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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information,

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Speaker 2: the show that brings you the secret stories and little

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Speaker 2: alone details about your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.

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Speaker 2: We are your disco DeVos of details, your historians of

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Speaker 2: Homeronic hymns. To him, you're insensitive portrayals of indigenous people

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Speaker 2: of ananity.

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Speaker 1: My name's Jordan run Tag and I'm Alex Heigel. I

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Speaker 1: was good. I thought you would have liked the indigenous

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Speaker 1: and peoples of ananity. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well today, in casey I haven't guessed already, we are

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Speaker 2: talking about a glorious bit of sonic seventies spray Cheese,

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Speaker 2: a song that will be a staple of bar Mitzvah's

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Speaker 2: retirement parties in the pre nine PM time frame of

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Speaker 2: wedding receptions until the end of time.

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Speaker 1: That is right.

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Speaker 2: Today, we are discussing the history of YMCA by the

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Speaker 2: Village People, or possibly Village People. I think they're one

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Speaker 2: of those bands that as a shoot an article, which

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Speaker 2: is one of the many things they have in common

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Speaker 2: with talking heads. The discussion of YMCA has two separate

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Speaker 2: sides of my professional brand at odds. The longtime music journalist,

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Speaker 2: then May, feels compelled to say that it's lame, because

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Speaker 2: in a certain sense it is, but the long time

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Speaker 2: events DJ that lurks within me also suggests it's actually

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Speaker 2: pretty great because I've seen what YMCA can do on

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Speaker 2: a dance floor, and folks, let me tell you, it

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Speaker 2: gets results. It's just so unapologetically goofy and upbeat that

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Speaker 2: regardless of how much you think you hate it when

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Speaker 2: it comes on, you can't help but love it if

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Speaker 2: you punch it in right here, just as like I

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Speaker 2: jump scare, yeah, uh here I go. I mean to me,

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Speaker 2: I love YMCA because it's unique in that it's so

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Speaker 2: firmly of its time, and yet it's transcended it's time.

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Speaker 2: It's almost like how the film Grease portrays this of

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Speaker 2: the fifties that never really existed. That's kind of how

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Speaker 2: I feel about WHYMCA. It paints this extremely sanitized yet

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Speaker 2: also innuendo leaden as we'll later discuss cartoon portrait of

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Speaker 2: the disco era.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to live there, but I.

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Speaker 2: Think we can all agree that it's sometimes a nice

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Speaker 2: place to visit. Heigel, I can see you going either

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Speaker 2: way with this. It has horn charts by Horace Att,

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Speaker 2: It's got that goal for it.

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Speaker 3: What do you think of Whymca?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's like what do you think of the air?

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Speaker 1: You know? Like what I struggled with, it's like, you

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Speaker 1: know American pie, well know, I hate American Well I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say, yeah, yeah, I don't know, man, It's

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Speaker 1: like it's just one of those things that's like woven

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Speaker 1: into the tapestry of American life that it's inextricable and

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Speaker 1: so bisy. Isn't that weird? Yes? It is. It is.

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Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It's deeply weiz are. It's like

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Speaker 1: the most successful like queer infiltration of mainstream culture since

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Speaker 1: like Rock Hudson. I don't know, but he was pretending otherwise. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I insert any number of like deeply closeted

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Speaker 1: Hollywood people can't say that, say, they'll bull up a

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Speaker 1: big bleep on that. Yeah yeah. Uh. Kevin Costner before

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Speaker 1: he before he was just a predator. First he was

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Speaker 1: a closet a gay, No no different Kevin Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: Kevin Spacey. God, how much would have rule of Kevin

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Speaker 1: Costner was gay? Just do a series of bleeps and

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Speaker 1: then me going, God, how much would rule of Kevin

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Speaker 1: Costner was gay? It would explain his obsession with cowboys.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know, man, it's weird. I like

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Speaker 1: I associate this with like a deep cosmic malaise because

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Speaker 1: I know that your sister steady state, Well that's true,

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Speaker 1: but like I know your wedding DJ man, but does

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Speaker 1: anybody like like when I picture someone doing the YMCA

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Speaker 1: or being in a room where YMC is playing, it's

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Speaker 1: just like the most.

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Speaker 3: There's some self loathing.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's just like the most performative, listless thing. And like,

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Speaker 1: you know, there was a roller rink in central Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: that I used to go to because we didn't have

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Speaker 1: much to do, and they would play YMCA and it

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Speaker 1: was just this perfect image of like American life, like

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Speaker 1: people just circling this big thing, not going anywhere for

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Speaker 1: any reason, and just sort of like half acidly making

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Speaker 1: letter shapes with their hands. And like, I don't know

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Speaker 1: any other pop song with an accompanying dance that really

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Speaker 1: does that, Like Makarena at least you could be like,

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Speaker 1: well it's quasi hispanic. You know. The electric slide is

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Speaker 1: electric athletic. It's something chacha, real smooth. That's it has.

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Speaker 1: It has its stupid shuffle. I don't even know that one.

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Speaker 3: Oh really that's a I'd be more of a Southern one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I just so, it's it's so weird, man. It

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Speaker 1: feels like it's like this national anthem thing that's like

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Speaker 1: you just obligated to respond and it says nothing. It's

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Speaker 1: like ticks something in our brains where we're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: time to sing along and do the hand shape thing.

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Speaker 1: And I don't really know what other song other than

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Speaker 1: like the national anthem just elicits such a resigned sense

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Speaker 1: of group think, you know, like you can play this

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Speaker 1: on death Row and someone would put up the YMCA thing.

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Speaker 1: It's just like it's just so drilled into our culture

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Speaker 1: in a way that I don't think anything else really is.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: That's a phenomenal both visual and insight. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean you know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: It could possibly be that it's the dance that requires

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Speaker 2: the bare minimum. That's true, you know, I mean we

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Speaker 2: love the bare minimum.

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Speaker 1: You gotta know how to do quarter notes, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: big obvious letter shapes. Although I tend to have a

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Speaker 1: problem knowing which way the sea goes. Oh sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: is it your see or is it the is it

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Speaker 1: like like stage left or no, it's the other way exactly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean we won't be talking too much about

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Speaker 2: the song's musical merits in this episode, but as you said,

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Speaker 2: more of the cultural phenomenon, that is, the village people

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Speaker 2: are the village people something like that, and you know.

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Speaker 1: You laughed, But they moved sixty five.

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Speaker 2: Million records in the space of like six years, five years.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty insane. Yeah, I mean part of me is

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Speaker 1: always just inclined to like ignore anything that happened in

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Speaker 1: like mid to late seventies in the record industry, maybe

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Speaker 1: just the entire seventies for the record industry because it

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Speaker 1: was at its like Imperial era. You couldn't you know,

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Speaker 1: pirate vinyl and everyone had a nice stereo. Cable wasn't

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Speaker 1: so much a thing. So it's like, yeah, twenty million then,

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Speaker 1: but like you know, Disco Duck sold over four million, HAA, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean that was the thing.

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Speaker 2: This group was signed to Cusablanca Records, as we'll talk

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Speaker 2: about later, as a novelty band. I mean, the guy

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Speaker 2: who ran the record label had come from basically running

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Speaker 2: a novelty label, and so every act he sign Kiss

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Speaker 2: was one of them. Donna Summers was one, and that

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Speaker 2: was Once You Had Loved to Love You, which is

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Speaker 2: like nineteen minutes of her grown.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's genuinely subversive, man like, because that's that

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Speaker 1: is that that's moroder Is on program that one. I think,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean that's just so like, that's almost

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Speaker 1: avant garde, right, Kiss, for all of their lack of merits,

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Speaker 1: except as businessmen like you see, you saw the niche

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Speaker 1: that they filled. I just don't know who's clamoring for this.

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Speaker 1: I have a thought. I mean, it's it's a fine line.

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Speaker 1: Let's not do any let's not do any facts. Let's

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Speaker 1: just pontificate about YMCA for I don't know an hour

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Speaker 1: until we both sort of go hoarse and then we

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Speaker 1: just the whole thing just ends.

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Speaker 3: Both wander away.

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Speaker 2: I mean, no, this is sort of the carollary the

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Speaker 2: spinal tap. There's such a fine line between clever and stupid.

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Speaker 2: There's a fine line between novelty and avant garde. I mean, oh,

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Speaker 2: I was listening to some podcast about the history of

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Speaker 2: the recorded music and they mentioned they're coming to take

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Speaker 2: me Away.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the novelty song from.

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Speaker 2: A and all the sped up tapes and stuff on

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Speaker 2: that was like actually viewed as fairly groundbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Chipmunk still yeah, yeah, I mean because music

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Speaker 1: Concrete was like the music Concrete was like the big

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Speaker 1: thing at the but dumb. Yeah, yeah exactly, And yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, It's just I would love to

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Speaker 1: be inside that guy's head. Like, I also understand the

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Speaker 1: idea of Casablanca Records as like an operating hole. Like

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Speaker 1: you know, you have Donna Summer, You've got R and

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Speaker 1: B disco dance crossover, you've got Kiss, big meaty lunkhead rock,

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Speaker 1: and they dress weird. Where the do the Village People

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Speaker 1: slot in? How did that come into his brain where

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Speaker 1: he was like, I want to make the gayest band

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Speaker 1: in the world, and that's it, full stop. Somebody didn't

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Speaker 1: read ahead on the outline, No, I sure didn't. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll get to that.

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Speaker 2: But I mean, I as you very correctly noted, arguably

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Speaker 2: the Village People's greatest legacy, not arguably it is the

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Speaker 2: greatest legacy, is that it helped int a greate gay

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Speaker 2: culture in the mainstream largely through the use of subcultural stereotypes.

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Speaker 2: And this brings us back to our recurring segment of

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Speaker 2: the show that we like to call two straight white

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Speaker 2: guys discuss queer culture.

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Speaker 1: Hey, I know who Sylvester is. I have some crid.

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Speaker 2: I mean the village people did play a crucial role

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Speaker 2: in integrating gay culture into the mainstream, but don't.

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Speaker 1: Take our word for it. Karen Tongsen, a.

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Speaker 2: Queer studies scholar and associate professor of English and Gender

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Speaker 2: Studies at the University of Southern California, makes the case

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Speaker 2: that the YMCA song, and particularly the video, which was

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Speaker 2: filmed on location at the wise famous McBurnie location in

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Speaker 2: Manhattan's Chelsea District, illustrates the way that queerness has long

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Speaker 2: existed in real life and pop culture. She says, a

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Speaker 2: lot of queer expression has happened through innuendo. That's essentially

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Speaker 2: how queer popular culture has existed as something that could

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Speaker 2: be read in multi sltiple ways.

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Speaker 1: There's a sense of having to be able to communicate with.

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Speaker 2: Each other in plain sight, but without other people figuring

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Speaker 2: it out. In England, there was a dialect call and

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Speaker 2: maybe it made its way over here.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it did called polari. Are you familiar

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Speaker 1: with this, I'm not.

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Speaker 2: It's basically queer Cockney rhyming slang. It was lingo and

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Speaker 2: because in the UK homosexuality was outlawed and was illegal

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Speaker 2: until nineteen sixty seven, Yeah, it was you'd go to jail,

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Speaker 2: So there was a whole dialect that evolved to be spoken.

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Speaker 1: I would generally not be able to tell if it

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Speaker 1: were completely invented by like Anthony Burgess, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh seriously. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: No, it's from the Italian polare to talk to the

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Speaker 2: Italian verb, and it was used in Britain by actors,

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Speaker 2: circus and fairground performers, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals

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Speaker 2: and sex workers, and particularly among the gay subculture.

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Speaker 1: What a beautiful cross section. Yeah, I was gonna say,

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Speaker 1: people man at that party, circus folk. No, it's it's

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Speaker 1: very fascinating.

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Speaker 2: And you know what Professor Tonkson said earlier about YMCA

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Speaker 2: being able to be read in multiple ways, this is

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Speaker 2: a recurring theme throughout this episode, people insisting that YMCA

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Speaker 2: has multiple potential meetings, which was very much not my

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Speaker 2: perception of this song. I thought it was pretty cut

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Speaker 2: and dry. But as we'll talk about Victor Willis, who's

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Speaker 2: the Village People lead singer, and he's the guy who

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Speaker 2: wrote the lyrics of the song. He is straight, and

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Speaker 2: he's vehemently denied, with threats of legal action, that he

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Speaker 2: knowingly wrote a gay anthem, though he says he doesn't

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Speaker 2: care that it's been adopted as such. Randy Jones, the

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Speaker 2: Cowboy and the Village People, made this point to Spin

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Speaker 2: magazine in their oral history of YMCA. He said, I

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Speaker 2: think you can go into the lyrics of YMCA and

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Speaker 2: if you're a straight jock who worked out at the why,

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Speaker 2: You're gonna perceive it one way. But if you happen

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Speaker 2: to be a gay man and have the experience and

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Speaker 2: perspective of hooking up with each other, that's another way

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Speaker 2: it can be perceived, Okay, man.

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Speaker 1: So that was news to me. I thought it was

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Speaker 1: like very clear that it was about one thing. But yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's once you get the like the roster

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Speaker 1: of gay stereotypes. I mean I understand that like in

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Speaker 1: the seventies, like many people did not have exposure to

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Speaker 1: full throated gay culture, but like I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: like if you're in San Francisco and you saw like

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Speaker 1: a guy dressed in leather, you'd be like, I recognize

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Speaker 1: what's going on there. And then the rest of them

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Speaker 1: are all these macho archetypes, like a macho man if

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Speaker 1: you will, yes, yes, yes, indeed, very clever. I forgot

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Speaker 1: they had like more than one hit because it was

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Speaker 1: about yeah, I was about to positi at one point

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Speaker 1: they're like, whither the novelty artist? But like, we don't

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Speaker 1: really have those anymore. We have like TikTok flukes, and

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Speaker 1: some of them are like genuinely talented, and then some

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Speaker 1: of them are like you know, your Megan Trainers.

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Speaker 2: I mean I think, I mean, because of the timeline

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Speaker 2: of TikTok, I would say it kind of went out

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Speaker 2: with YouTube viral songs like what did the Fox say type?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean it's really just like

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Speaker 1: you don't even get a viral song anymore. You get

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Speaker 1: a viral riff, you get a viral SoundBite, and then

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Speaker 1: you got to go play that on a hastily arranged

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Speaker 1: stadium tour like poor Steve Lacy did and just screaming zoomers.

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Speaker 1: You still want to be a musician yeah exactly, dude.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, that was so funny. By the end of

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Speaker 1: that tour, people were like holding up their phones and

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Speaker 1: being like, say how to my mom and he just

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Speaker 1: flatly goes no and starts paying the next song, like,

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Speaker 1: uh anyway, yeah, okay, man, let's get cool. You didn't

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Speaker 1: know that, like the large buff men so mirrored other

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Speaker 1: large buff men in your metropolitan area. Yeah, I mean, like, idiot, Like,

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Speaker 1: what's my dumb ask? Like, I mean, how do you

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Speaker 1: misinterpret that? Like, no, it's totally straight. I just like

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Speaker 1: I'm surrounded by like beefy men, uh, dressed as cops

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Speaker 1: and like leather guys, and you know all these other

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Speaker 1: guys out on the street dressed in leather. That surely

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Speaker 1: has no bearing on what I've done. Must be a coincidence.

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Speaker 1: Dunce Well, a lot to unpack here.

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Speaker 2: Dive in from the initial conception of the band from

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Speaker 2: a Frenchman walking around Granwich Village, the band's tragic and

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Speaker 2: honestly quite surprising connection to nine to eleven. The charitable

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Speaker 2: organizations allege a connection to the CIA, the historical legal

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Speaker 2: precedent that resulted in the wake of the song and

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Speaker 2: the Rolling Stone hit it helped inspire plus the origin

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Speaker 2: of that famous dance. Here's everything you didn't know about

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Speaker 2: Ymca by the village people. The village people like so

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Speaker 2: many of life. Some pleasantries are a fault of the French.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for citing that in for me. You're welcome.

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Speaker 2: I recently discovered that I have in the analytics can

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Speaker 2: see where very precisely, like down to individual cities and

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Speaker 2: like large towns where people are listening. I haven't checked

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Speaker 2: to see how many how many French people are listening,

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Speaker 2: So if you're listening right now, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 2: at least I don't know. If I go is no,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna do a segment and it will be part

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Speaker 2: of our kofee thanking the fans kind of thing. I

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Speaker 2: want to go through and look down because there were

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Speaker 2: some like fairly small like so somebody listening from Wookesbury, Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 2: which is next to the town where my mom grew up.

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Speaker 2: So hello folks, if you're listening right now, we should

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Speaker 2: drive past the Carousel Strip Club on the way to

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Speaker 2: visit my grandparents, and I, as a little kid, thought

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Speaker 2: it was a real carousel and always wanted to stop

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Speaker 2: and go, and my parents would always find reasons to not.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if it's still there, but said my

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Speaker 2: best to everybody in Woosbury, Pennsylvania. Anyway, back to Leatherman,

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Speaker 2: The Village People were a brainchild of French music producer

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Speaker 2: and promoter Jacques Morale, and it was essentially to appeal to,

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Speaker 2: some may say, exploit, the burgeoning disco scene of the

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Speaker 2: late seventies, which.

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Speaker 1: As we discussed in our Studio fifty.

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Speaker 2: Four episode, was largely gay disco we forget now. It

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Speaker 2: was originally the music of the disenfranchised, the queer community

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Speaker 2: and anybody else who'd essentially been othered gathered in downtown

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Speaker 2: loft parties in the late sixties and early seventies of

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Speaker 2: Manhattan because they essentially had nowhere else that they could

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Speaker 2: drink and dance publicly due to discriminatory cabaret laws that

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Speaker 2: prohibited same sex dancing, and the music played in these

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Speaker 2: underground parties.

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Speaker 1: Were generally soul.

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Speaker 2: In R and B, you had guys like David Mancuso,

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Speaker 2: who's arguably the most famous underground DJ of the early seventies,

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Speaker 2: playing stuff like Mandudubango's nineteen seventy two proto disco classic

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Speaker 2: soul ma Cosa, which is probably best known these days

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Speaker 2: for its reference or sample in Michael Jackson's want to

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Speaker 2: be Starting something.

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Speaker 1: I'm say, mam say, ma'ma sokas. Yeah, I'm say mamaselle,

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Speaker 1: what's that mean? Macosa means dance in Cameroonian, which is

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Speaker 1: where Manu Debongo was from.

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Speaker 2: So David Mancuso passed Saul ma Coosa to a broadcast

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Speaker 2: DJ friend who started playing it on air, and that

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Speaker 2: arguably became the first true disco hit. And so more

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Speaker 2: of these sounds started to escape these downtown loft parties

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Speaker 2: and it started to break into the mainstream and call

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Speaker 2: us into a genre which we now know is disco

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Speaker 2: and has its origins in soul, funk and salsa traditions

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Speaker 2: of the Black and Latino communities which were played at.

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Speaker 1: These gay dances. So, despite its reputation these days.

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Speaker 2: As corny or hackey, disco started off having all the

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Speaker 2: musical and cultural integrity in the world. But one of

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Speaker 2: the factors, the biggest factor I would say that gave

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Speaker 2: disco a bad name was the second and third and

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Speaker 2: fourth wave of castions perpetrated by guys like our frenchman

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Speaker 2: Jacques Moraley.

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Speaker 3: Did that miss anything there? Like thumbing the else sketch

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Speaker 3: in the origins at disco?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's I think I've mentioned him before,

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Speaker 1: but I had a college professor named Thomas Stanley. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He was just like, I don't get why people bag

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Speaker 1: on disco. Man. It says like everybody can dance to disco.

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Speaker 1: It's four on the floor, you know, give people a

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Speaker 1: quarter note. Everybody deserves the dance. Yeah, everybody deserves to dance.

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Speaker 1: Give people a quarter note. Yeah, I mean, ah, with

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Speaker 1: distance and knowing that we put up with now, it

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Speaker 1: just sounds like it's all gold to me, you know,

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Speaker 1: like even like even like Boogie Boogie Wonderland, I'm just like,

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Speaker 1: what a oh, that's that's earth Winded Fire. Sorry, what's

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Speaker 1: the one? Boogie Woogie Shoes? Can you sing a little bit?

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Speaker 1: I want to put them. I wanna put on my

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Speaker 1: boogie shoes.

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Speaker 3: I actually don't know that song. Can you believe it?

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Speaker 1: That's a wedding DJ I really, dude, I'm thinking of

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Speaker 1: the Boogie Ogi Ogi one. That song also actually goes

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Speaker 1: You've got to know this song. You you lived through

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Speaker 1: the era when it was a huge hit, for when

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Speaker 1: it was not maybe not huge, but the sample was

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Speaker 1: for a trick daddy.

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Speaker 4: First place I heard the horns, Oh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like, I don't know. I listen to

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Speaker 1: that and I'm just like, yeah, this smokes. These are

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Speaker 1: like real musicians playing in a room. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: just I'm so I've my attitude towards almost all disco

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Speaker 1: has softened. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: No, that's a good point, you know.

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Speaker 2: Now now I'm looking up the origin of the term

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Speaker 2: boogie boogers. The origin of the term boogie woogie is unknown.

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Speaker 2: Oxfording in sixth United States that the word is a

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Speaker 2: redoubling of boogie, which was used for rent parties as

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Speaker 2: early as nineteen thirteen, maybe derived from Sierra Leone term

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Speaker 2: a bogie, which means to dance. Also maybe akin to

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Speaker 2: the phrase hoosa boogoo, which means to beat drums.

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Speaker 1: Huh.

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Speaker 2: In the late twenties and early thirties, the term could

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Speaker 2: mean anything from a racy style of dance to a

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Speaker 2: raucus party or a.

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Speaker 3: Sexually transmitted disease.

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Speaker 1: Cool.

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Speaker 2: Well, this concludes your history of disco and boogie. Jacques Moraley,

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Speaker 2: the man who is.

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Speaker 1: The godfather of village people. I suppose he's a fascinating man.

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Speaker 2: He started out writing music for live orchestras in France,

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Speaker 2: including the legendary slash infamous Parisian nightclub Crazy Horse. He

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Speaker 2: also produced a record by a future member of the

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Speaker 2: band King Harvest, who would go on to have a

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Speaker 2: massive hit with Dancing in the Moonlight Great Song, which was.

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Speaker 3: My prom theme.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, that band King Harvest was named after

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Speaker 2: the band song.

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Speaker 1: I did know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you

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Speaker 1: told me that.

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Speaker 3: I probably. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I love making things that have a lot of artistic integrity,

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Speaker 2: a lot lamer and kitcher.

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Speaker 1: Yeah me too. Well.

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Speaker 2: Jacques Moraley apparently came to the United States after winning

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Speaker 2: a twentieth Century Fox slogan contest. I that's what a

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Speaker 2: rolling Stone piece says, and I have no further info

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Speaker 2: on that, okay, but I enjoy that. He soon fell

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Speaker 2: in love with the sounds of disco and started co

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Speaker 2: producing Philly soul adjacent axe like The Richie Family, which

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Speaker 2: tragically does not feature Lionel Ritchie. In nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 2: Moraley took a fateful trip to Greenwich Village. The story

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Speaker 2: has been told many many, many times, in multiple ways.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to choose to print the legends with the

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Speaker 2: most colorful version. Morale would say that he was walking

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Speaker 2: through the village when he heard the sounds of bells jingling.

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Speaker 2: He turned and looked and caught sight of a man

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Speaker 2: in a full on Native American outfit, complete with headdress

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Speaker 2: and bells on his feet.

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Speaker 1: The year was two thousand and nine, it was Coachella.

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Speaker 2: Intrigued, Moraley followed him into a nearby gay club called

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Speaker 2: I Believe the Anvil, where this man was reporting to

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Speaker 2: work as a dancer and bartender. Maraley started peppering in

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Speaker 2: with questions and learned that his name was Philippe Rose

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Speaker 2: and he was actually part Lakota Soue. Inspired by the

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Speaker 2: fancy dress of all the men around him, cowboys, etc.

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Speaker 2: Moraley dreamed up the idea for a band, and Maraley's

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Speaker 2: business partner, a man named Henri Bololo, happened to accompany

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Speaker 2: him on the strip downtown, and Belolo recalled it vividly

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Speaker 2: in a two thousand interview with discodisco dot Com. Philippe

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Speaker 2: Rose was serving and also dancing on the bar. I

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Speaker 2: bet he was serving and while we were watching him

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Speaker 2: dancing and sipping our beer. We saw a cowboy watching

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Speaker 2: him dance, and Jacques and I suddenly had the same idea.

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Speaker 2: We said, my god, look at those characters. We started

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Speaker 2: to fantasize about what were the characters of America, the mix,

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Speaker 2: you know, the American man. And we named this mix

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Speaker 2: the village people because they were in Gretich village.

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Speaker 3: Get it.

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Speaker 1: The French are unable to like not condescend to us

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Speaker 1: in our own country. But I guess so, I mean,

429
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: we do that to them all the time, with like

430
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: the cigarette smoking and the existentialism, and like they really

431
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 1: really loved to come over here and just talk down

432
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: to us, the twentieth centuries, pre eminent Nazi collaborators coming

433
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 1: over here and making fun of us. For the legend

434
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: of the American West cough Oh.

435
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:02,199
Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy seven, producers Moraley and Audria Bololo. I

436
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,880
Speaker 2: can't I love saying that name assemble the group designed

437
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 2: to attract a gay audience while parroting, or some would claim, exploiting,

438
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 2: that same constituency stereotypes. These roles were all very carefully considered,

439
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 2: you know, the Native American, the cop.

440
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 1: The construction worker, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, union man, good guy,

441
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: union guy. Yeah.

442
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 2: The timeline of how the band came together is a

443
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 2: little fuzzy. I've seen that the first person Moraley invited

444
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 2: to join was Philippe Rose, the American guy from the bar,

445
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 2: just because he was the guy that he saw first.

446
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 2: Some reports say that he invited him to join this

447
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 2: project that very night at the bar.

448
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 1: It seems that sounds like something that you would do

449
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:46,720
Speaker 1: at a bar in Greenwich Village in the nineteen seventies,

450
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: like come up with a million selling band, like whacked

451
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 1: out on good coke, and like watching a buff to

452
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: gay dude dance. It's the beach scene from the doors

453
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: where he's like, you and me are going to form

454
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 1: a band and we're going to make a million dollars.

455
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: But he's like murmuring it to a torque gay dude

456
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: dancing at a bar in a headdress with pictrusive paps.

457
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: Oh man, So.

458
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 2: We'll call him even it was that strictly true, we'll

459
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 2: call him the founding member because he's definitely spiritually the

460
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:18,360
Speaker 2: founding member.

461
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 3: Felipe Rose.

462
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:21,879
Speaker 2: He was raised in Brooklyn, where he displayed an interest

463
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 2: in the arts during his childhood and he first dressed

464
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 2: as quote an Indian while in school for the Christopher

465
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 2: Columbus Day parade.

466
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: Oh I love this though.

467
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 2: By twenty fourteen, he'd become an ordained minister to marry fans,

468
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 2: including a gay couple who spontaneously decided to get married

469
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,479
Speaker 2: while aboard a ship in Australia, which is adorable. Arguably,

470
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 2: the most important hire was the next one. Victor Willis,

471
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 2: the lead singer and eventual lyricist for The Village People.

472
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 2: Marley would call him quote the young man with the

473
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 2: big voice. He'd seen him on Broadway performing in The

474
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 2: Whiz in the original cast before inviting him to join

475
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 2: his new musical product.

476
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 1: And truly incredible opener.

477
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 2: I had a dream that you sang lead vocals on

478
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 2: my album and it went very very very very big.

479
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: Can you say that on a French accent please? I

480
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 1: had to dream you played inhale cigarette just pictured Serge Gainsburg. Yeah,

481
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: you're gonna assemble the image of like five o'clock shadow

482
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: and lidded eyes like smoking a cigarette. I had to

483
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 1: dream you sang lead vocalis on my album and it

484
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: went valet valet valet meeg.

485
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put the uh the Surge Gainsburg song that

486
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 2: was bands like the opening instrumental part under what you

487
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 2: just said?

488
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: I had to dream You sang lead vocalis on my

489
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: album and it went Valet Valet and Valet meeg God,

490
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: he sucks. What a clown? People like the video of

491
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: hit them in the late nineties with a little kid. Yeah,

492
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: stressedes him painted on stubble and he's like moved to

493
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: tears by it, like pathetic. I'm sorry, I forget that

494
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 1: must be moving to you as a person, but like,

495
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: no idiot. He fumbled Jane Burkin. He fumbled Jane Burkin.

496
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 1: He said like he was within a foot of Whitney Houston,

497
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: which not many people got to be, and like fumbled that.

498
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: I mean, not that there was ever a chance. But

499
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: he like immediately pissed her off by being a weird pervert.

500
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,880
Speaker 1: So like, oh yeah, yeah for him, man, that's who

501
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: people think of you as you know, why don't celebrate

502
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: that well.

503
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 2: He also made a concept album starring his wife playing

504
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: a fourteen year old that he hit with his rolls

505
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 2: Royce and then obsessed.

506
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: But he I didn't even get into the pederast. I

507
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: didn't even get.

508
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,360
Speaker 3: Into the Lemon Incess too, the song with his Yeah

509
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 3: about that.

510
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, super weird considering all the kids later dressed

511
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: up as him and the weeping Oh just as clownish

512
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: clownish people can.

513
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 2: We discussed lemon incest on one episode. I forget what

514
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: it was for, but yeah, he did a song with

515
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: his daughter Charlotte, and the video for it was them

516
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 2: in debt if I recall, yeah.

517
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: She defended it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think

518
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: she defends it to the stage because they're weird people,

519
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: the French. You know, she lives here now though, right

520
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: you think it would have been like trained out of her. No,

521
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 1: we can't do that. That's the thing. Like they're impervious

522
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: to American programming. You cannot find a French person who's

523
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: been americanized. I'm serious, I'm not joking about this. Like,

524
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: think of every French person you met in New York.

525
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: You would never go, oh, that's like an American with

526
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: a slight accent. You're like, that's a French person. You know,

527
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: they always staring out a window or like the Berets,

528
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: like come on, So, yeah, you can never break that programming.

529
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: I mean it's just not possible. Imagine being so fucking

530
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: weird for your dad that, like thirty years later, you're like, no,

531
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: that Incests song was funny, good bit. Pah.

532
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 3: I don't think she said funny. I think she said beautiful.

533
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: Well that's even stupider. I mean, you know it's funny.

534
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: Though I was at a performance at this school last night. Well,

535
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: I can't mention my place of work on here, even

536
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: though it's obviously visible on my Twitter and LinkedIn. I

537
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: was at a performance the other night and heard a

538
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: lot of Debusy performed, and man, I fucking love Debusy. Dude,

539
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 1: his harmonies are just his chord voicing is just like

540
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: when people talk about like, oh, composers integrating sounds from

541
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: other cultures, like it's usually so fascile, but like that

542
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: guy really heard like ragtime and dominant seventh chords and

543
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: was like, no, this is my thing now because I

544
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: didn't realize. But his like mature period that people consider

545
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: when he wrote all the Bangers started at forty, so

546
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, anyway, Debuty's cool. Didn't he do weird

547
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: stuff too?

548
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 4: Uh?

549
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, dude, every one of those composers was

550
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: like fucking on and like living like rock stars. Well

551
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: back to the assembly of Yeah, I mean just cut

552
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: off that young men, just fade me down in the

553
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: background and just paste in like like yeah, or I

554
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: was going to say, like an MTA lady like robot voice,

555
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: like Alex goes on anti French rant. Sorry, what about

556
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: Okay these guys village people. That's two. We're up to two.

557
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 2: So now he's now he's got the Native American and

558
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 2: uh Victor Willis who was the cop, he was the

559
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: cop and I think he was occasionally a naval commander.

560
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 2: To Victor Willis invited his friend, a fellow musical theater

561
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 2: veteran named Alex Briley, who was at various points a soldier,

562
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 2: a sailor following the release of in the Navy, and

563
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 2: also a naval cadet.

564
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: It's just so funny they had they had a pinch hitter.

565
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: He was like, I need you to come in and

566
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: play three to five gay stereotypes because in the beginning

567
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: it was just a studio enterprise. So having a utility

568
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: guy in the Village People was just a funny to me, Like,

569
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: oh yeah, throw him in. He's good in any position.

570
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: What you got, Yeah, the sixth Man Award for the

571
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: for the People.

572
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: This is not the most interesting fact about Alex Briley.

573
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: I need to modulate my tone for this. Yeah, go

574
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: to Syria to go to True crime guy.

575
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: Interesting side note about Alex Briley, his brother Jonathan is

576
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 2: believed to be the man depicted in the iconic, slash

577
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 2: horrifying photograph taken on nine to eleven by Richard Drew,

578
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 2: known as the Falling Man. It defies description, but if

579
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 2: you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

580
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 3: And if not, I was.

581
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: Gonna say google it. No, maybe don't.

582
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: It's an image of a man falling from the upper

583
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 2: floors of the North Tower.

584
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 3: It's unclear if he jumped or fell.

585
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: Just this is gonna sound grotesque, but just the angle

586
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 2: of him and the angle of the building, it's it's

587
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 2: a very striking image. Deeply upsetting, very striking.

588
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: I can say, some would say haunting. Yeah, extremely haunting.

589
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 2: Elton John, for some reason, owns the original Jesus Christ

590
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: and he's described it as the most perfect photo ever taken.

591
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: But you didn't think I was.

592
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 2: Going to Elton John, But yeah, he is an enormous

593
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 2: photography collection, and he has the original and he's described

594
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 2: it as the most perfect photo ever taken. I believe

595
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 2: the image is the subject of an amazing Esquire piece

596
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 2: by Tom Janaud. He wrote the profile of mister Rogers

597
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 2: that was turned into the movie with Tom Hanks a

598
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: few years ago, and it's also the subject of a

599
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 2: two thousand and six documentary film called The Falling Man,

600
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 2: all of which are trying to determine the identity of

601
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: who this man is, because obviously it's even those a

602
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 2: telephoto lens, it's hard to make out. But the most

603
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 2: likely candidate so far is the younger brother of the

604
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 2: Navy guy from the Village People.

605
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 3: His name is Jonathan Briley.

606
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: He worked as an audio engineer at the Windows of

607
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 2: the World restaurant on top of the North Tower and

608
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 2: the World Trade Center, and the impact of the plane

609
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: rendered all of the exit stairwells impassable, so everyone above

610
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 2: the impact zone died.

611
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,959
Speaker 1: Should we get back to Disco, imagine clocking in at

612
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: your job running the PA at the Windows in the

613
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: World planeheads.

614
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's and they were not far from the I

615
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 2: believe it was the observation deck. They were almost on

616
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:25,719
Speaker 2: the top floor, so they were only one or two

617
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: floors down from the observation deck and for some reason

618
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 2: they couldn't open the doors up there because they were

619
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 2: going to try to have helicopters land up there to

620
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: hoist people off.

621
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's just get off. Let's get off nine

622
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: to eleven. Just maybe as a general I did. I did,

623
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: and to my peril, I forgot how much you actually

624
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:51,479
Speaker 1: know about it a week after the election. But we're

625
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: in a political podcast here, folks. Let's roll anyway. As

626
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: they say, remember remember the weird I was talking to

627
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: all these zoomers at our school and I was like, man,

628
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: you guys like they genuinely do not know what nine

629
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: to eleven was like, like the fallout from oh yeah,

630
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they like. I was like, you got I

631
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,239
Speaker 1: mean they, I said, like, they renamed French fries at

632
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 1: my high school. That was like a nationally really that

633
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: was like a national but that was a national story,

634
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: right like they were. So they didn't do it. I

635
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: think we laughed at the people who did do it.

636
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: It was in the White House cafeteria, as I remember,

637
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: and then they what's.

638
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 3: Different what Bush's House.

639
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: My point is is that there was somebody in Central

640
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: PA who took that at face value and did it

641
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: in a high school, And these kids were like laughing,

642
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,959
Speaker 1: and I was like, you don't know, Like when we

643
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: found out that let's roll was like the last words

644
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: from that one guy. Yeah, I was like, didn't Florida

645
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: or some Neil Young stop just naming things. Didn't some

646
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: like top ten college adopt that is like their slogan

647
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: or something. Tide.

648
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 3: I don't know.

649
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,080
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't roll Tide, but I don't know.

650
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: Truly crazy times eclipsed by every year since.

651
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, pretty much boy.

652
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: Okay, Jesus Christ. The main lyricists for The Village People's

653
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: first album were Phil Hurt and Peter Whitehead, who were

654
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: brought in purely because producer Moraley was French and could

655
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: not speak English. God, this whole story becomes so much

656
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: funnier when you imagine him doing all of this in

657
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: like a brick thick French accent, not even lightly accented.

658
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 1: Whitehead wrote lyrics that Morelly deemed too obscene for mainstream pop,

659
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: so he had Peter Hurt, who'd already topped the charts

660
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: by writing I'll be around for the Spinners, which is

661
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: like a top ten song of all time.

662
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 3: I'll be.

663
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: Yeah great bass break anyway, he has some He came

664
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: in to straight wash the song Hurt. Was reportedly offered

665
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: the lead singer spot initially, but he turned it down.

666
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: It's an important to note that, as we did previously

667
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 1: but really underscored after all the nine to eleven talk,

668
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: that not all the Village People were gay. Singer Victor Willis,

669
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: who did have a handwriting some of the group's biggest hits,

670
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: including Yes Ymca, was married to Felicia ayers Allen, who

671
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: would go on to play Claire Huxtable on The Cosby

672
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: Show The Nuts Yeah, good for him, and Willis would

673
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: repeatedly say over the years that he did not co

674
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: write Ymca in the Navy or Macho Man with the

675
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: specific intention of making them gay anthems, which, Jesus Christ again,

676
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: you're either lying or genuinely one of the stupidest people alive,

677
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 1: especially when you realize that The Village People's self titled

678
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: first album contains four tracks which are San Francisco parentheses,

679
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: You've Got Me in Hollywood parentheses, Everybody Is a Star,

680
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: and then Fire Island, before closing with Village People, which

681
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:47,280
Speaker 1: was the name.

682
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 3: Of the band of New York Spirits.

683
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: Village Also, if for those of you who don't know,

684
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: Fire Island is like a intensely popular it's Long Island technically, right,

685
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 1: I believe so. Yeah, it's a very popular gay nation

686
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: stop for the the moneyed class. I mean, I think

687
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: at one point it was like genuinely very like on

688
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: the when when Long Island was like in the Hampton's

689
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: were like the wilderness, when no one out there. I

690
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: think it was like a big kind.

691
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 3: Of like Capodi would go out there.

692
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, like clandestine or just more hidden, more

693
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: bohemian kind of spot. And then of course, like everything,

694
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: it became fucking terrible. As you meditate on that. We'll

695
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: be right back with more too much information after these messages.

696
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,919
Speaker 1: Village People's first single, because the afore mentioned San Francisco parentheses,

697
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: You've Got Me, did actually not well. It didn't crack

698
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: the top one hundred on Billboard. It hit one oh two.

699
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: The Village People were signed to Casablanca Records, which was

700
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:58,879
Speaker 1: at the time a new label formed by a guy

701
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: named Neil Bogar, an incredible seventies name.

702
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 3: If I've ever heard one Yeah Yeah yeah.

703
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: After cutting his teeth by producing the group Cute question

704
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: Mark and the Mysterians, including their garage rock classic ninety

705
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: six tiers Hell Yeah Yeah or the er garage rock

706
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: song it's.

707
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 2: Like that in Louis Louis, Oh Yeah, oh yeah. I

708
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 2: was gonna say and maybe something like them.

709
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: No, I don't know, no too Irish. Yeah, it's gotta

710
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 1: be something America. It's gotta be like the Seeds or

711
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: the Sonics. I was gonna go to Van Morrison thing

712
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 1: that I don't care. Van Morrison is too like, he's

713
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: not he's not tough enough. I mean, he's like a

714
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: drunken a but he's not like the entirety of moon

715
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: Dance is about him, like being moved to tears by

716
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: drinking water from a Irish stream. That's not garage rock.

717
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 2: I mean, if you say the word fantabulous and Jeff

718
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:51,439
Speaker 2: fox Worthy voice, you're not you're not garage rock.

719
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: And Bilgert had done a bunch of other dogs like

720
00:37:56,080 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 1: green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers, Yummy, yummy, yummy parentheses,

721
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: I've got Love in my tummy? Is that the full title? Okay?

722
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that's the full title, but I'm glad.

723
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 2: I'm glad you know it.

724
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 1: Speaking of innuendo songs, man, good.

725
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 2: Lord, oh my right, I mean god, I never really

726
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: thought of that, to be honest.

727
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: You live an incredibly cloistered life in that little head

728
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: of years, don't you. Just a whole infrastructure they're dedicated

729
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 1: to keeping them a lot of things out.

730
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:33,720
Speaker 3: I just did a tight five on nine to eleven.

731
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 3: What do you want from me?

732
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: I gotta balance it out somehow, et cetera. New Bogart

733
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 1: his CV Bogert very much Sawivillage People was following in

734
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: this lineage of novelty hits. If you look at the

735
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: acts that he signed, Kiss Donna Summer, who, as you

736
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,919
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, was best known for like an insanely long

737
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: playing song crafted by an Italian coke maniac, consisted mostly

738
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: of orgasmic sounds. But Casablanca seemed to luck into having

739
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: some of the best acts of the seventies on there

740
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,439
Speaker 1: that had not just Kiss Donna Summer and Village People.

741
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: They had share lips inc uh, Parliament, one of George

742
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: Clinton's I'm actually still too white to understand how Parliament

743
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: and Funkadelic came together and then split again. I know,

744
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: Parliaments was his like do wop group, and then Funkadelic

745
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: was like a separate thing that he started and then

746
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: they became one.

747
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 2: When a funk band on a duop group love each

748
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 2: other very much.

749
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: And George Clinton is doing prodigious amounts of acid, like

750
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: acid and coke, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No. I just

751
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 1: think it's funny because he was, like I just think

752
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: of him as like one of the outliers of Black

753
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: American acid consumption, you know, like yeah, other than other

754
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 1: than Hendrix and sly Stone. I mean, like, you know,

755
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: Barry Gordy wasn't doing acid, Booker t was not doing

756
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing acid. Like all those Southern Fried guys

757
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: were not acid heads anyway, got p funk rules? Yeah,

758
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: Flashlight song rips. We should pick one of their forty

759
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: records to do. Did you ever hear the story about

760
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 1: them driving into the filming of Night of the Living Dead?

761
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 2: This sounds familiar, but I know, did they not know

762
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 2: it was a movie with it?

763
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: No, they didn't. They were all extremely on acid and

764
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: driving through like outside Pittsburgh where that movie is filmed

765
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: in Monroeville, Oh my God, and like late at night

766
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: and just happened to stumble across like a zombie scene

767
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: being filmed, the er American zombie text being filmed in

768
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: the middle of the night while they were all extremely

769
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: up on acid and whatever else. Like. Imagine what that

770
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: must have been like to be a fly on that

771
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: bus wall sadly knew. Bogert died in nineteen eighty two

772
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: of lymphoma at the very young age of thirty nine.

773
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: His son, though, has continued his proud legacy. His name

774
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:06,280
Speaker 1: is Evan Bogart, and he is a crazily accomplished modern

775
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: pop songwriter, co writing Halo with Ryan Tedder for Beyonce

776
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: and Rihanna's SOS. He went semi viral recently for revealing

777
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: that SOS, which of course samples the synth line to

778
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: Soft Cells Deathless hit Tainted Love features a verse that

779
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: is just titles of hit eighties songs strung together and

780
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: no one ever noticed, No Yeah, And that includes take

781
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: on Me. The verse lyrics are take on me, you

782
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: know inside you feel it right? Take me on. I

783
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 1: could just die in your arms tonight. I melt with you.

784
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: You got me head over heels. You keep me hanging on, man,

785
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: that is so funny way you make me feel. Keep

786
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,440
Speaker 1: Me hanging On, of course, is a sixties one, but

787
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: there was a there was a.

788
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 2: Cover of it in the eighties by It might have

789
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 2: been by Soft Cells, somebody out of Kim Wilder eighties

790
00:41:59,040 --> 00:41:59,479
Speaker 2: Kim Wile.

791
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: Someone didn't read ahead in the outline hoisted by your

792
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: own petard. Uh Jesus Christ, this is a real bad

793
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: one for staying on topic. Man. I took an adderall

794
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: to day when there's self titled. I did. When their

795
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: self titled album was released in July nineteen seventy seven,

796
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: the Village People were essentially at that point a studio group.

797
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 1: But when the album sold a million, and the singles

798
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: in Hollywood parentheses Everybody is a Star and San Francisco

799
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: parentheses You've Got Me began to chart in the burgeoning

800
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: disco markets, it became clear that they needed to take

801
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: this show on the road. And Jordan, you've heard it

802
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: said that it was good old Dick Clark that perennially

803
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,919
Speaker 1: Rick dis grinning teenager of the American Psyche told them

804
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: to do it.

805
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the son of Sam the neighbor's dog

806
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 2: told them to do it. Dick Clark told to do this.

807
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: Dick Clark does tell me to do a lot of things. Actually,

808
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: it's Casey case It's in.

809
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, yeah, Alex. Dick Clark's a harder impression.

810
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 1: The hang on, Alex, this has been casey k. I

811
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: don't have it at hand, Alex.

812
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 2: I don't think you should take any more adderall today. Alex,

813
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 2: grab that cops gun. Here's a letter, okay.

814
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: Moraley solicited young hopefuls by putting this unforgettable ad in

815
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: the trades, as they called them, macho types wanted, must

816
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: dance and have a mustache. Vocal talent was not mentioned

817
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: because the idea was that they would just be lip

818
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: syncing all these songs. That ad found the band's eventual leatherman,

819
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: construction worker, and Cowboy, three of the remaining American archetypes.

820
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: Aspiring actor Randy Jones was brought on by the Cowboy,

821
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: presumably because he was raised on a real North Carolina farm.

822
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: David Hodo was the construction worker with the mirrored shades

823
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: who would later tell Spin for their oral history on

824
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 1: the song, I had just finished a musical about the

825
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 1: Grand Ole Opry and I had a mustache. It was

826
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: Christmas time and I needed money. They wanted a cowboy,

827
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: and I had just finished a Western perfect But when

828
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: they said they wanted me to be a construction worker,

829
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: that was my dad's dream come true. I'm handy, but

830
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: I've never built anything of consequence. I wouldn't say that

831
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: my greatest fear. I wouldn't say that. David I was

832
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:23,320
Speaker 1: on hook for every next word in that statement musical

833
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: about the grand Ole Opry Christmas time broke. He wanted

834
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: to be a cowboy, they wanted to be a construction worker.

835
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: His dad loved Dad, and then that tremendous kicker. I'm handy,

836
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: but I've never built anything of consequence. It should just

837
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: be the entirety of do you ever hear of Alvin Lucier,

838
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: who's his avant garde composer, who recorded I Am sitting

839
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,919
Speaker 1: in a room. Oh yeah. He just loops a certain

840
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: amount of text. He repeats it over and over until

841
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: the overtones and echoes and everything render it this like

842
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: non speech sound art consolation. We should do that for

843
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:01,720
Speaker 1: an episode. But I'm just looping the rays. I'm handy,

844
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 1: but I've never built anything of consequence with increasingly distorted

845
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: tape echo. I'm handy, but I've never built anything of consequence.

846
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:14,280
Speaker 1: I'm handy, but I've never built anything of consequence. I'm'm

847
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: a handy, but I never really consequence. I'm a hand

848
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: I'm handy, hand I'm hand consequence. Uh Anyway, rounding out

849
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: the group was the only member who didn't come from

850
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: an entertainment background. Glenn Hughes had been a Brooklyn Battery

851
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: Bridge toll collector. Is that corrector I'm just now hearing this,

852
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: that's correct when he was enlisted as the leather clad Biker.

853
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: He is recognized for his extremely expressive horseshoe mustache, while

854
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: his outfit was drawn from the dress code that was

855
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: mandated at the infamous BDSM Leather Bar Mine Shaft, which

856
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 1: is one of the two gay bars that are the

857
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: inspiration and or filmed at in William Freakin's Cruising, starring

858
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:06,240
Speaker 1: a very obviously too old for this al Pacino playing

859
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 1: like a twenty seven year old male cop. Is that

860
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: worth watching? Ah? You know, I've heard a lot of

861
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: people say it is, but it's I think all of

862
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: those people hate you, No, are like freaking dorks. What

863
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: are the actual clubs Get Pulse Orrivinos in There's a

864
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: Oh Man. Richard Gear was going to be the lead

865
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: in that movie. Oh oh okay, so here it is.

866
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: It was intended to depict scenes cruising. Was intended to

867
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 1: depict the scene at the mine Shaft. However, the mine

868
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: Shaft would not allow them to film in there, so

869
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 1: instead the scenes for Cruising were filmed at the hell

870
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,400
Speaker 1: Fire Club, which was then set decorated to resemble the

871
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: mind Shaft and then populated with regulars from the mine

872
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 1: Shaft as extras and also exterior shots were shot around

873
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: the mind Shaft, and al Pacino visited the mine Shaft

874
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: to research the role, so freaking once again demonstrating his

875
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: apex pettiness as a filmmaker, was like, Oh, you want

876
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: to let me film there, I'll just make it look

877
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,720
Speaker 1: like this in every single way anyway.

878
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 2: This comes back later actually in this episode wonderful.

879
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 1: In any event, mister Hughes was seen as a dandy

880
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: of the disco age and no less an authority than

881
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: our former employer. People Magazine named him one of the

882
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: most Beautiful people of nineteen seventy nine, but this was

883
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: the same era where they were thrown it like Nick Nolty, right.

884
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,799
Speaker 2: No, this is this is seventies when they when they

885
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 2: were serious about it. Now the biker from the Village

886
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 2: People made the cut, Nick Nulty sixiest, that was like

887
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: ninety one, ninety two?

888
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: No was it? Oh my god, you're right it was No,

889
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:41,439
Speaker 1: it was ninety two.

890
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

891
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: On the basis of what when was that mugshot photo? Yeah,

892
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ cool man. He was not acting when he

893
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: was clad in those leathers. He was. He died in

894
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: two thousand and one at the age of fifty. When

895
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 1: did he live to see it?

896
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 3: You know.

897
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: What Shrek I was striving for the Dana Carve movie.

898
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: That paused for a moment of silence on this set.

899
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: The impression the great impersonator was March.

900
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 3: No, it was March died in March.

901
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 1: Ah bummer.

902
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 3: Wow.

903
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,360
Speaker 1: He was buried in all of his leathers. The title

904
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,399
Speaker 1: song from the second Village People, lp mancho Man, also

905
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: became a best selling single in the summer of nineteen

906
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: seventy eight, while the album itself went platinum as well.

907
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: The group began touring, often featuring a young up and

908
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: comer named Madonna as the Air Opening Act, but by

909
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight their fame would grow exponentially with YMCA.

910
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: Where does the leather guy archetype come from? Is that

911
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 1: a tom of Finland construction? Nope, gay servicemen returning from

912
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: World War II?

913
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 2: While leather because they spaw wrinkles Paul linn carry over

914
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:58,320
Speaker 2: from the Bewitched episode.

915
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: No it, I guess it was part of biker gangs

916
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: in the fifties.

917
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, this is a sincere question that you probably

918
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 2: won't have the answer to. Are these looks aspirational, like

919
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 2: we are attracted to that, and therefore I'm gonna dress

920
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 2: like that because that is what I'm attracted to? Or

921
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 2: is the implication that a lot of homosexual men are

922
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,720
Speaker 2: actually bikers, or are actually construction workers, or are actually

923
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:30,720
Speaker 2: cops or whatever?

924
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?

925
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: Why can it be? Can it be? Can it be both?

926
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 1: Can it be both? Jordan? You know, we don't. We

927
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: don't want to limit them anymore.

928
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 2: The conversational stylings of two straight men discussing gay stereotypes

929
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 2: from fifty years ago. Don't let anyone ever say that

930
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 2: we just show doesn't.

931
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,720
Speaker 1: Have any take on back Jesus Christ.

932
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:54,879
Speaker 2: We had a very cool comment from somebody who listened

933
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 2: to our Studio fifty four episode that was talking about

934
00:49:58,520 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 2: how they.

935
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: It was like their mom or something.

936
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 2: No, I think they would go there. Oh okay, yeah,

937
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say this. I'm sorry, d D.

938
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 2: Ferrera or Faery. The reason a list there was such

939
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 2: a share Gloria Gaynor or Grace Jones would be turned

940
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,840
Speaker 2: away from a Studio fifty four was because some nights

941
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 2: it was strictly Dickley and gay sex was allowed to

942
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 2: be anywhere and everywhere.

943
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: No women were allowed.

944
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 2: Because they wouldn't be wanted or partaking. Studio fifty four

945
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: documentary mentioned that.

946
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: You wouldn't get it. I remember seeing this archival photograph

947
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: collection at some point when I was in Brooklyn about

948
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: disco gay subculture, and that was when I was introduced

949
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: to the practice of shirt cooking, which was like a

950
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: thing in clubs when you just wore you would just

951
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:47,959
Speaker 1: wear like a button down, like a button top and

952
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: like nothing else. No, like Winnie the Pooh, Yes exactly,

953
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: but with your shlongout you know, Okay, all right, I

954
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 1: mean I guess it was maybe presumably it was a

955
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: bit of a self policing scene, like you didn't really

956
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: shirk unless you like had to back it up shirt no,

957
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: because the point was it wasn't un it. It was unshirted. Well,

958
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: I know it was unbottomed.

959
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 2: Even I'm just aesthetically that's not a good look, though,

960
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 2: I don't know.

961
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 3: I'll talk with either.

962
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 1: No, I mean but there, I don't know, think about

963
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: any number of uh like eighties like like, think about

964
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: the stereotype of like the woman in the man's dress

965
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: shirt the morning after. You know, that's such a.

966
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 3: M thinking of it.

967
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, hang on, okay, I'm thinking of it.

968
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 3: Thank you.

969
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:34,479
Speaker 1: Now just imagine it's a dude with a big Okay, okay,

970
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of it. Yeah, so it's a thing. Hey,

971
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:38,839
Speaker 1: you get it. You get it, this guy gets it.

972
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: You would have been allowed as strictly ticularly you like

973
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: to party.

974
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 2: Well from uh wun't of the poohing to YMCA, I

975
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 2: guess it's not that far of a jump. Before we

976
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 2: go any further, we should probably talk about what the YMCA,

977
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 2: which has since been re christened the Why in twenty

978
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:00,760
Speaker 2: ten I believe, actually is, since it's kind of archaic

979
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 2: these days, I feel like maybe a lot of people

980
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 2: don't know. YMCA stands for Young Men's Christian Association. A

981
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 2: lot of people know that, and it's generally associated with

982
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:12,839
Speaker 2: gyms and at the time provided temporary housing to men.

983
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,439
Speaker 2: The organization was founded in England in eighteen forty four,

984
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: when the Industrial Revolution was bringing the young to urban

985
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 2: centers in droves. The YMCA was founded essentially as an

986
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 2: alternative to taverns and brothels, which is ironic given its

987
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 2: future reputation.

988
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 3: In the seventies at least.

989
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:32,239
Speaker 1: Author J.

990
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 2: William Frost describes them thus in his book Christianity, a

991
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:43,240
Speaker 2: Social and Cultural History. Sounds interesting, That sounds interesting.

992
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 1: From the crusadest Yeah, and the rest from the same period. Really, yeah,

993
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: that's true.

994
00:52:56,120 --> 00:53:00,080
Speaker 2: Philanthropists saw the YMCAs as places for wholesome recreation and

995
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 2: that would preserve youth from the temptations of alcohol, gambling,

996
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 2: and prostitution, and would promote good citizenship.

997
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: And so, in addition to being.

998
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 2: A place to gather for these wholesome activities, they also

999
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 2: provided inexpensive lodging, with one room units containing a bed,

1000
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,359
Speaker 2: as well as use of a shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.

1001
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 2: And this sort of became the place for a certain period,

1002
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 2: at least where you landed when you arrived in the

1003
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 2: big city with your big dreams and you were trying

1004
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 2: to figure out more permanent accommodations. These lodgings started to

1005
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 2: disappear at the end of the seventies due to a

1006
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 2: combination of a real estate boom overseen by Mary ed

1007
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:42,800
Speaker 2: Koch and the general social demonization of the poor following

1008
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 2: that Debbie Downer train of thought. It's been noted that

1009
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 2: the song YMCA is a stark reflection of the homeless

1010
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 2: crisis among members of the LGBTQ community in the seventies,

1011
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 2: a time when most were forced out of their homes

1012
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 2: or unable to find employment after coming out of the closet.

1013
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 2: Hence why so many men came to stay at the

1014
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 2: YMCA in the first place. It was a charitable organization

1015
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 2: that offered a warm bed and a shower to these

1016
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,000
Speaker 2: people who often had nowhere else to go. The place

1017
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,760
Speaker 2: was significantly less freewheeling than the song would have you believe.

1018
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,759
Speaker 2: For example, there was a ten pm curfew and no

1019
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 2: access to a cafeteria or any shared social spaces.

1020
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:21,800
Speaker 3: Other than a gym.

1021
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 2: The bathrooms were clean, but like a gym locker room facility.

1022
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 2: One longtime resident of the YMCA in New York City's

1023
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 2: Chelsea neighborhood, the one that inspired the song, would tell

1024
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 2: the website Gothamist there was more supervision of your social life,

1025
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 2: a kind of management as to how you behaved in

1026
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:40,280
Speaker 2: the why than there would be in a commercial rooming house,

1027
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 2: which mostly just wanted to make sure that the rooms

1028
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 2: were rented. He also added that the housekeepers came by

1029
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 2: both the off of you clean sheets and towels, and

1030
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 2: also to keep an eye on you and make sure

1031
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 2: you were alone and not misbehaving.

1032
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting, Deck Rante about Season of the Witch.

1033
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 2: No you taught It's funny. There's two books about Season

1034
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:00,520
Speaker 2: of the Witch. One about a cult is in Rock

1035
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 2: and Roll. I assume this is the other one.

1036
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 1: The other one, it's about San Francisco from sort of

1037
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 1: the early sixties, well late sort of the fifties eate

1038
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 1: until like it essentially ends with the AIDS crisis. And

1039
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: it's interesting to note that despite being sort of the

1040
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,240
Speaker 1: punching bag for like a liberal California city gone woke,

1041
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: San Francisco was an extremely conservative town based largely on

1042
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: Irish and Italian super catholic like dock labor and union

1043
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: power really and the sort of spill towards the west

1044
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: that made it what it is in the popular imagination

1045
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 1: today really started with the Summer of Love, like that

1046
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: was just that was the first wave of an insane

1047
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 1: amount of youth culture up the Beats. Yeah, but I

1048
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: think the Beats were less like the Beats didn't have

1049
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:56,359
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is also an interesting thing

1050
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: about San Francisco as far as where it landed in

1051
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 1: the popular culture, because the Beads I don't think, like

1052
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 1: they were on talk shows and stuff like you know,

1053
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: you would have seen like Jack Carrek reading on like

1054
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 1: Steve Allen or something, but they weren't radio ubiquitous, like,

1055
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 1: so they didn't have the cultural cachet as far as

1056
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 1: youth culture, I think I think the Beads were largely

1057
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,640
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a you know, academic cultural

1058
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:23,560
Speaker 1: intellectual crowd as opposed to just like let's take acid

1059
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,880
Speaker 1: and lie in the grass all day. So that westward

1060
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: migration of people who like quote unquote didn't fit in

1061
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: anywhere else and just wanted to be starts with kind

1062
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: of the Summer of Love era. But at the same time,

1063
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 1: San Francisco is not really queer friendly. There was a

1064
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 1: point at which the SFPD was issuing more tickets for

1065
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: like public indecency than the NYPD by a factor of

1066
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: like ten in the early seventies.

1067
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 3: Wow.

1068
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of it and it's sort

1069
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: of this, you know, you can see this sort of

1070
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:56,879
Speaker 1: trickle down effect of like the liberating sixties. The backlash

1071
00:56:56,920 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: of that was maybe kids who were emboldened to start

1072
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: displaying their identity more openly on the East Coast found

1073
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: it unwelcoming and wound up in a YMCA and then

1074
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:10,440
Speaker 1: just saved up enough money for bus fair to San

1075
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: Francisco because they heard that it was changing. But like

1076
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:16,320
Speaker 1: that is not a deep seated part of San Francisco

1077
00:57:16,440 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: culture until this time, you know.

1078
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 2: I mean you talk about the backlash, I mean it

1079
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:24,920
Speaker 2: wasn't this around the time and was seventy eight, I

1080
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:29,640
Speaker 2: want to say, and Harvey Milk was assassinated and George Moscone.

1081
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that was I mean, Dan White was a

1082
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: loser piece of who killed himself and is in hell.

1083
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of that was also a

1084
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: reaction to just George Moscone, because Moscone was famously like

1085
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: very liberal as opposed to the previous power structures in

1086
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: San Francisco. And if I'm remembering correctly from this book,

1087
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:54,920
Speaker 1: he had fired Dan White or like removed him or

1088
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: he was like not unelected, like removed from the Board

1089
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 1: of Supervisors, and then he came back. And I think

1090
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 1: Harvey Milk was a convenient target because of what he represented,

1091
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: and I believe was literally in the same room as Moscone.

1092
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: But I think that killing was less targeted at orientation

1093
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: than it was just sort of a general cultural malaise

1094
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 1: of like the straight irishman who saw their their city

1095
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 1: disappearing or whatever.

1096
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 2: Oh that is, that's interesting. I actually don't know a

1097
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 2: whole lot about San Francisco history. I always saw it

1098
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 2: as for a Lingetti and the Beats giving way to.

1099
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: Timothy learriacolytes. Yeah, no, I mean it was. It's really

1100
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 1: This book doesn't get into it, but another book I'm

1101
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:44,160
Speaker 1: reading does. It was fully like lawless for a while.

1102
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: I mean, vigilante mobs were an incredible thing, like roving

1103
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: gang like they were because it was until the nineteen

1104
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 1: o six quake in the fire. The whole city was

1105
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:57,680
Speaker 1: like a tense city that sprung up around the gold Rush,

1106
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: So it was all like right right, like shantyuns like

1107
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: you know, and these people were just hanging people in

1108
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: like the street. And there was one point one famous

1109
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: lynching where the governor of California at the time was

1110
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,400
Speaker 1: like put out a statement that was like, yes, this

1111
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 1: is good and correct and a message from California that

1112
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 1: we will not tolerate like lawlessness or something insane.

1113
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 2: Well, Heigel, it's been a minute since we've had a

1114
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 2: Heigels and saying conspiracy theory corner, And I feel as

1115
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 2: though you should take this because it has to do

1116
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 2: with the CIA, which is an all real passion point

1117
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 2: for you.

1118
00:59:33,120 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I mean even dovetailing, even even getting aside

1119
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 1: from the fact that they may have started the Canyon

1120
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: and Hippie Rock to take the teeth out of the

1121
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: genuine new left and historically powerful labor coalition that was

1122
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: forming in many places around the country, even putting that

1123
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 1: I believe plausible theory aside. You know, there is documented

1124
00:59:56,800 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: evidence that they spent a sh load of time just

1125
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 1: with people during this period, like the American presidents were

1126
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: actually horrified to learn the extent to which the CIA

1127
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: had been operating without oversight. And back in the day

1128
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 1: when we used to actually do something about this, this

1129
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:17,880
Speaker 1: was when all these commissions were formed and they were

1130
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: like actually sanctioned. But like we know for a fact

1131
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: that the CIO is paying guys like Jolly West to

1132
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: just post up in hate Ashbury and throw around acid

1133
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: and write about what see what happens? Yeah, anyway, So

1134
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: that's why I believe that the YMCA is actually a

1135
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: front for the CIA. Ooh tell us long long, rambling,

1136
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 1: long wrapping up with people tune back in, and that's

1137
01:00:40,600 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 1: why I go and the YMCA is a front for

1138
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 1: the CIA anyway. One of the sources for this rumor

1139
01:00:45,160 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: is a British lawyer named Fenton Bresler, tremendously British name,

1140
01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: who published a book in nineteen eighty nine titled Who

1141
01:00:51,920 --> 01:00:55,200
Speaker 1: Killed John Lennon? And in this book he argues that

1142
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 1: Lenin's assassin, Mark David Chapman, was programmed by the CIA

1143
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:01,959
Speaker 1: Manchurian candidate style. This is also a very popular theory

1144
01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 1: among fringe conspiracy theorists that a lot of mass shooters

1145
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: or serial killers from the quote unquote Golden Age of

1146
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: serial killing, which is, believe it or not, an actual thing,

1147
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: were like rogue CIA assets. This was going along the

1148
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 1: theory that there were developments starting in the nineteen twenties

1149
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: and building into the era when the OSS, the predecessor

1150
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 1: of the CIA, was formed, that there had been some

1151
01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: of the first psychiatric research into disassociative states as a

1152
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 1: result of trauma, and so their pet theory was they

1153
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: would recruit people who had generally been abused, who maybe

1154
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:40,200
Speaker 1: went into the army and as a result of army screening,

1155
01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: displayed some apparant tendencies, and then they would be institutionalized

1156
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 1: at several California institutions known to have colluded with the CIA,

1157
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 1: and then they would come out a few years later

1158
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 1: and all of the sudden they would just start murdering people. Anyway,

1159
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 1: if you want to read more about that, there's a

1160
01:01:57,320 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: book called Program to Kill by David Allen, who also

1161
01:02:01,080 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 1: wrote the Laurel Canyon conspiracy theory book, and he died

1162
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,440
Speaker 1: in a uh what I deemed to be suspicious. Oh

1163
01:02:07,480 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: they all do. I mean, you know, I was also

1164
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: reading about Gary Webbman, like this shit that this country

1165
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 1: did to Gary Webb is honestly conscionable. The guy basically

1166
01:02:18,920 --> 01:02:22,880
Speaker 1: uncovered Iran contra and ties between the federal government and

1167
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: drug trafficking in south central LA. And like the rest

1168
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 1: of the media came at him like Main Street, like Newsweek,

1169
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 1: and people in the New York Times denounced this guy

1170
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 1: as like, how dare you assail the FBI and the

1171
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 1: integrity of the CIA? And then he mysteriously died alone

1172
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 1: in his house of two self inflicted gunshots allegedly two Yeah,

1173
01:02:49,200 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 1: crazy bad am Yeah right.

1174
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:52,320
Speaker 2: Uh.

1175
01:02:52,760 --> 01:02:55,800
Speaker 1: You know, the FBI killed Martin Luther King, but everyone

1176
01:02:55,840 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 1: knows that, and the John landis kill those and John

1177
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: Land has killed those kids. Yeah, and Vic Morrow, God

1178
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 1: rest his soul. And that about wraps it up for tonight.

1179
01:03:07,400 --> 01:03:12,960
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. Bresler went on to note that

1180
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:16,080
Speaker 1: the YMCA has offices in more than ninety countries, making

1181
01:03:16,120 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 1: it an ideal front for the CIA. Mark Chapman had

1182
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 1: strong ties to the YMCA throughout his life. An incredible

1183
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:25,200
Speaker 1: sentence I was delighted to just read. He worked as

1184
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: a counselor at one YMCA throughout much of the seventies,

1185
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:29,959
Speaker 1: and he stayed at one on the Upper West Side

1186
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: when he came to New York to murder John Lennin.

1187
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: In all likelihood this is merely coincidence. But there is

1188
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:38,919
Speaker 1: one weird fact that emerged from all of this fringe postulating.

1189
01:03:39,520 --> 01:03:42,880
Speaker 1: There's a non profit organization called the United States Youth Council,

1190
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: which operated from nineteen forty five to nineteen eighty nine.

1191
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:49,400
Speaker 1: It was a coalition of sixteen organizations, one of which

1192
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 1: was the YMCA. In nineteen sixty seven, The New York

1193
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: Times revealed that ninety percent of the United States Youth

1194
01:03:56,240 --> 01:04:00,360
Speaker 1: Council funds came from the CIA, which was in turn

1195
01:04:00,440 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 1: dictating the organization's agenda. Also an incredibly common thing, like

1196
01:04:04,680 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 1: the CIA has all these shell companies that they funnel

1197
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 1: money through. It's all dog I mean, if even if

1198
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: you just want to drill into the they did with

1199
01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 1: ASCID as part of mk Ultra, that's all documented. A

1200
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 1: full list of false companies that were receiving CIA money

1201
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 1: to post weird dudes up in secret compartments and record

1202
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: acid trips. This country, man, God damn, I know that

1203
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:34,600
Speaker 1: book wal Courier, hair Man Acid Dreams. The CIA LSD

1204
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:35,560
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties.

1205
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 3: That is as that they be gone.

1206
01:04:38,640 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 1: No, No, that's two people. It's like the definitive text

1207
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: on the on the the CIO Martine Lee and Bruce Shalen. Yeah,

1208
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 1: that is the the definitive text on this kind of

1209
01:04:47,360 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 1: and it is horrifying. I had to put it down

1210
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 1: for like two weeks because I got to the part

1211
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 1: where in one of these California mental institutions, God, it

1212
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 1: might have been Stanford. Stanford has been involved in a

1213
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:02,439
Speaker 1: lot of this. Yeah. They he gave a mentally ill

1214
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:05,919
Speaker 1: person or possibly one of the like alcoholics and drug

1215
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:08,920
Speaker 1: addicts they were also all testing this. They gave him

1216
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: a local anesthetic in his brain and then they just

1217
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 1: carved into his brain while he was conscious and tripping

1218
01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:18,960
Speaker 1: and asked him just interviewed him about the process.

1219
01:05:19,160 --> 01:05:20,360
Speaker 3: Did he live? I don't know.

1220
01:05:21,280 --> 01:05:26,040
Speaker 1: Detail was not elaborated upon, I imagine not unless they

1221
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:29,000
Speaker 1: were careful about it, which spoiler alert they rarely were.

1222
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 1: Back to disco. Alex Heigel found dead alone keep gunshot

1223
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:38,160
Speaker 1: wounds to the chest with a military grid handgun. Sources

1224
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 1: say he had been troubled recently and his whole life.

1225
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,040
Speaker 1: A message was found scrawled in his own blood, Jazz

1226
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 1: that's jazz baby, that's Nascar baby. Yeah. Terry Gross interviews

1227
01:05:53,920 --> 01:05:57,000
Speaker 1: the Cia spook who did it next? On Fresh Air?

1228
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:00,440
Speaker 1: It's like a voice modulator guard being like just broken

1229
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:02,760
Speaker 1: news apartment and who was just sitting there? Like listening

1230
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:06,520
Speaker 1: to Albert Iler was really easy anyway, you just had

1231
01:06:06,560 --> 01:06:09,080
Speaker 1: a big mouth and that stupid podcast is you know,

1232
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:12,720
Speaker 1: we just got cigrevete. Terry Gross lips extremely close to Mike.

1233
01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:16,720
Speaker 1: Thank you. This has been Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross.

1234
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:22,280
Speaker 1: A lot of good riffs, good riffs on this one.

1235
01:06:22,360 --> 01:06:26,840
Speaker 2: Yes, back to disco, Yes, Yes, Smithers with the gun mean,

1236
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:28,040
Speaker 2: big smile.

1237
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 1: Everybody's happy.

1238
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:35,080
Speaker 2: Ah. The ymca in question that inspired the song was

1239
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: arguably the most famous, know it as the mcbernie ymca.

1240
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:41,360
Speaker 2: It was located on twenty third Street between seventh and

1241
01:06:41,360 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 2: eighth Avenue in the Chelsea district of New York City,

1242
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:47,520
Speaker 2: which is adjacent to Greenwich Village. It's directly across from

1243
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:51,920
Speaker 2: the Chelsea Hotel where the slightly richer bohemians stand. Leonard

1244
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: Cohen and Jennis Joplin and the rest stayed there. And

1245
01:06:56,760 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 2: yeah and Sid Vicious killed Nancy there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1246
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:03,680
Speaker 2: The McBurnie WYMCA had a storied history. It was there

1247
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 2: that Charles Merrill met Stockbrooker Edmund Lynch to form Merrill Lynch.

1248
01:07:07,960 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sucks.

1249
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 2: I didn't dig deeper into that. Those guys weird place

1250
01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:14,640
Speaker 2: for that to farm. Other notable members who stayed at

1251
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:17,760
Speaker 2: the McBurney YMCA have included Andy Warhol, Edward Alby, who

1252
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:19,320
Speaker 2: who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, and.

1253
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:24,280
Speaker 1: Al Pacino his second appearance then fought Alpacino.

1254
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 2: And we should also add village person Randy Jones, the Cowboy,

1255
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 2: also stayed there.

1256
01:07:30,240 --> 01:07:31,480
Speaker 1: The story goes.

1257
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 2: That the village people were leaving a photography session on

1258
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:36,640
Speaker 2: twenty third Street nearby in nineteen seventy seven when they

1259
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 2: passed the McBurney YMCA, and their manager, Jacques Moraley asked,

1260
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:43,640
Speaker 2: in his French way, what.

1261
01:07:43,920 --> 01:07:46,160
Speaker 1: I can't do? What is this is not its Italian?

1262
01:07:46,200 --> 01:07:50,600
Speaker 1: What is it is? No? I can't do cluse So

1263
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 1: what is a whim anyway? Yeah? Actually if he had,

1264
01:07:56,760 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 1: if well, it would be in fringe of emsa ah,

1265
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:09,000
Speaker 1: because you say im.

1266
01:08:05,560 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 2: In David Hodo's recollection we told him why. It was

1267
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:10,280
Speaker 2: a place where you could go when you first came

1268
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:11,880
Speaker 2: to New York and you didn't have any money.

1269
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:13,360
Speaker 3: You could stay there for very little.

1270
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:16,320
Speaker 2: And of course someone joked, yeah, but don't bend over

1271
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:19,559
Speaker 2: in the showers, and Jacques bless his heart, said, I

1272
01:08:19,640 --> 01:08:21,120
Speaker 2: will write a song about these.

1273
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:23,640
Speaker 3: That.

1274
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:26,800
Speaker 1: This is funny to me? Is he seeing you Americans?

1275
01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 1: Do you out of poverty and desperation? The poetry of

1276
01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:41,599
Speaker 1: the dispossessed? They No, some of the best facial work

1277
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:42,559
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. You do.

1278
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:47,240
Speaker 2: I wish you could see, but the eyebrows fuse.

1279
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 1: Imse. Your mom is a French teacher, right, yeah, sure

1280
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:54,679
Speaker 1: is Yeah?

1281
01:08:54,880 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 3: Are you fluent?

1282
01:08:55,680 --> 01:08:57,840
Speaker 1: Had to take French instead of piano ruined my life?

1283
01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:00,640
Speaker 1: Oh no, wonder you hate the French so much? Associated

1284
01:09:00,680 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 1: with things you could have done. I associated with the

1285
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:06,720
Speaker 1: lost potential of being Keith Jarrett. Yes, not to say

1286
01:09:06,720 --> 01:09:10,559
Speaker 1: that I would have been, but who's to say. Heigel

1287
01:09:10,640 --> 01:09:24,280
Speaker 1: goes on anti French rant. So I hated it. Took

1288
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:27,559
Speaker 1: it all through high school, and then I got to

1289
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:29,720
Speaker 1: college and I was like, I'll learn Italian. That's my

1290
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:34,160
Speaker 1: mother tongue. And may I tell you absolutely all of

1291
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:36,160
Speaker 1: the brain cells I should have been using to conjugate

1292
01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:39,960
Speaker 1: Italian and become fluent. I used to learn jazz bass,

1293
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:44,439
Speaker 1: so consequently I speak nothing other than English and music,

1294
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:48,240
Speaker 1: which they say is the universal language, but that's actually

1295
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:50,400
Speaker 1: not true. One of the other compositions that we saw

1296
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:52,920
Speaker 1: at this thing the other night was this alumni who's

1297
01:09:52,960 --> 01:09:57,759
Speaker 1: from He immigrated from Iran, and he was talking about

1298
01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 1: how much of it he's at UC. He's at the

1299
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 1: Herbalbert School, which is usc main campus, and a lot

1300
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:09,479
Speaker 1: of his work is actually trying to transpose things like

1301
01:10:10,400 --> 01:10:12,519
Speaker 1: things from the Middle Eastern and South Asian diaspora are

1302
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 1: like quartertones that have no conventional notation in Western system

1303
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:21,800
Speaker 1: and rhythms that don't really make sense across bars. So

1304
01:10:21,840 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: he had this string quartet that premiered last night and

1305
01:10:24,360 --> 01:10:26,960
Speaker 1: it was super cool, but like you could see people

1306
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:29,960
Speaker 1: in the crowd wincing at some of these really close,

1307
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 1: weird dissonant intervals because they don't we don't have those

1308
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:36,360
Speaker 1: intervals in Western music, closest thing you get as a

1309
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:39,120
Speaker 1: half tone, but string players can do it. So one

1310
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:41,639
Speaker 1: of our violin faculty was lead violin in this, and

1311
01:10:41,720 --> 01:10:46,439
Speaker 1: you know, she has incredible pitch, but it was so

1312
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,559
Speaker 1: rankling people in the crowd to be like, ah, quarter tone,

1313
01:10:50,479 --> 01:10:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, and something Philip Glass talked about when he

1314
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:54,559
Speaker 1: was transcribing Ravi Shankar stuff. He was like, I tried

1315
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:57,120
Speaker 1: to notate that stuff in bars, and none of it

1316
01:10:57,160 --> 01:10:59,840
Speaker 1: made sense until I removed bar lines and just thought

1317
01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:04,640
Speaker 1: of everything as rhythmic unit like cells. So music's not

1318
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:08,040
Speaker 1: the universal language, I hate to tell you, guys, actually

1319
01:11:08,120 --> 01:11:10,960
Speaker 1: a ton of international variants except for the pentatonic scale

1320
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:13,000
Speaker 1: that sticks around. We all love the We love the

1321
01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:16,599
Speaker 1: pentatonic scale, don't we, folks. Beautiful it's a beautiful scale.

1322
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:19,519
Speaker 1: Five notes, friend of the pod, the pentatonic scale, end

1323
01:11:19,520 --> 01:11:25,920
Speaker 1: of the pod. The minor pentatonic major pentatonic is less good.

1324
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 1: I'm practicing fingerpicking patterns right now. Can you hear that?

1325
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:29,880
Speaker 2: On?

1326
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: Very softly? Unplugged the electric guitar on my Oh no,

1327
01:11:33,360 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 1: I can? Yeah, okay, disco.

1328
01:11:41,200 --> 01:11:43,240
Speaker 2: So the French guy wanted to write a song about

1329
01:11:43,360 --> 01:11:46,559
Speaker 2: poor young men going to stay at the YMCA. That's

1330
01:11:46,600 --> 01:11:49,720
Speaker 2: where we're at right now. They were walking by the YMCA.

1331
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:53,080
Speaker 2: He said, what's this the village person who stayed there?

1332
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 2: Randy Jones? So, oh yeah, I used to stay there,

1333
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 2: and the kind of gave him the deal about what

1334
01:11:57,920 --> 01:12:00,920
Speaker 2: it was, and he said, I took there three or

1335
01:12:00,920 --> 01:12:03,280
Speaker 2: four times in nineteen seventy seven and he loved it.

1336
01:12:03,560 --> 01:12:05,920
Speaker 2: He was fascinated by a place where a person could

1337
01:12:06,000 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 2: work out with waits, play basketball, swim, take classes and

1338
01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 2: get a room. Plus with Jacques being gay. I had

1339
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:14,840
Speaker 2: a lot of friends I worked out with there who

1340
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:17,559
Speaker 2: were in the adult film industry, and he was impressed

1341
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 2: by meeting people he had seen in the videos and magazines.

1342
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:24,080
Speaker 2: Those visits with me planted a seed in him. Oh raising,

1343
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:28,000
Speaker 2: then that's how he got the idea for YMCA, by

1344
01:12:28,040 --> 01:12:30,040
Speaker 2: literally going to the YMCA.

1345
01:12:30,080 --> 01:12:35,240
Speaker 1: You know they say, never meet your heroes. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

1346
01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:43,080
Speaker 1: Oh God, I've got love in an orifice or two three.

1347
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:47,320
Speaker 1: You're giving me the more signal you already keep going, No,

1348
01:12:47,439 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 1: I'm counting. Oh okay, here we go. What do we got? Yeah,

1349
01:12:53,120 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 1: vam vamp. Yeah, do more stuff about anal sex that'll

1350
01:12:57,400 --> 01:12:59,320
Speaker 1: play well in Des Moines.

1351
01:12:59,439 --> 01:13:00,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, play good and Mooksbury.

1352
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

1353
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:08,639
Speaker 2: right back with more too much information in just a moment.

1354
01:13:20,400 --> 01:13:22,479
Speaker 2: The song Yma It was written at the tail end

1355
01:13:22,520 --> 01:13:25,040
Speaker 2: of sessions for the Village People's third album. When they

1356
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:27,759
Speaker 2: realized they were coming up short and needing what David

1357
01:13:27,800 --> 01:13:31,280
Speaker 2: Hodo would recall one more song as filler. Jacques wrote

1358
01:13:31,360 --> 01:13:34,720
Speaker 2: YMCA in about twenty minutes, the melody, the chorus, the outline,

1359
01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:36,599
Speaker 2: and then he gave it to Victor Willis, the lead

1360
01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:38,880
Speaker 2: singer of the band, and said, fill in the rest.

1361
01:13:39,400 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 2: That was a bit skeptical about some of our hits,

1362
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:43,679
Speaker 2: but the minute I heard YMCA, I knew we had

1363
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:47,519
Speaker 2: something special because it sounded like a commercial, and everyone

1364
01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:48,400
Speaker 2: likes commercials.

1365
01:13:49,960 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 3: Know about that?

1366
01:13:51,439 --> 01:13:52,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, Okay.

1367
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:55,360
Speaker 2: The narrative that Willis put together is about a young

1368
01:13:55,400 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 2: man who's down on his luck and looking for a

1369
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:02,080
Speaker 2: place to stay. The narrators trying to cheer this guy up,

1370
01:14:02,160 --> 01:14:04,120
Speaker 2: telling him I was once in your shoes.

1371
01:14:04,439 --> 01:14:05,240
Speaker 1: Willis says, this.

1372
01:14:05,200 --> 01:14:07,840
Speaker 2: Whole story comes from a very personal experience. He said,

1373
01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:10,400
Speaker 2: I would go to the Why to pick myself up.

1374
01:14:10,520 --> 01:14:12,800
Speaker 2: Then I'd go back home and get ready to get

1375
01:14:12,840 --> 01:14:13,599
Speaker 2: back to my life.

1376
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:21,599
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that means, but what is that? Okay, man, No,

1377
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:24,840
Speaker 1: that's weird. That's a weird thing to say. As we've

1378
01:14:24,880 --> 01:14:28,400
Speaker 1: mentioned so many people. The lead singer of the band

1379
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:32,000
Speaker 1: who wrote the lyrics, not least of which maintain that

1380
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:36,120
Speaker 1: it can be read as just a wholesome celebration of

1381
01:14:36,160 --> 01:14:38,559
Speaker 1: the Young Men's Christian Association. You know, it can be

1382
01:14:38,560 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 1: read as a celebration of gay culture or of the

1383
01:14:40,560 --> 01:14:43,840
Speaker 1: working man. Willis doesn't mind that it's been embraced by

1384
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:46,200
Speaker 1: the LGBT community, but he does say it was intended

1385
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:49,680
Speaker 1: as quote a song for everyone. He related it to

1386
01:14:49,800 --> 01:14:52,519
Speaker 1: YMC on Buchanan Street in San Francisco, just blocks away

1387
01:14:52,520 --> 01:14:54,080
Speaker 1: from where he grew up. As he says in a

1388
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:58,320
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen interview with NewsCorp dot Au, YMCA was not

1389
01:14:58,320 --> 01:14:59,920
Speaker 1: written to be a gay song because of the sim

1390
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:03,320
Speaker 1: fact I'm not gay. I wrote it about hanging out

1391
01:15:03,320 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: in urban neighborhoods in my youth. You can hang out

1392
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:07,840
Speaker 1: with all the boys was a term about me and

1393
01:15:07,880 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 1: my friends playing basketball at the why the boy. I

1394
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:12,800
Speaker 1: wanted to write a strong song and they could fit

1395
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:16,040
Speaker 1: anyone's lifestyle. I'm happy the gay community adopted it as

1396
01:15:16,080 --> 01:15:19,360
Speaker 1: their anthem. I have no qualms with that. It's so

1397
01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 1: funny the way that that kind of evolves. Man Like

1398
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:26,240
Speaker 1: there was there's some blues book where they talk about

1399
01:15:26,920 --> 01:15:32,639
Speaker 1: being like slang for a women's genitals and like these

1400
01:15:33,160 --> 01:15:35,680
Speaker 1: you know this writer or a musician or something was

1401
01:15:35,720 --> 01:15:38,680
Speaker 1: talking about being like completely taken aback. When he went

1402
01:15:38,720 --> 01:15:40,360
Speaker 1: to the South the first time, was traveling around with

1403
01:15:40,400 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 1: Muddy Waters, and Muddy Waters was talking about how much

1404
01:15:42,439 --> 01:15:46,200
Speaker 1: he loved eating cor Ah. They were like, I beg

1405
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:48,599
Speaker 1: your guam partner. He was like, yeah, you know, like

1406
01:15:49,400 --> 01:15:55,439
Speaker 1: dining at the y. They like that means something very different, Bud. Anyway,

1407
01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:57,559
Speaker 1: I was just hanging out, you know with my gay

1408
01:15:57,600 --> 01:15:59,479
Speaker 1: fellows who I had a gay time with, and we

1409
01:15:59,479 --> 01:16:02,280
Speaker 1: would just josh each other and jerk each other around,

1410
01:16:02,360 --> 01:16:06,320
Speaker 1: and they would come over and I would come over

1411
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:10,640
Speaker 1: or around and inside I would come inside and we

1412
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:13,960
Speaker 1: would just have a gay old time. Sorry, you're looking

1413
01:16:14,040 --> 01:16:18,960
Speaker 1: less and less amused. But then in September twenty twenty,

1414
01:16:19,320 --> 01:16:24,759
Speaker 1: things changed for mister Willis. Apparently, in the midst of Lockdown,

1415
01:16:24,800 --> 01:16:27,120
Speaker 1: he was fuming over the reputation that his song earned

1416
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 1: and decided to do something a little about it.

1417
01:16:30,439 --> 01:16:33,240
Speaker 2: He learned how to Google during Lockdown, and he didn't

1418
01:16:33,320 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 2: like what he saw.

1419
01:16:34,240 --> 01:16:37,080
Speaker 1: He posted the following note to his Facebook page, notice

1420
01:16:37,080 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: about ymca okay, misleading. There would be like a community

1421
01:16:46,280 --> 01:16:49,680
Speaker 1: note on Twitter not notice not actually from the CYMCI

1422
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:53,320
Speaker 1: quote hammered to a tree, have to a church door

1423
01:16:54,880 --> 01:17:00,800
Speaker 1: Lutherian thess Yeah, the theses quote news and news and

1424
01:17:00,960 --> 01:17:04,200
Speaker 1: Twitter trending of YMCA is off the chart right now

1425
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:08,320
Speaker 1: with false accusations about the song. Could have used another pass.

1426
01:17:08,360 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 1: But okay, but as I've said numerous times before, parentheses,

1427
01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:14,640
Speaker 1: and this was proven in federal court. I wrote one

1428
01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:17,080
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the lyrics to IMCA, so I ought

1429
01:17:17,080 --> 01:17:19,720
Speaker 1: to know what my song is about. YMCA is one

1430
01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:21,920
Speaker 1: of the most iconic songs in the world. I will

1431
01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:25,160
Speaker 1: not stand idle and allow it to be defamed. Therefore,

1432
01:17:25,240 --> 01:17:28,040
Speaker 1: I will sue the next media organization or anyone else

1433
01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:32,000
Speaker 1: that falsely suggests YMCA is somehow about illicit gay sex.

1434
01:17:32,680 --> 01:17:34,920
Speaker 1: Get your minds out of the gutter, please, it is

1435
01:17:34,960 --> 01:17:39,360
Speaker 1: not about that. Worthwhile noting that gay marriage had been

1436
01:17:39,680 --> 01:17:42,519
Speaker 1: legal for about eight years at this point, so weird

1437
01:17:42,600 --> 01:17:46,240
Speaker 1: definition of illicit. My guy, No, it wasn't the first

1438
01:17:46,240 --> 01:17:47,240
Speaker 1: one in twenty twelve.

1439
01:17:47,280 --> 01:17:49,360
Speaker 3: I think a Supreme Court was twenty fifteen.

1440
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:52,960
Speaker 1: All right, And again this coming from the guy who

1441
01:17:52,960 --> 01:17:56,559
Speaker 1: did you know, macho man, and in the navy, see

1442
01:17:56,560 --> 01:17:58,840
Speaker 1: if we can parse some innuendo. And in the navy,

1443
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:02,040
Speaker 1: it's a good point. Where can you find pleasure? Search

1444
01:18:02,080 --> 01:18:04,360
Speaker 1: the world for treasure? Where can you begin to make

1445
01:18:04,400 --> 01:18:06,960
Speaker 1: all your dreams come true? Where can you learn to fly,

1446
01:18:07,640 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 1: play in sports and skin dive? Okay, come on, sign

1447
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:14,040
Speaker 1: up for the big band, or sit in the grand

1448
01:18:14,120 --> 01:18:17,960
Speaker 1: stand when your team and others meet. In the navy,

1449
01:18:18,479 --> 01:18:21,519
Speaker 1: can't you see we need a hand in the navy?

1450
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:24,639
Speaker 1: Come on and join your fellow man. They want you,

1451
01:18:24,920 --> 01:18:27,400
Speaker 1: they want you, They want you as a new recruit.

1452
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:30,400
Speaker 1: Don't you hesitate? There is no need to wait. They're

1453
01:18:30,439 --> 01:18:34,600
Speaker 1: signing up new seamen fast. Oh my god, maybe you

1454
01:18:34,640 --> 01:18:36,800
Speaker 1: are too young to join up today. But don't you

1455
01:18:36,840 --> 01:18:39,040
Speaker 1: worry about a thing, for I'm sure there will always

1456
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:41,360
Speaker 1: be a good navy protecting the land and the sea.

1457
01:18:41,800 --> 01:18:45,720
Speaker 1: Absolutely dog scansion and slant rhyme. What are the parenthetical

1458
01:18:45,760 --> 01:18:48,880
Speaker 1: insertions in this song? After they want You? Is oceanography?

1459
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:51,800
Speaker 1: What you kidding? I'm not? And then it simply just

1460
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:55,360
Speaker 1: repeats all of those aforementioned lyrics. So you know, let's

1461
01:18:55,400 --> 01:18:59,600
Speaker 1: just go to Machaman now and see what we got. Also, misinterpreted.

1462
01:19:00,320 --> 01:19:01,760
Speaker 3: I only know the chorus.

1463
01:19:01,640 --> 01:19:05,840
Speaker 1: Body want to feel my body, body. Then there were

1464
01:19:05,840 --> 01:19:10,360
Speaker 1: parenthetical interjections from the chorus, such as baby, such a thrill,

1465
01:19:10,439 --> 01:19:13,160
Speaker 1: my body want to touch my body, it's too much

1466
01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:16,160
Speaker 1: my body, check it out my body. Don't you doubt

1467
01:19:16,240 --> 01:19:20,160
Speaker 1: my body talking about my body checking out my body.

1468
01:19:21,520 --> 01:19:23,560
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to be a macho macho man, to have

1469
01:19:23,600 --> 01:19:27,040
Speaker 1: a kind of body always in demand. Jogging in the mornings,

1470
01:19:27,240 --> 01:19:31,559
Speaker 1: go man, go, workouts in the health spa, muscles grow.

1471
01:19:33,479 --> 01:19:36,320
Speaker 1: You best believe me, he's a macho man. Glad he

1472
01:19:36,439 --> 01:19:42,120
Speaker 1: took you down with anyone you can Humm, it's so

1473
01:19:42,240 --> 01:19:46,000
Speaker 1: hot my body. Love to pop my body. You'll adore

1474
01:19:46,040 --> 01:19:48,120
Speaker 1: my body, Come explore my body.

1475
01:19:50,560 --> 01:19:54,200
Speaker 3: Well, it's not totally clear who the song's dressing.

1476
01:19:54,640 --> 01:19:56,920
Speaker 1: You can tell him macho. He has a funky walk.

1477
01:19:57,160 --> 01:20:00,599
Speaker 1: His western shirts and leather always looks so boss funky

1478
01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:03,559
Speaker 1: with his body. He's a king. Call him mister ego.

1479
01:20:03,840 --> 01:20:08,080
Speaker 1: Dig his chains. Have your own lifestyle. Every man ought

1480
01:20:08,120 --> 01:20:10,360
Speaker 1: to be a macho macho man to live a life

1481
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:14,600
Speaker 1: of freedom. MACHOs make a stand, have your own lifestyles

1482
01:20:14,600 --> 01:20:18,479
Speaker 1: and ideals. Possess the strength of confidence that's the skill.

1483
01:20:19,720 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: You can best believe that he's a macho man. He's

1484
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:25,720
Speaker 1: the special godson in anybody's land. I've got to be

1485
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:30,160
Speaker 1: a macho parenthetical. Dig the hair on my chest. Macho

1486
01:20:30,240 --> 01:20:34,960
Speaker 1: macho man, parenthetical, see my big thick mustache. I've got

1487
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:39,759
Speaker 1: to be a macho parenthetical. Dig broad shoulders. Yeah, macho

1488
01:20:39,800 --> 01:20:43,840
Speaker 1: macho man, parenthetical, dig my muscles. This man is either

1489
01:20:43,840 --> 01:20:46,720
Speaker 1: in the closet so far, or he is one of

1490
01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:50,439
Speaker 1: the stupidest beings to ever grace God's green earth, and

1491
01:20:50,720 --> 01:20:54,080
Speaker 1: everyone else involved in this was just guffawing behind his back.

1492
01:20:54,120 --> 01:20:56,960
Speaker 1: Those are the only two plausible explanations. Or its just

1493
01:20:57,000 --> 01:20:59,200
Speaker 1: denied till you die. I mean, I guess that's fair.

1494
01:20:59,400 --> 01:21:02,519
Speaker 1: Is he? What's is he? He was? His name Willis

1495
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:06,160
Speaker 1: h Victor willis see Catholic son of a Baptist preacher.

1496
01:21:06,240 --> 01:21:10,360
Speaker 1: There it is h anyway, son of a Baptist preacher.

1497
01:21:10,400 --> 01:21:13,920
Speaker 1: That explains everything. I retract all of my other postulations

1498
01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:19,400
Speaker 1: for legal reasons. Career Dave Hodo, the construction worker the

1499
01:21:19,520 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 1: Cat had a different take. Victor Willis Ymca certainly has

1500
01:21:23,439 --> 01:21:25,920
Speaker 1: a gay origin, he told Spin. That's what Jacques was

1501
01:21:25,920 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 1: thinking when he wrote it because our first album was

1502
01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:30,559
Speaker 1: possibly the gayest album ever. I mean, look at us.

1503
01:21:30,760 --> 01:21:33,160
Speaker 1: We were a gay group. So was the song written

1504
01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:36,680
Speaker 1: to celebrate gay men at the YMCA? Yes, absolutely, and

1505
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:39,800
Speaker 1: gay people love it regardless of the demographic it's aimed at.

1506
01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:44,679
Speaker 1: Randy Jones, the Cowboy, the Demon, the Quiet One made

1507
01:21:44,680 --> 01:21:47,640
Speaker 1: this important point to gold Mine to gold Mine. Why

1508
01:21:47,640 --> 01:21:49,679
Speaker 1: do I say that like Matt Berry made this important

1509
01:21:49,680 --> 01:21:53,720
Speaker 1: point to gold Mine gold Mine? We were always very

1510
01:21:53,760 --> 01:21:56,240
Speaker 1: positive about our energy and what we did. We never

1511
01:21:56,240 --> 01:21:59,519
Speaker 1: sang about broken hearts, lost love or shattered dreams. We

1512
01:21:59,520 --> 01:22:02,280
Speaker 1: always don't. With positive things in a very positive place

1513
01:22:02,320 --> 01:22:05,719
Speaker 1: is the YMCA. I think people had forgotten about whys

1514
01:22:05,760 --> 01:22:09,240
Speaker 1: and they're positive qualities. They provided food, shelter and spiritual

1515
01:22:09,280 --> 01:22:12,439
Speaker 1: encouragement to a lot of people for more than a century. Yes,

1516
01:22:12,920 --> 01:22:15,559
Speaker 1: they provide excellent physical programs for young and old, and

1517
01:22:15,560 --> 01:22:19,320
Speaker 1: it's a very positive institution. That's why we decided to

1518
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:23,439
Speaker 1: sing about it. That's like corn flakes or wheedies or

1519
01:22:23,479 --> 01:22:25,599
Speaker 1: something made by dude trying to get people to stop

1520
01:22:25,680 --> 01:22:30,880
Speaker 1: cranking their hogs. Yeah. Yeah. The video, which was at

1521
01:22:30,880 --> 01:22:33,320
Speaker 1: the time rare for pre MTV act, was filmed at

1522
01:22:33,360 --> 01:22:36,600
Speaker 1: the McBurney YMCA on twenty third Street, the same facility

1523
01:22:36,680 --> 01:22:39,800
Speaker 1: that inspired the idea also as well as the west

1524
01:22:39,800 --> 01:22:45,120
Speaker 1: Side piers, Hudson River Park and a gay club called Ramrod.

1525
01:22:46,120 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 1: I'll just leave that as anything, but sadly you cannot

1526
01:22:50,280 --> 01:22:52,880
Speaker 1: stay at this YMCA anymore. It was closed in two

1527
01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:55,479
Speaker 1: thousand and two and moved to a fifteenth Street. Its

1528
01:22:55,479 --> 01:22:57,719
Speaker 1: ground floor was it David Barton Gym for a while,

1529
01:22:57,840 --> 01:23:00,880
Speaker 1: and then it was a Crunch Fitness. Above it are

1530
01:23:00,920 --> 01:23:04,080
Speaker 1: boutique condos, the large of which actually encompasses the old

1531
01:23:04,080 --> 01:23:05,920
Speaker 1: basketball court with a running track.

1532
01:23:05,960 --> 01:23:10,600
Speaker 2: Above affordable housing is now multimillion dollar apartments.

1533
01:23:10,840 --> 01:23:16,000
Speaker 1: Ah that's great. Yeah, you had to read it. Blood

1534
01:23:16,000 --> 01:23:17,640
Speaker 1: would have started running out of my nose had I

1535
01:23:17,640 --> 01:23:22,320
Speaker 1: started it. Per The New York Times, imposing steel rafters

1536
01:23:22,360 --> 01:23:25,479
Speaker 1: and soaring twenty nine foot ceilings there hark back to

1537
01:23:25,520 --> 01:23:27,800
Speaker 1: a time when the space was used as a gymnasium

1538
01:23:27,840 --> 01:23:30,640
Speaker 1: and an indoor running track. It is returning to the

1539
01:23:30,680 --> 01:23:33,519
Speaker 1: market with a fourteen point five million asking price and

1540
01:23:33,600 --> 01:23:37,599
Speaker 1: monthly carrying charges totaling eight thousand, eight hundred and seventy

1541
01:23:37,600 --> 01:23:38,640
Speaker 1: three dollars.

1542
01:23:42,640 --> 01:23:46,799
Speaker 2: As we mentioned, YMCA appeared on Village People's nineteen seventy

1543
01:23:46,840 --> 01:23:50,080
Speaker 2: eight album called Cruisin.

1544
01:23:51,120 --> 01:23:57,720
Speaker 3: Cruisin. What do you think about that?

1545
01:23:57,800 --> 01:24:01,200
Speaker 1: The fuck? More? Really? Come on? This guy? Willis like,

1546
01:24:01,200 --> 01:24:03,799
Speaker 1: you're how old? Does he? Man? Make peace with yourself,

1547
01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:05,760
Speaker 1: Like Jesus Christ, the.

1548
01:24:05,800 --> 01:24:07,760
Speaker 2: Village people saw, the song is no more than an

1549
01:24:07,760 --> 01:24:11,080
Speaker 2: album filler. But Neil Bogart, the president of Casablanca Records,

1550
01:24:11,080 --> 01:24:13,880
Speaker 2: their label, saw its potential and made the decision to

1551
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:16,160
Speaker 2: push it, push it real good.

1552
01:24:17,280 --> 01:24:20,320
Speaker 1: He's seventy three, He's conceivably got a number of years.

1553
01:24:20,360 --> 01:24:23,800
Speaker 1: But like Jesus Christ, man, you know, get correct with.

1554
01:24:23,800 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 3: God, or at least try pegging.

1555
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:32,800
Speaker 1: Oh, one of your better ones? Question with all the

1556
01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:37,920
Speaker 1: discourse around stealing valor these days around our boys, you know,

1557
01:24:37,960 --> 01:24:39,160
Speaker 1: and the.

1558
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:42,000
Speaker 2: Oh you saw his picture when he's in a decorated.

1559
01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:45,520
Speaker 1: Military like a Navy admiral's uniform with like the obscene

1560
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:50,280
Speaker 1: number of inscrutable fabric patches, like he looks like a doffy,

1561
01:24:50,880 --> 01:24:54,200
Speaker 1: Yes he does? Or idio mean yeah or idiot yeah exactly,

1562
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:56,200
Speaker 1: idio meme would have been rocking the kilt.

1563
01:24:56,960 --> 01:24:57,679
Speaker 3: That's true.

1564
01:24:58,960 --> 01:25:04,320
Speaker 1: Wow, man, this is such a fascinating snapshot of America

1565
01:25:04,400 --> 01:25:08,360
Speaker 1: back when you could steal valor safely and have an

1566
01:25:08,400 --> 01:25:11,519
Speaker 1: incredibly closeted song hit the charts and then just deny

1567
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:14,160
Speaker 1: it the whole weight of the bank and back. And

1568
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:17,880
Speaker 1: he was married to Claire huxtaballt. Yeah, good god, what

1569
01:25:17,960 --> 01:25:20,559
Speaker 1: a what a CV Victor Willis. I salute an Era,

1570
01:25:20,760 --> 01:25:28,960
Speaker 1: I salute you, you absolute mad lad in America.

1571
01:25:29,120 --> 01:25:31,759
Speaker 2: YMCA spent a full half year on the charts, peaking

1572
01:25:31,800 --> 01:25:35,560
Speaker 2: in number two on Billboard for three weeks in February

1573
01:25:35,640 --> 01:25:38,240
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, being held off the top spot by

1574
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:41,040
Speaker 2: La Freak By She thank God, and then for two

1575
01:25:41,120 --> 01:25:44,840
Speaker 2: weeks behind another disco burner, Ooh not as good though.

1576
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:45,799
Speaker 3: Do you think I'm sexy?

1577
01:25:45,840 --> 01:25:45,960
Speaker 1: Boy?

1578
01:25:46,040 --> 01:25:47,360
Speaker 3: Rod Stewart, That's song blows?

1579
01:25:47,520 --> 01:25:52,000
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. That song goes? What incorrect tweeted us.

1580
01:25:53,200 --> 01:25:55,240
Speaker 1: We have a poll, does do you think I'm sexy?

1581
01:25:55,280 --> 01:25:59,320
Speaker 1: Blow or go? A question Alton asked about the village people.

1582
01:26:02,120 --> 01:26:04,479
Speaker 2: I'm kind of shocked that I've never heard that expression blow,

1583
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:05,920
Speaker 2: Like that should be our that's going to.

1584
01:26:05,920 --> 01:26:07,759
Speaker 3: Be our new blower go, that's a new segment.

1585
01:26:07,840 --> 01:26:11,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, we could be totally closeted. Weird guys stealing

1586
01:26:11,320 --> 01:26:12,280
Speaker 1: queer valor.

1587
01:26:12,920 --> 01:26:16,240
Speaker 2: Contribute five dollars to the KOFE if you think it blows,

1588
01:26:16,320 --> 01:26:17,719
Speaker 2: or ten dollars at the Ghost.

1589
01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:20,880
Speaker 1: No, I actually do like that song. I think it's

1590
01:26:21,160 --> 01:26:23,559
Speaker 1: uh that it sounds like Abba. That's why I like it.

1591
01:26:24,720 --> 01:26:27,439
Speaker 1: What I mean, No, it's not good for it's not

1592
01:26:27,560 --> 01:26:32,120
Speaker 1: good for like faces raw, but it's it sounds like Abba.

1593
01:26:32,439 --> 01:26:34,040
Speaker 3: I just think you're wrong.

1594
01:26:34,160 --> 01:26:38,880
Speaker 2: I just think that sounds terrible, you know, all right.

1595
01:26:37,439 --> 01:26:39,880
Speaker 1: All right, agree to disagree, my friend. That's what makes

1596
01:26:39,880 --> 01:26:40,679
Speaker 1: this country great.

1597
01:26:40,920 --> 01:26:42,679
Speaker 3: Yes, this makes this podcast great.

1598
01:26:43,200 --> 01:26:47,720
Speaker 2: The YMCA single sold the report of twelve million copies worldwide.

1599
01:26:47,720 --> 01:26:51,559
Speaker 2: That's insane, becoming especially popular in the United Kingdom or

1600
01:26:51,560 --> 01:26:54,439
Speaker 2: it stayed at the top spot for three weeks and

1601
01:26:54,520 --> 01:26:57,000
Speaker 2: in Australia, where it was number one for five weeks.

1602
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:01,000
Speaker 2: The song's success is due in part the awesome horn

1603
01:27:01,120 --> 01:27:04,320
Speaker 2: arrangement from Horace Ott, who did the same for people

1604
01:27:04,360 --> 01:27:07,800
Speaker 2: like Aretha Franklin, That King, Cole, Joe Cocker and Earth

1605
01:27:07,840 --> 01:27:10,640
Speaker 2: the Kit And he also wrote Don't let Me Be Misunderstood?

1606
01:27:10,920 --> 01:27:13,000
Speaker 2: Made famous by being on your point of view and

1607
01:27:13,080 --> 01:27:16,519
Speaker 2: music taste, Nina Simone or for me the animals.

1608
01:27:16,840 --> 01:27:19,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, didn't I go on a whole rant about

1609
01:27:19,560 --> 01:27:21,639
Speaker 1: Nina Simone and the animals in that song. I believe

1610
01:27:21,680 --> 01:27:21,960
Speaker 1: I did.

1611
01:27:22,000 --> 01:27:24,880
Speaker 2: It was, Yes, it was for I think it was

1612
01:27:24,920 --> 01:27:26,120
Speaker 2: for the Moby episode.

1613
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:27,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was about sampling.

1614
01:27:27,760 --> 01:27:28,439
Speaker 3: Yes, sampling.

1615
01:27:28,600 --> 01:27:33,719
Speaker 1: Horace At also still alive. That means ninety one. Oh yeah, yeah.

1616
01:27:33,960 --> 01:27:35,840
Speaker 2: Horice AT's horn arrangement is one of the things that

1617
01:27:35,880 --> 01:27:36,919
Speaker 2: makes the song great.

1618
01:27:37,200 --> 01:27:37,400
Speaker 1: Uh.

1619
01:27:37,439 --> 01:27:41,320
Speaker 2: The Financial Times, who covered the song for some reason,

1620
01:27:41,400 --> 01:27:43,840
Speaker 2: presumably because it made a stupid amount of money, have

1621
01:27:43,920 --> 01:27:47,320
Speaker 2: their own take on what makes YMCA so unforgettable. They

1622
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:50,599
Speaker 2: write the song's rousing spirit can be attributed to its

1623
01:27:50,680 --> 01:27:51,120
Speaker 2: use of.

1624
01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:57,200
Speaker 1: How do you say that ekfhanis ekphanicis e phansis?

1625
01:27:57,240 --> 01:27:57,960
Speaker 3: That works for me?

1626
01:27:58,400 --> 01:28:03,240
Speaker 2: An emotional exclaimat to phrase originating from ancient literature. It's

1627
01:28:03,360 --> 01:28:06,519
Speaker 2: rallying cry of young man acts as a sort of

1628
01:28:06,600 --> 01:28:09,719
Speaker 2: wake up call, urging the listener to forget their woes,

1629
01:28:10,200 --> 01:28:12,320
Speaker 2: chin up and make a change.

1630
01:28:13,160 --> 01:28:15,000
Speaker 1: So there you go. That's a stupid thing to say.

1631
01:28:16,439 --> 01:28:20,800
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's dumb. A dumb thing to say about

1632
01:28:20,960 --> 01:28:27,280
Speaker 1: a gay sex song by nakedly profiteering pop producers and

1633
01:28:28,600 --> 01:28:32,880
Speaker 1: confused a befuddled Frenchman. That is a dumb over intellectualizing.

1634
01:28:32,920 --> 01:28:36,200
Speaker 1: Shame on you, Financial Times, Shame on you for making

1635
01:28:36,240 --> 01:28:38,000
Speaker 1: me read that we were all the dumber for it.

1636
01:28:39,200 --> 01:28:41,880
Speaker 1: So people all around the world's automatic. That's like an

1637
01:28:42,200 --> 01:28:44,880
Speaker 1: something that like a chat GPT. If I was like

1638
01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:48,559
Speaker 1: chat GPT, write me a stupid Pitchfork article about some

1639
01:28:48,680 --> 01:28:52,840
Speaker 1: like heinously violent rapper, you know, with like a like

1640
01:28:52,960 --> 01:28:56,920
Speaker 1: confirmed rapes and like murders, they'd be like Young Genese's

1641
01:28:57,160 --> 01:29:00,519
Speaker 1: new song I killed everyone. I did it. I killed

1642
01:29:00,520 --> 01:29:02,280
Speaker 1: them all. My God, I killed them all and I

1643
01:29:02,320 --> 01:29:07,200
Speaker 1: loved it is really rooted in ekphonesis an emotional exclamatory

1644
01:29:07,200 --> 01:29:11,040
Speaker 1: phrase originating from ancient literature criticism. Sometimes I think it

1645
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:12,720
Speaker 1: really does deserve to be a dead art.

1646
01:29:13,000 --> 01:29:15,680
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, writing about music, dancing about architecture.

1647
01:29:15,800 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, it really became about like it was Pitchfork,

1648
01:29:19,520 --> 01:29:21,760
Speaker 1: you know, honestly, I mean I don't love like I'm

1649
01:29:21,760 --> 01:29:25,400
Speaker 1: not like a Bangs or christ Gal or any I

1650
01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:28,280
Speaker 1: don't deify any rock critic. I think they're all pretty stupid,

1651
01:29:28,320 --> 01:29:31,679
Speaker 1: except for Jim Derogatus, who's like took down r Kelly

1652
01:29:31,760 --> 01:29:36,040
Speaker 1: single handedly out of a love for Chicago youth. And

1653
01:29:36,120 --> 01:29:38,679
Speaker 1: you know, there's obviously great music writers across the world

1654
01:29:38,720 --> 01:29:41,559
Speaker 1: who I'm short selling, But like it really was when

1655
01:29:41,560 --> 01:29:46,160
Speaker 1: they just started Pitchfork just started to write impressionistic reviews

1656
01:29:46,200 --> 01:29:50,160
Speaker 1: about like the colors they saw, Like come on, man,

1657
01:29:50,320 --> 01:29:52,800
Speaker 1: just reach out to find out what mixing board they used,

1658
01:29:52,880 --> 01:29:54,960
Speaker 1: or like, find out why they wrote the song. Don't

1659
01:29:54,960 --> 01:29:58,960
Speaker 1: just postulate about how it makes you feel or say

1660
01:29:59,320 --> 01:30:06,479
Speaker 1: like e herds. Now, I can't have a job doing it,

1661
01:30:09,640 --> 01:30:12,559
Speaker 1: he said, bitterly, having never been a professional music critic.

1662
01:30:14,320 --> 01:30:16,880
Speaker 1: So people all around the world love this song, But

1663
01:30:17,040 --> 01:30:21,320
Speaker 1: how about the actual YMCA organization. What's the YMCA say?

1664
01:30:21,320 --> 01:30:24,479
Speaker 1: What's Josh saying? They didn't really like it at first?

1665
01:30:24,680 --> 01:30:25,680
Speaker 1: Yeah they're religious.

1666
01:30:25,920 --> 01:30:27,320
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

1667
01:30:27,479 --> 01:30:29,840
Speaker 2: Soon after the single was released, the YMCA is shoot

1668
01:30:29,880 --> 01:30:32,960
Speaker 2: a statement claiming that its trademarked name was used without

1669
01:30:33,000 --> 01:30:36,160
Speaker 2: permission and stated their intention to pursue an out of

1670
01:30:36,200 --> 01:30:36,960
Speaker 2: court settlement.

1671
01:30:37,320 --> 01:30:39,680
Speaker 1: The band were surprisingly sympathetic to this.

1672
01:30:40,000 --> 01:30:43,400
Speaker 2: Randy Jones the Cowboy later told Spin, we understood their

1673
01:30:43,400 --> 01:30:45,400
Speaker 2: points of view, and we actually talked about it before

1674
01:30:45,400 --> 01:30:48,360
Speaker 2: we cut the song. YMCA is a trademark, and a

1675
01:30:48,400 --> 01:30:51,280
Speaker 2: trademark needs to be protected. If they allowed one person

1676
01:30:51,360 --> 01:30:53,680
Speaker 2: or one group to violate the rights that would put

1677
01:30:53,760 --> 01:30:56,760
Speaker 2: YMCA into the public domain. David and I try to

1678
01:30:56,760 --> 01:31:00,600
Speaker 2: communicate this to our producer, but couldn't get through, So

1679
01:31:00,680 --> 01:31:02,040
Speaker 2: that's presumably.

1680
01:31:01,680 --> 01:31:02,840
Speaker 1: That's the coach the friends shot.

1681
01:31:03,000 --> 01:31:08,320
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. But then the YMCA organization basically

1682
01:31:08,360 --> 01:31:11,640
Speaker 2: realized that the village people had made a great advertisement

1683
01:31:11,720 --> 01:31:15,120
Speaker 2: for them, which was extremely effective, so they soon backed off.

1684
01:31:15,880 --> 01:31:19,080
Speaker 2: Today the YMCA website actually shouts out the song on

1685
01:31:19,120 --> 01:31:23,040
Speaker 2: their website and at one point even had instructions.

1686
01:31:22,320 --> 01:31:24,240
Speaker 3: For how to do the dance on their homepage.

1687
01:31:24,520 --> 01:31:26,960
Speaker 1: That's like one guy in accounting who was like, we're

1688
01:31:27,000 --> 01:31:30,360
Speaker 1: cool with the gay thing because it's raking in money,

1689
01:31:30,479 --> 01:31:33,360
Speaker 1: And then a bunch of other people sat around a

1690
01:31:33,400 --> 01:31:36,040
Speaker 1: table and discussed for hours and they were all very

1691
01:31:36,120 --> 01:31:38,720
Speaker 1: unhappy for it, and the accountant kept having to come

1692
01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:39,960
Speaker 1: in and explain it to them.

1693
01:31:40,800 --> 01:31:43,559
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, we at.

1694
01:31:43,479 --> 01:31:45,120
Speaker 1: The YMCA celebrate the song.

1695
01:31:45,240 --> 01:31:48,479
Speaker 2: Media relations manager Leah Powell told Spin in two thousand

1696
01:31:48,520 --> 01:31:51,599
Speaker 2: and eight, it's a positive statement about the YMCA and

1697
01:31:51,600 --> 01:31:52,800
Speaker 2: what we offer people.

1698
01:31:52,640 --> 01:31:54,040
Speaker 1: All around the world.

1699
01:31:54,880 --> 01:31:58,400
Speaker 2: Former residents of the McBurnie Why, however, weren't quite so impressed,

1700
01:31:58,439 --> 01:32:02,240
Speaker 2: particularly by the video, as David Garrett, who lived there

1701
01:32:02,280 --> 01:32:06,479
Speaker 2: for twenty two years between nineteen seventy eight and two thousand.

1702
01:32:06,560 --> 01:32:10,120
Speaker 2: Told Gothamist there was certainly a party aspect to their video,

1703
01:32:10,600 --> 01:32:12,160
Speaker 2: and that time was the height of all the gay

1704
01:32:12,200 --> 01:32:15,760
Speaker 2: clubs in Chelsea. The YMCA did have some overlapping of

1705
01:32:15,800 --> 01:32:18,120
Speaker 2: gay cruising, but it was a serious gym for people

1706
01:32:18,160 --> 01:32:20,120
Speaker 2: who really wanted to go and work out every day,

1707
01:32:20,439 --> 01:32:22,799
Speaker 2: and a nice place to live for working class people.

1708
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:23,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sad.

1709
01:32:23,840 --> 01:32:26,280
Speaker 2: There was a New York Times article right before the

1710
01:32:27,200 --> 01:32:30,880
Speaker 2: McBurney why closed in I think it was two thousand

1711
01:32:30,880 --> 01:32:33,200
Speaker 2: and two about all these people who had been there

1712
01:32:33,240 --> 01:32:35,720
Speaker 2: since like the seventies and something some even have even

1713
01:32:35,720 --> 01:32:39,320
Speaker 2: from the sixties getting evicted. And it was really well written,

1714
01:32:39,400 --> 01:32:42,240
Speaker 2: like these like thumbnail sketches of these poets and people

1715
01:32:42,320 --> 01:32:43,559
Speaker 2: who lived in there.

1716
01:32:43,560 --> 01:32:44,799
Speaker 3: It was really sad.

1717
01:32:45,280 --> 01:32:47,840
Speaker 2: The types of characters seen in the YMCA video were

1718
01:32:47,920 --> 01:32:52,200
Speaker 2: likely what the Gothamist piece refers to as temporary occupants

1719
01:32:52,360 --> 01:32:56,000
Speaker 2: who mostly lodged there to relax and sleep between shifts,

1720
01:32:56,640 --> 01:33:00,439
Speaker 2: rather than these long term renters, often gay in their

1721
01:33:00,439 --> 01:33:03,280
Speaker 2: mid twenties or thirties. They used the YMCA as what

1722
01:33:03,400 --> 01:33:07,439
Speaker 2: Garrett describes as a dressing room, or as a place

1723
01:33:07,520 --> 01:33:11,360
Speaker 2: to discreetly hook up. Garrett continued, the weekend party people

1724
01:33:11,360 --> 01:33:13,839
Speaker 2: who would stay there really just needed the rooms to crash.

1725
01:33:14,160 --> 01:33:16,280
Speaker 2: They didn't stay there at all to socialize, but to

1726
01:33:16,360 --> 01:33:16,720
Speaker 2: take in.

1727
01:33:16,720 --> 01:33:17,320
Speaker 3: The night life.

1728
01:33:19,080 --> 01:33:22,080
Speaker 2: After the success of YMCA, the Village People tackled another

1729
01:33:22,160 --> 01:33:26,439
Speaker 2: hive of mail support, the Navy. I've heard that the

1730
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:30,040
Speaker 2: Navy actually contacted them after seeing the spike in business

1731
01:33:30,040 --> 01:33:33,800
Speaker 2: for YMCA and approached them about writing a song that

1732
01:33:33,800 --> 01:33:35,760
Speaker 2: would do for the Navy what they did for the YMCA.

1733
01:33:36,040 --> 01:33:39,040
Speaker 2: I don't think that's true, but however, once the song

1734
01:33:39,120 --> 01:33:42,160
Speaker 2: was released in March nineteen seventy nine, just after YMCA

1735
01:33:42,200 --> 01:33:44,840
Speaker 2: had slipped down the charts, the Navy contacted the Village

1736
01:33:44,840 --> 01:33:47,719
Speaker 2: People's management asking to use the song in a recruitment

1737
01:33:47,760 --> 01:33:50,599
Speaker 2: ad on TV and radio. Management gave them the rights

1738
01:33:50,600 --> 01:33:52,479
Speaker 2: for free, on the condition that the Navy would help

1739
01:33:52,520 --> 01:33:55,559
Speaker 2: them shoot the music video, and that's how the Village

1740
01:33:55,600 --> 01:33:59,640
Speaker 2: People wound up atop the USS Reasoner Birth at the

1741
01:33:59,760 --> 01:34:04,559
Speaker 2: Navy in San Diego. Hilariously, though, the Navy did not

1742
01:34:04,760 --> 01:34:07,800
Speaker 2: use the video or the song, opting instead to keep

1743
01:34:07,840 --> 01:34:10,200
Speaker 2: the traditional anchors away in their ads.

1744
01:34:10,360 --> 01:34:13,080
Speaker 1: This was like a Jerry Bruckheimer thing where they were like,

1745
01:34:13,280 --> 01:34:18,240
Speaker 1: oh yeah, literally in bed with the navy to let

1746
01:34:18,240 --> 01:34:20,679
Speaker 1: them film on the large boat. Yeah, oh my god,

1747
01:34:20,680 --> 01:34:21,760
Speaker 1: you're right, like top gun.

1748
01:34:22,800 --> 01:34:26,160
Speaker 2: The most surprising musical legacy that spun off on YMCA,

1749
01:34:26,200 --> 01:34:28,120
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned at least, and I've never

1750
01:34:28,160 --> 01:34:32,519
Speaker 2: heard this, is that it apparently helped inspire the Stones

1751
01:34:32,640 --> 01:34:35,360
Speaker 2: disco diversion Miss You tracks.

1752
01:34:35,360 --> 01:34:36,840
Speaker 1: Do you know this? I didn't know this.

1753
01:34:37,280 --> 01:34:39,800
Speaker 2: Bick Jagger was a mainstay at Studio fifty four and

1754
01:34:39,840 --> 01:34:42,360
Speaker 2: other similar clubs around the world in the late seventies,

1755
01:34:42,560 --> 01:34:45,479
Speaker 2: and he absorbed the disco sounds of these places. A

1756
01:34:45,479 --> 01:34:48,559
Speaker 2: piece on Salon details the making of Miss You, and

1757
01:34:48,640 --> 01:34:52,360
Speaker 2: it cites interviews with Stones's drummer Charlie Watts recalling how

1758
01:34:52,439 --> 01:34:56,839
Speaker 2: much he and Mick loved disco, and Charlie specifically recalls

1759
01:34:56,880 --> 01:35:00,400
Speaker 2: mixed passion for YMCA reference one night in particular, when

1760
01:35:00,479 --> 01:35:02,479
Speaker 2: Mick left the club in Munich and he just sang

1761
01:35:02,520 --> 01:35:05,040
Speaker 2: it over and over and over again, which is a

1762
01:35:05,040 --> 01:35:07,320
Speaker 2: moment I would love to have a tape recording of.

1763
01:35:07,479 --> 01:35:09,480
Speaker 1: God, that's just so funny.

1764
01:35:09,479 --> 01:35:12,040
Speaker 2: Charlie would say. In the seventies there were some fantastic

1765
01:35:12,120 --> 01:35:14,280
Speaker 2: dance records out. Mick and I used to go to

1766
01:35:14,360 --> 01:35:16,519
Speaker 2: discos a lot. A great way to hear a dance

1767
01:35:16,560 --> 01:35:18,439
Speaker 2: record is by listening to it in a dance hall

1768
01:35:18,520 --> 01:35:22,519
Speaker 2: or a disco. Keith Richards predictively had to be coaxed

1769
01:35:22,560 --> 01:35:25,400
Speaker 2: into doing Miss You, saying we didn't think much of

1770
01:35:25,439 --> 01:35:25,760
Speaker 2: miss You.

1771
01:35:25,840 --> 01:35:26,880
Speaker 3: As we were doing it.

1772
01:35:26,880 --> 01:35:30,719
Speaker 2: It was ah mixed bin to the disco, humming someone's

1773
01:35:30,720 --> 01:35:31,720
Speaker 2: song or another.

1774
01:35:32,320 --> 01:35:40,559
Speaker 1: Humming some other song, so true to life and hilariously withering. Yes, God,

1775
01:35:40,600 --> 01:35:41,280
Speaker 1: I love Keith.

1776
01:35:42,280 --> 01:35:44,160
Speaker 2: It's a result of all the nights Mick s been

1777
01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:46,840
Speaker 2: at Studio fifty four and coming up with that beat,

1778
01:35:46,920 --> 01:35:49,720
Speaker 2: that four on the floor, and he said, add the

1779
01:35:49,760 --> 01:35:52,439
Speaker 2: melody to the beat. We just thought we'd put our

1780
01:35:52,479 --> 01:35:56,280
Speaker 2: ore in on, Mick wanting to do some disco keep

1781
01:35:56,320 --> 01:35:59,040
Speaker 2: the man happy. But as we got into it, it

1782
01:35:59,080 --> 01:36:02,599
Speaker 2: became quite an interesting beat and we realized maybe we've

1783
01:36:02,640 --> 01:36:05,400
Speaker 2: got a quit essential disco thing here, and out of

1784
01:36:05,400 --> 01:36:08,040
Speaker 2: it we got a huge hit. And that was I

1785
01:36:08,080 --> 01:36:13,560
Speaker 2: believe their final number one and arguably the most successful

1786
01:36:13,840 --> 01:36:16,960
Speaker 2: instance of a rock group hopping on the disco train.

1787
01:36:17,320 --> 01:36:20,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd buy that. The song whips It does. I

1788
01:36:20,280 --> 01:36:22,040
Speaker 1: Was Made for Loving You by Kiss is also a

1789
01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:23,400
Speaker 1: pretty good example of that.

1790
01:36:25,400 --> 01:36:28,639
Speaker 2: For some reason, maybe it's the Casablanca Records thing. Kiss

1791
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:33,960
Speaker 2: glam glam disco feels very I don't know, I'm gonna

1792
01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:36,439
Speaker 2: get in trouble with the Kiss army, but that doesn't

1793
01:36:36,439 --> 01:36:37,640
Speaker 2: feel like a huge jump to me.

1794
01:36:38,120 --> 01:36:40,320
Speaker 1: I love miss You. I love that whole some girls,

1795
01:36:40,320 --> 01:36:43,080
Speaker 1: I love that whole record. Man, it's so not an

1796
01:36:43,120 --> 01:36:45,240
Speaker 1: interesting opinion, but it's so good. I just love the

1797
01:36:45,280 --> 01:36:49,040
Speaker 1: way his vocal delivery on that album is hilarious and

1798
01:36:49,080 --> 01:36:52,040
Speaker 1: one of the all time like Mick Jagger isms, like

1799
01:36:52,640 --> 01:36:55,160
Speaker 1: we can come around around twelve with some poor Rican girls.

1800
01:36:55,160 --> 01:37:00,320
Speaker 1: It's just d D meet you, and then Shattered when

1801
01:37:00,320 --> 01:37:03,280
Speaker 1: he does like the like yo, yeah, Denny Harry gets

1802
01:37:03,280 --> 01:37:05,639
Speaker 1: all these for being like the most awkward white person

1803
01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:07,960
Speaker 1: to try rap in the late seventies, but Shattered is

1804
01:37:08,000 --> 01:37:10,800
Speaker 1: such dogs. Yeah, there's the line where he goes it's

1805
01:37:10,840 --> 01:37:14,200
Speaker 1: my favorite because it's like the simultaneously the most fay

1806
01:37:14,439 --> 01:37:18,120
Speaker 1: and like offbeat thing that he's ever sung, which it's

1807
01:37:18,160 --> 01:37:22,840
Speaker 1: during his like this town's been We're in tatters. Its shattered, No,

1808
01:37:22,920 --> 01:37:27,679
Speaker 1: but there's one Yeah, We've got Rats on the West Side,

1809
01:37:27,880 --> 01:37:32,880
Speaker 1: bed Bugs Uptown tremendous.

1810
01:37:33,200 --> 01:37:35,559
Speaker 2: I saw for the first time after spending like two

1811
01:37:35,640 --> 01:37:38,720
Speaker 2: years of my life working on a podcast about the

1812
01:37:38,800 --> 01:37:41,000
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones on tour. I saw The Stones for the

1813
01:37:41,040 --> 01:37:46,200
Speaker 2: first time this summer. Oh yeah, zero expectation whatsoever. I'm

1814
01:37:46,200 --> 01:37:49,320
Speaker 2: not a huge Stones fan. It was one of the

1815
01:37:49,360 --> 01:37:51,200
Speaker 2: most incredible shows I've ever seen.

1816
01:37:51,280 --> 01:37:52,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, it's great when they have black people in

1817
01:37:52,960 --> 01:37:57,920
Speaker 1: a rhythm section. I mean, seriously, there's a reason, you know,

1818
01:37:58,080 --> 01:38:01,479
Speaker 1: Keith didn't keep Charlie or Bill when he started making

1819
01:38:01,720 --> 01:38:04,720
Speaker 1: you know, expensive Windos records. That Steve Jordan, that's the

1820
01:38:04,720 --> 01:38:07,719
Speaker 1: guy who's still touring with them, right, Yeah, yeah, that

1821
01:38:07,720 --> 01:38:12,760
Speaker 1: that relationship goes back a long time. Darryl Jones bass player, Yeah,

1822
01:38:13,280 --> 01:38:16,599
Speaker 1: oh yeah. Yeah. When they when they Jettis into their

1823
01:38:16,880 --> 01:38:20,719
Speaker 1: most a rhythmic square figures, of course they got good.

1824
01:38:21,000 --> 01:38:23,120
Speaker 1: They only had one of the greatest frontmen of all

1825
01:38:23,160 --> 01:38:26,720
Speaker 1: time and like the coolest man ever to live on

1826
01:38:26,840 --> 01:38:30,960
Speaker 1: rhythm guitar and Ron Wood. I do love Ronwood. Actually,

1827
01:38:31,080 --> 01:38:35,000
Speaker 1: you know that his his guitar work on their guitar

1828
01:38:35,040 --> 01:38:36,639
Speaker 1: work on Beast of Bird, I mean Beast of Bird

1829
01:38:36,880 --> 01:38:38,000
Speaker 1: all time, perfect.

1830
01:38:37,640 --> 01:38:38,840
Speaker 3: Songs on of my favorite songs.

1831
01:38:38,880 --> 01:38:41,760
Speaker 1: But their guitar interplay on that is so cool. I

1832
01:38:41,800 --> 01:38:44,720
Speaker 1: mean they Ron Wood is really I think an undersold

1833
01:38:44,760 --> 01:38:48,160
Speaker 1: guitar hero. It's like he's truly he First of all,

1834
01:38:48,240 --> 01:38:50,280
Speaker 1: his hands are crazy, like if you've ever tried to

1835
01:38:50,320 --> 01:38:53,760
Speaker 1: play any of that faces, like the pinky stretches he

1836
01:38:53,840 --> 01:38:57,320
Speaker 1: does for like the boogie rhythms are nuts. But yeah,

1837
01:38:57,360 --> 01:38:59,800
Speaker 1: he's just like telepathic when he's playing with people. He

1838
01:38:59,880 --> 01:39:01,880
Speaker 1: just has that like sixth sense of like I know

1839
01:39:01,920 --> 01:39:04,320
Speaker 1: what you're doing before you do it, and my hands

1840
01:39:04,320 --> 01:39:06,920
Speaker 1: will find something to do. That is cool. To add

1841
01:39:06,920 --> 01:39:09,160
Speaker 1: to that, and a great painter, I hear.

1842
01:39:09,400 --> 01:39:10,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, great painter. Yeah.

1843
01:39:11,200 --> 01:39:12,680
Speaker 1: Are we talking about now?

1844
01:39:12,680 --> 01:39:14,439
Speaker 2: We got to talk about speaking of the dance floor.

1845
01:39:14,840 --> 01:39:18,559
Speaker 2: We got to talk about the YMCA dance you know, Yeah,

1846
01:39:18,560 --> 01:39:20,720
Speaker 2: we sure do, man, we gotta do the thing.

1847
01:39:20,760 --> 01:39:21,880
Speaker 1: We gotta do it.

1848
01:39:22,200 --> 01:39:24,640
Speaker 2: In April nineteen seventy nine, The Village People became the

1849
01:39:24,680 --> 01:39:28,120
Speaker 2: first disco act to launch an arenatour, beating the Beg's

1850
01:39:28,200 --> 01:39:30,640
Speaker 2: by two months. They were splashed on the cover of

1851
01:39:30,720 --> 01:39:33,400
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone and also made several TV appearances on The

1852
01:39:33,479 --> 01:39:38,440
Speaker 2: MERV Griffin Show and most crucially for our Purposes, American Bandstand,

1853
01:39:39,120 --> 01:39:43,639
Speaker 2: Dick Clark's American Bandstam. The latter program would become crucial

1854
01:39:43,680 --> 01:39:45,919
Speaker 2: to their legacy because it was here that the infamous

1855
01:39:46,040 --> 01:39:47,439
Speaker 2: YMCA dance was born.

1856
01:39:47,560 --> 01:39:50,519
Speaker 1: Was Dick Clark like fifty at this point, probably in

1857
01:39:50,520 --> 01:39:51,200
Speaker 1: his forties?

1858
01:39:52,320 --> 01:39:59,040
Speaker 2: Actually yeah, wait a minute, yeah, yeah, he was about

1859
01:39:59,040 --> 01:40:01,759
Speaker 2: the turn fifty, That forty nine year old.

1860
01:40:01,560 --> 01:40:04,519
Speaker 1: Dick Clark staring down the barrel of like five strapping

1861
01:40:04,640 --> 01:40:07,639
Speaker 1: gay archetypes, just thinking what did I get myself into

1862
01:40:07,880 --> 01:40:13,640
Speaker 1: all those years ago? Just smile and non smile and non.

1863
01:40:13,600 --> 01:40:16,599
Speaker 2: Surprisingly, the Village People didn't come up with their iconic

1864
01:40:16,720 --> 01:40:20,080
Speaker 2: YMCA dance. Instead, it was a spontaneous invention by the

1865
01:40:20,120 --> 01:40:26,320
Speaker 2: TV audience. The day was January sixth, nineteen seventy nine,

1866
01:40:26,920 --> 01:40:29,880
Speaker 2: when the Village People made their broadcast on Bandstand, and,

1867
01:40:29,920 --> 01:40:32,479
Speaker 2: as Randy Jones the Cowboy would recall in the spin

1868
01:40:32,600 --> 01:40:35,840
Speaker 2: Oral History of YMCA, the audience at this particular taping

1869
01:40:35,920 --> 01:40:38,400
Speaker 2: was a bunch of kids bust in from a cheerleader camp.

1870
01:40:38,880 --> 01:40:40,479
Speaker 2: The first time we got to the chorus, we were

1871
01:40:40,520 --> 01:40:43,000
Speaker 2: clapping with our hands above our heads, and the kids

1872
01:40:43,000 --> 01:40:44,720
Speaker 2: thought it looked like we were making a y, so

1873
01:40:44,800 --> 01:40:49,440
Speaker 2: they automatically did the letters. Host Dick Clark was extremely impressed,

1874
01:40:49,840 --> 01:40:52,600
Speaker 2: and when the performance was over, he asked the producers

1875
01:40:52,640 --> 01:40:55,599
Speaker 2: to play the song again so the band could observe

1876
01:40:55,640 --> 01:40:59,000
Speaker 2: the audience in action, and as they watched, Clark asked

1877
01:40:59,040 --> 01:41:01,439
Speaker 2: singer Victor Willis, you guys think you can work that

1878
01:41:01,479 --> 01:41:03,840
Speaker 2: in your routine, and Victor Willis said, well, I guess

1879
01:41:03,880 --> 01:41:08,040
Speaker 2: we're gonna have to. And you know what d and what

1880
01:41:08,120 --> 01:41:12,000
Speaker 2: he did. It's actually really funny how underwhelmed the band

1881
01:41:12,080 --> 01:41:15,200
Speaker 2: were upon first seeing what, in truth really only loosely

1882
01:41:15,280 --> 01:41:16,439
Speaker 2: qualifies as a dance.

1883
01:41:16,600 --> 01:41:20,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's like semaphore figure, like signaling it's

1884
01:41:20,479 --> 01:41:22,040
Speaker 1: not okay whatever.

1885
01:41:22,280 --> 01:41:25,000
Speaker 2: No, I watched this American bands then clip on YouTube,

1886
01:41:25,120 --> 01:41:27,840
Speaker 2: and it's so funny because they just seem not impressed

1887
01:41:28,160 --> 01:41:28,639
Speaker 2: at all.

1888
01:41:28,680 --> 01:41:31,720
Speaker 1: You guys are making letters. Who cares? Yeah, no, they

1889
01:41:31,840 --> 01:41:33,519
Speaker 1: really don't care. It was like the era when like

1890
01:41:33,800 --> 01:41:37,440
Speaker 1: Tony Basil or Tony Basil was like yeah doing mainstream,

1891
01:41:37,520 --> 01:41:40,280
Speaker 1: about to start doing video choreography and was like hanging

1892
01:41:40,320 --> 01:41:42,600
Speaker 1: out with the original break dancers in New York. So

1893
01:41:42,640 --> 01:41:45,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure these guys are like cool. You know, I've

1894
01:41:45,800 --> 01:41:49,320
Speaker 1: seen people spin on their heads, but cool letter shapes

1895
01:41:49,360 --> 01:41:50,599
Speaker 1: you're making with your hands.

1896
01:41:53,320 --> 01:41:55,760
Speaker 2: David Hodo, the construction worker, it's told spin in two

1897
01:41:55,760 --> 01:41:58,479
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. When I saw the movements, I thought, wow,

1898
01:41:58,560 --> 01:42:01,360
Speaker 2: that is so stupid that everyone in America sent are doing.

1899
01:42:01,439 --> 01:42:04,720
Speaker 2: And I thought, wow, that is so brilliant. It took

1900
01:42:04,720 --> 01:42:06,880
Speaker 2: on a life of its own. The next thing we know,

1901
01:42:07,320 --> 01:42:09,880
Speaker 2: Hedeki Jaiko has a number one hit in Japan with

1902
01:42:09,960 --> 01:42:12,720
Speaker 2: his version of YMCA, and we hit number two in

1903
01:42:12,760 --> 01:42:16,000
Speaker 2: the US. That's how it always works. Saijo claimed he

1904
01:42:16,040 --> 01:42:18,559
Speaker 2: invented the dance, but as soon as we got to Japan,

1905
01:42:19,080 --> 01:42:20,000
Speaker 2: we straightened him out.

1906
01:42:21,120 --> 01:42:26,679
Speaker 1: Menacing five three Japanese guy who doesn't speak very much English,

1907
01:42:27,200 --> 01:42:32,720
Speaker 1: suddenly confronted by towering, ripped gay archetypes like purposely striding

1908
01:42:32,760 --> 01:42:38,160
Speaker 1: down a tokyo. Streated him just as a heart attack, and.

1909
01:42:38,120 --> 01:42:39,360
Speaker 3: Here heigel, this will interest you.

1910
01:42:39,920 --> 01:42:42,479
Speaker 2: On December thirty first, two thousand and eight, the Guinness

1911
01:42:42,479 --> 01:42:45,760
Speaker 2: Book of World Records certified the Village People's performance at

1912
01:42:45,760 --> 01:42:48,840
Speaker 2: the Sun Bowl halftime show in El Paso as the

1913
01:42:48,960 --> 01:42:53,559
Speaker 2: largest YMCA dance ever, with forty thousand, one hundred and

1914
01:42:53,600 --> 01:42:56,439
Speaker 2: forty eight fans doing the move well.

1915
01:42:56,360 --> 01:42:58,639
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got that over with. Yes all right,

1916
01:42:59,120 --> 01:43:01,400
Speaker 1: And as mentioned as has become a common trope on

1917
01:43:01,400 --> 01:43:03,519
Speaker 1: this show, this is where behind the music backing takes

1918
01:43:03,560 --> 01:43:07,519
Speaker 1: that takes that major third down apstep. Not long after

1919
01:43:07,520 --> 01:43:11,280
Speaker 1: the world beating success of YMCA, everything started to crumble

1920
01:43:11,520 --> 01:43:15,120
Speaker 1: for the Village People. Lead singer Victor Willis quit in

1921
01:43:15,160 --> 01:43:17,960
Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen seventy nine, supposedly upset that he

1922
01:43:18,000 --> 01:43:21,040
Speaker 1: was just a salaried hired hand from a rally. This

1923
01:43:21,120 --> 01:43:23,519
Speaker 1: move would have major legal ramifications and used to come

1924
01:43:23,560 --> 01:43:26,400
Speaker 1: as we'll see. He was replaced by Ray Simpson, brother

1925
01:43:26,439 --> 01:43:29,719
Speaker 1: of Valerie Simpson of the famed musical duo Ashford and Simpson.

1926
01:43:30,560 --> 01:43:33,839
Speaker 1: This departure came mere days before shooting the band's movie

1927
01:43:34,200 --> 01:43:37,240
Speaker 1: Can't Stop the Music, belying the title. This ultimately wound

1928
01:43:37,360 --> 01:43:39,000
Speaker 1: up being a good move because the film has garnered

1929
01:43:39,040 --> 01:43:41,559
Speaker 1: a reputation as one of the biggest box office flops

1930
01:43:41,600 --> 01:43:44,920
Speaker 1: in history. As we have talked about on the Grease episode,

1931
01:43:45,000 --> 01:43:47,479
Speaker 1: it was co written and co produced by Alan Carr,

1932
01:43:47,520 --> 01:43:49,600
Speaker 1: a man behind Greece who was notoriously one of the

1933
01:43:49,640 --> 01:43:53,479
Speaker 1: cokeiest men. In a very coked up age, he described

1934
01:43:53,479 --> 01:43:55,760
Speaker 1: his vision for the film as Singing in the Rain

1935
01:43:56,080 --> 01:44:00,719
Speaker 1: for the Disco Crowd okay Man. Can't Stop the Music

1936
01:44:00,720 --> 01:44:02,800
Speaker 1: was intended to be a loose biopic of the band,

1937
01:44:02,840 --> 01:44:06,559
Speaker 1: with an americanized Jacques Moraley Jack Morrell being played by

1938
01:44:06,640 --> 01:44:10,200
Speaker 1: young Steve Gutenberg. Caitlyn Jenner is also in it. It's

1939
01:44:10,280 --> 01:44:13,519
Speaker 1: very weird and here we go, William Freakin moment, I'm

1940
01:44:13,520 --> 01:44:15,719
Speaker 1: gonna start doing that like your Beatles. Things just work

1941
01:44:15,760 --> 01:44:19,599
Speaker 1: in random anecdotes from Yea of William Freakin being either

1942
01:44:19,680 --> 01:44:22,600
Speaker 1: weird apple or a genius, or hopefully all three at

1943
01:44:22,640 --> 01:44:24,920
Speaker 1: one time. Shooting of Can't Stop the Music in New

1944
01:44:25,000 --> 01:44:29,080
Speaker 1: York was disrupted by gay protesters who actually mistook it

1945
01:44:29,240 --> 01:44:32,760
Speaker 1: for the shoot for William Freakin's Cruising, which, as you

1946
01:44:32,760 --> 01:44:36,280
Speaker 1: will remember, is a film that depicts the leather subculture,

1947
01:44:36,680 --> 01:44:39,439
Speaker 1: particularly that of one bar who denied them the right

1948
01:44:39,479 --> 01:44:41,760
Speaker 1: to shoot there. So Friedkin went out of his way

1949
01:44:41,960 --> 01:44:45,960
Speaker 1: to literally steal every aspect of that bar and recreate

1950
01:44:46,000 --> 01:44:49,920
Speaker 1: it in a different gay bar. Hilarious. But that wasn't

1951
01:44:49,960 --> 01:44:52,960
Speaker 1: even the only production issue they faced. The movie was

1952
01:44:52,960 --> 01:44:56,840
Speaker 1: originally titled Disco Land Where the Music Never Ends. This

1953
01:44:56,960 --> 01:44:59,360
Speaker 1: title was changed after the public opinion of disco started

1954
01:44:59,360 --> 01:45:02,720
Speaker 1: to take a nose the dawn of the eighties, memorialized

1955
01:45:02,720 --> 01:45:07,880
Speaker 1: in every Hacky Montage VH one, CNN, you know the

1956
01:45:08,000 --> 01:45:13,080
Speaker 1: usual suspects, with footage of disco demolition night at Chicago's

1957
01:45:13,120 --> 01:45:16,600
Speaker 1: Kminsky Park. For those of you privileged enough to have

1958
01:45:16,720 --> 01:45:18,919
Speaker 1: not seen this, they just threw a bunch of records

1959
01:45:18,960 --> 01:45:20,720
Speaker 1: in a big pile in the middle of the park

1960
01:45:20,760 --> 01:45:24,320
Speaker 1: and a shock DJ drove a steamroller over it. Somebody

1961
01:45:24,320 --> 01:45:26,599
Speaker 1: blew something up, and that kind of thing used to matter.

1962
01:45:26,880 --> 01:45:29,320
Speaker 1: You know, you could just change the entire music industry

1963
01:45:29,320 --> 01:45:33,960
Speaker 1: off of a slovenly Chicago guy in a ballpark doing

1964
01:45:34,080 --> 01:45:38,479
Speaker 1: something insane an insane period in the most insane country.

1965
01:45:40,000 --> 01:45:42,599
Speaker 1: But the title revamp failed to pull people into theaters,

1966
01:45:42,960 --> 01:45:46,559
Speaker 1: and the film recouped only two million of its twenty

1967
01:45:46,600 --> 01:45:51,000
Speaker 1: million budget twenty million in nineteen seventy nine. Money. Yeah, holy,

1968
01:45:51,720 --> 01:45:56,120
Speaker 1: that's either like the largest that's like the largest embezzlement

1969
01:45:56,200 --> 01:45:59,880
Speaker 1: fraud in history has to be. Yeah, that's that's nine

1970
01:46:00,200 --> 01:46:05,080
Speaker 1: one million today. Yeah, man, that must have been a

1971
01:46:05,120 --> 01:46:07,920
Speaker 1: lot of coke. Adding to its historic pedigree, Can't Stop

1972
01:46:07,960 --> 01:46:10,240
Speaker 1: the Music also became the first film to win a

1973
01:46:10,240 --> 01:46:13,280
Speaker 1: Golden Raspberry Award. The Village People's reputation took a hit

1974
01:46:13,280 --> 01:46:16,200
Speaker 1: following this venture, and the group started to splinter. Randy

1975
01:46:16,280 --> 01:46:19,240
Speaker 1: Jones resigned, only to be replaced with another faux cowboy.

1976
01:46:19,840 --> 01:46:22,240
Speaker 1: The group then attempted to distance themselves from disco by

1977
01:46:22,240 --> 01:46:24,240
Speaker 1: taking out full page ads and the music trades to

1978
01:46:24,240 --> 01:46:28,439
Speaker 1: showcase their new glam rock look about ten years too

1979
01:46:28,520 --> 01:46:31,840
Speaker 1: Late Yep, and tease a new album which would become

1980
01:46:31,880 --> 01:46:35,240
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one's Renaissance. It would prove not to be

1981
01:46:35,360 --> 01:46:38,160
Speaker 1: the titular rebirth for the band, and this new sound

1982
01:46:38,240 --> 01:46:40,880
Speaker 1: was quickly dumped, and by nineteen eighty five, the Village

1983
01:46:40,880 --> 01:46:43,960
Speaker 1: People had decided to part ways. Since they were, as

1984
01:46:44,040 --> 01:46:47,679
Speaker 1: previously noted, salaried players, they reportedly all got normal jobs,

1985
01:46:48,080 --> 01:46:51,400
Speaker 1: though sadly not still in cost to just a tremendous

1986
01:46:51,439 --> 01:46:53,320
Speaker 1: image to like you know. One of them work in

1987
01:46:53,360 --> 01:46:56,680
Speaker 1: the Kim's video as like a short shorts butch.

1988
01:46:56,520 --> 01:46:57,839
Speaker 3: Cop a call center.

1989
01:46:58,040 --> 01:47:01,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. Glenn Hughes, the the Leather Biker Daddy worked in

1990
01:47:01,760 --> 01:47:05,480
Speaker 1: a camera store. Construction worker. David Hodo worked as a bartender.

1991
01:47:06,920 --> 01:47:10,160
Speaker 1: Alex in the Navy Guy related to the nine to

1992
01:47:10,160 --> 01:47:13,599
Speaker 1: eleven Guy was working at an office, and Philippe Rose,

1993
01:47:13,880 --> 01:47:19,080
Speaker 1: the allegedly part Lakota Native American Guy, was working as

1994
01:47:19,080 --> 01:47:22,000
Speaker 1: a secretary. Victor Willis recorded a solo album in nineteen

1995
01:47:22,000 --> 01:47:27,479
Speaker 1: seventy nine that went unreleased until twenty fifteen. Wild The

1996
01:47:27,520 --> 01:47:30,080
Speaker 1: band ultimately reformed in nineteen eighty seven as a legacy act,

1997
01:47:30,160 --> 01:47:33,280
Speaker 1: hitting the oldies and bar Mitzvah circuit. One of the

1998
01:47:33,320 --> 01:47:36,719
Speaker 1: sources interviewed in spins oral History of Ymca is Roger Bennett,

1999
01:47:36,840 --> 01:47:39,720
Speaker 1: co author of the book bar Mitzvah Disco, in which

2000
01:47:39,720 --> 01:47:42,760
Speaker 1: he offers this choice line, Ymca is the single most

2001
01:47:42,800 --> 01:47:46,360
Speaker 1: important song to hit the Jewish religion since Haffnagila. This

2002
01:47:46,439 --> 01:47:50,160
Speaker 1: is because of its popularity at bar Mitzvah's obviously, sadly,

2003
01:47:50,200 --> 01:47:52,760
Speaker 1: the man behind all of it, Jacques Morelli, became one

2004
01:47:52,760 --> 01:47:54,920
Speaker 1: of the victims of the AIDS epidemic when he died

2005
01:47:54,920 --> 01:47:58,679
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one as what was described in Goldmine

2006
01:47:58,720 --> 01:48:01,920
Speaker 1: Magazine as a bit and ailing recluse at the age

2007
01:48:01,960 --> 01:48:06,559
Speaker 1: of forty four. There's a great expression in Britain, where

2008
01:48:06,560 --> 01:48:10,200
Speaker 1: there's a hit, there's a writ, meaning a legal writ,

2009
01:48:10,479 --> 01:48:14,040
Speaker 1: and that is indeed the case for ymca case, get it,

2010
01:48:14,560 --> 01:48:18,840
Speaker 1: That's all Jordan Baby, although in this situation it is

2011
01:48:18,880 --> 01:48:22,200
Speaker 1: somewhat justified. Victor Willis, the lead singer of the Village People.

2012
01:48:22,320 --> 01:48:25,400
Speaker 1: During their glory days, co wrote over thirty of their songs,

2013
01:48:25,400 --> 01:48:29,040
Speaker 1: including It's Like in the Navy, Macho Man, Milkshake, the

2014
01:48:29,120 --> 01:48:33,360
Speaker 1: Other One, San Francisco, I've already forgotten the parenthetical, and

2015
01:48:33,400 --> 01:48:36,960
Speaker 1: Go West. But as a salaried contractor, he'd essentially signed

2016
01:48:36,960 --> 01:48:39,680
Speaker 1: away his rights as a writer for hire by the

2017
01:48:39,760 --> 01:48:43,840
Speaker 1: music publishing company. It was a bad and sadly all

2018
01:48:43,880 --> 01:48:46,960
Speaker 1: too common rookie move in the music industry, but he

2019
01:48:47,040 --> 01:48:49,439
Speaker 1: ultimately got the rights to these songs back after winning

2020
01:48:49,600 --> 01:48:52,400
Speaker 1: a landmark ruling from a court in twenty twelve that

2021
01:48:52,479 --> 01:48:56,080
Speaker 1: allowed artists to reclaim their masters and publishing rights from

2022
01:48:56,120 --> 01:48:59,599
Speaker 1: their record labels and music publishers after thirty five years.

2023
01:49:00,600 --> 01:49:03,639
Speaker 1: Then a year later, Willis sued for a larger percentage

2024
01:49:03,640 --> 01:49:06,519
Speaker 1: of the songwrits on thirteen hits he'd been entitled to

2025
01:49:06,600 --> 01:49:09,599
Speaker 1: a third, with management Jacques Moraley and his business partner

2026
01:49:09,640 --> 01:49:14,120
Speaker 1: Henry Bilolo a Belulu sharing the rest. Their claim was

2027
01:49:14,120 --> 01:49:16,599
Speaker 1: that they'd written the songs in French and Willis merely

2028
01:49:16,640 --> 01:49:19,960
Speaker 1: translated them into English. Classic line change a word, get

2029
01:49:19,960 --> 01:49:20,760
Speaker 1: a third.

2030
01:49:21,200 --> 01:49:22,240
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, you're right.

2031
01:49:22,600 --> 01:49:24,840
Speaker 1: Willis successfully argued that he was the sole writer for

2032
01:49:24,880 --> 01:49:27,679
Speaker 1: the lyrics, entitling him to fifty percent of the prophets.

2033
01:49:28,320 --> 01:49:31,160
Speaker 1: His ex wife. As we've mentioned, Cosby Show actor Felicia

2034
01:49:31,200 --> 01:49:34,280
Speaker 1: Rashad reportedly testified in court that she witnessed Willis writing

2035
01:49:34,320 --> 01:49:37,680
Speaker 1: these songs at home in What I Cannot Wait to

2036
01:49:37,760 --> 01:49:44,200
Speaker 1: be a moment memorialized in a cheesy biopic Ryan Murphy, Yeah, American, No,

2037
01:49:44,280 --> 01:49:46,880
Speaker 1: I wouldn't to be fully po faced and serious, get

2038
01:49:46,920 --> 01:49:48,720
Speaker 1: like Christopher Nolan to do it, but still have all

2039
01:49:48,720 --> 01:49:52,400
Speaker 1: that cliche both from Bohemian Rhapsody. Like he's like, they're

2040
01:49:52,400 --> 01:49:54,400
Speaker 1: like watching the news and winding with a drink, and

2041
01:49:54,400 --> 01:49:57,439
Speaker 1: they're like they see like a navy recruitment and he's like,

2042
01:49:57,800 --> 01:50:03,920
Speaker 1: wait a minute, in the they want seamen, whips out

2043
01:50:03,920 --> 01:50:09,320
Speaker 1: a notebook, furiously starts writing Felicia Whippan to Felicia, what's

2044
01:50:09,400 --> 01:50:12,479
Speaker 1: going on. She's alarmed at first what's going on? But

2045
01:50:12,560 --> 01:50:16,719
Speaker 1: she doesn't realize that inspiration had struck at that exact moment.

2046
01:50:16,880 --> 01:50:20,280
Speaker 1: Then we tastefully fade into a montage of them in

2047
01:50:20,280 --> 01:50:23,600
Speaker 1: the studio recording, and then that tastefully transitions into a

2048
01:50:23,720 --> 01:50:27,639
Speaker 1: third scene of them performing a live preferably at Live Aid.

2049
01:50:27,680 --> 01:50:31,360
Speaker 1: If this didn't happen, we lie because none of this

2050
01:50:31,439 --> 01:50:35,479
Speaker 1: matters anymore. This movie will make one billion dollars. It

2051
01:50:35,560 --> 01:50:40,200
Speaker 1: probably would anyway, presumably with his massive financial windfall from

2052
01:50:40,240 --> 01:50:42,719
Speaker 1: the song royalties. Willis obtained the rights to the Village

2053
01:50:42,760 --> 01:50:45,400
Speaker 1: People name in twenty seventeen and assembled a group that

2054
01:50:45,439 --> 01:50:49,040
Speaker 1: has been touring intermittently ever since. He has proven to

2055
01:50:49,080 --> 01:50:52,320
Speaker 1: be a loyal steward to the song. When the YMCA

2056
01:50:52,400 --> 01:50:55,799
Speaker 1: rebranded into The Y in the twenty tens, Willis swiftly

2057
01:50:55,840 --> 01:50:58,280
Speaker 1: issued a statement in forming fans this change would not

2058
01:50:58,400 --> 01:51:03,599
Speaker 1: impact the song or the days decisive leadership, leadership we

2059
01:51:03,720 --> 01:51:06,760
Speaker 1: truly need more of in this country. YMCA has of

2060
01:51:06,960 --> 01:51:09,479
Speaker 1: course been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and yes,

2061
01:51:10,200 --> 01:51:13,639
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress, in a class that included Doctor

2062
01:51:13,720 --> 01:51:16,439
Speaker 1: Dre's debut album, The Chronic, Whitney Houston's version of I

2063
01:51:16,439 --> 01:51:19,000
Speaker 1: Will Always Love You, the original Broadway cast recording of

2064
01:51:19,040 --> 01:51:22,880
Speaker 1: Fiddler on the Roof, Dusty Springfield's landmark album Dusty and Memphis,

2065
01:51:23,080 --> 01:51:26,960
Speaker 1: and Witchit Alignment by Glenn Campbell. Truly, that's a good class,

2066
01:51:26,960 --> 01:51:30,920
Speaker 1: truly an astounding cross section of American music there. I

2067
01:51:30,920 --> 01:51:33,919
Speaker 1: guess British if you're Dusty Springfield. But she was couseplaying

2068
01:51:33,920 --> 01:51:35,479
Speaker 1: as an American, so we count.

2069
01:51:35,280 --> 01:51:36,280
Speaker 3: That in Memphis.

2070
01:51:36,760 --> 01:51:39,479
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know another queer icon man. I'd love

2071
01:51:39,520 --> 01:51:41,800
Speaker 1: to bring up the fact very much Dusty Springfield was

2072
01:51:41,840 --> 01:51:44,800
Speaker 1: in a relationship with Norman Tanega, who is the woman

2073
01:51:44,840 --> 01:51:47,360
Speaker 1: who wrote the novelty hit walk in My Cat Named

2074
01:51:47,439 --> 01:51:50,920
Speaker 1: Dog and more recently in like the past decade and

2075
01:51:51,000 --> 01:51:54,840
Speaker 1: change the theme song for what We Do in the Shadows,

2076
01:51:54,920 --> 01:51:57,800
Speaker 1: which is called Your You're Dead.

2077
01:51:58,120 --> 01:52:02,479
Speaker 2: I had a dream of writing a Dusty Springfield biopic script. Yeah,

2078
01:52:02,520 --> 01:52:05,479
Speaker 2: to try to pitch to Adele. I didn't do that,

2079
01:52:06,360 --> 01:52:07,000
Speaker 2: did none of that.

2080
01:52:07,200 --> 01:52:09,920
Speaker 1: It's like me with my CIA Acid LSD pitch.

2081
01:52:10,040 --> 01:52:11,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, we gotta do that. Though.

2082
01:52:11,600 --> 01:52:14,360
Speaker 1: Since nineteen ninety six, YMC has played at Yankee Stadium.

2083
01:52:14,360 --> 01:52:17,599
Speaker 1: When the ground's crew dredges the infield in the fifth inning,

2084
01:52:18,120 --> 01:52:22,560
Speaker 1: what a rich pedestrian task of menial labor to immortalize

2085
01:52:22,560 --> 01:52:25,080
Speaker 1: with that song. The crew stops to perform the arm

2086
01:52:25,120 --> 01:52:27,680
Speaker 1: gestures at the appropriate time as the crowd follows a

2087
01:52:27,720 --> 01:52:33,320
Speaker 1: long America's pastime field of dreams, say it ain't so Joe, etc.

2088
01:52:34,520 --> 01:52:37,360
Speaker 1: This is just torture. YMCA has played in outer space

2089
01:52:37,360 --> 01:52:39,920
Speaker 1: in two thousands, a wake up song for astronauts on

2090
01:52:40,000 --> 01:52:42,960
Speaker 1: day eleven of the Space Shuttle Aquarius's visit to the

2091
01:52:42,960 --> 01:52:45,840
Speaker 1: International Space Station, well after the novelty of being in

2092
01:52:45,880 --> 01:52:51,000
Speaker 1: space wore the off. He's also used by Donald Trump

2093
01:52:51,040 --> 01:52:52,800
Speaker 1: to close out many of his rallies in the twenty

2094
01:52:52,840 --> 01:52:57,160
Speaker 1: twenty campaign trail, doing a sort of he rhythmic arms

2095
01:52:57,280 --> 01:53:02,080
Speaker 1: lowered swaying that I just find pulsively hypnotic. Yeah, yeah,

2096
01:53:02,120 --> 01:53:05,280
Speaker 1: like a bird of paradise if they were just a

2097
01:53:05,400 --> 01:53:11,880
Speaker 1: dumpy dump. Initially, Victor Willis was quite fine with this,

2098
01:53:11,920 --> 01:53:13,599
Speaker 1: more or less saying that it was good for business,

2099
01:53:13,600 --> 01:53:15,840
Speaker 1: and then he reversed course following the Black Lives Matter

2100
01:53:15,920 --> 01:53:18,920
Speaker 1: protests in the summer of twenty twenty and demanded that

2101
01:53:18,960 --> 01:53:22,280
Speaker 1: Trump stop, though like a true businessman, he later softened

2102
01:53:22,280 --> 01:53:24,680
Speaker 1: his stance. The song was played over loud speakers as

2103
01:53:24,720 --> 01:53:27,800
Speaker 1: Donald Trump boarded Air Force One on January twenty, twenty

2104
01:53:27,840 --> 01:53:31,040
Speaker 1: twenty one, as he departed Washington. Prior to the inauguration

2105
01:53:31,280 --> 01:53:35,360
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden. Nothing remarkable has happened since.

2106
01:53:37,240 --> 01:53:38,840
Speaker 2: Well, I think we finally run out of things to

2107
01:53:38,840 --> 01:53:42,000
Speaker 2: say about YMCA, But I'd like to end by humoring

2108
01:53:42,000 --> 01:53:45,760
Speaker 2: the group's stubborn insistence that this song is opened to

2109
01:53:45,840 --> 01:53:49,800
Speaker 2: multiple interpretations. As David Hodo says that the close of

2110
01:53:49,840 --> 01:53:54,160
Speaker 2: Spin's incredible oral history, the real genius of YMCA is

2111
01:53:54,160 --> 01:53:59,280
Speaker 2: that it can be taken anyway you want. Phrasing right, Yeah,

2112
01:53:59,520 --> 01:54:01,439
Speaker 2: that phrase I didn't occur to me until left I

2113
01:54:01,479 --> 01:54:03,920
Speaker 2: said it aloud. We were once on a TV show

2114
01:54:03,960 --> 01:54:06,519
Speaker 2: in England and the hostess said, now, this is a

2115
01:54:06,520 --> 01:54:09,479
Speaker 2: gay song, isn't it? And I said, no, Actually, it's

2116
01:54:09,479 --> 01:54:13,479
Speaker 2: a Christian song the Young Men's Christian Association. I mean, honey,

2117
01:54:13,520 --> 01:54:18,640
Speaker 2: isn't it obvious? I mean, I think his tongue is

2118
01:54:18,960 --> 01:54:20,200
Speaker 2: firmly in cheek there.

2119
01:54:20,400 --> 01:54:22,360
Speaker 1: I want him to say it like Dean Martin would have,

2120
01:54:22,640 --> 01:54:24,320
Speaker 1: like almost in a racist way.

2121
01:54:24,720 --> 01:54:27,439
Speaker 3: Oh honey, honey, like like.

2122
01:54:27,360 --> 01:54:30,360
Speaker 1: Elvis in a racial Elvis way. I mean, honey, isn't

2123
01:54:30,360 --> 01:54:35,320
Speaker 1: it all ViOS? Oh? Ice, cubes clinking and glass.

2124
01:54:37,960 --> 01:54:40,320
Speaker 2: My personal favorite reading of the song is from a

2125
01:54:40,320 --> 01:54:44,480
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen piece in Vice by Josh Baines called, appropriately enough,

2126
01:54:45,000 --> 01:54:48,680
Speaker 2: Hey everyone in Rodney Dangerfield voice.

2127
01:54:50,320 --> 01:54:54,720
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, we're all going to get laid. Yeah, hey everyone.

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Speaker 2: YMCA by the Village People is actually really really good.

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01:54:58,160 --> 01:55:00,800
Speaker 2: That's the headline. Of course, this was for I like

2130
01:55:00,840 --> 01:55:04,000
Speaker 2: to quote it. Now think about it. YMCA is an

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01:55:04,040 --> 01:55:08,760
Speaker 2: unbridled ode to masculine support networks. Young man, there's no

2132
01:55:08,880 --> 01:55:11,920
Speaker 2: need to feel down, I said, young man, pick yourself

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01:55:12,000 --> 01:55:15,520
Speaker 2: up off the ground. They sing with utmost force and feeling.

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01:55:16,080 --> 01:55:19,200
Speaker 2: It's that direct young man that gets me. We've all

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01:55:19,240 --> 01:55:22,680
Speaker 2: been the skin and miserable young man they're addressing, and

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01:55:22,720 --> 01:55:25,160
Speaker 2: when you're that young man, it's hard to ask for help.

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01:55:25,760 --> 01:55:26,920
Speaker 1: The Village People know that.

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01:55:27,360 --> 01:55:31,160
Speaker 2: They understand that, because they understand that, they're going to

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01:55:31,200 --> 01:55:33,920
Speaker 2: offer you a helping hand. There's nothing they want and

2140
01:55:33,960 --> 01:55:37,800
Speaker 2: returned but your company, because they know all you really

2141
01:55:37,800 --> 01:55:38,919
Speaker 2: want is company.

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01:55:40,080 --> 01:55:43,160
Speaker 1: That's stupid, and I'm going to offer the chance to

2143
01:55:43,320 --> 01:55:47,720
Speaker 1: actually rebutt that with an even stupider music critic cliche,

2144
01:55:47,760 --> 01:55:53,000
Speaker 1: and that is YMCA exemplifies the PMA, the positive mental

2145
01:55:53,000 --> 01:55:56,960
Speaker 1: attitude closely associated with the New York hardcore movement via

2146
01:55:57,000 --> 01:56:00,640
Speaker 1: the DC band Bad Brains, who had read the treatise

2147
01:56:00,720 --> 01:56:03,680
Speaker 1: Think and Grow Rich authored in nineteen thirty seven by

2148
01:56:03,760 --> 01:56:07,480
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill. This book cause its that a man's mind

2149
01:56:07,560 --> 01:56:10,120
Speaker 1: is like a garden and that what you plant in

2150
01:56:10,160 --> 01:56:12,440
Speaker 1: there will grow. And so the attitude of having a

2151
01:56:12,520 --> 01:56:16,160
Speaker 1: can do positive mental attitude became a rallying cry for

2152
01:56:16,200 --> 01:56:21,240
Speaker 1: the band, best exemplified in the song PMA Now. There

2153
01:56:21,320 --> 01:56:24,200
Speaker 1: are a number of bands from the New York City

2154
01:56:24,360 --> 01:56:29,440
Speaker 1: hardcore tradition, because, as you will know, Jordan, although forming

2155
01:56:29,480 --> 01:56:32,000
Speaker 1: in DC, Bad Brains, did come to New York to

2156
01:56:32,000 --> 01:56:37,800
Speaker 1: perform at the legendary Venue two A and also cbgbi's

2157
01:56:38,480 --> 01:56:41,080
Speaker 1: and they influenced a lot of hardcore people there, most

2158
01:56:41,120 --> 01:56:46,320
Speaker 1: notably the Cromax founded by criminal Harley Flanagan and guy

2159
01:56:46,360 --> 01:56:49,120
Speaker 1: who was super into being Harry Krishna and still Is

2160
01:56:49,200 --> 01:56:53,680
Speaker 1: and vegan John Joseph. That band itself was later famous

2161
01:56:53,720 --> 01:56:56,160
Speaker 1: for an altercation in which Harley Flanagan broke into a

2162
01:56:56,200 --> 01:57:01,320
Speaker 1: Cromax show and bit and or stabbed John Joseph. That

2163
01:57:01,480 --> 01:57:05,320
Speaker 1: was not PMA. Turnstile, a hardcore band of the moment,

2164
01:57:06,440 --> 01:57:10,360
Speaker 1: recently repurposed Sylvester Slice to loans thank you for letting

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01:57:10,400 --> 01:57:15,880
Speaker 1: Me be myself into a PMA aligned message, So people

2166
01:57:15,880 --> 01:57:18,240
Speaker 1: please be on the lookout for my new article will

2167
01:57:18,280 --> 01:57:20,360
Speaker 1: be coming out it maybe Pitchfork or Who Gives a

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01:57:20,360 --> 01:57:25,280
Speaker 1: Shit really medium, maybe called y Ymca is actually a

2169
01:57:25,320 --> 01:57:28,760
Speaker 1: proto hardcore punk song and you should love it, or

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01:57:28,800 --> 01:57:30,680
Speaker 1: something by me.

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01:57:32,920 --> 01:57:35,360
Speaker 2: How's that for a bit of non toxic masculinity.

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01:57:35,720 --> 01:57:38,440
Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and

2173
01:57:38,480 --> 01:57:47,120
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Runtalg. We'll catch you next time. Woo. Too

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01:57:47,160 --> 01:57:50,640
Speaker 1: much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive

2175
01:57:50,640 --> 01:57:52,960
Speaker 1: producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog.

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01:57:53,120 --> 01:57:56,080
Speaker 2: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

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01:57:56,240 --> 01:57:59,320
Speaker 1: The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan Runtalk

2178
01:57:59,360 --> 01:58:02,360
Speaker 1: and Alex High, with original music by Seth Applebaum and

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01:58:02,440 --> 01:58:04,840
Speaker 1: the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard,

2180
01:58:04,920 --> 01:58:06,480
Speaker 1: please subscribe and leave us a review.

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01:58:06,760 --> 01:58:11,080
Speaker 2: For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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01:58:11,280 --> 01:58:13,000
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.