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Wendy O. Williams: The Shocking Final Act of a Shock Rock Provocateur · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The story of Wendyo Williams
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is shocking. She was a sex show dominatrix turned rock
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and roll front woman who blew up cadillacs on stage.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: She also smashed TV sets with a sledgehammer and cut
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: guitars in half with a chainsaw, and she did so
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: with nothing but electrical tape or shaving cream covering her
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: bare breasts. Her stage show was so violent and so
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: sexual that she was banned from clubs and blacklisted by promoters.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: In one city, she was beaten so badly by local
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: police that she suffered a broken nose in a concussion.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Like our best rock and roll outlaws, Wendyo Williams was
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: provocative to her core, as provocative as a comma. Actually,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: although I'm not sure I can go as far as
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to say that she made great music, did she did
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: she not? I don't know, But I do know that
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the music at the top of the show here that
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: was not great music. That was a preset loop from
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: a melotron called times Square titillation. MK one. I played
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: All My Life by KC and Jojo. And why would
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of Joe to see
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: adjacent cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: number one song in America on April sixth, nineteen ninety eight,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And that was the day that Wendy O. Williams's life
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: came to a tragic end in the woods of a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: small Connecticut town, worlds away from the urban mayhem that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: defined her career for so long. On this side episode
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: exploding Cadillacs, sledgehammers, chainsaws, sex, violence, rock and roll, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Wendy o'williams, I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace Land.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: From a young age, Wendy Orlean Williams knew that her
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: life would be an uphill battle because the life that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: she wanted to live was by definition or resistance. She
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: felt no obligation to be pulled or to play Kate,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: nor did she desire to be pacified as a mindless consumer.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Her life was a life of revolt. But Webster, New York,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the town outside Rochester where she grew up, was built
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to quell uprisings of the mind, the body, in spirit.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: A nonconformist like Wendy had the odds stacked against her
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: from the jump, and the battle that she would fight
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: for her entire life began where many battles begin at home.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Mitch Rider's voice screamed through the turntable's lone speaker, loud
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and distorted her. It was as inspiring and life affirming
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: as the rest of the house was dull. And before
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you could say vfe five five four full fung, this
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: small bedroom in sleepy upstate New York had been transformed
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: into a gritty street scene. Mitch Rider's Detroit wheels were
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: turning fast and loose, kicking up dirt, coughing of smoke,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: splattering the canvas of postwar America with a lust for life,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and sixteen year old Wendy O. Williams was throwing herself
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: around the room, singing along into a hair brush. She
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: may have been physically here in her family home, but
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in her mind she was somewhere else. A place where
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you weren't told what to think, or what to do
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: or what to buy, A place where you weren't defined
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: by your automobile or your television set. Or even by
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the clothes you wore. The only problem was that place
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: was temporary, at least for now. The Devil with a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Blue Dress forty five was only halfway done when the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: door to her bedroom suddenly flung open. Big rumbling footsteps
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: announced the arrival of Wendy's father. He stormed across the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: room to the turntable, and he tore the needle from
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the record. He ripped the record off the platter, and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: with his hands firmly gripping the forty five on either side,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: he snapped it. Imagine that. Imagine you're just chilling in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: your bedroom back in the nineties or whenever, early two thousands,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and you're staring up at your Cranberry's poster on the wall,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: or playing Liz Fair's Exile and Guyville on your stereo.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is. Maybe had a Depeche Mode poster. Maybe
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you're listening to nine Inch Nails is downward spiral at
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: high volume, whatever it was. Imagine that your dad or
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: your mom breaks down your door, tears the poster off
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  Speaker 1: your wall, rips the CD from your CD player, forbids
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you from listening to your music in their house, forbids
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  Speaker 1: you from doing the kinds of things a teenager is
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: supposed to do, which is, in a word, to rebel.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Wendy O. Williams may not have equated listening to Mitch
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Ryder in the mid nineteen sixties with rebellion, and she
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: simply may have just liked the raw sounds of the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: rock and roll song more than the dulcea tones of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: another Mitch, Mitch Miller, or whatever the hell her parents
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: were into. Regardless who was an early indicator that CDIO
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Williams was different. Just like another incident a year prior,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: when she was arrested in town for sunbathing in the nude.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The goal of the arresting officer, like her father's goal,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: had been to shame her, to put her in a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: box just like everyone else. But it didn't work. The shame,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the arrests, the broken record, even the prescription drugs that
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: her parents tried to get her to take, nothing could
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: silence Wendy's opposing force because there was no other choice.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: That was a reality that Wendy now made crystal clear.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I'd rather be dead than be zombified in the world
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you're living in. This is what Wendy allegedly told her
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: parents right before she left home at just sixteen. She
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: was a runaway, a nomad, determined never to look back.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: She hitched a ride out west, landing in Colorado and
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: then south to Florida. She traveled abroad to Europe, finding
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: work as a bartender and a dancer. She bounced around
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: like this for years, and in her downtime she combed
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the pages of Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience, as well
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: as books on tantric, yoga, and any and all transmissions
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: from the fringes of so called normal society. But life
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: as a non conformist had its struggles. For one, it
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: didn't pay enough, so Wendy stole. She used counterfeit money,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and when she was caught, arrested, given a slap on
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the wrist, and released, the authorities sent her packing back
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: home to the United States, just another child lost looking
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: for people like her, the freaks out there willfully violating
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: cultural taboos, the artists and eccentrics, truly authentic and truly
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: transgressive types. In nineteen seventy six, at twenty seven years old,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Wendy O. Williams landed in New York City when Times
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Square was about as authentic and trans aggressive as it got.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Boston had the Combat Zone, and New York City had
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Times Square, a spot for drug sex and all other
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: manner of illicit activity. Too shocking and to pray for
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: polite society. Here was ground zero for prostitutes and pimps.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Here were peep shows, derelics, and dealers. And here was
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: where Wendy O Williams met the man who had changed
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: her life forever, Captain Kink.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: In the bowels of a rundown burlesque call, where the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: neon lights guide the way to the throbbing sites and
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: sounds of urban titillation.
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  Speaker 1: It's Captain Kink Sex Fantasy theater.
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  Speaker 2: Watch is Captain Kink and his true per furious performers
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  Speaker 2: saved the day by making your deepest, most hardcore fantasies
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  Speaker 2: come to life. There running down Broadway, ducking inside a
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: crumbling theater with sticky fours and even stickier seat.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: It's a bird, It's a plane. It's Captain Kink. I
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: shit you not. Captain Kink was the dude's name. Captain
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Kink was the gnome desmut of Rod Swenson, a Yale
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: graduate who told the Establishment that they could stick their
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: masters of fine arts degree up their tight, disapproving ass,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and then went and put his education to use on
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the mean streets of nineteen seventies Times Square. It was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Rod aka Captain Kink who had the last laugh, however,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and by nineteen seventy six he was laughing all the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: way to the bank. Captain Kink's Sex Fantasy Theater, a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: live show in which performers staged absurd comic vignettes that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: included scenes of live sex. It became a local sensation
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: in the Rundown theater that Rod rented. It seated one
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen. Soon he was selling out all one
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty seats, five shows a day, seven days
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  Speaker 1: a week, lot of Kink. Now, true to his production's name,
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  Speaker 1: Rod did all this by exploiting other people's fantasies and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: their kinks. But when it comes to kinks, you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: it takes all kinds. Some people like to be humiliated,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: some like to do the humiliating, some like pain, some
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: like feet, some like simple pleasures like butter and they're
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: ass and lollipops in their mouth. I don't know, man.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And there's also grown men who like to pretend that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: they're babies. I'm serious. Zeth, who works here at Double Loves,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: used to own a retail store that's sold, among other things,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: baby stuff. Long story, and he told me once about
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: these dudes who would call and get a female employee
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: on the line and ask do you have cloth diapers?
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And when the female employee replied yes they did, the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: man would ask for details like what materials are they
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: made of? And how much liquid do the diapers hold?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And what about diaper creams? Can you describe how you
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: would apply those? So I'm about kidding. Zeth told all
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of this to me. Anyways, I'm digressing big time here. Anyhow,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: just finish the story. After being told by the employee
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: how to apply said creams and how much liquid a
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: diaper could hold, and even more detailed instructions on cleaning
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: soiled diapers, I know, gross, And after having done all
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: this while simultaneously giving the false impression that they were
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: placing a huge phone order in the neighborhood of two
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: or three thousand dollars, the dude with the kink about
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: shitting their pants or whatever would suddenly get off of
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: his kink, and then the call would just abruptly end. Anyways, kinks.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: They come in all kinds, That's what I'm saying. And
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: back in the seventies, you could get off on this
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: or particularly any other type of kink for a price
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  Speaker 1: over in Lower Manhattan at another experimental theater group called
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the Project. But at Captain Kink's there was no pretending
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: your baby type stuff. There was just the newly arrived
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Wendyo Williams, who had joined Captain Kink's cast as the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: troop's resident dominatrix. She was blonde, she was hot, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: she got off on getting other people off, and she
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: got off knowing that what she did pissed other people
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: off as well. And when people pissed her off, when
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: some paying customer decided to put his hands on her,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: she got off of the pain that she was able
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to dole out on them, being a true dominatrix in
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: all her clinched fist meeting the saddle shaped area of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: some macho fucko's nose, the nasal root as it were,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: hearing the bone or the cartilage or whatever was in
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: there crackle and splinter and collapse, and watching the blood
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: spurt and then trickle down. Macho fucko hears quivering lip
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: well that intoxicating mix of sex and violence had helped
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: boost Wendy O. Williams's notoriety, and the more her notoriety grew,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the more she irritated the status quo, which is, well,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that's what really made her happy. And when the looming
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Democratic Convention in nineteen seventy six put press pressure on
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the New York Police Department to clean up the streets,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: an anti vice campaign resulted in Wendy being arrested eight
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: times in a twelve week period, but she didn't care
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: she was handcuffed and hauled off to a holding cell
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: because it was validation that what she was doing was working.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: She was getting under people's skin. But still, Rod Swenson
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: aka Captain Kink, could see the writing on the wall.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It was only a matter of time before their show
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: would be shut down for good, before Times Square went
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: from the Combat Zone to Disneyland. So Rod and Wendy
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: needed a more legitimate business venture through which they could
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: continue to kick against the pricks, so to speak, and
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: they only had to look down the road to know
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: what that would be. In the Bowery, punk rock was
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: taking shape at CBGB's, but what came next would have
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: made Wendy's Mitch Ryder loving sixteen year old self proud
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: because she was about to become a singer and a band,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: but not just any band of band that would push
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: punk and rock and roll to a new extreme of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: violence and sexuality, A band that would become, by definition,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to the resistance these days. Peer sixty two on the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Hudson River in New York City is the site of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a skate park, a carousel, and a lush entry garden
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: designed by one of the city's pre eminent public garden designers,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Miller. Another word said is, if New York's Tourism
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: agency is to be believed, it's a family friendly space.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Back on September twelfth, nineteen eighty, Peer sixty two was
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the site of chaos, violence, and near total destruction. Let
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: me set the seat along the edge of the pier,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a makeshift concert stage five feet high and built out
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of plywood. Screaming fans crowd the perimeter and watch from
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the rooftops of nearby buildings as a helicopter touches down.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Inside the helicopter are the members of one of the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: hottest punk bands in town at the moment. The Plasmatics.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: One by one, the Plasmatics emerge in their typical eye
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: catching guitire. The guitarist Richie stops, where's a white French
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: maid's outfit? With a white tutu to match His mohawk
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is inspired by Travis Bickle, who four years later still
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: haunts the filth in the scum of this city. Another guitarist,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: West Beach, is dressed in a tuxedo with fat streaks
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: of EyeBlack drawn across his cheeks, like a linebacker ready
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to eat shit on the gridiron. No one in the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: crowd knows that the instruments that they're about to play
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: are sheet and disposable, a kind that are made to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: be destroyed, nor does anyone watching. No that's sitting just
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: beneath the stage are giant oil drums, cut in half
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and filled to the brim with gasoline, waiting for a spark.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: The band plays hard and fast. They're like the Ramon's
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: on speed if you can imagine that. After a few songs,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: their lead singer, Wendy o' williams, her blonde hair highlighted
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: with streaks of shocking pink, puts on a motorcycle helmet
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and runs off stage to an idling Cadillac with its
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: driver's side door ripped off. She slips behind the wheel
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: and feels the engine purring. She puts it in gear.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: The crowd roars. The Cadillac surges forward, approaching a plywood
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: ramp that leads up to the stage. The caddy gets closer,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and Wendy's bandmates are scattering. Now she sinks her foot
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: into the gas penal even closer, and now she bails
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: from the caddy, and as her body hits the pier,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the car races up the ramp just as the fuses
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: lit and the oil drums filled with gasoline exploded. The
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Cadillac soars into the air, passing through a giant fireball
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that is now engulfing the stage and all of the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: band's instruments, and when it lands, it does so with
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a thunderous crash, right into the Hudson River. One year prior,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine, at the Palladium on Fourteenth Street,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the plasmatics blew up a Cadillac on stage for the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: first time. It nearly killed Wendy Williams. What happened was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: they didn't think to tie down the hood, so when
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the charges went off, there was the expected explosion, the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: fire and the smoke. But then the Caddy's hood just
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: rocketed into the air and it landed with a thud
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: right next to where Wendy stood. But being nearly flattened
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: by the smoldering hood of a Cadillac car, it didn't
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: frighten Wendy, not in the least. She and the man
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: formerly known as Captain kink Rod Swenson had designed the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: plasmatics to be as extreme and as provocative as possible.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: This wasn't Keith Moon driving a Rolls Royce into a pool.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: This was blowing up Caddies and Mercedes Benzes and Mustangs
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and Chevy Novas. This was smashing TV sets with a sledgehammer.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: This was slicing a Less Paul in half with a chainsaw.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: This was shooting down a lighting rig with a sowd
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: off shotgun. Actually there were blanks in the shotgun and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the lighting rig was rigged to fall on cube. But
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: still get the point. But nevertheless, Wendy did all these
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: things live on stage, night after night, taking great pleasure
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and destroying objects that indicated one's social or economic status. Well, actually,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the Less Pauls. They were real Less Pauls. They were
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: like cheap knockoff models Pats to look like Les Paul's,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: which was the point. Fuck your expensive guitar and your materialist,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: kill your television, blow up your fancy autumn. The Plasmatics
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: led by the sexually provocative Wendyo Williams, who often took
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the stage in little more than a pair of skin
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: tight leather pants and pieces of electrical tape over her nipples,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and who simulated sex acts with a sledgehammer, thus blurring
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the line between sex and violence. The Plasmatics were truly
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a non conforming, anti commercial, anti capitalist force, and there
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: are plenty of bands out there who claimed to be
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: on a similar trip. Take a band I happen to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: like a lot, The Strokes, for instance. It's great to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: see the Strokes out there, melting faces at Coachella and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: using their platform to hard sell a politically charged message
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of non conformity. But if I want to go buy
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a ticket to see the Strokes, it's gonna cost me
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: about five hundred bucks, and that's before the fees. How
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: is that non commercial? How is that anti anything? Give
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: me a fucking break. I love the Strokes, and I
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: don't mean to pick on them, but like the majority
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of the mainstream bands out there right now, there's simply
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: cause playing as non conformists. And look, I'm complicit in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this too. I'm a hypocrite just like the rest. I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: like anti conformity, but I also like the comforts of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: having my podcast be distributed by a major media network. Okay,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna you know, I get it. My point
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: isn't that I'm righteous. My point is that Wendy o'
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: williams and the Plasmatics actually were the real deal. They
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: were arguably the most non conforming group of the entire
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: New York City punk movement of the late nineteen seventies.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And that is saying something. Okay. While plenty of ink
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: has been spilled over the years about the Ramones and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Television and Blondie and Patti Smith, including here on this podcast,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the Plasmatics get bupkus when it comes to props in
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the history books. And this was a band that was
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: selling out CBGB's on the regular, and when they outgrew CEB's,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they started selling out Irving Plaza and the Palladium even more. Impressive.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They did all this without a record contract because as
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: popular as they were, and although people were lining up
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: for blocks to get into their shows, no record label
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: would touch them. They were just too dangerous. They were
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: too provocative, they were too violent and too sexually explicit,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and they did things on stage that were illegal in
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: at least half of the music venues in the country.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: But it was outside the country where Wendy O. Williams
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and the Plasmatics would eventually find support. In October nineteen eighty,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: one month after the Peer sixty two stunt, the band
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: released their debut album, New Hope for the Wretched on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Stiff Records in the UK. Now Stiff was co owned
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: by a like minded musical provocateur named Jake Riviera. Jake
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Rivieria was a guy who told a singer songwriter named
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Declan Patrick Aloishus McManus to change his name to Elvis Costello,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and the entire reason he did this was because Elvis
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Elvis Elvis Presley, that is, had just died at the time,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and announcing oneself as Elvis at that particular moment in
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: time was not only bad taste, but it pissed off
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people. And this is kind of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the point. Jake Riviia, like Wendy O. Williams, was in
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the pissing people off business. Now this record New Hope
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: for the Wretched, It really pissed people off. David Frick
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: gave it a one star review in Rolling Stone magazine
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: at the time, calling Wendy a miserable singer who is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: all but drowned out by the moronic bama laba of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the band. Is that a word? I love that word,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: bama laba. I gotta say, David Frick here, he wasn't wrong.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: The allure of the Plasmatics and of Wendy O. Williams
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: has never really been about the music. It's about the spectacle.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: It's about the shock, which was exactly Wendy's intention. She
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was using her music, her art, to provoke, to prod,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to make comfortable people uncomfortable, which was the exact same
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: thing she had done to her father with that Mitch
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Ryder forty five all those years ago. Now it was
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: just being done on a much larger scale, and that
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: scale was then magnified at the start of nineteen eighty one,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: when The Plasmatics appeared on an episode of the TV
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: show Fridays, which aired on the ABC network. Now part
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of Wendy's notoriety was her past history as a performer
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: in the Times Square sex Show. Her manager, Rod Swinson
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: aka Captain Kink, was not seen as an industrious Brian
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Epstein type of manager. He was becoming known at this
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: time as Wendy's porn Svengali. Remember that this was the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: early eighties. This is right as the vilification of rock
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and roll as a pornographic and or satanic vice was
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: reaching its apex, just a few years from Tipper Gore
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and the Parents Resource Music Center and all that. This
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: was the climate in which Wendy and the Plasmatics made
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: their national television debut. This was the climate in which
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Wendy stripped down to her bra, covered herself in whipped cream,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and suggestively thrust a Toro chainsaw through a splintering les
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Paul to the easily offended, to the pearl clutching consumer
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: types to the middle of the road. Normy's Wendy O.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Williams was their worst nightmare, savage and depraved, right there
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: on their television sets, and they were her target audience.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But just as she had targeted them. Soon they would
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: target her and deliver a response that was even more
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: shocking and more violent than one of Wendy's notorious stage
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: shows could ever be. We'll be right back after this. We're, We're,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: We're January eighteenth, nineteen eighty one, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rod Swaedson
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: leaned against the bar the Palms Nightclub and counted the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: money in his hand. Not bad for a sold out show,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: but not great either for any other touring band to take.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Would be great because any other touring band didn't have
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the overhead that the Plasmatics had. The TV sets, the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Les Paul knockoffs, the Cadillacs. These things cost money, a
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: lot of money. You might as well just set your
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: money on fire, seeing that these things all eventually got destroyed.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: But then that wouldn't be a Plasmatics show. And even
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: here in Cheesetown, USA, far from home, that's what the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: paying customers were expecting. That said, ordinances vary from city
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to city, so while one outrageous element of Wendy's act
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was allowed in some places, in others it was prohibited. Tonight,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: For example, here in Milwaukee, Wendy had been forbidden from
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: wearing the customary strips of electrical tape across her nipples,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: so instead she covered her bare breasts with shaving cream.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And while there would be no exploding Cadillac on the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: stage of the Palms, the crowd did get to witness
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Wendy's handiwork with a sledgehammer, which she stroked provocatively before
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: using it to bash a TV set to pieces. Now
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the show was over and her work here was done,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and it was time to get into the van and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: drive to the next time. Wendy hollered to Rod that
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: she'd see him outside, and then she walked out the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: club's front door into the parking lot, where she was
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: surprised to find waiting for her the cops, at least
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: half a dozen playing clothes Milwaukee detectives. They leered at her,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: They taunted her, They stared at her with contempt and disgust,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and they did so while informing her that she was
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: under arrest for jerking off her sledgehammer during the show.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: That could have been it. They could have put her
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: in a police cruiser or a Patty wagon or whatever,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: taken her downtown and booked her and she wouldn't even
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: talk shit about the Titdy bar directly across the street
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that she assumed at least a few of them frequented
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: during after hours. But first one of these playing closed
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: cops slipped his hand under her shirt and grabbed at
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: her breast, and then another cop began to fawn her ass.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Wendy pushed the cops away, and then she cocked her
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: arm and threw a punch and caught one of them
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: right in a jaw, which of course, was exactly what
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: they were hoping she would do. When the fist hits
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the woman's face, the knuckle rips into the cheek just
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: above the third molar, and as the blood spurts from
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: inside the woman's mouth, it does so at a forty
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: five degree angle, splattering onto the freshly fallen white snow.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: And when the billy club strikes the woman's nose, the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: bone fractures and more blood gushes out, and her body,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: thrown off its axis, spins around one half revolution before
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: crashing to the ground. The size twelve men's shoes slam
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: into her stomach and her ribs like mechanized pistons firing,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: and the bile sizzles there in the back of her throat,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: her diaphragm, muscle spasms, and her lung cease all expanding
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and contracting. The CoP's knees come down on her back,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: holding her in place, and her bruised and bloody cheek
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: goes numb against the snow and ice, and as the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: frigid air slowly returns to her lungs and she begins
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to breathe again, she feels the steel jaws of handcuff
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: snapped tight around her wrists, and by the time Rod
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Swinson made it outside the Palms nightclub, Wendy was in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the middle of a vicious attack at the hands of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: seven Milwaukee police officers, and when he tried to come
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to her aid, the cops then turned their attention to Rod,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: beating him so badly that he lost consciousness. Wendy suffered
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a broken nose, a concussion in two black eyes. She
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: was charged not only with conduct prohibited in a licensed
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: premises that's the Dirty Sledgechamber thing, but also with battery
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to police and resisting arrest. Wendy and Rod were eventually
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: released on bail, but word travels fast, and just two
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: nights later, after a show in Cleveland, Wendy was arrested
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: again on the same obscenity charge, but it was the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee charges that were the most concerning. Assaulting a cop
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: was a felony. There was a distinct possibility that Wendy
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: could do real time. Back in New York. Benefit shows
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: for her legal defense fund were held at Bond's International
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Casino in Times Square, not only a stone's throw from
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: where Captain Kink once held court, but the same venue
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: where the Clash notoriously stuck at the ticket scalpers by
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: staging an unprecedented run of shows. Incidentally, the Clash were
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: playing those very shows in the summer of eighty one
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: at the exact same time that Wendy Rod and the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: rest of the band were sitting in the Milwaukee courtroom.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: So while the Clash sang about fighting the law, Wendy
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and the Plasmatics actually fought the law. Wendy pleaded her case,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and she did so authentically, not as the person that
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: her lawyer or the judge wanted her to be. She
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: was one hundred percent herself, rocking this skunk hairdoo and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: unruly black mohawk that was perched on top of bleach
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: blonde sides. She was convinced that the Milwaukee pde had
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a vendetta against her, even though she couldn't prove it,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: but it was her word against the word the Milwaukee
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Police Department, who, by the way, claimed that the injuries
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Wendy had sustained were not the results of their brutality
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: because she had slipped on the ice, And this straight
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: up falsehood was soon proven to be a party line
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: cover up when it was revealed that a photographer had
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: been on site during the attack and the pictures shown
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: during the trial clearly documented the cops beating on Wendy.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: As a result, the charges were dropped, but Wendy then
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: sued the Milwaukee Police Department for millions of dollars, but
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: she too would lose in the end. And I'm not
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: just talking about the lawsuit, which, to be clear, she
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: did lose. But all this publicity, the dust up with
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the cops, the arrests, the trial, the explosions and destruction
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and dangerous stunts would eventually make things much harder for Wendy.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Clubs would turn her away, promoters would refuse to work
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: with her. The Licensing Board of Quincy, Massachusetts would suspend
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the operating license of a club where Wendy was booked
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to perform, solely to prevent her from doing so. Not
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: that it dampened the spirit of Wendy O Williams, not yet.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: At least she lived a life of resistance, which meant
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: that she did not back down. She was a nonconformist,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: which meant that her actions and reactions did not align
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: with those of the masses. The alternative would be to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: give in, to become zombified, as she once told her parents.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And to become zombified, well, that was tantamount to death.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: It was a subject that was never far from Wendy's mind.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: A few months earlier, days before the Peer sixty two stunt,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: she had purchased the seventy two Cadillac Coupe Deville that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: she intended to destroy. The car's previous owner, when learning
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of Wendy's intention, said I don't want my car to die.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: But Wendy's response was both simple and empathetic. Everything must die,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: she said, but your car will be immortalized. Fair warning, guys.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: This is where the story of Wendy O Williams it
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: starts to get really dark. I suppose the darkness was
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: there all along, from the very beginning, a darkness deep
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: inside of her that she tried to keep it bay aggressively, loudly,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and often violently. But to paraphrase the great Brian Wilson,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Wendy just wasn't made for these times, or rather, she
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't made for this world. And when she was no
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: longer able to revolt against that world and the only
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: way that she knew how, that's when she became consumed
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: with the belief that she had no other way out
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of that world. So let me just say this is
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: as hard for me to write about as it will
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: be for you to hear about. But in order to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: understand where Wendy wound up, not just emotionally and spiritually,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: but also geographically and socially, we've got to talk about
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: what happened in the years following her multiple arrests, her
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: beating by police officers in the ensuing court cases. In
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, Wendy and the Plasmatics released Coudeta, their
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: sole album, on Capitol Records. Believe it or not, signing
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: to Capitol was a triumph for a band that couldn't
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: get ninety nine percent of record labels to give them
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the Time of Day just a few years prior. But
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the album was a commercial flop, and Wendy's controversial personality
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: continued to proceed Her and Capital quickly dropped the band
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: enter fell out musical outlaws Lemmy Killmeister and his band
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: The Guys in Motorhead, who were riding high on their
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: latest album, The Most Excellent Ace of Spades, a big
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: hit in their native UK. Pairing the Plasmatics and Motorhead
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: seemed like a good idea on paper, but the resulting EP,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: which featured Wendy and Lemmy duetting on the country chestnuts
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: stand By Your Man, was so poorly received that it
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: caused Motorheads guitarist Fast Eddie to quit the band. Next
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: up Gene Simmons of Kiss In nineteen eighty four, Gene
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Simmons was wearing that loved on look. This was the
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: look of a man who had just come out of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a four year relationship with none other than Diana Ross,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: a relationship he began while he was still dating Diana's
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: best friend Chaer. But Gene Simmons also wore a look
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of desperation, the look of a man who had finally
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: washed off all of his cartoonish makeup, perhaps a little
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: too late. Even what I'm saying is he needed Wendy
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: as much as Sheen needed him. Kiss was losing their edge,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and by producing an album for the Plasmatics, Gene, Simmons
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and Kiss had locked down some much needed credibility. However,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the resulting album, Wow, was technically not a Plasmatics album
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: because due to a legal snaffoo too boring to get
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: into here, it couldn't be called a Plasmatics album, and
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: because of this, Gene used whatever musicians he wanted to,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: most notably all four members of Kiss at the time,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Paul Stanley, Ace Freelely, Eric Carr, and Gene himself under
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the pseudonym Reginald Van Helsing. So Wow was not only
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: this secret Kiss album, but it was also the vehicle
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to lift Wendy o' williams out of the punk performance
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: art basement and into the big league penthouses with a
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: big haired, leather studded hard rock sound. It even earned
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Wendy o' williams her first and only Grammy nomination. But
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Wendy wasn't seeking out these trappings of success and fame.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: She didn't want the pen houses, or the awards, or
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: even the accolades. Her mission was purer than all of that.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: She was here to remind anyone who heard her music
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: or witnessed her live show that you didn't have to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: be like everyone else. You didn't have to wear the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: same clothes from that store in the mall, or eat
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: the same shit ass fast food that your friend's aid
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: at those crappy restaurants. You didn't have to watch the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: same TV show, and better yet, you didn't even have
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to own a TV but on those TV sets. As
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties gave way to the nineteen nineties, Wendy
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: was being featured more than ever before. Only there was
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a catch. She had become this captive zoo animal for
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: conformist America to pok at and prod The ways in
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: which she was different, dangerous, and weird were being amplified
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to a level as cartoonish as the black and white
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: makeup on Geene Simmons's face on daytime TV talk shows
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: that were huge at the time, by the way, huge
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: ratings for shows like Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael Again,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I gotta say it's some of the biggest shows in
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the country. At the time, millions of Americans would watch
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: as the hosts and their studio audiences gacked at Wendy
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: in disbelief. None of this attention boosted album sales. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: for a touring musician, the grind is real, and it's
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: real hard, super difficult, super stressful, and the stress, the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: wear and the tear, the living hand and mouth, it
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: takes its toll. And if none of it's working, if
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you're not getting results, well then life isn't working. Now
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: add into that equation the limited opportunities that Wendy oh
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Williams continued to receive based on her reputation and the
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: fights and the arrests and the lawsuits. At some point
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it was no longer fiscally prudent, as the conformists would say,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: just wasn't prudent in general. It wasn't possible anymore. So Wendy,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you had to stop doing the one thing she'd been
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: doing since she arrived in New York City in nineteen
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: sixty six. She had to stop being Wendy oh Williams,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the one and only thing that was holding her together.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: And that's when the trouble started. In nineteen ninety one,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: at the age of forty two, Wendy and her longtime
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: manager and life partner, Rod Swinson, moved to the town
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of Stores, Connecticut. Here life was as far from a
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Captain Kink matinee or a sold out knight at CBGB's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: as he could possibly imagine. Rod built a geodesic house
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: in the woods where the two were surrounded by nature.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Wendy worked at a local health food store and volunteered
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: at a wildlife center where she helped injured and orphaned animals,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: mostly squirrels. For many, this would be an idyllic life,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: but for Wendy it was a tortured existence. It was
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that so called zombified life that she'd vowed she would
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: never be a part of, and now that she was
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: part of it, she was plunged daily into d emotional
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: pain and hopelessness. We can all relate to emotional pain.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: We've all been hopeless at times. I know that I have.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: But I've been crushed by disappointment and disillusionment and by
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: life simply not turning out the way that I thought
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: it would. But thankfully for me at least, and for
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: many of you too, I hope and I would gather
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: there's always been a way, out, a road, out a light.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: But for some, like Wendyo Williams, the emotional pain in
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the hopelessness is so intense, so all consuming, that it
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: leads to extreme crisis. The first time Wendy O. Williams
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: attempted suicide was nineteen ninety three. She used a hammer
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: to bang a knife into her chest, but when the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: knife got stuck in her sternam, she panicked and Rod
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: rushed her to the hospital, where the knife was carefully
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: removed and she was patched up. Four years later, in
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen ninety seven, she tried again, this
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: time by overdosing on epatrin aka herbal ecstasy, but the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: dose wasn't strong enough, or maybe Wendy was just stronger.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: And then on April sixth, nineteen ninety eight, Wendy, determined
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: as ever, walked into the woods just outside the home
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: she shared with Rod Swinson, and in her hand she
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: held a thirty eight caliber revolver. She found a spot
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: that felt right and sat down on a rock, surrounded
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: by nature's crushing stillness. The sun peered out from behind
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: some clouds, and then she pressed the barrel of the
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: thirty eight to her head and pulled the trigger. Perhaps
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Wendy o'williams thought she had no other option, or that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: she simply needed more time to find the next thing
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that would satisfy her nonconformist soul. Either way, her death
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: at age forty eight it robbed the rock punk and
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: metal worlds of one of its greatest advocates for rezils
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: distance and that it is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and this is disgrace LAMB. All right, guys, thanks for
• 41:22
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