Transcript - BSFC #18: Mary Anne’s Bad-Luck Mystery

Brooke Suchomel: 0:18

Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.

Kaykay Brady: 0:34

And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist, and I'm a Baby-sitters Club book newbie.

Brooke Suchomel: 0:39

In this episode, we are discussing Book 18, Stacey's Mistake, which was published in November 1988. So as always, let's put this book into historical context with a little pop culture history from November 1988. The music, we had some exciting number ones this month, including Kokomo.

Kaykay Brady: 1:01

Oh, shit! Here it is.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:02

Here it is. We've been waiting for this moment. The Cocktail soundtrack's gonna come through repeatedly, over and over again. It doesn't let you down.

Kaykay Brady: 1:09

That's why Brooke had to hop in her bomb shelter with her to take one. One for posterity, one for you.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:17

Right? You know when people go to Pompeii and they look at the ruins of Pompeii? I don't know, I was just like, "Okay, if this tornado really does take us down, in the ruins will be me holding my Cocktail soundtrack." Primarily for Kokomo. Was Kokomo a big hit for...?

Kaykay Brady: 1:35

We sang it in fuckin chorus. And I remember, because I was like goofing off with my best friend who I've talked about before, Leann. I was goofing off on stage, and my parents were mortified and they almost killed me.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:52

How dare you mock Kokomo! How dare you!

Kaykay Brady: 1:57

Yeah. "We take Kokomo seriously in this house!"

Brooke Suchomel: 2:03

The gospel of Kokomo.

Kaykay Brady: 2:04

What's wrong with you?

Brooke Suchomel: 2:06

Just thinking of a children's choir singing Kokomo. So like, was it broken down into the different parts? Like, did you have like, in the background, you know, "Doo doo doo."

Kaykay Brady: 2:19

No, we were not some sort of slick a capella, this was just all of us comin in anyway we wanted to come.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:29

Yeah, I remember doing a geography lesson when Kokomo was really popular. And looking back, I'm like, the teacher knew what she was doing. She asked everybody in the class to name islands that they knew.

Kaykay Brady: 2:41

"Oh! Kokomo!"

Brooke Suchomel: 2:42

People just started with like, Aruba, Jamaica, nobody said Ooh I Wanna Take Ya, you know, but we were rattling them all off.

Kaykay Brady: 2:50

It's like the state song.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:51

Yeah. I mean, that's how much Kokomo was everywhere.

Kaykay Brady: 2:54

Oh, it was a thing. It was a tremendous thing. I mean, what a comeback for the Beach Boys, because they had been really quiet.

Brooke Suchomel: 3:01

They were dormant. They were lying dormant in the Caribbean, apparently just getting all of this inspiration for 20 years, until they could come out and hit us with the Kokomo. So that was number one. It was knocked off of its number one spot by Wild Wild West by The Escape Club.

Kaykay Brady: 3:16

Oh yeah, I love that song!

Brooke Suchomel: 3:19

Yeah, these are good back-to-back number one songs. These are not Good Songs.

Kaykay Brady: 3:25

No. You notice I said, "I love that song."

Brooke Suchomel: 3:27

Right. We are acknowledging that this is not high caliber quality music, but is it catchy as fuck? It sure is. If Kokomo comes on, I don't care how cool you are. You are

Kaykay Brady: 3:36

Yeah, you've got to. singing, "Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya." You're singing those lyrics. When Wild Wild West comes on, you are shaking

Brooke Suchomel: 3:45

You don't have a choice. your shoulders. Don't try to act like you don't like that song. You're standing waiting in, like, a Chipotle for your order to come up, and that shit comes on the radio? Your shoulders are moving up and down.

Kaykay Brady: 4:01

They're gonna move up and down just a little bit. It reminds me of that time you said, you were in a Trader Joe's or something, and you said, "I found a song that unites everyone across race and class. And it's Gloria."

Brooke Suchomel: 4:13

Everybody loves Gloria. Everybody. You can't hate that song. It's impossible. I mean, that's what we need to do.

Kaykay Brady: 4:19

That song is a banger.

Brooke Suchomel: 4:20

This is something that has been overlooked. We need to really reunite this country via our love for terrible music. The universal love for terrible, terrible music, which would include, I think, a song that didn't hit number one, it hit number three. And when I think of roller skating, I think of this song, which is Kylie Minogue's The Loco-Motion.

Kaykay Brady: 4:41

Yeah, that was also a tremendous hit.

Brooke Suchomel: 4:44

Seriously. So this was a fun month for music. So definitely check out the social media where...

Kaykay Brady: 4:49

What was the month here again?

Brooke Suchomel: 4:51

November ‘88.

Kaykay Brady: 4:52

Oh, interesting. They all seem like summer songs.

Brooke Suchomel: 4:55

They do. But I think we all needed an escape from the presidential campaign.

Kaykay Brady: 4:59

Oh boy.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:00

So November ‘88, this brought us Bush. We're sorry, everyone.

Kaykay Brady: 5:05

Giving bushes a bad name.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:06

This was a mistake. Everything would be so different if Reagan would have been followed up by Dukakis. Like, I don't think we understand as a society how bad of a turn that was. But you and I can take pride in the fact that our home states were two of the 10 who voted for Dukakis.

Kaykay Brady: 5:25

Really?

Brooke Suchomel: 5:25

Really.

Kaykay Brady: 5:26

Well, I mean, I guess this is before Iowa was solidly red all the time?

Brooke Suchomel: 5:29

Yeah, well, Iowa being solidly red all the time is only something that came up in 2016, unfortunately, so it's been a really quick and dramatic turn. In fact, California and Connecticut, the home state of our characters, both voted for Bush.

Kaykay Brady: 5:43

California did? Interesting.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:45

Just goes to show you how electoral politics are weird, and not consistent. So everybody in November ‘88, I think, was looking for some happy, stupid pop music. And boy...

Kaykay Brady: 5:58

Did the world deliver.

Brooke Suchomel: 6:00

The opposite of- well, I guess it's stupid, and looking back, it's happy in the sense that it is goofy as fuck. In the movies that came out this month, we had Child's Play.

Kaykay Brady: 6:10

Oh, yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 6:11

So Chucky debuted in November of ‘88. Were you a Chucky fan?

Kaykay Brady: 6:18

Um, I don't remember being a fan of the movie. But I had a little cousin that looked exactly like Chucky. My cousin, I don't know if she listens to this podcast, I sure hope she does, but you know, she's- she's grown into quite a beauty, but she...

Brooke Suchomel: 6:32

I'm sorry, that's probably the harshest intro to anything. I hope she doesn't listen, because-

Kaykay Brady: 6:39

No, I said I hope she does listen.

Brooke Suchomel: 6:40

No, I know. Now I hope she doesn't, because you just said, "She's grown into a beauty, but..."

Kaykay Brady: 6:45

Well, all right, I'm gonna give more context. So, my mother was a redhead. This cousin is a redhead, and like super redhead, you know, like Carrot Top. And my mother used to say, "Redhead babies can stop a clock." And it's true. And she said this as a redhead! I don't know, it's like they have to grow into their features. So anyway, she had like, kind of a chopped-

Brooke Suchomel: 7:17

"Stop a clock." Jesus Christ. Apologies to anyone with a redhead child listening. Please don't blame us.

Kaykay Brady: 7:24

Your kid is stopping clocks, sorry, if you're wondering.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:26

They're gonna grow into beauties, though. It's fine.

Kaykay Brady: 7:29

Yeah!

Brooke Suchomel: 7:30

And also, what is beauty anyway? Fuck beauty.

Kaykay Brady: 7:31

Yeah, fuck beauty! We don't ascribe to traditional beauty standards.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:34

You stop a clock! As long as you're funny and smart, we don’t give a fuck.

Kaykay Brady: 7:36

You look like fucking Chucky, you go! So anyway, she looked like Chucky. She was like two when it came out, so she was about Chucky's size. She had Chucky's haircut, Chucky's hair color, and she wore overalls.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:49

That's amazing. You know, I don't think I've ever seen Child's Play.

Kaykay Brady: 7:53

I don't know if I have either, honestly.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:54

But that's the thing, you didn't have to.

Kaykay Brady: 7:56

Right.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:56

Every kid, every late Gen Xer, early millennial, you grew up, like, playing Chucky on the playground. Chucky was like a character that you would try to embody. You would call other people Chucky, like Chucky was...

Kaykay Brady: 8:08

Chucky was on your mind, and your heart.

Brooke Suchomel: 8:10

Right, right.

Kaykay Brady: 8:11

And your soul!

Brooke Suchomel: 8:11

I'm an 80s kid, I've got Chucky on my mind.

Kaykay Brady: 8:15

"Chucky's always on my mind. Chucky's always on my mind."

Brooke Suchomel: 8:22

Oh man, I'm already loving the vibe of this episode. It feels so stupid, which is exactly what I need.

Kaykay Brady: 8:26

Let's keep it going! I hope this is exactly the type of vibe we keep riding.

Brooke Suchomel: 8:31

But yeah, like, this must have killed My Buddy sales. Remember My Buddy?

Kaykay Brady: 8:35

Oh yeah. Yeah, of course! I have the song still lodged in my head for some reason.

Brooke Suchomel: 8:40

You don't have a choice.

Kaykay Brady: 8:42

Right, and then Kid Sister came along.

Brooke Suchomel: 8:44

You can go with the key change into Kid Sister. You know, you gotta do the whole thing.

Kaykay Brady: 8:48

The key change!

Brooke Suchomel: 8:50

Like, the medley.

Kaykay Brady: 8:51

It's for the remix.

Brooke Suchomel: 8:52

Right. It's the My Buddy and Kid Sister medley. But yeah, it's obviously like, let's completely tank the sales of this boy doll. We've gotta reinforce gender norms. Let's make My Buddy murderous, so nobody will buy My Buddy. I bet you it put a nail in the coffin of My Buddy, only to live on in our hearts.

Kaykay Brady: 9:10

Ah, such a solid theory. I don't even remember like the plot of Child's Play.

Brooke Suchomel: 9:14

I think the plot is "My Buddy kills." That's what it is.

Kaykay Brady: 9:17

The 80s was a simple time, my friends.

Brooke Suchomel: 9:19

Oh God, I bet you Karen Brewer would have been all about Chucky.

Kaykay Brady: 9:24

Yeah. And then it would have caused problems with her mental health for weeks, months.

Brooke Suchomel: 9:28

Obsessed with Chucky. So the other side of the kids movie side of things, there was this huge battle of kids movies that came out on November 18. So you had Disney versus non Disney, which is always fun. Remember we talked about Oliver and Company and you did your Billy Joel "You're a cat! And you're stray, and you're living on the streets!" that's lived in my head ever since?

Kaykay Brady: 9:54

I'm so glad I gave you that gift.

Brooke Suchomel: 9:56

You did. There are plenty of times since then where I've been cooking and I'm just like peeling carrots and I just start singing that. My husband's like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "Don't ask questions." So Oliver and Company came out that day. And I didn't realize it, because I've never actually seen Oliver and Company, because like, nobody really ever saw Oliver and Company, because they didn't release it on video until like 10 years later, which was an epic fail on the part of Disney. But it wasn't just Billy Joel, but some of the other singers that were in it. Huey Lewis, so this is like a barrage of 80s musicians on the soundtrack. You had Billy Joel, you had Huey Lewis, you had Ruth Pointer of the Pointer Sisters. You had Bette fucking Midler.

Kaykay Brady: 10:41

How did they get Bette Midler for this stupid little...

Brooke Suchomel: 10:43

It was Disney!

Kaykay Brady: 10:44

They just laid out the cash.

Brooke Suchomel: 10:46

They each got their own song on the soundtrack. Fucking Cheech, of Cheech and Chong, played a character. So that came out, and it was the first Disney animated movie to include product placement. So Disney actually picked up where Back to the Future left off. Have you ever watched Back to the Future and just counted all of the product placement?

Kaykay Brady: 11:05

No, but I...Pepsi?

Brooke Suchomel: 11:07

It is constant.

Kaykay Brady: 11:07

I'm saying, Pepsi is in there?

Brooke Suchomel: 11:09

My favorite is when Michael J. Fox, for no reason whatsoever, he's walking with his girlfriend and he stops at a bench to tie his shoes, so that you can focus on this giant Zales ad that's on the park bench.

Kaykay Brady: 11:22

You're interrupting the plot for product placement? That is hard core.

Brooke Suchomel: 11:26

It is nonstop product placement. And so Disney's like, "Let's see if we can get in on that with cartoons." So apparently they had over 30 different logos and brand names in the movie, including a scene where dogs hang around talking with just a can of Diet Coke. They just like drew in a can of Diet Coke and the dogs...

Kaykay Brady: 11:45

Just sitting there on the ground and the dogs are near it?

Brooke Suchomel: 11:48

Yeah, I guess.

Kaykay Brady: 11:49

It's so glamorous. I mean, who doesn't want to drink Diet Coke with dogs?

Brooke Suchomel: 11:53

So Disney's Oliver and Company has an opportunity to get that sweet sweet advertiser cash. And the funny thing is, I don't know if any of us that grew up in that time really have much of an impression of Oliver and Company, obviously didn't strike a note with you.

Kaykay Brady: 12:09

Very little.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:09

And all of the merch that they tried to do is not something that I think made nearly the cultural impression as the competing movie that came out that same day, which was The Land Before Time, which ended up being number one. Oliver and Company was number four, and The Land Before Time was number one when it came out. And The Land Before Time had those fucking Pizza Hut puppets.

Kaykay Brady: 12:30

Huh.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:31

You didn't get the Pizza Hut puppets?

Kaykay Brady: 12:33

I'm struggling to remember The Land Before Time.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:36

Well, you were in New York, so you probably weren't going to Pizza Hut as much.

Kaykay Brady: 12:39

You know, New Yorkers don't typically go to pizza chains.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:42

Pizza Hut in particular, yeah. I've never seen The Land Before Time, but you're goddamn right I had those Pizza Hut puppets.

Kaykay Brady: 12:49

Wait, I gotta look it up.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:50

So it was like a molded puppet. They're dinosaurs. Everybody wanted Littlefoot.

Kaykay Brady: 12:53

They're so cute!

Brooke Suchomel: 12:57

See? The Land Before Time kept it simple. They were like, "Look, we're going to focus in on some fucking molded puppets. We're going to push them at Pizza Hut, where kids can go with their Book It." You know, you get your little Book It thing, and you go in and get your personal pan pizza, and then you have your parents buy you a Land Before Time puppet.

Kaykay Brady: 13:14

You'd get a whole pizza?

Brooke Suchomel: 13:16

It's a personal pan pizza.

Kaykay Brady: 13:17

Oh, so it's small.

Brooke Suchomel: 13:18

Did you not have Book It?

Kaykay Brady: 13:20

What is that?

Brooke Suchomel: 13:20

It was the shit. It was part of the RIF program, Reading Is Fundamental. Reading is what?

Kaykay Brady: 13:26

Fundamental!

Brooke Suchomel: 13:28

Exactly. If you read X number of pages or X number of books, you would get a free personal pan pizza.

Kaykay Brady: 13:37

Shit. I can't believe it. I was stuck reading the fucking classics that my dad subscribed to. I was reading fucking Two Years Before the Mast. I wasn't eating any pizza.

Brooke Suchomel: 13:47

That's some bullshit.

Kaykay Brady: 13:48

That was horseshit. I'm mad. I'm gonna call my- I'm gonna go punch my dad in the face. That's bullshit!

Brooke Suchomel: 13:55

How dare you?! Yeah. No, I was getting personal pan pizzas thanks to the Baby-sitters Club.

Kaykay Brady: 14:00

That is so awesome, Brooke.

Brooke Suchomel: 14:02

It's the shit, right? Yeah, I know, I peaked at eight. So that was a real thrill. Another thrill from November of 1988 was Geraldo's nose being broken on set.

Kaykay Brady: 14:15

Oh, shit. Tell me everything.

Brooke Suchomel: 14:18

So our good friend Geraldo, our good friend Geraldo...

Kaykay Brady: 14:22

How could someone breaks his nose? He's such a kind and unassuming gentleman.

Brooke Suchomel: 14:25

Yeah. So he really set this up for himself. So Geraldo, not only did he have his primetime specials, where he is exposing the Satanists that are, you know, causing children to draw—

Kaykay Brady: 14:35

Draw pictures of ghosts.

Brooke Suchomel: 14:37

Yeah, of RIP signs with Pac Man ghosts coming out of them, showing that they've clearly been molested by Satanists. But in his daytime show, he was a total, like, "let's start shit." This was the era of like, let's—

Kaykay Brady: 14:52

What was the first one who did it? The guy with the big mouth.

Brooke Suchomel: 14:56

Oh, Morton Downey Jr.

Kaykay Brady: 14:57

Yeah, Morton Downey Jr. Wasn't that the first one?

Brooke Suchomel: 14:59

Yeah. So he was like that, but like, he would put on his veneer of like, "I'm just a respectable journalist." This is really piloting the Fox News playbook, right? Like, "We're just responsible journalists. We're just bringing people together, we're asking questions, we're just want people to see it." It's like, you're platforming the fucking scum of society. And so he did an episode called "Teen Hatemongers" in November of 1988, where he brought on the directors of several hate groups, multiple white supremacist groups, and put them on a panel with the National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. So as shit goes down, as designed, in the melee, neo-Nazis hit Geraldo with a chair, punched him in the face, broke his nose. But Geraldo opted not to press charges, because, quote, "I don't want to be tied up with the roaches." Said the man who literally flew the roaches to him.

Kaykay Brady: 15:58

You literally gave the roaches a platform.

Brooke Suchomel: 16:00

Exactly. You disseminated the roachdom, at your own direction, to millions of homes across America.

Kaykay Brady: 16:05

What a dick bag.

Brooke Suchomel: 16:06

Yeah, so Geraldo got decked. And unfortunately, that ended up playing out by getting a ton of attention for his show, so his show just became bigger than ever, you know, proving that the playbook that they were putting together worked. So that sucked. But what didn't suck is Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered, which is the best, on the local Minneapolis TV.

Kaykay Brady: 16:30

That show was the best.

Brooke Suchomel: 16:31

Yeah, it's the shit.

Kaykay Brady: 16:32

Wait, that's where it premiered, local Minneapolis TV?

Brooke Suchomel: 16:34

It was just local TV. Literally, it was just a local TV station.

Kaykay Brady: 16:40

That's like Elvira for New Yorkers.

Brooke Suchomel: 16:42

Totally, and went on to become this phenomenon that, when it reached me several years later as a kid growing up in Iowa, I was like, This is what I've been waiting for my entire life.

Kaykay Brady: 16:53

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 16:54

So this is the world in which the 18th book in the core Baby-sitters Club series, Stacey's Mistake, was released. So it's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, "Stacey's so excited. She's invited her friends from the Baby-sitters Club down to New York City for a long weekend. It's going to be perfect. A party and sleepover Friday night, a big babysitting job on Saturday, and lots of sightseeing on Sunday. But what a mistake! The Baby-sitters are way out of place in the big city. Mary Anne sounds like a walking guidebook, Dawn's afraid of everything, Kristy can't keep her mouth shut, and Claudia is jealous of Stacey's friends. Does this mean Stacey can't be the Baby-sitters' friend anymore? Will the Baby-sitters Club fall apart?" End quote. It's quite a cliffhanger right there.

Kaykay Brady: 17:41

Yeah. Very accurate back cover copy, as these back cover copies go. That really kind of covered, because not only are they getting major plot points, but in my mind, they're getting right to the central conflict.

Brooke Suchomel: 17:56

Mm hmm. How would you define that central conflict?

Kaykay Brady: 17:59

Well, it's kind of neat. I was kind of thinking about how the central conflict or what they're fighting is New York in some ways, and a little more nuanced, their perceptions of New York or themselves as New Yorkers or non New Yorkers. They're really fighting with this image of the city, and they all have their different image of it. For example, Dawn thinks it's a super dangerous place where they need doormen to fight off the murderers. I loved that line, it was so great. And then Stacey, it's kind of ho hum, and she also identifies as a New Yorker. And identifying as a New Yorker, there's kind of rules to it. What you do, you don't do, how you act, how you don't act. It's pretty intense and rigid.

Brooke Suchomel: 18:51

Like, appear not to be impressed by anything.

Kaykay Brady: 18:53

Yeah, basically. Where like, she keeps saying they're loud, they sound like tourists. You know, Mary Anne has like this dream version of New York, where New York is so magical that she can't stop talking about how magical it is. And she wants to look like she fits in.

Brooke Suchomel: 19:08

Yeah, Stacey describes it as, "Mary Anne has a crush on New York City," as she's going around like, being Brainy Smurf, like basically rattling off every fact about every place.

Kaykay Brady: 19:18

And then who did I miss?

Brooke Suchomel: 19:19

Kristy and Claudia, but they don't have as much to say about this.

Kaykay Brady: 19:23

Yeah, Kristy's kind of like a rube or something. You know, she's loud.

Brooke Suchomel: 19:26

Kristy's just Kristy, doing her thing.

Kaykay Brady: 19:29

But I thought it was so cool. Because New York is like that, you know. Everyone has a version of New York, and everybody feels so much pressure to live up to New York. And especially in my experience, the newer someone is to New York, the more important it is for them to look like a New Yorker and seem like a New Yorker. It's kind of like the fervor of the converted or something. And so I thought it was great, because I did not expect her to nail this really complicated thing that happens when you are living in New York City, and from New York City or not from New York City, or relocating to New York City, I really didn't expect her to nail that. And man, she really did. And again, she nailed it by, everybody has a different take, right? And everybody is sort of like, up their own ass about what New York is and who are they in relation to New York.

Brooke Suchomel: 20:25

Right. Like, New York is probably one of the central characters of this book.

Kaykay Brady: 20:29

Yeah. And it's so funny, because I was thinking about it this morning, when you live in New York, it's like you're living with a person, and the person is New York. And like, everybody has their different sense of who that person is. To me, that person was sort of like, an abusive spouse, where I was like, I don't really want to date you anymore. To other people, it's like a dream, you know, it's like a dream partner. And everybody has this sense of like, New York is real. It's there. It's a thing. It's a person, and it sweeps you away. There's no resisting it. So I thought that was really cool, because I think that's really true about New York.

Brooke Suchomel: 21:04

Yeah. And I wonder, if you were to write the same book today, and make it all about New York as a character and how you relate to New York, if it would be the same presentation of New York as a character as it was in 1988. Because I actually have this as kind of the C plot, the thing that goes throughout, I wrote, "New York gets negged."

Kaykay Brady: 21:27

Yeah, interesting.

Brooke Suchomel: 21:27

You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of hyping up of New York. I wrote this list of all of the landmarks that are mentioned, there's probably 30 of them.

Kaykay Brady: 21:38

They're like in Central Park, they're everywhere. They're at the Museum of Natural History...

Brooke Suchomel: 21:43

And a lot of these places are still there today. I think she did a good job picking out things that would sort of persevere. Like, you could read this book now, and there really isn't a lot of things that are in here, besides maybe Starlight Express...

Kaykay Brady: 21:59

Oh, we're going to talk about Starlight Express.

Brooke Suchomel: 22:01

Right, where it's dated. The places that she mentioned are things that were around for a long time, with few exceptions, before this book was written, and are still with us today. You get everything from Grand Central Station, they mentioned like "Let's go to Serendipity to eat," you get the Hard Rock Cafe. We're going to talk about Hard Rock Cafe.

Kaykay Brady: 22:22

Oh my god, I can't believe they ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. Come on.

Brooke Suchomel: 22:25

Should we just jump right into the Hard Rock Cafe?

Kaykay Brady: 22:27

Yeah, please. Come on!

Brooke Suchomel: 22:29

Okay, this is what- I fucking stopped, and I was like, I gotta write this down. We're at the Hard Rock Cafe. So we get like an entire chapter at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Kaykay Brady: 22:39

She was into the Hard Rock Cafe, Ann M. Good lord!

Brooke Suchomel: 22:42

Well, here's what's so funny. So I get why all of the Baby-sitters who are coming from Stoneybrook would be so into the Hard Rock Cafe. But based on what we see about Stacey, like, Stacey is a fucking snob.

Kaykay Brady: 22:55

Exactly right.

Brooke Suchomel: 22:57

And on page 35, she describes the Hard Rock Cafe as that they are at, quote, "one of the coolest restaurants in New York City."

Kaykay Brady: 23:06

I totally agree with you.

Brooke Suchomel: 23:08

I don't think that was true in 1988.

Kaykay Brady: 23:10

No, absolutely not. When they mentioned Hard Rock Cafe, I was like, what? Was the Hard Rock Cafe around then? It probably was in Times Square, no?

Brooke Suchomel: 23:17

The Hard Rock Cafe in New York is literally right outside of the Times Square Station. It is in the middle of Times Square, smack in the middle.

Kaykay Brady: 23:26

Yeah, no way. Stacey would have some sort of like boozy Upper East Side version of New York that she would be living in, and it would not include the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. But like, a tourist would totally go to Hard Rock Cafe.

Brooke Suchomel: 23:39

100%. When you would go to the big city, you'd want to go to Hard Rock Cafe. Because why? Because everyone in your town, when they went somewhere, they went to the Hard Rock Cafe and they got a T shirt.

Kaykay Brady: 23:48

Came back with a T shirt.

Brooke Suchomel: 23:49

That said that you went somewhere. And so that's what you're wearing. It's not even so much like, "I went to the Hard Rock Cafe," it's just that it became a sort of a universal cultural reference point that people could understand. So no matter where you went, like, they mentioned Serendipity in this book, but if you're outside of New York City, you're not going to know. The movie Serendipity hadn't come out yet, so you wouldn't know what it was. But Hard Rock Cafe was something that had so much press and attention, you know, getting featured on like Entertainment Tonight and shit like that broadcast into middle American homes, that you could wear that and people would have that as a point of reference of like, you got out, even if it was for like a weekend or whatever, and you went someplace cool. And you've got the name of that cool place on your shirt that you wear around the not cool place that you're living in right now. So it kind of elevates you in a way.

Kaykay Brady: 24:42

Yeah, that makes total sense.

Brooke Suchomel: 24:43

But if you're New York City, it's the opposite. It's like, "You went to fucking Hard Rock Cafe?" And you see that Stacey is so, like, "I'm not a tourist," she wants to make it very clear. Like, "I belong here. I fit in here. I'm a native New Yorker." But yet, Hard Rock Cafe is one of the coolest restaurants in New York City, and she buys a fucking t shirt.

Kaykay Brady: 25:03

I know.

Brooke Suchomel: 25:04

I just love the image of an Upper West Side teen snob going around wearing a Hard Rock Cafe in New York City, Times Square edition t shirt. It's delightful. And they talk about making it the club uniform, and it's also described at one point when they're like, trying to figure out what to wear and Kristy's like, "Let's all wear our Hard Rock Cafe shirts. That's as New York as you can get!"

Kaykay Brady: 25:30

I know. That was so great.

Brooke Suchomel: 25:32

So great. So for me, that is absolutely one of my most 80s moments. And hoo shit, that was very vivid. I thought that was very vividly described, like, they even talked about what they're ordering, what's around...

Kaykay Brady: 25:45

Oh, she goes in there. Talking about the pictures, the art on the wall...

Brooke Suchomel: 25:49

Talking Heads memorabilia.

Kaykay Brady: 25:51

You know, I got food poisoning at a Hard Rock Cafe in Vegas. And that's the only time I've ever been to Hard Rock Cafe. So I detest it.

Brooke Suchomel: 25:59

Did you get the T shirt?

Kaykay Brady: 26:01

No, I had explosive diarrhea for three days.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:03

But did you get the T shirt to remind yourself of that explosive diarrhea?

Kaykay Brady: 26:07

I wish I could say yes. But the answer's no.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:10

Every time that you wear that shirt, you think fondly of explosive diarrhea in Vegas.

Kaykay Brady: 26:16

Ah, what a memory.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:19

What a beautiful memory. Yeah, and it was so interesting, the way that New York was represented in here. And I think you make a really great point about how you've got this spectrum of like, from Mary Anne to Dawn, right? With this just obsession, "Everything about New York is amazing. I'm going to learn about the buildings that make up New York, the institutions that make up New York in detail." That's Mary Anne, and then you've got Dawn, who knows nothing about New York, except for it's like, basically Dawn's been watching Fox News, I think.

Kaykay Brady: 26:50

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:52

That is like one of the biggest problems that I had. That's not Dawn. I didn't believe this from Dawn. I didn't believe it.

Kaykay Brady: 26:59

Great point! I didn't think of it, but you're right.

Brooke Suchomel: 27:01

This is Mary Anne.

Kaykay Brady: 27:01

Yeah. Or Mary Anne's dad.

Brooke Suchomel: 27:04

Right, that's what makes sense. Mary Anne would be the one who would have that reaction, because she's so fucking sheltered. Whereas Dawn, we see Dawn's not sheltered. It just didn't ring true to me. Dawn has always been shown as being like, really sort of thoughtful...

Kaykay Brady: 27:19

Worldly, too.

Brooke Suchomel: 27:20

Yeah. And so that was strange, but, in any case...

Kaykay Brady: 27:24

Yeah, maybe it was just like, you know, she needed someone to play that, and she couldn't imagine anyone. I could see Kristy fitting that bill.

Brooke Suchomel: 27:31

Yeah, I mean, I get that that character needed to be played. I just think that picking Dawn to play that role is like, maybe it's just because they're like, "Well, Dawn's an outsider. She's never been to New York. This is her first time." Whereas all of the other girls are growing up in effectively a suburb of New York.

Kaykay Brady: 27:49

Yeah, they've probably gone multiple times. Right.

Brooke Suchomel: 27:51

Yeah. So maybe that's where it was coming from. But I just thought that, you know, Dawn was a bit of a caricature. Normally, you get a much more comprehensive picture of Dawn, and she's more interesting than she is in this. It's just, she's scared and she's a Californian. They even have her order a poppied fruit and avocado salad, and she says, "It sounds so Californian." I was like, she didn't know what to do with Dawn. It was weird, because it seemed to me like, this book, it almost felt like from an authorial perspective, she didn't know what to do with the newer characters. And so they just got shunted aside. This is the first time when she's going back and she's got the four original characters all back together again, and it's almost like she doesn't know how to incorporate not only Dawn, but then Mallory and Jessi, she obviously had no idea what the fuck to do with them. Jessi is really shunted to the point where they're writing letters, right? So as opposed to each chapter beginning with like, "We're writing an entry in the babysitting journal," each chapter starts with a different character writing a letter to another different character in the series who is not on—

Kaykay Brady: 29:00

Which I love, because it's like, they'll get home before before this letter gets to Connecticut.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:05

And they all start saying that, like, "Before you get this..." I'm like, this is silly. This is silly. And they're all apparently writing on a postcard that is both too small to write what they want, but also too big to write what they do, right? Or whatever, it's confusing. But even Jessi, like, Jessi doesn't get a letter until the very last chapter. I was like, holy shit, they're fucking writing to Shannon Kilbourne? Who we've seen fucking once, and she sucks?

Kaykay Brady: 29:33

Our favorite.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:34

You know? But you're not writing to Jessi? Like, what's going on here? So Jessi gets a letter at the very end and I was like, thank God, but yeah, it all felt a little bit off to me. It was an enjoyable book to read, for sure, but it felt like there was some hesitation. It felt like the author was unsure.

Kaykay Brady: 29:53

Yeah, I almost think that it might be, you know, we know the author loves New York. She says it in the reader letter at the end. So it says, "Dear reader, I loved writing Stacey's Mistake, the first book in the series that takes place in New York City. Since I've lived in New York for a long time, it was a lot of fun creating Stacey's life. I love living New York. It's so exciting, and there's so much to do. Like Stacey, I enjoy the theater. When I was a kid, I liked reading books that were set in New York City," then she mentions Stuart Little, blah, blah, blah. Again, I think, you know, she's the Mary Anne character.

Brooke Suchomel: 30:24

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Kaykay Brady: 30:25

Where she read a lot about New York, she probably was obsessed with New York, and then came to New York. And then she was Stacey, trying to be a New Yorker. And in fact, I thought Stacey's voice in her mind was an adult woman's voice. For example, she's talking about living in a doorman building and how people might see her as a snob or something, and she's like, "I just feel safer in a doorman building." And I was like, that's a 30 year old woman working that out, working out her privilege in her mind, you know,

Brooke Suchomel: 30:57

I wrote down, Stacey's a Fox News Karen.

Kaykay Brady: 30:59

Yeah. But that sentiment wouldn't have seemed so Fox News in the late 80s. It would have been a very, like, every white woman on the Upper West.

Brooke Suchomel: 31:12

Yeah. But that's the thing, right? Back then, it would have been like, "We're just being sensible, and we're just protecting ourselves."

Kaykay Brady: 31:19

"We just want to be safe."

Brooke Suchomel: 31:19

Right, in the same way that, with the last episode, where we talked about the Satanic Panic and all of the fear that was driving it, like, "No, we have to make sure that our children don't listen to Motley Crue because we're just protecting them from the devil." You know? It was overt reactionarism that was couched as "just being careful."

Kaykay Brady: 31:48

Yeah, although, you know, just to add a little more context, New York was hardcore in '88. It was not a quote unquote, "safe place," it didn't really matter—yeah, okay, the Upper West was safer than Alphabet City. But, you know, there was a ton of crime. And like, in fact, they had closed all the state run mental institutions in the 70s, and so...

Brooke Suchomel: 32:08

Taking a page from Reagan in California?

Kaykay Brady: 32:11

Yeah, basically, it was a direct trickledown of that kind of policy. And so the unhoused folks in New York, there was like, a tremendous amount of mental illness for sure. It was not the New York of today. There was a ton of crime. And there was a lot of unhoused folks struggling, hardcore. I sort of give her props for trying to, she introduced the quote unquote, "bag lady," which...

Brooke Suchomel: 32:36

Judy. They know her name, and they know that she's 42 years old.

Kaykay Brady: 32:40

Right. And that seems to be a spot where Ann M. is trying to have it both ways, where it's like, "Oh, I'm still going to talk about somebody who's unhoused. And, you know, I'm a good person. I'm talking to Judy, and we're trying to help Judy," and also a lot of this rhetoric around, "Well, I just want to be safe, and that's okay," and all that sort of dog whistle, right? And like, interesting that race was never brought up in this book.

Brooke Suchomel: 33:07

Right, particularly in that time. I mean, you've got a lot of things in this book where I'm like, God, we're still dealing with the ramifications of the way that social issues were handled and dealt with in the 80s.

Kaykay Brady: 33:20

Yeah, and New York was like an amazing petri dish of that. A lot of those Reagan policies, a lot of terrible racial policies, all coming to a head in New York City.

Brooke Suchomel: 33:30

Which ultimately would lead to...so this is November '88. Ed Koch gets primaried out very shortly afterwards by David Dinkins, who is the first and only black mayor that New York has ever had, so that's just coming around the corner. You don't see that in this book, but it's not even like bubbling under the surface, like, it is at the top of the surface. All of this stuff is going on, and the only character that we know of color who's in this book is Claudia, who is kind of an asshole in this book.

Kaykay Brady: 34:04

Yeah, and she's also very one dimensional in this book.

Brooke Suchomel: 34:06

Yeah, she just starts shit. Reading this I was like, "Oh, I betcha Laine—" because, you know, we're not fans of Laine...

Kaykay Brady: 34:13

Same! I was like, what kind of horseshit are we gonna get dropped on by Laine, and Laine was totally reasonable and nice!

Brooke Suchomel: 34:20

Totally. I mean, she stood up for herself. So basically, Claudia comes in, like immediately, the second she meets Laine, is like, "Oh yeah, you're that asshole that was an asshole to Stacey." And then Laine is like, "Oh, well you're that asshole that was an asshole to Stacey this time," and then it's just on. But it's like, you started shit. Like she didn't, she's like, "Oh hi, it's nice to meet you all." And Claudia is like, "Two middle fingers up, fuck you!" So Claudia is the one that brings it all down. And of course, another Most 80s Moment, where they all get together at the end, but it's like, "We weren't apologizing. It didn't seem to be necessary, but we're not sniping at each other. So everything's okay." Like, that's conflict resolution.

Kaykay Brady: 34:59

"Please don't talk about it."

Brooke Suchomel: 35:01

Just be super Irish about it. Just yell and scream at each other, and then just push down your feelings and never speak about it again.

Kaykay Brady: 35:07

And also, yet again, it's like the job saves them. The babysitting saves them, right? Having to come together to accomplish this mutual endeavor gets them all out of their own asses. Which is also very 80s, right? It's not that we sat around talking about our emotions or rectified anything, we just kind of went to work, and then realized we had to cooperate.

Brooke Suchomel: 35:33

And then, as part of that job, they all take 10 kids— you get a bunch of 13 year olds taking 10 children to the American Museum of Natural History, where, you know, speaking of, "And then how are the people of color treated?," where they proceed to lose the young black child. And then it's like, "Oh, but we found him. Everything's fine." And like, the parents don't care, everything's okay. "We'll give ourselves 15 minutes. We'll give the potential kidnappers a 15 minute—" So they're afraid of everything. It is like, "Do not give a homeless person that you feel sympathetic for money. Don't give them money. That's bad, that could kill you." But if you lose a five year old in a giant public space?

Kaykay Brady: 36:19

Hey, welcome to New York!

Brooke Suchomel: 36:20

Give yourself 15 minutes, 13 year old, to try to find him on your own before you alert anyone who can help you. There's some strange decisions happening there.

Kaykay Brady: 36:29

I mean, just even the decision of bringing kids that are not from New York City and giving them responsibility of other kids. It makes no sense.

Brooke Suchomel: 36:39

This is what I had down as the A plot, is "The Baby-sitters Club gets shipped to New York City to provide child labor for rich people at a NIMBY organization." Like, that's what it is. You have all of these rich people in a co-op building on Central Park West. These people are rich as fuck. They all get together, they're going to have a meeting to talk about, "What do we do about Judy?" the quote unquote, "bag lady" outside?

Kaykay Brady: 37:07

Which, by the way, I have a whole list of New York things. And the term "bag lady" is number one. I don't know, did you use bag lady in Iowa?

Brooke Suchomel: 37:14

No.

Kaykay Brady: 37:15

Right. Yeah, that's a New York thing.

Brooke Suchomel: 37:16

Well, I mean, I think that's one of the problems. In Iowa, it was very unusual to see anyone who was unhoused for a variety of reasons. The number one reason, which we all hopefully understand now, is we didn't have the wealth disparity. The cost of living is so much lower, it was easier to get housing. You also had a much smaller population, you didn't have the density. So if people were unhoused, they usually weren't in proximity to where other people would see. It just wasn't a thing that got discussed as much, which is why I think it's one of the problems that we have still today, where it's like, that becomes so othered. People reading this book who aren't seeing it for themselves, this is how they learn what it must be like to be an unhoused person or to live amongst unhoused persons. And I give Ann M. Martin props for what she's trying to do here. I think she is trying, in her 1988 way, to give some semblance of recognition to people like, you know, yes, you may see somebody shouting in the street, but that doesn't mean that they're doing that at all times. And you know, Stacey will come up and say things like, "Just because they're homeless doesn't mean that you need to be afraid of them." But she's also the one, when Kristy tries to give a quarter to somebody who is asking for a quarter, she rips the wallet out of Kristy's hand and is like, "What are you doing? Put that wallet away," you know. And Kristy says, "That poor man," and looks over her shoulder at him, so is feeling terrible. Kristy actually shows that empathy that we saw from Kristy from jump in this series, that we've been missing, I think, in some of the later books. Kristy shows that empathy here. And this is why I was like "Fox News Karen," Stacey says, "I know. I feel bad for him too. But opening up your purse is a great way to get ripped off. He might just have grabbed your wallet and run, or someone else might have. You guys are in New York now, so watch yourself. You have to be on your toes." That is so 80s. That is the message that we got. That is the message we got through the 90s, I think that's the message that people are still getting now. And it's like, Or, he might have been somebody who just really, really needed a little bit of charity from somebody. He might have been somebody who needed a little help from other members of society, because they're not getting it from the government or bigger organizations that should be providing it, right? It's up to individuals, and that's the thing. So this co-op that Stacey's parents live in, they all decide that they're going to get together and that's why the Baby-sitters Club has to come up to New York City, is because so many of these people want to get together at the same time. And they, for some reason, in New York, they can't find enough babysitters. Who knows? But their solution, at the end—that's how it's bookended, right? The beginning, you start with the homelessness. The end, it's like, "We've solved the problem." How did they solve the problem? A bunch of rich people, they're like, "We're gonna get together with a church, and we're gonna open a soup kitchen." Solved.

Kaykay Brady: 40:28

Right. "We don't have to worry about this any more." Well, I mean, I think your critique is right on. And sadly, I think for the time, that was probably even...

Brooke Suchomel: 40:40

That was generous.

Kaykay Brady: 40:41

That was actually unrealistic. So the first story you're describing to me, that's what living in New York in 88 was like. That was how everyone operated. Like, that was the message you got all the time, constantly. And frankly, the idea that in unhoused person outside of your building is somebody that you would know by their first name? Unlikely, especially if you're living on the Upper West in a doorman building. First of all, Judy's probably not going to be living up there, because of the doorman and because of the police. But that was much more New York than what Ann M. is sort of creating fictionally with this co-op and Judy. And so I almost felt like that was Ann M. trying to push it forward, and even that today feels like, "Yikes," but...

Brooke Suchomel: 41:31

They would have been getting together to figure out, "How do we get the cops to take her away?"

Kaykay Brady: 41:35

Right. Cops, mayor, who do we know at the highest levels of government to just move Judy away? That's what would have happened. That was in New York in '88.

Brooke Suchomel: 41:43

And that is how New York got quote, unquote, "cleaned up," right? Everybody's like, "Oh, Rudy Giuliani was so wonderful. He just came in and cleaned up New York City..."

Kaykay Brady: 41:53

Yeah, he just pushed it out to the boroughs.

Brooke Suchomel: 41:54

Right, just shoved them out of the way.

Kaykay Brady: 41:56

"We gotta get it away from the rich people."

Brooke Suchomel: 41:58

Right. It was interesting to read this as a time capsule of ideas on how to solve social problems. And again, I think you're right that this is a very idealistic idea of what people would have done, particularly the kind of people that we see in this book.

Kaykay Brady: 42:16

Yeah, wealthy people living on the Upper West. Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 42:19

Yeah. No, it would have been like, "Get the fuck out of here." But just the premise behind it, I was just like, "Oh, here we go..."

Kaykay Brady: 42:26

And do you know my grandfather was a doorman on the Upper West?

Brooke Suchomel: 42:29

Really?

Kaykay Brady: 42:30

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 42:31

Aww!

Kaykay Brady: 42:32

Yeah. He was just a Irish immigrant dressed up all fancy.

Brooke Suchomel: 42:35

Did he have stories? Did he shit talk?

Kaykay Brady: 42:37

You know, he didn't. You had to be pretty professional to get and keep those jobs. Those were good jobs, you know?

Brooke Suchomel: 42:44

Did he have an Irish accent? A thick Irish accent?

Kaykay Brady: 42:46

Oh, you could barely understand my grandpa.

Brooke Suchomel: 42:49

That's why they loved him.

Kaykay Brady: 42:50

In fact, when my dad went to go ask my grandpa if he can marry my mother, they were leaving the apartment, and my mom was like, "What did he say?" My dad's like, "I don't know." My grandpa, he basically sounded like "[indescipherable]," that's how my grandpa sounded. And when I was a little kid, that was the first job I wanted. I wanted to be a doorman like my grandpa.

Brooke Suchomel: 43:13

Oh, I am picturing that right now, and holy shit, you would be so fucking beloved. Are you kidding?

Kaykay Brady: 43:20

Oh, shit. Oh my god, I would love the suit. I would love the hat. I would rock the shit out of that finery. Yeah, so it was it was funny reading this book because I don't see any of the New York that I'm from, you know, in the book. Because I was from the Bronx, my grandpa was a doorman, my grandmother was a cleaning lady, and like, the Bronx was totally different story than the Upper West. So I enjoyed reading the book, and I know a lot of people see New York that way. You know, New York is like Broadway and doorman buildings and stuff like that. But I don't know, it just never hits me because it's like, there's so many New Yorks, depending on how you were born into New York.

Brooke Suchomel: 43:58

Right. This is very wealthy, privileged New York that we're seeing here. Extremely wealthy and privileged. I mean, they have a fucking den.

Kaykay Brady: 44:04

I know, and a big kitchen.

Brooke Suchomel: 44:06

They have a den.

Kaykay Brady: 44:09

But I was still fun, because, you know, when I got older, and as my family moved into different socio economic ladders, spectrums, I got to experience definitely the wealthier, more privileged New York. But to me, that doesn't feel totally true. It almost just feels like a beating heart of New York, which is this incredibly diverse group of people that are like really struggling, and really handling shit, dealing, shoveling shit every single day. And that's the beating heart of New York. And then there's kind of this like, "nice" white wealthy mask that sort of sits on top of that. And I love thinking about the sort of beating heart of New York. So I'm watching Pose, for example, and Pose is same timeframe, '88. And it's just, you know, it's a different New York, right?

Brooke Suchomel: 44:59

That feels more connected to your New York.

Kaykay Brady: 45:02

Definitely.

Brooke Suchomel: 45:03

Yeah, no, it's interesting that you say that It's something I didn't thin about. I mean, basically, in this book, you get the Stacey and Laines of the world. Laine's dad is some big Broadway producer, so it's just like, “Hey, you want the limo to take you to Starlight Express?" And they're like, "Sure!," you know. So you get that New York, which I think a lot of people in like Middle America, at least speaking for my own experience, when you think of New York, you think of that.

Kaykay Brady: 45:31

Of course.

Brooke Suchomel: 45:32

And then you think of the Judy, right? You think of the unhoused person who clearly has untreated mental health issues, that needs some help and isn't getting it. Like, you think of those two things, what you think of as encapsulating New York, and that is such a small fragment of the New York population and such a fragment of the New York experience, that you're not seeing anything that you've just described of the people that are just like working and striving. I mean, the doormen exist in this book, but you're not learning about them. They're just there to help Stacey. So if you had the Baby-sitters come see you in your New York, what would you and the Baby-sitters have been doing in 1988, in New York?

Kaykay Brady: 46:15

Breakdancing.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:18

Hell yeah!

Kaykay Brady: 46:18

No, there would be a lot of breakdancing. There was such dope breakdancing happening up in the Bronx, I can't even tell you.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:24

Kristy is a breakdancer.

Kaykay Brady: 46:26

I mean, my family's living in New York, it was mostly work. You know, there just wasn't a lot of play. It was like, just a lot of trying to get by, really. I mean, for my culture, right? Like, we were very specific, we were Irish people living up in the Bronx. There was very little leisure time and not a lot of recreation. Once a while somebody would bring you an ice cream cone through the window.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:53

You guys would just sit by the window, your garden apartment window, and wait for ice cream to be brought to you.

Kaykay Brady: 46:58

Yeah, and it's really funny, because it's making me realize that even when we— you know, there was a real thing happening for people, all races and socio economic spectrums, like, people wanted to get out of New York. So like, that was a driving sentiment, like the dream of the suburbs. That was real. And like, yes, that was a lot of white people, for sure, but also a lot of people of color, too. They dreamed of getting out of New York, too.

Brooke Suchomel: 47:23

Right. Everybody had the same dream, not everybody had the same opportunity.

Kaykay Brady: 47:26

Correct. Exactly right. And even after we sort of like, got out, and were living in richer circumstances where we were safe, like, my parents weren't capable of recreation, because all they knew how to do was work and struggle. And so like, all of a sudden, when maybe we had more money, or we had more space, or we were like in a quote unquote, "safer environment," they couldn't really do much with it. But I did!

Brooke Suchomel: 47:53

That resonates with me too, with my Irish family. Not coming from New York, but coming from Iowa, where you see, your life is sort of built around work.

Kaykay Brady: 48:04

That's so interesting.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:05

Work is life.

Kaykay Brady: 48:06

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:07

And, like, it's not good to indulge in leisure time that isn't productive in some way. So like, "fun" is mowing lawns. You know what I mean?

Kaykay Brady: 48:19

Yeah, exactly.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:19

Or like, cleaning gutters. Which, when you get to a point in your life where you can no longer mow lawns and clean gutters, it can be rough. It can be a rough adjustment.

Kaykay Brady: 48:29

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I think I've definitely seen a lot of my family, you know, as they age, it's like, that kind of work, nothing but work ethic and like, no way to really recreate or enjoy, it really bites you in the ass when you're like 70. And you're like, I don't know how to take it easy.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:48

Right, and you don't even have the desire to do that, because you haven't practiced. Like, you don't have the muscle memory of fun or leisure. When the work muscle is the only thing that really gets worked, everything else seems to atrophy.

Kaykay Brady: 48:59

Yeah, that's all you have at that point.

Brooke Suchomel: 49:01

So I guess the the moral of that story is, you go to Starlight Express. You get out there.

Kaykay Brady: 49:07

Oh, by the way, my sister and I, we've seen Starlight Express like five times.

Brooke Suchomel: 49:12

Really?

Kaykay Brady: 49:13

For some reason, we just were in a whole bunch of— like, a camp group, we went twice. My dad got us tickets once. And then we were traveling once in England, and we're in London.

Brooke Suchomel: 49:22

You're like, "Oh, it's our favorite!"

Kaykay Brady: 49:23

Yeah, somebody was like, "Oh, we have Broadway show tickets." And we were like, "What is it?" And they were like, "Starlite Express!" We were like, "Noooo!" So I've literally seen it five times. But it is kind of a cool show, because there are trains and it's all the actors on roller skates. And then in New York at least, they built the stage around the whole audience. So like, they were sort of roller skating in the front, behind you, all around. It was pretty dope.

Brooke Suchomel: 49:49

I was wondering what you thought about the way that New York is portrayed and represented in this book versus the way that Disney World was portrayed in the Super Special. I know when we talked about the Super Special, you know, you mentioned that it just felt like a catalog of things to do at Disney World, and it was boring. I feel like this was definitely also a catalog of things to do in New York. But did it feel different to you? Did you have a different reaction?

Kaykay Brady: 50:20

I mean, it definitely didn't feel as boring. I think because everything being spoken about, I could pull up a visual. I mean, except for the Hard Rock Cafe. But pretty much everything being spoken of, I can pull up memories.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:33

Where Kristy ordered a steak. I just have to put a pin in that.

Kaykay Brady: 50:37

Oh, filet mignon.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:40

Everybody else orders a salad or a sandwich.

Kaykay Brady: 50:43

Oh right, because it's healthier.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:44

Right. And Kristy is like, "Gimme that fucking steak." I love that.

Kaykay Brady: 50:48

Yeah, there's definitely- it's so interesting. We probably can't get off on this topic, but I hope we get to talk about it someday, how, you know, food judgments are definitely in this book. Foods that are good, foods that are bad. And there's no eating disorders amongst any of these kids, and fucking eating disorders were rife in the 80s.

Brooke Suchomel: 51:11

I don't know that there's no eating disorders. I think you might be able to say that Claudia has one. She uses junk food as comfort. Like, she's an emotional eater. Junk food is a comfort, it's a rebellion. It's food as rebellion. So it's not eating disorder in the sense of anorexia or bulimia...

Kaykay Brady: 51:28

Right, like, a clinical...

Brooke Suchomel: 51:30

There is a fixation. Several of these characters have a fixation on food.

Kaykay Brady: 51:35

And Dawn, too! You're right. It's just sort of like, the opposite spectrums, but there is a fixation on food.

Brooke Suchomel: 51:43

Yeah, food comes in a lot into this book.

Kaykay Brady: 51:46

Totally. You're right.

Brooke Suchomel: 51:47

It's usually in the sense of a restriction that one of them has for one reason or another, or an indulgence that they partake in. To a point where you can't find your Mallomars because there's so many different hiding places in your room where they could be.

Kaykay Brady: 52:03

Yeah. And you can definitely see the way that the sort of like, what's the word, the cultural fixation on food is starting to come in? Because before this time, it was sort of like, people ate the way they ate and foods were not vilified. It was a much more sort of like, relaxed perspective on food. And it really came out in the 70s and 80s, that this whole culture around controlling food and what foods were good and bad, you definitely see that start to come in, which is interesting. And I think it would be so cool, and I am not holding my breath for this book, but it'd be really cool to have a book where somebody is struggling with either an eating disorder or disordered eating, and like it's handled with similar empathy and new perspectives on it, the way other topics are.

Brooke Suchomel: 52:56

We do get an eating disorder book.

Kaykay Brady: 52:57

What?!?!

Brooke Suchomel: 52:58

Yeah.

Kaykay Brady: 52:59

Oh my God. I've been wondering the whole time.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:01

Yeah. I can't speak to the way that it's handled, because I don't remember. And to be honest with you, I don't know that I ever actually read that particular book. Because of when it came out and sort of where I was with my reading at that point, if I was still reading the Baby-sitters Club when that came out. But yes, later on, there will be an eating disorder book.

Kaykay Brady: 53:19

Oh my god, I'm excited.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:20

Yeah. So ultimately, what did you come to in terms of what they were fighting? Was it New York?

Kaykay Brady: 53:26

Yeah, concepts of New York, and concepts of self. Like, they all had a different idea of New York, but they are all similarly struggling with it.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:36

And that idea of New York is tied in some way to their idea of themselves.

Kaykay Brady: 53:41

Yeah. Or New York is sort of like a foil upon which they battle, right? They have a reaction to that idea of New York based on how they see themselves.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:50

Right.

Kaykay Brady: 53:51

How about you? What did you have?

Brooke Suchomel: 53:52

I had something couched in different terms, but it ties into that. I thought that they were fighting self consciousness, particularly Stacey and Claudia. Stacey, she's very focused on how are others perceiving her.

Kaykay Brady: 54:07

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 54:08

Like, "My friends are embarrassing. Are people looking at me because my friends are so embarrassing? Will my New York friends be cool with my Connecticut friends? I hope so, because that's kind of like a reflection on me." There is a lot of focus on how others perceive you. And this feeling of insecurity and instability, I think you see that reflected in Claudia, too. Like, Claudia, boom, immediately attacks Laine, because she's feeling insecure about her friendship with Stacey, and this is this threat, right? And I think that ultimately, the tool that they use to fight that self consciousness is humility, at the end. Stacey realizes that she's annoyed with her friends, but her friends are probably annoyed with her. This is when the kids, they're all in the Central Park Zoo, and Claudia says to Stacey, "It's cool to see you get excited about something for the first time." She gets excited because she sees a man with a giant tricycle pedaling a kid's red wagon behind it that has three fluffy white Persian cats in it.

Kaykay Brady: 55:18

I mean, who wouldn't get excited about that?

Brooke Suchomel: 55:20

Seriously.

Kaykay Brady: 55:21

It reminds me of the time when you and I were driving and you saw someone walking a cat on the leash, and I've never heard a human being laugh like you laughed. I mean, you almost fell out of the car.

Brooke Suchomel: 55:32

This was early days in my Berkeley experience. Then one of our friends moved out and she happened to walk her cat on a leash, and so this was my entry into it. Most recently, I saw somebody walking a pig. And like a full on pig. Full size, full grown pig.

Kaykay Brady: 55:48

I have a guy that comes through with a goat, like a goat with huge horns. It's amazing.

Brooke Suchomel: 55:53

Awesome. I fucking love that part about living in the Bay Area. It is just what random ass pet are you going to see on a walk today? It's probably going to be by a dispensary.

Kaykay Brady: 56:04

Yeah, sadly, New York... I love that guy, and New York, like the Bay Area...

Brooke Suchomel: 56:09

Was that a real guy?

Kaykay Brady: 56:10

I don't know. But like, definitely, a lot of the New York weirdos are gone. Just like a lot of the Bay Area weirdos are gone. And that's just because nobody can afford it anymore, and there's not a New York middle class anymore. There used to be.

Brooke Suchomel: 56:23

I mean, ultimately, that's what we're all fighting, right? We're fighting gentrification. Yeah. And the fact that there's no middle class anymore. Yeah. But Stacey gets excited about that. And it's funny too, because Kristy is like, "Well haven't you seen him before?" And Stacey's like, "Oh, well, it's been a few years." So that's why I was like, okay, is this a real person? Is this like the Naked Cowboy of the 80s? Or is it somebody who Stacey really has never seen before, but she can't let her friends know that he hasn't seen it? So it's like, "Oh yeah, no, I know him. I just, you know..." But Claudia says, "It's nice to see you get excited about something, because you act like there's nothing new or exciting in the city. Like you've seen it all before and now nothing really matters anymore." So Claudia calls out how Stacey's just like, she's jaded. And this whole time, Stacey's been talking about how she's, like, so embarrassed by her friends being so enthusiastic.

Kaykay Brady: 57:10

Yeah. And again, I think, to me, that is the biggest tell that Ann M. is not from New York, because I really— you know, really is my sense that people from New York, they don't have that, like anti tourist, embarrassed perspective on people coming into New York. I really do think that's like a newer arrival to New York trying to show.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:36

Right, because you don't have to worry about, "Will people look at me and think I don't fit in?" because you're like— you fit in, who gives a shit?

Kaykay Brady: 57:41

Yeah, "I was born here and I'm kind of trying to get out."

Brooke Suchomel: 57:43

Right. And like also, and who cares?

Kaykay Brady: 57:45

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:46

Who cares if people think you're a tourist? Like, really. Who cares?

Kaykay Brady: 57:49

Yeah, exactly.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:50

Who cares what people that you don't know think about you?

Kaykay Brady: 57:52

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:53

Who. Fucking. Cares?

Kaykay Brady: 57:55

Yeah, that is the biggest New York sentiment of all.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:58

Right! And it seems like she kind of gets that toward the end, right? So then she's able to get out of her own head and stop focusing on how she appears to others, and she's just able to enjoy herself with her friends, and then everybody has a good time. So I think the lesson of the story is get out of your own ass.

Kaykay Brady: 58:16

Exactly.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:17

Like, seriously, nobody gives a shit about you. That's actually a really liberating thing.

Kaykay Brady: 58:21

It's very liberating.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:22

When you realize that, like, people aren't looking at you thinking about you. It's like, such a vain concept.

Kaykay Brady: 58:27

Yeah, and actually like, psychologically, you see this a lot with kids that previous generations were much more, you know, not seen, not heard. And I'm definitely not advocating for that. But if you go too far the other direction, where just like the sun shines out of your child's ass, it's actually really anxiety producing for a kid.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:47

Totally.

Kaykay Brady: 58:48

Kids don't want to feel like the whole world is riding on them. It's actually healthier for kids to get a chance to be kids and live, and not have adults just constantly fawning over them.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:02

Totally. As I was reading this, I was talking with my husband about how this book was making me think about things, and it made me think about the first time that I ever went to the mall and didn't put makeup on. In Iowa, it was like, you had to make sure your makeup was on. You wouldn't go to the grocery store in track pants and no makeup, because you could see someone you knew. And so no one could ever see you in a different light, because then they would know what you looked like without makeup on or whatever. It was just a thing, at least how I grew up. You always had to look presentable. I was in college. I was like, I'm just gonna try it. I'm gonna go and just see what happens. No one fucking looked at me. Nobody fucking cared. It was one of the biggest lessons that I ever had in my life, and I'm just really grateful that I got it at like 19 or 20.

Kaykay Brady: 59:51

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:52

It's just like, you realize everybody is so wrapped up in their own shit. They're not focusing on you.

Kaykay Brady: 59:57

That's exactly what I was gonna say. Yep.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:59

And that's a great thing,

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:01

It is a great thing, yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:02

Just be yourself. Anybody who would notice and be bothered by it isn't worth caring about anyway.

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:07

Amen!

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:07

So just be yourself.

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:08

Hell yeah. Yeah, I would totally agree with you where they landed. And I think the babysitting kind of got them out of that self conscious spot, where all of a sudden, they had to do something, they had to engage with New York in some sort of real way. You know, they were working in New York. And then all of a sudden, you know, that self consciousness could fall away, and they could just be present.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:30

Totally. So before we get into Most 80s Moments, did you have any additional Most New York Moments?

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:38

Yeah, so I definitely had "bag lady," which we already talked about. But I also had, they use the word "heroes."

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:45

I was gonna ask! So did you call sandwiches heroes?

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:48

Yes. But here's what you would never call them, "hero sandwiches," which she does. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about, Ann M.?

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:57

Well, maybe that's to make it clear...

Kaykay Brady: 1:00:59

Ah, for the reader.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:59

I was like, heroes, what is heroes? And then I was like, oh, yeah, there are some places that call it heroes. We call them subs.

Kaykay Brady: 1:01:07

Right. And then upstate New York calls it a grinder.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:11

And then hoagies, right? But that's more like Pennsylvania?

Kaykay Brady: 1:01:15

Yeah, that's more like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yeah, we pretty much, "heroes," for sure. So that was very New York. I loved seeing that.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:22

Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Kaykay Brady: 1:01:24

You know, heroes are a big deal there. We're very into sandwiches there, and you can get the most fucking amazing sandwich from a little bodega. I mean, it's just the best sandwich you've ever had. And you know, it's not that hard. It's good bread and it's thinly sliced meats. I gotta tell you, California, you got to get on your fucking deli meats. They're terrible. It's like eating coasters. You got to slice up that meat thin. It's not rocket science. Anyway. So heroes. Yes, it's as important as pizza.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:53

What did you have for Most 80s Moments?

Kaykay Brady: 1:01:56

I had goof calling. They goof call Jeff. You know, prank calling, I guess is what we might call it. That's all pretty 80s. You know, we didn't have a lot to entertain ourselves with, so goof calling or prank calling was really fun.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:10

I mean, obviously, the Most 80s Moment to me was Hard Rock Cafe. That is just so 80s. And the idea that rich people plus church equals soup equals homelessness solved. That was very 80s, and like, that was good enough. And then I also had, you know, if you can't find someone, they may just be lost forever. When she can't find them? They have a specific place that they want to meet at Grand Central, when the Baby-sitters come in from Connecticut, and they're not there when they're supposed to be there. And you're shit out of luck.

Kaykay Brady: 1:02:47

Right. Hope you find 'em!

Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:49

Hope you find them eventually!

Kaykay Brady: 1:02:50

Your weekend may never start!

Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:51

New York City has your friends now! Because there's no way to contact anyone, find anybody.

Kaykay Brady: 1:02:56

Yeah, that's what it was like. I mean, it really was.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:00

So you mentioned that one of your Most 80s Moments was the goof calling. And that leads us into the premise of our next book, which is...

Kaykay Brady: 1:03:08

Oh shit, Phantom Callers 2?

Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:11

I mean, Claudia gets shit on repeatedly through this series, not the least of which is in the next book, which is Claudia and the Bad Joke. I have a feeling this might be up your alley. I can see little Kaykay...

Kaykay Brady: 1:03:22

A practical joker? Get outta here. Oh, I have some good ones to share.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:26

I cannot wait to hear that in the next episode. But until then...

Kaykay Brady: 1:03:29

Just keep sittin'! [theme song] Chucky's always on my mind, Chucky's always on my mind.