that sexy looking neck down. I hate Joel so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, Burger is the cool one here for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Burger is the rizzler. I love him. Joel ruminates on
there was like a nude scene in the movie, and
he's like, they didn't even use Brooks Shields. They used
a stand in, which like, yeah, Brooke Shield's already been
naked in movies and exploited already, like watch any of
those movies, freak. And so he's like pissed about that.

(01:01:10):
But then they're chatting to the girls and that kind
of comes up, and Burger asked like, wait, if that
wasn't Brooks Piel Shields, whose body was it. And the
blonde girl says, oh, it was me because she's flirting
with them. Yeah, you would totally know it was me
because of my birthmark. And Burger's like, where is it?

(01:01:32):
And she's like, oh, I don't show it on a
first date, like oh, oh, we're on a date. Now
a date, go to a coffee shop. The blonde girl
is Lida and the brunette is Danielle. Now tody. Do
you know the Greek myth of Lida and the Swans.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
I looked it up because I knew that there was
something there and I am appalled.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Yeah, so if you don't know, and I am a
certified Greek mythology girly. Thus story of the in mythology
of Lyda and the Swan is there's this beautiful Spartan
queen Lida, and Zeus wants to be with her, and
instead of asking nicely, Zeus transforms himself into a swan

(01:02:15):
and depending on who you ask, assaults or consensually beast
realities Lida and she lays eggs and those become. One
of the eggs is Helen of Troy. And so that's
why Helen of Troy is so beautiful. It's because she
comes from like the most beautiful woman and the most

(01:02:37):
beautiful bird. God so yucky.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
I did go to Google images because I was like,
I want to see this hard. It made me feel dirty.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Yeah, there are some that are straight up like beak
in a lady and it's yucky. This reminds me of
the time in college where there was a girl in
one of my classes named Elektra and when they were
taking role. The teacher was like, oh, Elektra, what a
beautiful name, and she goes, like you would if you

(01:03:10):
had this name your whole life. She goes, thanks, My
dad thinks, so hilarious, that's the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Best possible answer.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
So Lyda in this book has a has a canned
answer too, Oh man.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
So Lyda is on one about how Brookshields can act
for shit, how models should never ever be allowed to act.
They suck, YadA, YadA, YadA. She I think she fancies
herself a connoisseur up the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Or just like that very specific weird brand of like
toxic feminism that is like mad at really pretty women
who have careers being on really pretty. I mean, I
feel like we felt that in a huge way in
like the nineties, in like reaction to the big supermodel

(01:04:04):
blitz of the nineties. So it's like this has always
been kind of a shade of feminism that is icky
but pervasive.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
I think, totally quiet. Danielle pipes up, and she said
that she thought the book was better. We hear a
little bit about Leita's looks, Like you said, she's got blonde,
curly hair, round face, freckles. Here's the best part though,
she's wearing these two pins on her shirt. Yes, and

(01:04:32):
one says he's cute, but can he type? The others
says castrate rapists?

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Oh I want both of these buttons.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
I And also, like, what a funny cool thing to
include to a character who's like named after a character
that was assaulted.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Castright swan rapists. She's drinking hot chocolate at the coffee shop.
It's like eighty degrees out. I immediately thought of missus
A and her hot coco, like they should be friends.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
After they're done with the cokes and coco, the gals
get on their bikes because they're gonna bike home, and
the guys talk about getting a cab, but not until
there's a near exchange. Oh did we mention they're all
in New York?

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
No, but I didn't know that until this page, So
it's okay to mention it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Now, Okay, Yeah, So they live in New York. I
forgot which area of New York Upper something side.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
I'll tell you they live. So the boys live on
Central Park West and eighty fourth Street, and Joel lives
on seventy fourth So I don't know what that's called geographically.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
But if you do, let us know Upper West Side.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
I guess yes. Is it gossip Girl?

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
What must ask ourselves? Is it gossip Girl?

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Is it gossip Girl?

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Is it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Broad City? Where are they?

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Okay? Oh so that's right on the edge of Central Park.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Holy shit, isn't that where the hattress livet they live?

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
I want it? Are the Upper east Side?

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Oh, we're gonna have to do a bloom hab map
because I forget, but please Okay, So street view is
showing me that it's still very residential, some great old
decoee looking apartments, very cute, tree lined. Yeah, these kids

(01:06:32):
are rich.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Eh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
So Burger's so casual. He's like, give us your numbers
in case we find ourselves free one night. Like he
is so cool, smooth, sounds like there's no writing these
numbers down. They're just memorizing them because it's not until later.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Oh yeah, you're right, it's not until they leave that
he writes it down.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Yeah, so the girls leave, and then he quickly takes
out a pencil, like what was that a thing where
it was like not cool if you wrote down the number.
I don't know, but it's great. They have Lida's number.
Joel's a little bum that they didn't get Danielle's number.
He's assuming it sounds like that Lida is Burger's girl

(01:07:15):
and Danielle is his. And I wrote down this part
because I thought it was interesting. He said of Burger,
he always thinks about whether he likes them. I always
think about whether they like me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
This is so interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, and it's it made me think, are we all
either one or the other of those people?

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Well, I know from having been dating and been in
therapy that like you should kind of be thinking about
that first one. Yeah, a lot. And I think for
myself as like a people pleaser. Sometimes I'm like, damn,
they liked the hell out of me. This is great, amazing.

(01:08:00):
I aced this date and then been like, wait a minute,
do I like that person? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:08:04):
Was?

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
I just like on So I feel lately like I'm
the first half, the first half, but it took a
while to get there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
So the people that are in column ah, I mean,
I'm sure some are born like that, but I feel
like most people are column bedes and then they work
at being called them as Yeah, that's good. We were
talking offline about how I'm into secret lives of Mormon wives,
and a couple of the women on there, you know,
they all get married when they're like nineteen, and they're

(01:08:37):
half of them are in really shitty relationships and they
don't realize it. And a couple of them were, you know,
we're asked, what's your favorite thing about your husband or
what do you why do you love your husband? And
they were saying things like, oh, because no one's ever
loved me as much as he has. Oh no, And
I'm like, okay, girl, you are twenty two, so yeah,

(01:08:58):
give it a sec given a minute. But also, don't
you really like you're supposed to be saying things like
I love his sense of humor. He makes me laugh,
he you know, like yeah, it just it made me
so mad and so sad.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
I wonder I would be interested what men think about this,
because I do think there's a lot in like how
young women are conditioned to think about dating in like, oh,
you gotta like catch you gotta catch one, and you
have to be on this like relationship escalator, and that's
what matters, not necessarily the specifics. So I think if

(01:09:35):
you have that mindset, it's like, oh, I'm not allowed
to have a preference, really, because I'm supposed to get married,
I'm supposed to have a boyfriend, I'm supposed to have
a family. So if you think that, like, it doesn't
matter if he's funny or whatever. And so I think
generations of women have been kind of socially conditioned to
be like, if somebody is nice to you and they

(01:09:55):
like you, that's all that matters. Right, No, plenty of
people are nice to me and me that I'm not
attracted to.

Speaker 5 (01:10:03):
You.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
You deserve to pick someone you really like and you're
it's okay. And also on the flip side too, it's
like you're allowed to reject people that are perfectly nice
that you're not attracted to. You don't owe every nice
man a shot, you just don't. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Oh that's such a good reminder.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
A Tiya, are you listening. That's a teaching We need
to have our a Tia corner.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Yeah, ta a corner and we can.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Teach her all things like not even book related, to
be like, Atiya, this is how you file income taxes?

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
Yeah, I'm like, I don't even know how to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Yeah. Actually I can't teach you that I'm the wrong person,
but I do know they price match online prices at
Old Navy. So if you ever shot life tip, that's
a life tip for you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
So Joel says to Burger, what do you think of
the dark haired one?

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Great figure? Kind of quiet?

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
How could you tell? What about her figure?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
What do you mean? How could I tell?

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Well, she had a loose shirt on. So you're really
gonna ask her out?

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Sure? Why not?

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
She didn't seem to like boys that much.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Yea, that's just snicked. She probably goes down like a
wounded water buffalo. Oh oh what does that mean? Nice? Also,
if I was his friend in that moment, I'd be like, now,
hold up, what are you flying?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Let's talk this through.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
What I think he's saying is like the sound like
a water buffalo might groan in a way that sounds
like a sex sound. Maybe. Oh, but I think it's generous.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
That's very creative.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
You.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
I took it more like like she goes down, Like, yeah,
she goes down on you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Yeah, it's like you know how like water buffalos are
great at giving it, but like a.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Wounded a wounded water buffalo will just go down.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Oh I'm just optive word never mind, that's correct. Oh
my god, I'm so dumb. So I mean he means
she's fall Oh, I'm stupid, like she's like falling down
on the date. Oh, I get it. I'm dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
No, I mean, who knows, because that is the weirdest
thing to say. And it's again, like one thing I
remember about domestic arrangements it's just now coming back to me,
is that the way these kids talk is just very strange.
So I think we're going to come across a lot
of weird uh colloquialisms that might not even be actually

(01:12:56):
how kids talked, but it's wow, normal land. Okay, I mean, Mommy,
you could be right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
That's no, I'm absolutely not right. I've never been more
wrong in my whole life.

Speaker 6 (01:13:12):
You're like, oh my god, Well, how does a wounded
water buffalo sound like? Oh my god, that's uh, that's
home improvement.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
That's what Tim Allan sounds like? Dr excited?

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Okay, what do you think about the other one? In
what way? Like what you just said?

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Does she put out maybe for someone ultra sensitive like
you if you fell on the floor in a riving
heap and promised to marry her and swore undying love,
but sort of that I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Count on it, so uh see, look that's more falling
and writhing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
So oh I'm dumb. Yeah, but that but that Hey,
that's a perfect example of what we were just talking about. Like,
as much as Joel fancies himself as like, oh, I
think about if the girl likes me, I think that
them saying that that's how a woman would put out

(01:14:22):
is like saying that that's how a woman feels too,
like she would be like, oh, if he likes me,
then of course give it up to whoever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Yeah, uh yuh totally.

Speaker 7 (01:14:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
Well the last paragraph is interesting too, so he says,
you may be getting the wrong idea. I don't have
any hell bent desire to get laid before college. I admit,
if the opportunity arose, I wouldn't run in the opposite direction.
But the few girls that have liked me at all
never seem to be the type. Berger says, if you

(01:14:57):
find the right buttons to push, they all are. So
maybe I don't push the right buttons. Plus I would
kind of like her to be a reasonable human being too,
not a complete fool. So I hope that doesn't rule
out too many people.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
I hate to say it, I feel like this. They're like, yeah,
of course you want to date someone who's a reasonable
person and not a complete fool.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Yeah, well he wants like a smart slut.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
And to that, I say, don't we all?

Speaker 3 (01:15:28):
Don't we? All? Right? We all?

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
I do want to back up and talk about Marilyn
Glaberman and Knocks. So we learn that Joel's brother is
much older. His name is Knox. He's around thirty, and
he's an oral surgeon, which is a fancy dentist. He
says he lives in la and is a total playboy
and only dates the hottest women. And Joel's parents are

(01:15:54):
a little worried about him because he's not married yet
and he is at the ripe old age of thirty.
What will ever happen to him?

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Well, they say, what will happen to him? They have
two lines that I think are really funny here. This
one is they're talking about how he only dates super
beautiful women and he only dates him for a really
short time. And Joel says, Dad says, if they have
a scratch on them, he tosses him back. Oh, and
then as to what's gonna happen to him, Dad says, Noox,

(01:16:28):
if you go on like this, you're gonna end up
a very lonely envied old man. Like we was still
gonna stick that in there, like you're gonna be fine
either way, right right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
And then Marilyn Globerman, Oh love her name she was.
She was the old uh No, she was the drama
counselor at the summer camp they all worked out. I
guess this is the summer before she was an older woman.
She was a sophomore in college, and she was way
into Burger, so Burger would have been like just out

(01:17:02):
of eleventh grade, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
Gross.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
They didn't get into any shenanigans at camp because there
were strict rules about that. They were like they couldn't
even hold hands. But once they got back to New York,
Burger went to her house and they had sex, and
Joel says, and they didn't even have to talk or anything.
It's like, I'm college girls the best.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
And this is so funny because I can see if
you were thinking about this from like this boy's perspective,
like it's so hot. But I can't having been to
see a college sophomore, like I can't imagine looking at
an eleventh grade boy and being like, yeah, absolutely so

(01:17:48):
oh oh no, oh no, o oh no, oh no, no,
it's about to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
No, this is no secret. I think I've talked about
this briefly on the pod, but well, slightly different ages.
But when I after my freshman year of college, six
or seven boys on rotation, it was the best summer.
But and so one of them was much older, like
twenty five. The other one was a sophomore in high school.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Okay, so this is true life, your life interesting. Yeah,
I'm sorry for being so judgmental.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Okay, let me say he was old for his grade.
Uh huh so age wise, I was nineteen and he
was probably sixteen or seventeen. But okay, I no, I
mean not proud of it. But also shouldn't pretend that
didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. I dated a freshman when
I was a senior in high school for a little bit, okay,
and that was a similar situation where like they were
way more experienced than I was. So yeah, it can happen.
I shouldn't. I shouldn't have said it so slanty.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Okay, But the difference is like the graduation from high school. No, listen,
you know it's Okay, it is interesting though. We've been
talking a lot about age gaps, and I know that
it's a thing with like gen Z right now, is
that age gaps, even if it's like a year or
two is so bad, so so so so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Yeah, it's all relative.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
I want to know more about that though, I want
to know where that comes from. And there's a lot
of talk about grooming that like we never talked about
when we were younger. So maybe that's good, but no,
sometimes it's like, Okay, you can be twenty three and
data twenty eight year old and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Yeah, Dan Savage has this thing, the Sex and Relationship
author has this thing called the campsite rule, and the
premise of the rule is that you can date someone
of a different age than you, but you should treat
it like a campsite and that you have to leave
it better leave that person better than when you found that. Ah, Like,
you can't inflict like big emotional scars, you can't like

(01:20:05):
ruin their lives. And that's honestly, we should apply that
to whoever we date. Yeah, but he says too, Yeah,
he says to read the age gap discourse. He's like,
for a lot of queer people, especially when he was
growing up, like there weren't third spaces, and there weren't
other people who were out, and so like the people
who were like living, you know, relatively open queer lives

(01:20:29):
were older people. So there were a lot of like
age gap queer relationships, and not all of those were rosy.
But he's like, his point is that it's very relative,
like when that is and isn't. Okay, Yeah, so that's
the end of chapter one. What do we think so far?

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
I'm really into it. These people are annoying in the
best way. Yeah, they're probably going to be very problematic
and I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Well, and it's fun too because just like the stuff
we were talking about off mic and even the stuff
we're talking about in the pod, like, I'm kind of
excited to to be talking about a little more grown
up stuff, deaf, little little sexy stuff. Sorry, let's seeya.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
So next week we'll probably do you know, we'll keep
it at a good page chapters two and three, maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
Yeah, there's I think there's nineteen chapters.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
In Okay, strap in, strap in, strap Yeah, do

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Yours, but not too many and release Bye bye.