Transcript - BSFC #27: Jessi and the Superbrat
[00:00:00] Brooke Suchomel: 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.
[00:00:24] Kaykay Brady: And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist, and I'm new to these lovely fuckin’ books. And I'm also me grandmother, for some reason.
[00:00:33] Brooke Suchomel: I was gonna say, I see your grandma came to visit and I'm here for that. Loving that.
[00:00:37] Kaykay Brady: I don't know. She just wanted to show up for book 27 for some reason.
[00:00:41] Brooke Suchomel: Well, I'm so excited to hear her take on what happened in this book and in the events of September 1989, because I've been excited to talk about this one with you for a multitude of reasons. So starting off globally, events that were happening, apparently the Moscow Music Peace Festival that we discussed in our last episode worked, because in September 89-
[00:01:05] Kaykay Brady: We had peace?
[00:01:06] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. Peace. Yeah, this is why we live in the peaceful world that we live in today. can today's peaceful, harmonious existence to Skid Row rocking in Moscow on a CIA op.
[00:01:19] Kaykay Brady: If you're hearing this, and you're not living in complete peace and harmony, you've sort of jolted off into an alternate universe.
[00:01:26] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah, yeah, no, here in the non-parallel universe, everything's fucking great because the Scorpions' "Wind of Change" brought harmony to the world. But in September 89 in all universes, shit was popping off in East Germany, we had the start of the Monday demonstrations calling for reform that sort of pointed at as something that led to East and West Germany opening relations, and then Desmond Tutu led a massive anti-apartheid March in South Africa. So thank you so much, convicted drug smuggler Doc McGhee, for working with the CIA to bring peace to the world through hair metal.
[00:02:07] Kaykay Brady: Doc McGhee.
[00:02:10] Brooke Suchomel: Worked great. And then this is the month that Zsa Zsa Gabor slapped a cop.
[00:02:15] Kaykay Brady: Oh...
[00:02:16] Brooke Suchomel: You remember this?
[00:02:16] Kaykay Brady: I forgot about this little conflagration, but it's in my mind somewhere.
[00:02:21] Brooke Suchomel: So as we have been revisiting the way various women have been treated by the media, women like Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears, et cetera, right here, right now, I'm starting the Justice for Zsa Zsa movement. I mean, the cop was basically being a complete and utter ass to her.
[00:02:39] Kaykay Brady: Dude. That is like the definition of "cop." I mean, have you ever had a cop not be like complete fucking douche and ass to you?
[00:02:45] Brooke Suchomel: I have actually. So this is the thing where I want to say, if you are a young white woman that is, you know, considered to be like conventionally, acceptably attractive, driving...
[00:02:59] Kaykay Brady: That's all right. You can say you have pretty privilege.
[00:03:01] Brooke Suchomel: Like, back when I have been pulled over by a cop, cops were always completely amenable to me. They treated me, they treated me just lovely. And then when I was in the back seat of an Uber that was driven by a young Hispanic woman that got pulled over, it was in the dark and they couldn't see me in the backseat, I got to witness what people really experience. When I was in New York for the first time, I saw a bunch of cops beating the shit out of a guy because they accused him of stealing a watch. Like it opened my eyes like, oh my God. So... yeah.
[00:03:36] Kaykay Brady: Was this in the Midwest that they were kind to you or was this in the coast?
[00:03:40] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah.
[00:03:40] Kaykay Brady: I've not had any pleasant experiences with New York cops and they were like my fucking uncles! Not that I was pulled over by my actual uncles.
[00:03:47] Brooke Suchomel: Right, your actual uncle pulled you over and called you a dyke and slapped you in the face.
[00:03:53] Kaykay Brady: Basically, that was Thanksgiving, right? So my uncle pulled me over, he called me a dyke and he slapped me in the face. New York City! What are you gonna do?
[00:04:04] Brooke Suchomel: Just another Saturday! Oh man.
[00:04:07] Kaykay Brady: but like, I don't know. My experience has always been like, they just are trying to dominate you, and
[00:04:13] Brooke Suchomel: Yup. Yup. And so Zsa Zsa was not fucking having it. So basically...
[00:04:17] Kaykay Brady: Not having it!
[00:04:18] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. So there is this amazing clip I found, that I will share on social media, of Zsa Zsa on Donahue after all of this went down, after she got charged with assaulting a police officer, and she's like, "Fine, fuck it. I'll pay my, I'll do my time." She's like, "But that cop was an asshole." He was like, basically got her on the ground and like, it was not cool what this cop, even at the time, when it came up that this cop, but it was like, "Oh no, the cop can never be in the wrong," right? And so on Donahue, there's all of these Karens in the audience going ham on Zsa Zsa and being like, "We don't care what you think," blah blah blah, and it's like, you're in the audience of Donahue talking to her, so kind of you care what you think. Um, and she goes off about how, like, "I grew up in an authoritarian state. I know how these authoritarian officers operate. I'm not having it. I survived-" yeah. I am like, snaps to Zsa Zsa. So I think we need a Justice for Zsa Zsa movement. I think we need, like, You're Wrong About, or whatever, to do like, You're Wrong About Zsa Zsa.
[00:05:26] Kaykay Brady: Although we- you're wrong about Zsa Zsa, all of your preconceived notions about Zsa Zsa Gabor. We also should, you know, call out the fact that the reason she's still here with us today is because she is white.
[00:05:39] Brooke Suchomel: Right. Or was here.
[00:05:41] Kaykay Brady: Because if she would’ve been a person of color slapping a cop, bye bye.
[00:05:42] Brooke Suchomel: Oh, totally. Absolutely. Because she's like a very wealthy, privileged, well known white person you know, and it just became like a whole celebrity thing. So when I saw that that happened, I started reading up on it, and I was just like, holy shit, I did not know the whole story about why Zsa Zsa slapped a cop and what the coverage of her in the media was and how the whole time she was calling this shit out for what it is like 30 years in advance of the rest of the country, you know, white people starting to figure it out. So go Zsa Zsa. And the only one in the audience, so she gets like, railed on by these white women and then a black man stands up and is like, "Zsa Zsa, you are a national treasure." And I was like-
[00:06:31] Kaykay Brady: He gets it!
[00:06:32] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah he did.
[00:06:33] Kaykay Brady: He gets it.
[00:06:35] Brooke Suchomel: He started asking her about what was going on back in. So this was again at the time of the fall of the communist states over in Europe. And so then he starts asking her about the geopolitical situation and they're like having a conversation about it while all of the white ladies in the audience are like, "You were mean to a cop and cops are perfect."
[00:06:53] Kaykay Brady: So you know how they say, you know, channel your inner mediocre white man? No, channel your inner Zsa Zsa.
[00:07:02] Brooke Suchomel: Channel your Zsa Zsa and channel that guy in the audience of Donahue, who is like, "Fuck all these Karens. You're the shit." Love that. So that made me very happy.
[00:07:15] Kaykay Brady: That was a delightful story. Really fun jaunt.
[00:07:18] Brooke Suchomel: Justice for Zsa Zsa. Music-wise, speaking of how Skid Row was bringing peace to the world, this was the month that "18 and Life" hit number four on the music charts.
[00:07:29] Kaykay Brady: All right. My first tape, a single of "18 and Life"!
[00:07:34] Brooke Suchomel: Hell yeah. This was also a big month for Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time." So like, you had Cher on the aircraft carrier struttin' her thing. Like, doing her damn thing.
[00:07:47] Kaykay Brady: With actual servicemen, I believe.
[00:07:50] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. It's so camp and I love it so much. So both of those things were on the chart. Neither of them hit number one though. Number ones, a couple of good ones. Paula Abdul's "Cold Hearted" was number one this month, and then New Kids on the Block's "Hanging Tough" was number one this month as well. So that was fun on the charts. Movies, not so fun. It was more eighties justice. Uncle Buck, still at the top of the charts, and then two troubled divorced cop, a male cop of course, takes down the criminals films. Sea of Love I vaguely remember, and then Black Rain with Michael Douglas. It was like your grandpa's fantasies were ruling-
[00:08:32] Kaykay Brady: Taking down ruffians!
[00:08:34] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. So that was what was going on in the movies, not super exciting. But on TV...
[00:08:40] Kaykay Brady: Ooh...
[00:08:41] Brooke Suchomel: 40 shows premiered in September 1989. Four-Zero. Ten shows times four. Including the Joan Rivers Show.
[00:08:55] Kaykay Brady: Hey...
[00:08:55] Brooke Suchomel: The daytime talk show version that was utter chaos. I fucking loved this show. And I'm looking back at what some of her like guests were. And I'm like realizing that the Joan Rivers Show, the daytime talk show, may have shaped my life almost as much as the Baby-Sitters Club did.
[00:09:14] Kaykay Brady: That's the next podcast, show for show...
[00:09:16] Brooke Suchomel: Oh my God. Oh my God.
[00:09:18] Kaykay Brady: We analyze the Joan Rivers Show through a queer feminist perspective.
[00:09:22] Brooke Suchomel: Oh, okay. Yes, this is perfect because let me give you a few, so I'm going to rattle off what her guests were. These are all on individual episodes, okay? So this is why I'm telling you, it's fucking chaos. Single episode, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Theo from The Cosby Show, a sex worker, a lesbian nun, and a drag queen.
[00:09:46] Kaykay Brady: Holy fucking shit.
[00:09:49] Brooke Suchomel: Another one-
[00:09:50] Kaykay Brady: Holy fuckin' shit. It's like everything I could possibly wanna see.
[00:09:53] Brooke Suchomel: Right? Yes. Another one, Betty White, three porn stars.
[00:09:57] Kaykay Brady: Who is producing this?
[00:10:01] Brooke Suchomel: My id.
[00:10:02] Kaykay Brady: RuPaul Charles?
[00:10:04] Brooke Suchomel: Oh, the first-
[00:10:04] Kaykay Brady: "My id."
[00:10:05] Brooke Suchomel: The first time I ever saw RuPaul was on the Joan Rivers Show. Before "Supermodel" came out.
[00:10:11] Kaykay Brady: I'm sure that was true for me too. Oh, before "Supermodel!"
[00:10:14] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah.
[00:10:15] Kaykay Brady: Wow.
[00:10:15] Brooke Suchomel: And then Alan Thicke, a police psychic, and retired sex workers. This is the Joan Rivers Show. It is chaos. It makes no sense. It's delightful. Holy shit. Just the best.
[00:10:31] Kaykay Brady: Somebody just knew, you know, they just knew who Joan was, knew the area where Joan was going to shine and they just went. They didn't question it, they just went.
[00:10:40] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. "Who do you need on next Thursday's show?" "Um, I need Theo Huxtable and a lesbian nun and a drag queen." "Done." The booking agent for that show? Fantasy job. I'm sure a nightmare job, but also a fantasy job.
[00:10:58] Kaykay Brady: Why is this not available for stream on Hulu? Why am I this right now?
[00:11:02] Brooke Suchomel: I think there are some that are available for streaming. Roku has them or something. This is going to be a project of mine is to dig in and to get like the best of the Joan Rivers Show, because America needs, America needs this right now. The world needs this right now. We all need this healing balm that is the Joan Rivers Show.
[00:11:22] Kaykay Brady: It's sort of like when you realize that ancient cultures were far surpassing us in building construction, for example. It's just like that.
[00:11:30] Brooke Suchomel: This is the Mayan calendar of, uh...
[00:11:33] Kaykay Brady: Of pop culture.
[00:11:36] Brooke Suchomel: That's exactly right. And then also, not in the daytime, but nighttime shows that premiered, Doogie Howser, MD was one of them. Baywatch premiered this month, and Family Matters. Family Matters, which launched the TGIF Friday night block of shows on ABC. So do you remember TGIF? Friday night prime time. Is this when you're like, "No, I was off in the woods with rich people TV?"
[00:12:06] Kaykay Brady: I, what I, what I could say every time you asked me this question, I'll just make up a different story. No, I was smoking weed in the woods with, you know, sitting in three feet of snow without a jacket. There you go.
[00:12:16] Brooke Suchomel: When you could have been indoors watching Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, and Just the Ten of Us. And the 27th Baby-sitters Club book, Jessi and the Superbrat, was released. So it's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, "Stoneybrook has gone star crazy! Derek Masters, an eight year old regular on a hit TV sitcom, has moved to town. Everyone's wondering what a real live TV star will be like. Will he drive to school in a limo? Jessi can't believe it, but even stars need babysitters, and she's the lucky club member to watch Derek Masters. Even though a lot of kids at school call Derek a spoiled brat, Jessi likes him immediately. He rides bikes and eats junk food, like a normal kid, but he has exciting stories about Hollywood too. Pretty soon babysitting and ballet start looking kind of boring next to TV, scripts, and cameras. Maybe Jessi would like to be a star too!" End quote.
[00:13:18] Kaykay Brady: Pretty good back cover copy. Covered all the pieces, I would say, except for it missed the externalization experience of John.
[00:13:26] Brooke Suchomel: Right. "John."
[00:13:29] Kaykay Brady: The multiple personalities that are developing...
[00:13:31] Brooke Suchomel: Yes.
[00:13:32] Kaykay Brady: ...for what's his name, Derek?
[00:13:33] Brooke Suchomel: Derek, yeah. So this was an interesting one. This is one that is ghostwritten.
[00:13:39] Kaykay Brady: Interesting. Huh.
[00:13:43] Brooke Suchomel: So you see at the very beginning, on the copyright page of this book, it says, "The author would again like to thank Jan Carr for her help in writing this book." And thanking Jan Carr for her help with the book was something that we saw at the beginning of Dawn on the Coast as well. So I looked into it and Jan Carr is the author of this book and also the Dawn goes to California and then just decides to sacrifice her happiness and freedom for her responsibilities. I don't know how much in input Ann M. Martin had, but I noticed even the handwriting was off, which was weird to me, the handwriting of the characters. I was like, oh, the handwriting looks a little funky. Anyways.
[00:14:33] Kaykay Brady: I can't believe you would notice that or remember that. This is a testament to how our brains are extremely different. I would never notice such a thing in like a billion light years.
[00:14:42] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. It's that constant state of anxiety and monitoring for threats and deviations in my environment at all times.
[00:14:50] Kaykay Brady: Including the writing style in a children's book. You know, it's so interesting that you say it's ghost written because I make like a spreadsheet every week and I plop thoughts on it as the book, you know, funny things and interesting things. And mine's blank. It's like spreadsheet is ghost written. I have nothing on there. Very little struck me. I was just like, "Hmm."
[00:15:09] Brooke Suchomel: So what does that say? Like, you're waiting for Jan Carr to fill out your spreadsheet. What does that say to you?
[00:15:15] Kaykay Brady: I think it means, you know, Jan Carr and I have yet to build rapport, as writer and a reader experience, and or maybe I, you know, I don't relate to Jan Carr's perspective as much. There was just nothing grabbing me in this book. you know, I was aware that like, mostly it was talking about ballet and I was thinking, this is maybe how Brooke felt during the softball book where I was just like not interested, like not interesting to me, modeling, ballet. So it could be that too, but I just am finding it very interesting right now that it was a different author and I failed to make any kind of personal connections in this book.
[00:15:54] Brooke Suchomel: Hm. So when you say it's, you think that it might be because it was all ballet, did this feel more like a book where it's more about action than like internal lives?
[00:16:04] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, I think so too, there was more focus on what was happening. You know, it was a lot about Jessi auditioning for Swan Lake and Derek navigating being a star in what is essentially a small town environment in Stoneybrook, and not as much about, not the depth of interpersonal struggle. I mean, there was identity struggle, but I would say the identity struggle was more, what do I want to do? Right? Jessi wants to do modeling. But there's some sense that she's only doing the modeling, cause she's worried she's not going to get cast in Swan Lake. And then Derek is treating all of his classmates like trash because they think he's a snobby actor. And then he decides in the end that he wants to act differently. He actually thinks that being nice is gonna get him more friends. So there's definitely like, some identity conflict, but it's much more, what do I want to do versus these deep, interpersonal conflicts. It, it doesn't seem to go as deep. Did you notice there was a change?
[00:17:08] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. I don't have a spreadsheet, but I have a, have a notebook that I write things in. And normally it's so full that like I'm having to wedge cause I'm like, I'm going to keep it to a single page, right? And I'm normally having to wedge things into corners to get all of my thoughts down.
[00:17:23] Kaykay Brady: I want to see this notebook. I'm very interested by this notebook. She's not kidding folks. I would say, you know, 10,000 characters on this page.
[00:17:32] Brooke Suchomel: But this is nothing. For this page, this is nothing. There are still open lines, entire lines, where I could write things down, which is normally not the case. And as you're talking, I was trying to figure out, well, what exactly is it? And as you're talking, I think I'm realizing it's because a lot of this book is like, tell don't show. Normally we more show don't tell, there's more things that you can infer about what's going on, cause you're reading more about various characters' internal lives. It's really jumping out to me that these two ghost written books really are written from the perspective of one character. The other Baby-Sitters club members make very, very brief appearances. You don't really get too much interaction with them. Like it's sort of, you're not focusing on the relationship between the narrator and her friends, you're focusing on the relationship between the narrator and a new character that we've never met before. So Dawn on the Coast, it's Dawn isolated. She's literally as far away from her friends as she can be and still be in the country. And she's interacting with her friends from California that we've never met before. In this book, it's pretty much all Jessi and this boy, Derek, who we've never met before and who was back off to LA at the end of this.
[00:18:57] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, it's a very convenient blowing into town, blowing out of town.
[00:19:01] Brooke Suchomel: Right. So you don't have to focus so much on what are we seeing about the relationship between these girls and how they're navigating the world with the help of their friends. You don't see that happening much, that dynamic is missing. And that dynamic is the dynamic that is most interesting to me these books.
[00:19:22] Kaykay Brady: It's such a good point. And that was exactly the word that was popping into my head before you said it, dynamism. It’s missing a sort of dynamism that to me is the central pull of the series.
[00:19:32] Brooke Suchomel: You don't even see the characters really reflecting internally much in this one on what they want. You know, you see them sort of, so, I mean, I'll just say I'll just jumping right to it cause I think it's the only way that I can talk about why I think we might be feeling this remove is to talk about what I got out of it. And I thought that this book was all about like what they're fighting was vulnerability and fear of failure. Derek is, so he's moved back to Stoneybrook. He's actually a Stoneybrook native who just flew to LA to be in this TV show. And the show is like on hiatus or something so he's back. It's again, it's sort of very convenient plot tropes.
[00:20:12] Kaykay Brady: He wears glasses in the show, but he doesn't wear glasses in real even recognize him. It's like he's a different person!
[00:20:18] Brooke Suchomel: And his hair is spiky in the show, but it's not spiky in real life. So who even is this? And he's like a total science nerd in the show when he just likes to play badminton in the book. So it's wacky and different. But, you know, he's back. And so he's in a position where it's like, oh, everybody knows me as this actor, you know? He is encountered with hostility, right at the beginning. I mean, that's the first thing that we see. He's actually a nice, open, friendly kid, goes over to the Pikes’ and Mallory Pike's brothers, the triplets, are just dicks to him for no reason.
[00:20:55] Kaykay Brady: And then even the people that are nice to him kind of want something.
[00:20:58] Brooke Suchomel: Oh, totally.
[00:20:59] Kaykay Brady: So it's sort of like he's always under threat in a way. And think the book does a pretty good job of showing the way that, you know, fame does taint all the interactions that this poor kid's having.
[00:21:11] Brooke Suchomel: Right. So he's feeling vulnerable there and he's worried about how people are going to treat him. And we see, they treat him like shit. And his response to that is to like come up with a false persona. So he basically starts pushing back. Ultimately at the end, when it comes out that this super brat, John, it's always just like, pick the most benign, banal name that you can imagine, "John," is not real. John is Derek's alter ego that retaliates against the kids that are abusive towards him.
[00:21:47] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, and even goes on the offensive.
[00:21:50] Brooke Suchomel: So that's the thing that's confusing. It implies at points that he goes on the offensive, but then at the end, when he sort of confesses to the fact that it was him, he said, "What happened was that the kids were bothering me so much that I had to get back at them. So whenever they did something mean to me, I started doing mean things back to them." That's on page 133. So it's confusing. Like the book doesn't make that, it's mixed messages. For some God forsaken reason, Claudia invites four kids that she's never met before. They're like having an awkward interaction in the park with Derek, everyone's just kind of standing there and she's like, "Oh, these must be his bullies. Let's bring his four bullies back to his house to play, always a that'll fix things." This book is all about like, we need to placate the abuser. It's like, no, you fucking don't. And so he says to Jessi at the beginning, he's like, "Well, what should I do when kids are mean to me, should I like fight back?" And she's like, "No." So he is like, okay, I'm gonna come up with this fantasy persona to kind of talk about it. It's almost like he's trying to figure out, is this going too far, by confessing to Jessi what he's doing to like get her reaction.
[00:23:09] Kaykay Brady: Right, in a sort of judgmental way too, right? Because he's saying, "Oh, John did this, John did that. John's such a dick."
[00:23:15] Brooke Suchomel: Right.
[00:23:16] Kaykay Brady: He's not like confessing it in any kind of neutral way.
[00:23:18] Brooke Suchomel: Right. But I think he's trying to kind of see, cause it's like, why would he be confessing that? The only thing that makes sense is that he was asking Jessi, who again, has been treated like shit by people in Stoneybrook. I mean, I think you see throughout, like Stoneybrook is not a great place, if you are not, you know, Mary Anne, maybe? Mary Anne is probably the person with the best chance of succeeding in Stoneybrook. Everybody else is probably fuck out of there. So, you know, it's almost like, okay, you're also an outsider. You know, she says right at the beginning, "I'm the only black kid in my class at Stoneybrook Elementary," says that as the narrator and obviously Derek would pick up on that. So it seems like he might be kind of seeking her guidance on what an appropriate response is, and all of the babysitters are like, "The appropriate response is to win your tormentors over."
[00:24:09] Kaykay Brady: Haha. "Flatter them!"
[00:24:11] Brooke Suchomel: Right. And it's like, No it's not. So you've got that vulnerability and feeling like I have to create this false entity to deal with how I'm feeling vulnerable. And then with Jessi, she's feeling vulnerable. She's feeling this fear of failure. they don't really mention it in the back cover copy, but a big plot line is Jessi is auditioning for Swan Lake at the Stoneybrook Civic Center. And she's concerned all of these big, hot shot, New York ballet performers are, you know, are there. They want to perform in the Stoneybrook Civic Center as well. So she's nervous about the stakes of the competition that she's against. And then she starts coming up with another fantasy, like a plan B of like, "Oh, well, if I don't make it, it's fine. I'm just gonna like go model." You know, it's the eighties. If you want to escape your small town, what do you do? What's presented to you as an option? Modeling!
[00:25:04] Kaykay Brady: And I'm stealing my thunder for eighties moments, but a 13 year old's talking directly to modeling agents without parental intervention? Bad idea jeans.
[00:25:14] Brooke Suchomel: For real. And her like fantasy is that an agent is like chomping on a cigar and like slaps her on the back and is like, "You got a face for modeling kid," or something. And I'm like, Ooh, get out, go away. Far, far. But that's what was presented to us as like, This is how you'll make it. This is your big
[00:25:34] Kaykay Brady: And it tracks! That also there, there may have not been that parental mediation, which I think today there's much more parental mediation between kid stars, kid models, and executive teams.
[00:25:46] Brooke Suchomel: Right. Because of the horror stories that have come out from the eighties and the nineties, and even more recently than that. So she basically puts a wall up around herself to protect herself by being like, "Oh, I don't really care so much about ballet anyway, I'm going to model I'm going to be a star."
[00:26:03] Kaykay Brady: There's a dynamic happening too, where Derek is encouraging this and she's kind of getting ideas from Derek. He went the road of being a model first and then doing a couple of commercials and then he got a TV show. So there's also that where Derek is trying to encourage Jessi along these lines too.
[00:26:23] Brooke Suchomel: And he's eight, so of course he would be like, "Well if I could do it, anybody could do it." Cause he doesn't have the life experience of knowing how unusual he is.
[00:26:30] Kaykay Brady: He doesn't have the life experience of knowing that not everybody could fail up like a mediocre white man, is that what you're telling me?
[00:26:36] Brooke Suchomel: Right, right. Yeah.
[00:26:40] Kaykay Brady: Doesn't work for everybody, brother.
[00:26:41] Brooke Suchomel: There’s a lot of 80 year old people that don't have the life experience to understand that, or have chosen not to gain the life experience to understand that. But what I'm thinking is that the disconnect, the reason why we're both feeling kind of like, “eh,” about this book is because the characters, the main characters you see, they're not being honest with themselves. They don't even realize that they're not being honest with themselves or like confront the fact that they're not being honest with themselves until like the last page or two of the book.
[00:27:08] Kaykay Brady: And then it's all telling.
[00:27:10] Brooke Suchomel: It's all telling. They're like, oh, they come to their realization all at the same time and they turn to each other and they confess their truth. And then they like share a hearty chuckle and then the book ends.
[00:27:23] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, I think that's right on. You don't get the interior monologues, you don't get the process and you don't get the change being shown or the development or arcing being shown. It's just more surface descriptors and then telling about the change that happened, that we don't really get to witness live.
[00:27:44] Brooke Suchomel: Right. And it's that witnessing it happening live that I think makes this book series compelling.
[00:27:51] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. And it makes me wonder if, what was her name? Jan?
[00:27:54] Brooke Suchomel: Jan Carr. Jan Carr.
[00:27:55] Kaykay Brady: I got it right. Wow. It makes me wonder if Jan Carr was maybe not a teacher or maybe Jan Carr didn't have the kid experience that Ann M. had, because I do think that Ann M. not only has that amazing ability to show rather than tell, her understanding of child psychology and development is just so staggeringly right on. And it does make me wonder, you know, what does this new author, what is her experience with child psychology and development? Because if you didn't have that firsthand knowledge, I could see it being really hard.
[00:28:31] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. So I'm looking at it and it says she actually, she was a Head Start teacher. and I don't think she's a bad author. I just think this might be what we might be seeing. And I'll be interested to see if we see this continue as it goes. These aren't her characters that she has conceptualized from the beginning. You know, Ann M. was the one that came up with the ideas sort of like flesh these characters out, basically played God to the birth of these characters. And if you're stepping in to somebody else's creation and especially where it looks like it's, I mean, I don't know what exactly was going on with the ghost writer process and with Ann M.'s schedule, et cetera, but she got plopped in at book 23 and then she got plopped in at book 27.
[00:29:17] Kaykay Brady: It's like Jan Carr is a babysitter for the series.
[00:29:21] Brooke Suchomel: Totally, yeah.
[00:29:22] Kaykay Brady: Wow, it's like Ann M. is the mom and Jan Carr is the babysitter who just plops in when Ann M. needs to, I don't know, go to Bermuda with girlfriend.
[00:29:31] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah, I hope Ann M. was having a lovely vacation while this book was being written, but yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see if, as more and more ghost writers come into the series, if any of them are able to step into that role and sort of own the voices and the internal lives of the characters and feel comfortable enough in them to be able to get us back to that sort of internal monologues and dialogues.
[00:30:00] Kaykay Brady: Yes. And first I want to say for some reason I'm having a fantasy of Ann M. living on Suze Orman's island.
[00:30:07] Brooke Suchomel: Suze Orman has an island?
[00:30:09] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. Suze Orman owns an island, and she and her partner just like live on that island and podcast.
[00:30:15] Brooke Suchomel: Seriously?
[00:30:16] Kaykay Brady: Yeah.
[00:30:17] Brooke Suchomel: Wait, where is this island?
[00:30:19] Kaykay Brady: I don't know. I just that there's an island.
[00:30:20] Brooke Suchomel: Is it called like, Orman Island?
[00:30:22] Kaykay Brady: I hope so, but I just, I have a fantasy of Ann M. And her partner, like living next door to Suze Orman and her partner.
[00:30:28] Brooke Suchomel: And they're all just wearing the fiercest blazers. Just like sharp little colorful jackets.
[00:30:32] Kaykay Brady: They're wearing blazers in like 105 degree heat.
[00:30:35] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:39] Kaykay Brady: On the beach. like come in from a dip and they just slip that blazer right back on.
[00:30:46] Brooke Suchomel: Right. Sitting on the sand in a blazer. Yeah. I enjoy that vision.
[00:30:52] Kaykay Brady: I like to indulge in my Ann M. fantasies. So thank you for always allowing me that space. And yeah, I think it's such a great question and I love the way you're explaining this and exploring this, because of course when you are not the creator, it is so hard. That's probably harder to step in and give life to someone else's creation than it is to just create your own.
[00:31:17] Brooke Suchomel: One of the hardest things, I mean, speaking from experience, when you are editing a franchise and you need to find another author to step in either temporarily or permanently, finding somebody who can authentically write in the voice of the original author is so fucking difficult.
[00:31:41] Kaykay Brady: Oh yeah.
[00:31:42] Brooke Suchomel: And it's very difficult for people to feel comfortable doing that because it's like, if you're an author you want to express yourself, you know, you don't want to feel like you're tied to somebody else's vision of who you should be. You have to like apply your gifts to somebody else's vision, and that can be really challenging.
[00:32:00] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. And I'm thinking about the ways that you and I talk a lot about how authors, there are sort of the conscious things that go into it, and then there's psychology that leaks into it, that maybe you're not even aware is going into it, but it's part of the stew that everyone enjoys experiencing whether they know it or not. And so as a ghost writer, you can't just bring your own stew and like throw it in there, right? It's truly difficult. It makes me think about, when you train as a psychotherapist, you do a lot of role-playing. And the worst thing in the world and the hardest thing, and what we all hate, is when you role play with another clinician who's acting. It's impossible. You can't do therapy with someone acting because there's no like emotional resonance and truth, which is like, the meat and potatoes of what you're doing as a psychotherapist is latching into someone's like most primal truth. You have to be such a fucking amazing actor to do it. And it's just making me think, similar for authors, you know?
[00:33:01] Brooke Suchomel: And, that's such a great point. It's like, what does it mean then that this author who has to act in a way, you know, like she has to put on another persona that the author has chosen to focus primarily and almost solely on two characters who are also performers.
[00:33:23] Kaykay Brady: Mm. Wow, dude, I hope your edibles are kicking in, y'all.
[00:33:33] Brooke Suchomel: But it is like, Jessi, it's all about-
[00:33:35] Kaykay Brady: Totally. 100%.
[00:33:36] Brooke Suchomel: The performance and, you know, she starts to shift away from ballet. So you see her struggling at the beginning. She's in a rehearsal, she feels like she's doing it right, but her ballet teacher keeps on correcting her over and over and over and over again. That's where we see Jessi at the beginning of this, is she's just being constantly corrected in ballet class. And it's not dissimilar to what I would imagine the process would have been like for a ghost writer coming in, getting the feedback from an editor of like, "It's not the right tone. The voice isn't there yet." You have to really work with a ghost writer or a contributing author to get comfortable in the shoes that they're stepping into. And that can be really painful and can make people really question themselves.
[00:34:29] Kaykay Brady: Jan Carr's like, "Fuck this. I'm going to go write for TV. this Baby-sitters Club gig. I don't even think I want this."
[00:34:38] Brooke Suchomel: Anyways, not to psychoanalyze too much, cause obviously we don't know nearly as much about Jan Carr as we even know about Ann M. Martin. And we know very little about her, you know, they're very private people, but just thinking of what are the connecting threads between what we're noticing both on the page and on our reaction to what we saw on the page and what we know about what was going on behind the scenes at the time, why that could explain the sort of feeling of being a little bit thrown off that I think both of us got, reading this book.
[00:35:11] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, I think it's so interesting that that's kind of where we both started. I started there not even knowing there was a ghost writer, but just that, I don't know, that human ability to kind of pick up when things are off and things are different. It's really interesting the way that minds can do that, and it's not even conscious.
[00:35:27] Brooke Suchomel: Definitely. So what did you have for, did you have anything? I know you said there was nothing on your spreadsheet for what they're fighting.
[00:35:35] Kaykay Brady: What's on my spreadsheet. My spreadsheet says, reading about ballet, I felt like I imagine you felt about reading softball. That's pretty much all I had on my spreadsheet, but I thought they were fighting fantasy versus reality. And you saw this everywhere, it was sort of the fantasy and reality of who Derek is and how the kids in Stoneybrook are seeing Derek. What we were saying, "Oh, he had glasses and spiky hair and now he doesn't." It's a fantasy. It's not true. Versus reality. And then Jessi is also managing the fantasy of modeling, of TV, the fantasy of being in Swan Lake, versus the reality of landing the role and dealing with the other actors. So I thought I saw some themes about that, that they were fighting fantasy versus reality. then what I said before, also fighting to know what they want to do. So John deciding, how do I want to be in relationship as a famous person? And then Jessi deciding, how do I want to be a performer?
[00:36:37] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. And to that point, it seems like there is this push pull battle between the desire to stand out and the desire to fit in.
[00:36:44] Kaykay Brady: Ah, yeah. Good one.
[00:36:46] Brooke Suchomel: That tension between being like quote unquote normal and being exceptional, and the alienation that comes with being exceptional.
[00:36:56] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. And the way people are trying to take you down, you see it with both Jessi and you see it with John. You see it with Jessi when she's auditioning and John can actually, I'm calling him John now. He's Derek. Derek slash John.
[00:37:11] Brooke Suchomel: John-Derek. Derek-John. Wasn't there like a-
[00:37:15] Kaykay Brady: John-Derek. All of a sudden he becomes like a fabulous gay man on Drag Race in my mind. Yeah, when you call him John-Derek, I'm like, that's a guy that's a drag queen that I want to know. He's from the south, know.
[00:37:26] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah, you need to just keep on following John-Derek for about 20 years, and then he's gonna apply his performing skills and his feeling of from his small patrician town in ways that we will find very enjoyable. So look out for John-Derek.
[00:37:43] Kaykay Brady: So John-Derek, that's just gonna be his name now, John-Derek goes to the audition and hears the other ballerinas kind of tearing her apart and he learns from it and he takes down their notes and shares it with Jessi as a way that she can improve. And he knows that the fact that they're tearing her down means that Jessi is really good.
[00:38:04] Brooke Suchomel: Yes.
[00:38:05] Kaykay Brady: He knows this because he gets torn down all the time and that's really painful for him. So it's speaking to exactly what you're saying, you know, the life of being an exceptional whatever is very painful.
[00:38:19] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. That part I thought was really good that that was put on the page. I thought Ann M. would have explored that in a deeper way, sort of the pain of the exceptional. I think that would have been a much more interesting lesson and there would be a lot to explore there.
[00:38:33] Kaykay Brady: Maybe a little more nuanced.
[00:38:35] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. More nuanced. Cause Jessi has it twice over, being one of very few black people in her entire community. She says at the beginning that she misses her hometown in New Jersey because, and this is a direct quote, "It was a little easier to be myself there." There's a thread there, you know? If I was the editor of this book series, I would have been like, not even focusing so much on getting the voice right. Cause I think she did get the voice right for the most part. It's what the voice was saying and sort of meat and the depth of what the voice said that was a little off and I think that's where it should come in.
[00:39:10] Kaykay Brady: It's so true. The voice is right. And I think that's why it wasn't shouting in my face that something was different. But again, it was that kind of emotional resonance was just kind of missing for me. So it was more acting, yeah.
[00:39:24] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. And I think the emotional resonance would really come in with exploring that pain of feeling like you are seen as being different and you are different. Especially if you have great talents or abilities, which we see both Derek and Jessi have, you're going to feel like you don't fit in to your broader environment because you have exceptional abilities. The definition of exceptional means that it's abnormal. So how do you cope with that? That would have been something like, you know, I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way. I certainly don't intend it to come out in an arrogant way. And I think there are probably a lot of people listening to this who could probably say they had this same feeling, but for me as somebody who was in like the quote unquote gifted and talented program, I always felt extremely alienated. You know, I, I, I always felt that like my intelligence was a hindrance that it wasn't something that was welcome, that it made it to where people didn't want to interact with me. And I'm seeing similar things in this book with the way Jessi is treated, with the way Derek is treated. And it's just not explored. And I think a lot of kids who would have been reading this book, there are lots of smart bookish girls all over the globe who found community in these books.
[00:40:55] Kaykay Brady: Definitely.
[00:40:55] Brooke Suchomel: And to have that pain and that sense of how do you deal with that feeling of alienation explored in helpful ways, which we don't get in this book would have been really welcome. This does get rebooted in Season 2, so it will be very interesting to see if those wrongs are righted.
[00:41:18] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. And it's really interesting the way you prefaced sharing your own experiences with this, because I think it gets to something that is really problematic when we look at it. In other words, like we live in a culture where exception is something you need to like, feel embarrassed about or feel like, Oh, I'm arrogant for acknowledging it. But in fact, we all get different gifts and it's not like we paid money for them. You know, it's not like we quote unquote earned them. A lot of people are born with them, right? Yes, you have to work hard too, to like develop them. But it's just really interesting the way that I don't know, like a Western culture or capitalist culture, like really-
[00:41:56] Brooke Suchomel: Puritanical society.
[00:41:57] Kaykay Brady: Like you feel ashamed of these gifts, instead of being like, I have these gifts and like, guess what? I didn't earn them. I would like to make use of them in a useful way. Right? Like that, that actually might be a healthier message to send to kids than like, pretend you're normal.
[00:42:13] Brooke Suchomel: Right.
[00:42:14] Kaykay Brady: Because like, you can't even talk about this because you're like, you're arrogant to even mention this.
[00:42:19] Brooke Suchomel: Welcome everyone to a preview of my weekly therapy sessions.
[00:42:22] Kaykay Brady: Oh, really?
[00:42:23] Brooke Suchomel: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.
[00:42:27] Kaykay Brady: So I think, you know, your point about this is such an important, like this could be such a cool book. I mean, it is a cool book, not saying it's not. And the fact that they're like exploring the topic at all, I think is great. And there's not a lot of like shame or arrogance really put on either of them. You're really kind of seeing it from a very neutral stance. They have these gifts, they have these abilities, they have these advantages, right. And like, how cool would it be if it could have been, you know, taken to that next step where you got that more intimate, emotional, heartfelt sorting through of that. I think you've nailed what you might've seen in Ann M.'s hands. I also think you might've seen, in Ann M.'s hands, more of a coming to understand themselves better through the eyes of other characters. Like, I don't think you would've seen John-Derek realizing he was being John-Derek all on his lonesome. I kept waiting for the reveal because I knew that was coming.
[00:43:26] Brooke Suchomel: Jessi would have figured. I mean, that's the thing you hear throughout. Like, everyone's like, "Oh, which one's John? None of them is named John. Hm. This is confusing. John there, though!" Like, the girls are more oblivious in this book than they actually are. Everyone in this book is much more oblivious than we've seen them before.
[00:43:45] Kaykay Brady: I kept waiting for the Ann M. style reveal, where one of the babysitters uncovers this or clocks it early because of their understanding of human nature and their babysitting charges and humanity and their emotional connection. So I kept waiting for that reveal to happen. And I kept waiting for John-Derek's understanding of himself to grow in relation with other people that we didn't really get.
[00:44:09] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. And to that point, Jessi's dad is the one who clocks what she's doing. Says it straight out.
[00:44:16] Kaykay Brady: Yeah.
[00:44:16] Brooke Suchomel: This is on page 128, when she gets a part in Swan Lake and she's really happy, he says, quote, "All that modeling and agent business didn't fool me for a moment. You were going so far in the other direction, I knew Swan Lake must've meant a lot. So much that you couldn't even admit it to yourself." And then Jessi says, "Oh yeah, the modeling stuff. As soon as I'd heard that I'd gotten into the show, I'd forgotten about all those calls to the agents in Stamford. That whole world had just fled my mind." And then her dad says, "I think sometimes if we want something too badly, we have to play tricks on ourselves so that we don't think it matters so much."
[00:44:53] Kaykay Brady: So much telling, I mean, you're rereading it, I'm like, yeah. Tell, tell, tell, tell, tell.
[00:44:57] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. And normally we see it revealed, or we see them coming to that realization. It's the friends helping them. We see earlier on, Jessi's dad is sort of clued into what she's doing, but I wanna be like, dude, she's 11. Don't let an 11 year old call modeling agents on her own. Bad idea.
[00:45:18] Kaykay Brady: He's cluing into this and he's not cluing into that?
[00:45:22] Brooke Suchomel: That is eighties and nineties. "Oh sure, modeling agents. They're all above board. They don't want anything untoward with my young impressionable child." Yeah. So, you know, that's, what makes it different. The experience of the revelations and the realizations that we see is not done in the manner in which we're used to seeing it, which is much more natural, I think. And because we see the characters come to this realization, we can come to it along with them, as opposed to like, and now we're just being told right at the end, because there's only a few pages left and we need to come to some sort of resolution and we don't have the time to explore it in a more meaningful way. I mean, there are a lot of chapters, my editorial eye on this, there are a lot of chapters where I was like, you didn't need this chapter. You should have used this chapter, like, too much of Jessi's auditions. Just too much of seeing it.
[00:46:15] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. Which that's where I was sighing, and like, so bored.
[00:46:18] Brooke Suchomel: Oh yeah.
[00:46:19] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, it makes me think too about, there's not as much emotion in this book. In other books you see a lot of interpersonal conflict, which creates emotion, creates growth and self-understanding.
[00:46:32] Brooke Suchomel: Right.
[00:46:32] Kaykay Brady: And you don't really get that, right? You don't really get a lot of interpersonal conflict or feeling expressed in that way.
[00:46:41] Brooke Suchomel: Even with Derek, John-Derek, you see conflict at the beginning with Mallory's siblings. Everybody at the Pikes is just being super weird to him, and so you feel a lot of empathy for him in that because you're like, wow, he's really being treated like shit here. We see that happen. And then everything else, we hear about all of these interpersonal conflicts, but we don't see them. And even when we see him interacting with other kids, they're all just kind of like the kids that come up in the park, they literally don't know what to say to each other. That's all it is. So we can't really believe, like, it's hard to believe this character's realization and growth because we don't see anything. We just see people just standing there looking at each other.
[00:47:23] Kaykay Brady: And he's a stranger.
[00:47:25] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. We don't know this kid.
[00:47:26] Kaykay Brady: So we don't know this kid and they don't know this kid. And so there's conflict, but it's not the sort of magic conflict of the Baby-sitters Club, which is conflict among trusted, close people, which results in growth, right? It's more like conflict among strangers.
[00:47:42] Brooke Suchomel: And to your point, since this is written for a child audience, conflict amongst people that you know is what kids experience, for the most part, as conflict. Kids' worlds are pretty small. Kids' worlds are controlled in a way, they're, you know, going to school, seeing the same people at school. Like you have a new kid at school that is a big deal, as opposed to in the adult world, you're meeting new people every day. Interpersonal conflict with fleeting encounters with strangers is something that adults experience, but that's not a kid's experience. Having to work out, how do you navigate the world and conflicts with people that you see all the time? Because you're a kid, you have no agency. If you hate your school, like, I fucking hated my school. I had no say. There was nowhere else I could go. I was stuck with those people. And so like, how do you deal? That's really helpful for kids who are trapped in their environment. And in this it's like, well, Jessi is, and you see a little hint of that, and then it's just not explored. And then Derek feels trapped, but then he just leaves and goes to LA. So it's just not as true to life, I think, as we get in the other books.
[00:48:56] Kaykay Brady: You make such a good point, which makes me think about, so let's say a kid has a conflict outside the home, or let's say the kid is abused outside the home or assaulted outside of the home or any of the million things that kids might experience. Let's take something smaller, like body shaming. The research shows that it doesn't matter how much conflict they experience in the outside world. If that's handled well in the family system, the kid will be strong and resilient and can sort of take it on. But if the family system reinforces that oppression, or if it comes from the family system, like messages that girls might receive, or boys might receive about their gender, their body, or their sexuality, that crushes the child. Because the places where they trust somebody, close friends, family, if those places are strong and giving them really good messages, they just, oh, their resilience. Like, they can handle anything, really.
[00:49:54] Brooke Suchomel: Now I'm like ready to jump to the Netflix show to see how they dealt with it, but we're not going to.
[00:50:01] Kaykay Brady: I've been like, I put it on Netflix every day and I'm like, no, I can't do it! I want to watch it so fucking bad.
[00:50:07] Brooke Suchomel: I know. And it's made a lot of best TV shows year critics list and things like that, which makes me very, very happy. So I'm excited to check it out, but in the meantime, you know, making the best of what we got here, which left us with blank pages, but at least adequate information to discuss.
[00:50:28] Kaykay Brady: Literal and metaphorical blank pages.
[00:50:31] Brooke Suchomel: Right.
[00:50:32] Kaykay Brady: And sometimes life gives you blank pages.
[00:50:34] Brooke Suchomel: Sometimes it does. I mean, I'm sort of missing blank pages. I'll take a blank page. There was a time in my life where I was like, oh man, things are really boring. And now I'm like, could things be boring again? I'll take a blank page.
[00:50:46] Kaykay Brady: I hear that.
[00:50:47] Brooke Suchomel: So, eighties moments. What did you have, Kaykay?
[00:50:51] Kaykay Brady: Well, I already talked about my main one, which was no parent involvement whatsoever with grown adults trying to solicit children based on their looks.
[00:51:01] Brooke Suchomel: As you got in the back of like every teen magazine. So anyone picked up a Teen, YM, Seventeen got like five pages of ads from modeling agencies at the back with phone numbers, et cetera.
[00:51:17] Kaykay Brady: I am stunned. I don't even know if I can continue this podcast. I didn't know that. I didn't read those things. And I'm like, I'm so sad. I like immediately need to cry and go write a dissertation.
[00:51:33] Brooke Suchomel: Well, did you have any other eighties moments before you do that?
[00:51:36] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, Chorus Line. There was a shout out. "One singular sensation, every little step she takes."
[00:51:45] Brooke Suchomel: I'm heard incessantly in New York City.
[00:51:49] Kaykay Brady: Oh, on of course every commercial break, and then like commercials were using the songs. And there was an HBO movie that came out that was on every single fucking day. Yeah, lots of Chorus Line in my life. I know every word to every single song.
[00:52:04] Brooke Suchomel: I mean, that jumped out at me immediately because growing up in Iowa, like Broadway was just a concept to me. We didn't even get, back at the time, we didn't get like touring Broadway shows coming to the Midwest. That wasn't thing. So when I thought about what is Broadway, to me, A Chorus Line was Broadway. They were one and the same. And I didn't know shit about A Chorus Line. I still don't know shit about A Chorus Line, except it was kind of like there was a time in the eighties where, you know, you say like, "Give me a Kleenex" instead of "Give me a facial tissue," or you say, "Give me a Band-aid" instead of like, "Give me an adhesive bandage." To me like, A Chorus Line was shorthand for Broadway musical.
[00:52:47] Kaykay Brady: Oh, interesting.
[00:52:48] Brooke Suchomel: So very eighties.
[00:52:50] Kaykay Brady: You should watch the movie that was on HBO. an eighties movie, and it's good. There's queer characters, there's characters of color and they're, you know, basically the format of A Chorus Line is just all of the monologues of people in a chorus line. So these are not stars. These are not the leads in Broadway shows. These are people who like love Broadway. They love singing and dancing and they're in a chorus line. And a lot of them are in marginalized identities. And you get the story of being in that marginalized identity. Like it was the only movie I saw where there was a gay man talking about being gay. Not getting murdered, you know, basically like he was living a life in New York City. I think that was probably the first time I saw a gay person of any stripe, not frightening, not getting murdered.
[00:53:42] Brooke Suchomel: And that man's name? John-Derek.
[00:53:45] Kaykay Brady: John-Derek. Exactly. But yeah, you should check it out. I think you'd like it.
[00:53:51] Brooke Suchomel: Well that's interesting that that is the shorthand for Broadway musical effectively used in this book, considering that in the end, that's the role that Jessi gets in Swan Lake. She's basically in the chorus line.
[00:54:05] Kaykay Brady: She's the chorus.
[00:54:06] Brooke Suchomel: Huh. Interesting. Yeah, I'll check that out. On a related point...
[00:54:10] Kaykay Brady: And she's a person of color in a white industry, and there were lots of characters of color in A Chorus Line trying to be in a white industry and talking about it.
[00:54:19] Brooke Suchomel: All right. I'm gonna look that up on HBO Max.
[00:54:23] Kaykay Brady: Ignore Michael Douglas. He's annoying.
[00:54:24] Brooke Suchomel: Well, I always ignore Michael Douglas.
[00:54:26] Kaykay Brady: He's of course the star of it, even though like, thank you, I know, I just, I just convinced you to watch it, and now I'm equally pushing you away from it.
[00:54:33] Brooke Suchomel: Now I'm like, oh, back-burner it. Um, no, this is, this is one of the glorious things about modern technology is any time Michael Douglas' face shows up on my screen, I can fast forward it.
[00:54:46] Kaykay Brady: Fast forward that shit. And it's also very fitting because he's of course the director. And so he's just in the back in dark lighting, you know, commanding everyone. So it's also an amazing statement on, you know, mediocre white maleness.
[00:55:00] Brooke Suchomel: Right.
[00:55:00] Kaykay Brady: And then like fucking chorus line are filled with the most amazing stars in the world. There's Plain Jane Michael Douglas calling the shots.
[00:55:07] Brooke Suchomel: Shut up, Michael Douglas. Let John-Derek do his thing. On a related note, I had TV movies. You know, they mention Derek has to go back to LA cause he's going to film a TV movie. TV movies in the eighties and nineties were an event in a way it's just not...
[00:55:25] Kaykay Brady: You made your schedule around it.
[00:55:27] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah. Now you have like limited series that are much more prestigious, TV movies, you could get things that were prestigious and then you could just get hardcore trash. And it was still like each one of them would get like a full page ad in the TV Guide and it was a big deal. And you would get big stars in them.
[00:55:46] Kaykay Brady: I need an example. I know you have this in your brain, the hardcore trash example.
[00:55:50] Brooke Suchomel: Oh, okay. So what we think of as the Lifetime movie, those started off as prime time NBC, ABC, CBS TV movies. There's one that, at the time it was called A Friend to Die For, that got repackaged as Death of a Cheerleader. And it stars Kellie Martin from Life Goes On, and she stabs to death Tori Spelling and then tries to cover it up, and Kaykay, it's based on a real case that happened out in the Bay Area, in Orinda. In Orinda!
[00:56:22] Kaykay Brady: Dude. I was just going to say, why is entertainment so obsessed with things that never happen? And then you just blew my mind. Two women?
[00:56:32] Brooke Suchomel: High school girls, but the way that they put it in the TV show, the character who kills the other girl, she's like always cutting up vegetables, so she keeps a knife under her passenger seat for cutting up vegetables, and then she just like grabs it and stabs Tori Spelling to death in her vehicle.
[00:56:51] Kaykay Brady: Now if this was a lesbian who camped I could get behind because like I have multiple knives in my van, because I camp!
[00:56:59] Brooke Suchomel: Hold on.
[00:57:00] Kaykay Brady: New movie!
[00:57:01] Brooke Suchomel: Direct quote from Kaykay Brady, "I have multiple knives in my van."
[00:57:07] Kaykay Brady: Don't you want to be my friend? I'm not threatening at all.
[00:57:10] Brooke Suchomel: "Wanna come for a ride?" Oh my God. Anyways, so this is like a classic on like the Lifetime Movie Channel and stuff, but it was an NBC TV movie. And then Hallmark, the Hallmark movie that aired on CBS. Hallmark branding of like, this is your grandpa friendly, alternative to the trashy stuff you get on NBC, you know? So that's why you get Lifetime Movie and then Hallmark Movie Channel. Those all came from primetime network TV movies from the eighties and nineties.
[00:57:44] Kaykay Brady: What a fuckin' world.
[00:57:46] Brooke Suchomel: It's delightful.
[00:57:46] Kaykay Brady: It's delightful. It's a world I want to be part of, and here I am.
[00:57:50] Brooke Suchomel: I'm so happy to be a part of this world where I have a Lifetime Movie Channel and a Hallmark Movie Channel and nothing is wrong.
[00:57:58] Kaykay Brady: It is a plus.
[00:57:59] Brooke Suchomel: And then the other thing that I had was prizes in your cereal box.
[00:58:03] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. Classique.
[00:58:04] Brooke Suchomel: Which is not a thing anymore. It's not legal anymore, but man, was that a treat.
[00:58:09] Kaykay Brady: Because people choked on it or some nonsense?
[00:58:10] Brooke Suchomel: Um, no, because it was seen as like a means of the food industry to get kids to beg their parents for cereal that wasn't good for them, that they didn't really want, just to get the toy in the box. And yeah, that was a thing. I did that.
[00:58:27] Kaykay Brady: Oh yeah, of course.
[00:58:29] Brooke Suchomel: I want that friendship bracelet! Give me the Froot Loops that I won't eat.
[00:58:33] Kaykay Brady: You won't eat Froot Loops?
[00:58:35] Brooke Suchomel: Froot Loops would never be my first choice. I would rather have-
[00:58:38] Kaykay Brady: I mean, they wouldn't be my first, but they certainly would be eaten.
[00:58:41] Brooke Suchomel: But it's like, if Froot Loops has a friendship bracelet and Fruity Pebbles has nothing… I want the Fruity Pebbles, but I'll go with the free, you know, what I mean? So it made kids settle. Kids had to settle, ultimately.
[00:58:54] Kaykay Brady: You know, but a reframe is, it really strengthened those shrewd decision-making skills you have.
[00:58:59] Brooke Suchomel: Sure.
[00:59:00] Kaykay Brady: Who knows what person you would be didn't have to make that Sophie's choice.
[00:59:04] Brooke Suchomel: Right, ultimately we can track that to why people lack critical thinking skills today. It's because we took the prizes out of the cereal box.
[00:59:11] Kaykay Brady: Yeah. I remember you used to have to cut out the stupid, I don't know what they were.
[00:59:16] Brooke Suchomel: Proof of purchase?
[00:59:17] Kaykay Brady: Proof of purchase. And you would cut them out and collect, or I would cut them out and collect them in an envelope that your mom gave you. And when you had a thousand, you got something stupid, like a football that you could have bought for, you know, five bucks.
[00:59:29] Brooke Suchomel: Did you have any, like, coolest things that you ever got out of cereal box moments?
[00:59:33] Kaykay Brady: Probably a football with purchase. But no, I don't remember any, like, I was never interested in the little toys and stuff. They just didn't appeal to me, but if I could get something I could play with actively, I would be very excited. I started collecting, you remember Camel Cash? Dude. So this is like a pipeline. It's like the school to prison pipeline. It's the junk food cereal to Camel Cash pipeline. Which is they used to have this thing called Camel Cash, which is now illegal too, so don't want cigarettes, which is exactly why I wanted cigarettes. So collect the Camel Cash and then you could buy the coolest shit. You could buy like a dope ass leather jacket. You could buy a lighter with Joe Camel on it.
[01:00:12] Brooke Suchomel: Who doesn't want that?
[01:00:12] Kaykay Brady: And Joe Camel was a thing, right? It's a cartoon selling you cigarettes, I wonder what demographic they're going after.
[01:00:19] Brooke Suchomel: Well, I mean, nine out of 10 doctors recommend Camel cigarettes.
[01:00:23] Kaykay Brady: Camel. It's a smooth smoke.
[01:00:25] Brooke Suchomel: Oh man. I love that. No, it's like, okay, were are you a, were you a toys in your cereal box kid or were you a Camel Cash kid?
[01:00:34] Kaykay Brady: I was a hundred percent, I mean, I started collecting Camel Cash at like 13.
[01:00:39] Brooke Suchomel: Nice.
[01:00:40] Kaykay Brady: There was probably not many years where I was doing junk food cereal without Camel Cash.
[01:00:45] Brooke Suchomel: Did you have the leather jacket? Were you rocking a Joe Camel leather jacket?
[01:00:48] Kaykay Brady: I never, the leather jacket was like a hundred million Camel Cash.
[01:00:53] Brooke Suchomel: You would’ve had to smoke so many cigarettes.
[01:00:55] Kaykay Brady: You would die of cancer five times over before you could ever put your fucking hands on that leather jacket. I want to know someone that has a strong enough genetic disposition that they smoked their way to a Camel leather jacket and are alive to speak of it. Please, come forward.
[01:01:14] Brooke Suchomel: No, they got buried in that jacket when they died of lung cancer.
[01:01:17] Kaykay Brady: And then come back to life. I want to meet you, undead Camel Cash jacket owner!
[01:01:25] Brooke Suchomel: You've got a zombie walking around right now in a leather jacket they got with Camel Cash, and you want to shake that person's hand.
[01:01:32] Kaykay Brady: Exactly.
[01:01:33] Brooke Suchomel: That zombie's hand, that falls off the minute you shake it because they smoked themselves to death for that jacket. Oh, the eighties. How we survive? As we talk about it, I'm like, honestly, how are we here?
[01:01:46] Kaykay Brady: I don't know. I think about the way that we would drive back from the Jersey Shore in our Toyota with no air conditioning, with the windows rolled up, with my parents smoking Winston Straights, no filter Winston's in the car. I don't even have asthma. I, I don't know, like, why am I here? My dad telling me stories about, he would be so drunk driving us home from a party that he'd have to put one hand over one eye so he wasn't seeing two, he was just seeing one. He would laugh about it!
[01:02:14] Brooke Suchomel: And you were definitely up.
[01:02:16] Kaykay Brady: No, I was gonna say, no seatbelts, on him or us. I'm here. I don't we were being looked after.
[01:02:23] Brooke Suchomel: We are truly survivors, you and I, and like every kid of the eighties. We are survivors of the eighties. Oh, man. If we ever need to rebrand the podcast, for any reason, there you go. Survivors of the 80s.
[01:02:35] Kaykay Brady: Oh, perfect.
[01:02:37] Brooke Suchomel: We made it, and uh, this is the world that they gave us. Thanks, generations that came before! Anyways.
[01:02:46] Kaykay Brady: You promised us a leather jacket, fuckers, and all we got was coronavirus.
[01:02:50] Brooke Suchomel: Yeah, exactly. That's what we demand in payment. At bare minimum, one Joe Camel leather jacket per member of Gen X, Millennials....
[01:02:59] Kaykay Brady: I'm going to go look this up on Etsy. I could probably buy it for a hundred dollars.
[01:03:03] Brooke Suchomel: I don't know, because they probably, like you said only made one because the number of people who could smoke enough cigarettes to survive long enough to earn that jacket were minimal. But they were probably all Irish and from the Bronx. So it might be in your family, actually. I would, I would ask around.
[01:03:21] Kaykay Brady: I might meet a relative.
[01:03:22] Brooke Suchomel: It's a family heirloom. Oh Lord. Well, speaking of fucked up family shit, our next book is going to focus on Stacey's return to Stoneybrook, because her parents get divorced and she moves back to Stoneybrook. Yeah. It's at the back of the book, so I don't feel like I'm spoiling it too much, but yeah.
[01:03:48] Kaykay Brady: Yeah, they were kind of toying with this idea of strife in the home. I remember that.
[01:03:52] Brooke Suchomel: So that is realized in our next book, Welcome Back, Stacey.
[01:03:57] Kaykay Brady: All right.
[01:03:58] Brooke Suchomel: So hopefully we get Ann M. returning to convey the deep internal strife that Stacey must be feeling at that time.
[01:04:09] Kaykay Brady: Come back from Suze Orman's island. Come home to New York.
[01:04:13] Brooke Suchomel: Welcome back Ann M. to welcome back Stacey in our next episode, I hope. So I'm looking forward to hopefully having more material on our respective pages and spreadsheets to discuss next time with you, Kaykay.
[01:04:28] Kaykay Brady: Can't wait, my friend.
[01:04:30] Brooke Suchomel: But until then...
[01:04:32] Kaykay Brady: Just keep sittin'.
