Speaker 1: A teenage girl on the Upper West Side lamented that
Speaker 1: some boys offered to help carry her looted clothing and radios,
Speaker 1: but then ended up running off with them, so she
Speaker 1: was quoted saying, that's just not right. They shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done that. I love that.
Speaker 2: Never trust a boy on the Upper West Side.
Speaker 1: The looter got looted. There's some weird justice in that.
Speaker 1: I guess. Hello. I'm Ed Helms and this is Snaffoo,
Speaker 1: the podcast about history's greatest screw ups. My guest today
Speaker 1: is the amazing Desi Lydick, who has been absolutely crushing
Speaker 1: it on The Daily Show since twenty fifteen with her
Speaker 1: razor sharp, next level satire and just let's just be honest,
Speaker 1: brilliantly funny, insightful and fearless reporting across the board. You're
Speaker 1: so good at what you do, Desi, and I'm so
Speaker 1: psyched you're here. Welcome to Snafoo.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on. That is a way too kind,
Speaker 3: intro entirely too kind. No, I see your factual, but
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: This is very cool to be on with you because
Speaker 3: I was a regular, avid watcher of the Daily Show
Speaker 3: for many, many years. While you were on, and you're
Speaker 3: part of the reason why I wanted to be on
Speaker 3: The Daily Show, admiring your work and John's and Steve
Speaker 3: and Stephen and every Sam. It's just, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: very cool.
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 1: That is so sweet. Go on.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, another thing that I specifically like about your performance? Yes,
Speaker 3: your everyman likability, your razor.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, this is all get edited out, but
Speaker 1: I'm loving it. Yeah, so we do have the Daily
Speaker 1: Show in common. It's been I hate to say this,
Speaker 1: I'm but it's been almost twenty years since I worked there.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it feels insane to me. But you
Speaker 1: are there now, and you've been there a bunch of
Speaker 1: years and ten.
Speaker 3: Almost ten, which is just crazy too, so badass.
Speaker 1: You guys are How is this transition? So when I
Speaker 1: was there, obviously John Stewart was the full time host,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of a part of a cadre
Speaker 1: of correspondence and we did focus mostly on field segments
Speaker 1: and then the studio pieces with John. But now, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of how you started too, writ with Trevor
Speaker 1: h Yes, definitely, at a certain point you transitioned into
Speaker 1: also part of this rotating host formula, which I just
Speaker 1: think is so cool and I think it's working so well.
Speaker 1: What was that like? What was that transition?
Speaker 2: Like crazy?
Speaker 3: There was a period of time where we were kind
Speaker 3: of testing out some different ideas and we didn't really
Speaker 3: know what was going to happen and who the host
Speaker 3: was going to be. And then it started to open
Speaker 3: up a little bit and I kind of threw my
Speaker 3: hat in the ring and put my hand up and said, hey,
Speaker 3: put me in coach before I could think about it
Speaker 3: too hard and just by some chance that they would
Speaker 3: consider me, And then this format came about and John
Speaker 3: came back to the show, and yeah, it was It
Speaker 3: was a little terrifying because you know, being a being
Speaker 3: a correspondent, it's not an easy job by any means,
Speaker 3: but you're you are, you're in character, you're so I
Speaker 3: was very accustomed to being on the show as the
Speaker 3: character of the correspondent, and when you're hosting, you're basically yourself.
Speaker 3: So it was a it was a whole other type
Speaker 3: of type of work and like requires practice and giving
Speaker 3: it a shot, and so I didn't really know if
Speaker 3: I could do it. But the team here is so
Speaker 3: incredible it's a well oiled machine. Everyone had our backs
Speaker 3: and we all support one another. And we've got John
Speaker 3: who could not be a more exceptional leader, and watching
Speaker 3: him every Monday is like a master class. So to
Speaker 3: get to try something new creatively and something so exciting
Speaker 3: and to get to look to him is it's beyond
Speaker 3: a dream come true.
Speaker 1: I think comedians in general are how many people are
Speaker 1: trained or it's almost like an instinct or a reflex
Speaker 1: to look for snaffoos. Yeah, we're always kind of trying
Speaker 1: to look under the surface at kind of what's going wrong,
Speaker 1: and especially at a place like the Daily Show, like
Speaker 1: you're looking for what's going wrong in order to generate satire.
Speaker 1: I actually found that I loved it and it was
Speaker 1: like very invigorating. I felt like I was part of
Speaker 1: a meaningful satirical voice at the show. But it kind
Speaker 1: of took a toll on me over a long period
Speaker 1: of time, focusing entirely on a little bit of the
Speaker 1: darker side of things. And I wonder if you've ever
Speaker 1: felt that or felt a sense of exasperation. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: can sort of like eat you a little bit. That's
Speaker 1: what I found.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, well, Ed, I'm dead inside. So I feel
Speaker 3: nothing anymore. It is gone lost all sense of humanity. No,
Speaker 3: it is. It is taxing, It really is, and I
Speaker 3: think for me, I've kind of gone up and down
Speaker 3: on it. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster,
Speaker 3: a mental roller coaster, because you're right, there's no escaping it.
Speaker 3: You can't just bury your head in the sand and
Speaker 3: be like, well, I'm just going to not pay attention
Speaker 3: to the news today. But I will say I think
Speaker 3: some kind of action, even for us, even if it's
Speaker 3: just finding the comedy in it, even if it's just
Speaker 3: creative action, it feels good to do something and just
Speaker 3: talk about it, admit that it's happening in a room
Speaker 3: full of people who can kind of provide catharsis and
Speaker 3: support and we can talk it out with each other.
Speaker 3: And then also being forced to find the humor in
Speaker 3: it somewhere is my therapy. It is redeeming it really
Speaker 3: and especially this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Daily Show is your therapist, is what
Speaker 1: you're saying?
Speaker 2: It totally?
Speaker 1: Is it? Totally? Is?
Speaker 2: They should be billing me.
Speaker 3: I'm sure I'll get an invoice in the mail I
Speaker 3: pay them to do the show.
Speaker 1: Before we dive into today's snapho. What is a major
Speaker 1: snafo from your life?
Speaker 3: Oh god, I have too many to choose from. I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm a snafu a day kind of person.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: We were just chatting right before we started here about
Speaker 3: old VHS tapes and it brought up this like humiliation,
Speaker 3: the snaffhoo that happened. When I was a kid. I
Speaker 3: was obsessed with Madonna. Like many young girls, I wanted
Speaker 3: to be Madonna. And I think I was maybe somewhere
Speaker 3: around eight. I probably wasn't allowed to watch MTV, but
Speaker 3: I was snaking it and Madonna had this performance. It
Speaker 3: was her MTV Video Music Awards. I think I must
Speaker 3: have been a rerun because I was like trying to
Speaker 3: think of what the timeline was. But she performed like
Speaker 3: a virgin Oh yeah on stage, you remember, yeah, And
Speaker 3: she humped like humped the floor, crawled around, gyrated on
Speaker 3: the floor, and I was just I didn't know what
Speaker 3: any of it meant, but I was so mesmerized, and
Speaker 3: I knew that she was about to come on, and
Speaker 3: I grabbed a VHS tape and put it in the recorder.
Speaker 3: By the way, your young listeners are going to be like,
Speaker 3: what's the VHS?
Speaker 2: What is she talking about?
Speaker 3: So I throw a VHS in the machine and I
Speaker 3: hit record just really quickly. Oh no. And months later,
Speaker 3: my relatives come over and they go, oh, we should
Speaker 3: watch Tracy's graduation video. Oh yeah, you never got to
Speaker 3: see that, nanny, we should put that on. And it's
Speaker 3: Christmas time, and the whole family gathers around. There's like
Speaker 3: eighteen of us and we're down in the basement. We
Speaker 3: huddle around the TV and we grabbed my cousin Tracy's
Speaker 3: graduation video and put it in and it's Madonna humping
Speaker 3: a floor and everyone looks to me like jazzy.
Speaker 2: So I felt so terrible.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining that like the It's like, right as the
Speaker 1: president of the school is announcing your cousin's name and
Speaker 1: they're about to walk up on stage, and then it's
Speaker 1: just like cut to.
Speaker 2: Just the worst for Donna, just all hip thrust.
Speaker 1: And the whole family's gathered around.
Speaker 2: It was so humiliating.
Speaker 3: I'm sure I got grounded for not only taping over
Speaker 3: my cousin's graduation but also watching something that was highly
Speaker 3: inappropriate for me at that time.
Speaker 1: Today's snaffo is also kind of tech related. I want
Speaker 1: to take you into a truly insane historical snaffoo. It's
Speaker 1: a story that gets very dark, very fast. And I
Speaker 1: mean that in every sense literally, figuratively, socio, politically, and
Speaker 1: possibly even spiritually. Are you ready? Yes, it's July nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven in the big appital Baby. That's right, disco
Speaker 1: punk and rent you could actually afford. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: all Studio fifty four and Skyline dreams. The city was
Speaker 1: a bit of a mess. Unemployment was at twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Subway fares had just doubled from twenty five cents to
Speaker 1: a whopping fifty cents. What is it now, it's like
Speaker 1: three dollars? Yeah, and thanks to budget cuts, city services
Speaker 1: were pretty much in the toilet. Libraries, schools, sanitation, even
Speaker 1: the NYPD had all taken major hits. Oh and just
Speaker 1: to spice things up, the Son of Sam was still
Speaker 1: on the loose. You're aware of that, all guy? Yeah, guy,
Speaker 1: that all creep. The serial killer who claimed a demon
Speaker 1: was speaking to him through a barking dog. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a hell of a time in New York City. DESI,
Speaker 1: this was New York at one of its most sort
Speaker 1: of chaotic and volatile moments. But let's be real, the
Speaker 1: city's always pretty intense. Do you thrive on that intensity?
Speaker 1: Do you kind of find your own calm and the chaos?
Speaker 1: Like what kind of New Yorker are you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had to kind of thrive. I've had to
Speaker 3: adapt to it, that's for sure. But you know, if
Speaker 3: you watch Fox News, they will tell you that it
Speaker 3: is this sort of nineteen seventy seven version all day
Speaker 3: just a city of hell. It's just a walking nightmare.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's intense and it's chaotic, but I love it. Yes,
Speaker 3: you have to be out in the middle of it.
Speaker 3: You have to interact with other people, good or bad.
Speaker 3: I was walking down the street with my dog the
Speaker 3: other day and I look over and there was just
Speaker 3: a guy selling my little ponies with a light bulb
Speaker 3: coming out the top, just thirty of them on the street.
Speaker 3: I thought, God, only in New York do you have
Speaker 3: this kind of quirkiness out out And he was making
Speaker 3: a killing.
Speaker 2: People were buying him.
Speaker 1: That's so funny because my only in New York story
Speaker 1: is like seeing people like defecating in the middle of
Speaker 1: Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there's that too. I'm sorry about that, by
Speaker 3: the way, I really had to go.
Speaker 1: No, But I agree with you. I agree. I think
Speaker 1: there's there's like something super special about the intensity of
Speaker 1: New York and it kind of, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: makes me feel creative, inspired, and also just knowing the
Speaker 1: density of cultural history that has happened and transpired, like
Speaker 1: all of the incredible people that have lived and thrived
Speaker 1: in New York. It's just I just yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: I really miss it a magical place, even among all
Speaker 3: the defication and masturbation on the subway, it's really it's
Speaker 3: so special.
Speaker 1: It is in spite of all that. Anyone who's ever
Speaker 1: been to New York City during the dead of summer
Speaker 1: knows that it is a particularly brutal time. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, it was next level brutal. The city
Speaker 1: was in the grip of a record heat wave, with
Speaker 1: temperatures hitting ninety seven degrees for nine straight days. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the concrete jungle is basically like a concrete oven. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm from Georgia, you're from Kentucky. We know a thing
Speaker 1: or two about heat. But there's something uniquely punishing about
Speaker 1: New York City summer. Right, as much as we love
Speaker 1: New York like, it gets hard.
Speaker 3: It's brutal because it's humid. It gets humid more so
Speaker 3: than you think, and the buildings really trap it all in,
Speaker 3: so you're just stuck in it and you can't escape
Speaker 3: into your air conditioned car very easily because you don't
Speaker 3: really drive in New York.
Speaker 1: So can we talk about the smell? Can we talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the smell. It's like the trash
Speaker 1: is just baking. It's like the trash cans are these
Speaker 1: little ovens that bake everything. And then of course anything
Speaker 1: any street runoff is like just cooking on the hot
Speaker 1: asphalt and rising into the humidity.
Speaker 2: Cooking up a stew. A city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you're in there's even here where we film
Speaker 3: at The Daily Show in Lovely Hell's Kitchen. We're in
Speaker 3: between a subway restaurant which has the lovely aroma of
Speaker 3: baked bread, and on the other side are the horse stables,
Speaker 3: so it's just horse shit and a little bit of
Speaker 3: baked bread and then garbage, and you'reine smell from the
Speaker 3: dom park across the street. Summer over here gets real, real,
Speaker 3: interesting real quick.
Speaker 1: It's funny how consistent that smell is, Like every summer,
Speaker 1: it's just the like, you know, like that's hot city
Speaker 1: smell and it's not good, but weirdly, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say it, it's kind of nostalgic. Now, it's like it's comforting.
Speaker 1: It's like fresh cut grass, like it brings back memories.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should start in Aroma company, Like we should
Speaker 3: make a candle that has that New York summer smell,
Speaker 3: and we could. We could go out with it.
Speaker 1: You would sell city summer funk.
Speaker 3: The fun, City summer funk, the city.
Speaker 2: Sun, City summer fun.
Speaker 1: I think it would sell. I'm not gonna say like
Speaker 1: hot cakes.
Speaker 2: I'm just throwing it out there.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. Picture yourself in the middle of this
Speaker 1: heat wave throughout the Five Burrows. It's the summer seventy seven.
Speaker 1: And remember in the seventies people wore a lot of polyester,
Speaker 1: which is not exactly breathable or moisture wicking. So at
Speaker 1: this point you might be saying, wow, this is like
Speaker 1: pretty bleak already, and you'd be right. But we're just
Speaker 1: sitting the stage here. We haven't even gotten to the snaffo.
Speaker 3: Yet I'm sweating a little bit, can you tell? Can
Speaker 3: you see I'm sweating?
Speaker 1: Drink some water, stay hydrated, because here we go. Now
Speaker 1: it's July thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven. To quote the Love
Speaker 1: and Spoonful, it's hot time, summer in the city. And
Speaker 1: as the sun goes down, the sky starts to churn, thick,
Speaker 1: ominous clouds rolling in like they've got unfinished business. Storm's
Speaker 1: a bruin, and not just any storm, a monster electrical storm.
Speaker 1: At eight thirty seven PM, a massive bolt of lightning
Speaker 1: strikes the Buchanan South substation in Westchester County, tripping two
Speaker 1: critical circuit breakers. This lightning strike, combined with a loose
Speaker 1: locking nut, and of course some delayed maintenance, prevented the
Speaker 1: breakers from resetting, cutting off a major power source. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: at eight fifty five pm, another lightning bolt strikes the
Speaker 1: sprain Brook substation in Yonkers, knocking out two more vital
Speaker 1: transmission lines. The system, already strained, begins to falter. Operators
Speaker 1: at con Edison, the city's power provider, attempt to bring
Speaker 1: additional generators online, but some were actually unmanned, like there
Speaker 1: was nobody there and the others just failed to start remotely,
Speaker 1: So by nine to twenty four pm, the situation had
Speaker 1: deteriorated rapidly. The remaining power lines were overloaded, and the
Speaker 1: city's largest generator, Ravenswood Unit number three, nicknamed Big Alice,
Speaker 1: show down to protect itself from damage. Minutes later, nine
Speaker 1: thirty six pm, the entire Coneedison system collapsed, plunging New
Speaker 1: York City into darkness, and thus began what would become
Speaker 1: known as the seventy seven Night of Terror.
Speaker 3: What a perfect storm of a snaffoo, Just a series
Speaker 3: of mishaps, one right after the next.
Speaker 1: There's always in these snaffoos, there's always a lot of
Speaker 1: human error. I mean these these obviously, like the lightning
Speaker 1: is insane. This was like a really exceptional electrical storm.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like there's always like somebody messing up. Not
Speaker 1: enough maintenance was done. There was a loose nut somewhere.
Speaker 1: Did you as a kid, did you like in the
Speaker 1: South were familiar with big lightning storms? Oh yeah, did
Speaker 1: you like a lightning storm? Oh it was kind of fun.
Speaker 3: I mean I never liked having to come in from
Speaker 3: being outside playing because back in those days we played outside.
Speaker 2: Kids played outside.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yes, the younger the younger generation doesn't get it.
Speaker 1: We played outside the rainstorms, like even through like electrical storms.
Speaker 1: We didn't even we didn't care.
Speaker 3: Our parents also so because in the South, a thunderstorm
Speaker 3: would last sometimes like three and a half minutes and
Speaker 3: then it would clear up.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We also had tornadoes. Did you have tornadoes?
Speaker 1: We had very rare tornadoes. Did you did you like
Speaker 1: when the power went out?
Speaker 3: I remember I was in I was actually in New
Speaker 3: York during Sandy, which was that was probably the closest
Speaker 3: to like the seventy seven blackout, but similar, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: And that was kind of that was terrifying. That was
Speaker 3: such an eerie feeling to look outside and for sure
Speaker 3: see darkness all the way down Bowery.
Speaker 2: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Things were getting real spooky. Traffic lights stopped working all
Speaker 1: over the city, Subway trains stopped moving, streets and stores
Speaker 1: were pitch black all over town. At Shay Stadium, the
Speaker 1: Mets were losing two to one against the Cubs when
Speaker 1: the lights went out in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Speaker 1: Mets third basement Lenny Randall was up to bat and
Speaker 1: later said, I thought to myself, this is my last
Speaker 1: at bat. God is coming for me. Can you imagine,
Speaker 1: like those lights are so bright right in those ballpark
Speaker 1: stadiums and they just a yeah, like blackout, that would
Speaker 1: be that must be jarring, terrifying. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: pretty big problem right away responding to the power routage.
Speaker 1: Many of the emergency personnel first responders, police officers, and
Speaker 1: firefighters lived outside of the city in New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: because of the blackout, they were unable to get into
Speaker 1: the city. So things are about to go seriously off
Speaker 1: the rails here. But for the record, I was in
Speaker 1: NYC for the blackout of two thousand and three. No,
Speaker 1: that's not true. I was not actually in the city.
Speaker 1: I was on a daily show field Shute in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. I was in Birmingham, Alabama, on a
Speaker 1: field shoot, and I was getting word that, like all
Speaker 1: my friends were in this blackout in New York City.
Speaker 1: Was funny because all I heard were these great stories
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I met the love of my life,
Speaker 1: or I had this incredible one night stand, like I
Speaker 1: went I went out and had like, you know, some
Speaker 1: potato chips on my stoop and met these traveling musicians
Speaker 1: and we we traped around the city the serenading like
Speaker 1: that sounded like such a wonderful blackout. This this is
Speaker 1: about to go so so dark. Do you think New
Speaker 1: York City is a good place or a bad place
Speaker 1: for a disaster?
Speaker 3: It's all the things, I think it really Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think there's capacity for all of it, because there's just
Speaker 3: so many different people in New York City and so
Speaker 3: many but like the state of the world certainly plays
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 1: Definitely. That's huge, and that's gonna You're exactly right. The
Speaker 1: state of the world is a major factor. So this
Speaker 1: blackout happens, and at first the city holds its breath
Speaker 1: in the darkness. But around ten PM, just a half
Speaker 1: an hour after the lights went out, New Yorkers began
Speaker 1: to emerge, and it didn't take long for things to
Speaker 1: go from a sort of mild curiosity to completely spiraling
Speaker 1: out of control. Looting erupted across the city in neighborhoods
Speaker 1: already strained by unemployment and economic hardship. To your point,
Speaker 1: the blackout was a catalyst for unrest. Over the next
Speaker 1: twenty five hours, more than sixteen hundred stores were damaged
Speaker 1: or destroyed. Arsonists set over one thousand fires, overwhelming the
Speaker 1: city's fire departments. Mostly it was a very dark time,
Speaker 1: no pun intended. But there are a few anecdotes that
Speaker 1: I dug up that revealed some dark irony. Here's what
Speaker 1: I found in Time magazine. A teenage girl on the
Speaker 1: Upper West Side lamented that some boys offered to help
Speaker 1: carry her looted clothing and radios, but then ended up
Speaker 1: running off with them. So she was quoted saying, that's
Speaker 1: just not right. They shouldn't have done that. I love that.
Speaker 2: Never trust a boy on the Upper West.
Speaker 1: Side with your looted belongings, No, they will like the
Speaker 1: looter got looted. There's some weird justice in that, I guess.
Speaker 1: Does it freak you out how quickly like we just
Speaker 1: as a society we can just unravel in something like that.
Speaker 3: Really, it is like it's just just the second some
Speaker 3: people have that opening. It's like now's my time, now's
Speaker 3: my time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It goes from yeah, you're like lighting candles one minute
Speaker 1: and then it's just like full on purge vibes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think if you're on the verge enough, if your
Speaker 3: needs aren't being met, for whatever reason, Like you know,
Speaker 3: if I was in a particular headspace, I might see
Speaker 3: an opening.
Speaker 2: Go you know what I'm gonna Let's put these candles down,
Speaker 2: Let's go rob a bank.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like I have had trouble making ends meet
Speaker 1: and getting enough groceries for my family for months. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to the grocery store to just get as
Speaker 1: much as I can.
Speaker 2: Like, now's my chance. Everyone else is doing it?
Speaker 1: Sure well, So we were talking about other blackouts. Just
Speaker 1: twelve years before this blackout in nineteen sixty five, there
Speaker 1: was another one that was much bigger, affected twenty five
Speaker 1: million people compared to the one in seventy seven that
Speaker 1: only affected only affected nine million only. But during that
Speaker 1: sixty five blackout, City was totally calm, and historians think
Speaker 1: this is because NYC was simply more stable economically and socially.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty five, people treated that blackout like like
Speaker 1: it was just a weird snow day. But in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven the city was in full blown crisis, already
Speaker 1: high unemployment, crime, budget cuts, all of that, and of
Speaker 1: course the son of Sam just walking around. It's like,
Speaker 1: you don't know, sir Sam could be like, in a blackout,
Speaker 1: he could be right behind you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally, that guy was everywhere. Fear is a
Speaker 3: how full motivator? It really is. It can cause you
Speaker 3: to do some crazy things. Not that we would know
Speaker 3: anything about that today.
Speaker 1: In any content. Politically, Yeah, I feel I thought that
Speaker 1: you were about to just sort of like unravel the
Speaker 1: tapestry of modern politics.
Speaker 3: I'm like, are we in a metaphorical blackout now? Can
Speaker 3: we not see what's right in front of us? Or
Speaker 3: is that what's happening to us right now at this moment?
Speaker 1: Do we feel like a metaphorical son of Sam is
Speaker 1: stalking all of us right now? How do you think
Speaker 1: New Yorkers today would would handle a blackout?
Speaker 3: I was here during the pandemic the entire time. It
Speaker 3: was such a scary time, in such an awful time,
Speaker 3: and I vividly remember we open up our windows every
Speaker 3: night at seven pm and people stuck their pots and
Speaker 3: pans and banged on them to cheer on our healthcare
Speaker 3: workers and to have that moment just once a day,
Speaker 3: to hear New Yorkers come together and show some gratitude
Speaker 3: and appreciation for the real.
Speaker 2: Heroes doing the hard work.
Speaker 3: I mean, I like to think that New Yorkers, you know,
Speaker 3: would would do the right thing and come together. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but then they're the masturbators on the subway.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. It could go either way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's but you're speaking to sort of the resilient
Speaker 1: spirit of the city, which I also kind of appreciate
Speaker 1: and I think is always under there somewhere, and it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of worth rooting for that always. Anyway, twenty
Speaker 1: five hours later, when the lights finally flickered back on,
Speaker 1: the damage was staggering. Around forty five hundred arrests had
Speaker 1: been made, and the estimated cost of the blackout was
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty million dollars, which is nearly two
Speaker 1: billion dollars today.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, think of all the sub subway rides
Speaker 3: you could get with that.
Speaker 1: I know, the lights may have only gone out for
Speaker 1: twenty five hours, but the blackout had a big effect
Speaker 1: on New York. That night brought national attention to some
Speaker 1: of the systemic issues plaguing NYC, economic and otherwise. Many
Speaker 1: citizens felt abandoned by their institutions with an absent and
Speaker 1: rundown police force, but the blackout also reinforced the wider
Speaker 1: narrative that New York was a declining city. It took
Speaker 1: businesses a while to recover, and voters were ready for change.
Speaker 1: So in November of nineteen seventy seven, New York voters
Speaker 1: elected Ed Kotch as their new mayor. I think we
Speaker 1: have a photo of old Ed Kotch.
Speaker 2: There he is.
Speaker 1: He looks. I don't know where that when that photo
Speaker 1: was taken, like in his tenure as mayor or even
Speaker 1: as a candidate, But man, he looks just he looks
Speaker 1: worn out.
Speaker 2: It's not going well, No, not going I mean that,
Speaker 2: is there.
Speaker 1: Any harder job than mayor of New York City.
Speaker 3: It's got to be the hardest job and the most
Speaker 3: I feel like the only job that is less appreciated
Speaker 3: is the job of being a mother. It's just, oh,
Speaker 3: no one, no one ever likes the mayor, no one
Speaker 3: everyone complains about the mayor.
Speaker 2: The mayor is never doing It's just a thankless job.
Speaker 1: But I would even say that just to compare the
Speaker 1: epic heroism of motherhood to any job is doing a
Speaker 1: disservice to mothers everywhere, especially especially to compare it.
Speaker 2: To Ed Cotch. Just thankless, thankless.
Speaker 1: Kotch had already served in Congress for five terms, and
Speaker 1: many people said he made them feel optimistic while the
Speaker 1: city was still reeling, lifting New York out of that
Speaker 1: seventies slump. Others say he balanced the city's budget, but
Speaker 1: mostly at the expense of low income communities. He began
Speaker 1: a moreprehensive public housing system, put over a billion dollars
Speaker 1: towards parks projects, and took Times Square from sleezy Central
Speaker 1: Plaza to a tourist mecca that is still bustling today.
Speaker 2: To a sleezy tourist mecca exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't think Kotch totally unsleezed it.
Speaker 2: No, still some sleez on that old Times Square.
Speaker 3: If I can never go to Times Square again, I
Speaker 3: am I am a happy woman. I will go anywhere
Speaker 3: else in New York. I have no interest in time.
Speaker 3: Just the just the bodies, just all the especially in
Speaker 3: the summertime, just the hot, hot bodies.
Speaker 1: No. Also, the people walking around Times Square. They don't
Speaker 1: know how to do New York. They don't know how
Speaker 1: to walk fast and get out of the way. They
Speaker 1: don't know how to j walk properly, you know, lab bag.
Speaker 3: They're stopping and going and then you have all the
Speaker 3: bright lights. Now it's all the screens, so people get distracted.
Speaker 3: It's very blatant, runner stimulating. It's too much.
Speaker 1: The vultures descended on kan Ed and the aftermath of
Speaker 1: this blackout, looking for someone to blame for the night's chaos.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy eight, the lawsuit Cotch versus con Edison
Speaker 1: was filed. Though the case would drag out until nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, a court eventually ruled that con Ed's gross
Speaker 1: negligence was responsible for the big blackout. The Federal Power
Speaker 1: Commission also accused the company of not employing emergency measures
Speaker 1: efficiently after the lightning strike. Con Ed's president bit back,
Speaker 1: saying that the events were quote so extraordinary that they
Speaker 1: went beyond the design and capability of the system, and
Speaker 1: that really nothing could have been done, But I'll leave
Speaker 1: that up to you to decide. Uh fun fact Ed
Speaker 1: Koch also made a cameo in Muppets Take Manhattan.
Speaker 2: I loved that movie, right, That.
Speaker 1: Was one of the gore. That's the one where Kermit
Speaker 1: the Frog was riding a bicycle in Central Park and
Speaker 1: you could see his frog legs peddling the bicycle and
Speaker 1: I'm still like had like how they do in this
Speaker 1: age of like crazy cinematic, you know, like crazy animation, Like,
Speaker 1: how the hell did they do that?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Oh that was such a good movie.
Speaker 2: I think that was my intro to New York City.
Speaker 2: Joan Rivers was in that movie. Oh what a great movie.
Speaker 1: Amen. If you became mayor of New York City, does
Speaker 1: he like itch, what would you do? What's the first
Speaker 1: thing you would change?
Speaker 3: I think I would make everyone who comes into New
Speaker 3: York City learn how to walk on the street. That's
Speaker 3: what I would do, a masterclass in walking.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like to like there's a citizenship test,
Speaker 1: but for New York City, there's like a tourist test,
Speaker 1: Like you have to pass all these rules of etiquette
Speaker 1: of New York City etiquette, which is so different from
Speaker 1: like the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: That's right. You got to keep your pace.
Speaker 3: You have to have a healthy, healthy sense of boundaries
Speaker 3: between you and other people. If you're going to stop
Speaker 3: and look at your phone, you peel off, peel off
Speaker 3: to the side, off to the shoulder of the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: If you breach New York City like pedestrian etiquette, you
Speaker 1: will get screamed at, and you better, you better just
Speaker 1: roll with it, because.
Speaker 3: That's how ridicule, that's how it works. You take it,
Speaker 3: that's you take it. You get roasted to your face,
Speaker 3: and if you can't handle it, go to Jersey, Go
Speaker 3: to the Jersey. Go to Jersey.
Speaker 1: You get yelled at New York City, you are you
Speaker 1: are legally required to forget about it. Forget about it, right. Sorry.
Speaker 2: I think we could see we could fix New York.
Speaker 3: I think we get we got we could have handled
Speaker 3: this black We'd be a.
Speaker 1: Good team in that in that Mayor's office for sure.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally Daisy light.
Speaker 1: That is that is the blackout of seventy seven, the
Speaker 1: Night of terror. Any like macro takeaways here, reflections, ideas thoughts.
Speaker 3: I think it's possible that we are having our own
Speaker 3: blackout moment right now metaph forally, not literally. But we're
Speaker 3: just not seeing anything right in front of us. That's
Speaker 3: what That's that's been my big AHA moment, like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is happening right now?
Speaker 2: Where we what are facts?
Speaker 3: What's even we're blind to what what's actually happening out
Speaker 3: in the world? What is what is reality?
Speaker 2: Right now? It's I took an.
Speaker 3: Edible before I started hearing it, So I'm no, no.
Speaker 1: But I actually think that's really keen and savvy. This
Speaker 1: particular blackout happened at a time of unusual desperation among
Speaker 1: New Yorkers, and that led to some pretty terrible outcomes
Speaker 1: during the blackout. And I and I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a really clean metaphor for this moment of like
Speaker 1: information overload and conspiracy theories, which are effectively a kind
Speaker 1: of blackout because they're blurring what's maybe like a real
Speaker 1: take a take on reality, like what's what's really happening?
Speaker 3: You have fear as a huge motivator exactly, kind of
Speaker 3: clouding your vision. Yeah, and when people's needs aren't being met,
Speaker 3: that's when that's when people act out of desperation and
Speaker 3: bad things happen. And when you don't feel like you
Speaker 3: can trust your leaders to take care of you, or
Speaker 3: your government, or the economy is failing, you can't put
Speaker 3: food food.
Speaker 2: On the table.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it can be a scary time. Well,
Speaker 3: hopefully we aren't on the brink of that right now,
Speaker 3: but I don't know, we'll see maybe something like.
Speaker 1: Any it's literally like any minute now. Yeah, any that's
Speaker 1: just like full Lord of the Flies.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: I do think that there's just to kind of spin
Speaker 1: it back around. On the positive note, the you know,
Speaker 1: the city did emerge from this blackout, and as difficult
Speaker 1: of a chapter as it was, it is also a
Speaker 1: testament to the resilience of the city. And I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like to your point about the broader metaphor
Speaker 1: this moment that we're in nationally, I hope is something
Speaker 1: that can as we sort of like push through the
Speaker 1: darkness and the sort of siloed information bubbles that we're
Speaker 1: all in, that that there is a kind of new
Speaker 1: cohesion that rises out of it, a new sense of community,
Speaker 1: like national community and national sort of how much we're
Speaker 1: just interwoven and interdependent on one another. That that becomes
Speaker 1: that that becomes like a point of pride instead of
Speaker 1: like something to sort of shame and ridicule. I believe
Speaker 1: in New York City. I'm just I'm such a believer
Speaker 1: in the spirit of that city, and I'm a believer
Speaker 1: in our country. I'm still like this weird I'm just
Speaker 1: like this dorky patriot. I just love love our country,
Speaker 1: and I think we can. I think we can bring
Speaker 1: it around.
Speaker 2: I do too. I do too.
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful. I'm right there with you, amen. And I
Speaker 3: think it starts with our campaign for mayor of for
Speaker 3: co mayor.
Speaker 1: You and me, baby and me, Hey, we go forget
Speaker 1: about it. That's our campaign's logan. Forget about it. You
Speaker 1: got troubles, forget about it, get about Bezie and Eddie
Speaker 1: are here all right, Besie Man, Thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: This was an absolute blast. Keep crushing it. You're doing great.
Speaker 1: Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo Media,
Speaker 1: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.
Speaker 1: Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim Whitney, Donaldson,
Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino
Speaker 1: and Tory Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical
Speaker 1: direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive it
Speaker 1: is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by the Collected Works.
Speaker 1: Legal review from Dan Welsh, Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and
Speaker 1: everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman,
Speaker 1: Nikki Etoor, Nathan O'towski, and Alex Corral. While I have you,
Speaker 1: don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snaffoo,
Speaker 1: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available
Speaker 1: now from any book retailer. Just go to Snaffoo dashbook
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.