Frank DeCaro, "Disco"

In this episode Brett sits down with Frank DeCaro to discuss his new book, 
"Disco: Music, Movies and Mania Under The Mirror Ball" They talk about Studio 54, the disco backlash, and the search for the missing Donna Summer interview. 

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Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of behind the stack where we continue in this nonfiction November. It's almost Thanksgiving. I hope you guys are if you're here in the States and celebrating that, uh, you're ready to get your turkey on. Eat your faces off. I will be in the desert for a few days, which I'm really looking forward to. So, that's what I'm doing. Today, as part of Nonfiction November, I'm happy to be sitting down with Frank DeCaro and his new gorgeous Coffee table, nonfiction book, disco. A little bit about Frank. He is a writer, performer, and is the author of the pop culture surveys, Disco, music, movies, and mania under the mirror ball, and Drag, combing through the big wigs of show business. Which are both published by Rizzoli. He's best known for his 12 years as the host of the Daily National Satellite Radio Program, The Frank DiCaro Show, and his much lauded six year stint as the flamboyant movie critic on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He spent four years touring North America as the opening act for Lisa Lampanelli. A former columnist for the New York Times and Spy Magazine, DeCaro frequently contributes to Emmy Magazine and the New York Times. His books include The Dead Celebrity Cookbook, Christmas in Tinseltown, Unmistakably Mackie, and the pioneering queer memoir A Boy Named Phyllis. DeCaro is a graduate of Northwestern University and married to Jim Colucci, the New York Times bestselling author of Golden Girls Forever. The couple is over. openly bi coastal. Follow DeCaro on Instagram, Facebook, and X at The Frank DeCaro Show, And I will have those links and the show notes. So enjoy this disco episode of behind the stack. I am so happy to have Frank DeCaro on here today. I have known Frank for a long time, so this is very exciting for me because it goes all the way back to Sirius XM and listening to you on Sirius XM. That's how long it has been since I've known you. So this is just a treat for me. And your gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous new book. I know the listeners can't see this, but this thing is just stunning. It's beautiful. It's so, so beautiful. So for our listeners and viewers, Can you just give a general, I know it's disco, so it's kind of obvious, but just give a little overview of the book.

Frank DeCaro: 2:41

It's a book called Disco, so it has to be all about disco. So you have to be very literal with your titles these days. But it really was a celebration, is a celebration of the disco era. And I look at it as, Between 1970 and now, I, I don't think my thesis is that disco never really ended. It just morphed into other things, but it begins on the darkest day in discos history, which was disco demolition night, 1979. There was a radio promotion in Chicago and people brought disco records and had them blown up. And that they, between these two baseball games, this shock jock. Blew up a dumpster full of records and it really had a chilling effect on disco in America. But what we didn't know in the day, in the coverage that we heard shortly thereafter, all we heard was disco was dead. We didn't hear that disco wasn't dead in other English speaking countries, in Italy, all across Europe. we didn't hear that Can't Stop the Music, The legendary bomb movie starring the village people was a huge hit in Australia. We didn't hear that house music was going to, to come on strong. Which was basically disco music. You know, it was, it was this new kind of music to replace disco and it was disco. And so we didn't hear any of those stories at the time. And yet disco became, As I argue in the book, the, the underpinning for all of the dance pop that we listen to now, and as someone said in the book, Disco's message was about diversity and inclusion. And that's a topic we, you know, we talk about so much now. And really, the book argues that the Disco Sucks movement was the MAGA movement of its day because the people who were not making disco happen, with the exception of the Bee Gees and a few others, were not white straight men, but instead it was the queer community, the people of color in our country and around the world, and strong women. And so, the white straight guys felt left out. And so this toxic masculinity, can you imagine such a thing, rose around, disco and they had to sort of stamp it out because it wasn't about them and, they weren't wrong, you know, I mean, it really wasn't about them, but, it really was kind of an ugly moment. The whole disco sucks. It wasn't that much about the music because, you know, you go, here we are 45, 50 years later, almost for some of it. And What do you hear at every wedding, every bar mitzvah, every graduation party? You know, you hear the village people, you hear I will survive. So it's, you know, disco it went underground. It didn't go away. It just went where the mainstream media didn't need to pay attention to it, so that's the argument. But honestly, it's a celebration of disco. You sort of get, you get a little bit of medicine in the beginning, a little bit of a history lesson, and then the history lesson you get in the book is really a party. You know, it's this, you know, Sort of gorgeous free for all of disco information, in tiny little types. Old people I know are, and by that I mean people my age, are saying, this print is so small, and I was like, I had a lot to say! You know, it's, there's a lot of goodies in there. Put on your, your readers and take a look, you know.

Brett Benner: 6:14

You also needed space for all those gorgeous pictures, too. I mean, the pictures are so beautiful. They really are.

Frank DeCaro: 6:19

I'm gonna tell you this proudly. I picked every photo in this book, okay? You did? Yes. They don't tell you that in journalism school, okay? They don't tell you that if you write a book, Not only do you have to write it, and then kind of edit it yourself before you hand it in to be truly copyedited, then you have to pick all the photos, then you have to, see what goes with what, then you've got to secure the rights to the photos. That, you know, it, you do a lot, and then you become your own publicist. So, even though you have help from the, obviously, the, the book, The publishers, have a publicist for you, but you really do have to do a lot of stuff yourself, and they don't, they need to teach that in journalism school, that, that it's, very hands on. So if this book succeeds, we'll all take the credit, but if it fails, it's my fault, because it's really my sensibility and my take on, on this. I'm taking all the credit and people like it, so, anyway.

Brett Benner: 7:09

When did you decide to do this? Like what made you decide to use this as a topic? And I know you were working on it for a while. How long did it take you to assemble this thing?

Frank DeCaro: 7:17

I'm saying it's sort of a three year rabbit hole that I went down of disco. And actually it might've been a little bit longer than that, but I. joyously watched every disco movie I could get my hands on every disco episode of TV shows. And believe me, some of our most beloved TV shows have disco episodes. I mean, there's a disco episode of the Jeffersons. Um, and, and listening to all this great music. So I really got to watch music videos and read up on it and, and. Read accounts of nights at Studio 54, and you know, people talking about that, and then interviewing so many great people, and at first you think you're gonna get no one, and then you get someone great like Gloria Gaynor, and then you're like, Village people will do it. And you talk to a couple of village people and then you call friends, Jolie. And she's like, Oh, sure. I'll do it. You know? And so it just, it just kept going from there and it built and built and built into all these wonderful interviews. And, and speaking of that, I have to tell you, so I've been married to the same guy. For I've been with him for 28 years and we've been married since it's been legal. We are like two, I would say we, we are together so much that if I go to something alone, I get looked at like one bookend on a flea market table. Like what the hell am I supposed to do with one bookend? You know, or I get the look of where's the nice one. Why are you here? Where's where's the, where's the one we like? But, he said to me. Okay, you interviewed Donna Summer in 1999. And it's true, I flew to Nashville, and I interviewed Donna Summer for TV Guide. So he said, you never throw a goddamn thing away. The notes from that have to be somewhere. You have to find those notes. And, so we went to, I went to my house, and I'm looking, and I'm looking, and I could not find one piece of paper with Donna Summer. And I thought, this is horrible. And well, Jim was just not taking no for an answer. He was like, you're going to keep looking until you're dead. It's here somewhere. You know you'll find it. So, We managed to not find it. And then all of a sudden I was like, I didn't tape the interview. Did I? And I was like, wait a minute. And I went and I found a box that I knew I had an old micro cassette recorder and damn it. If I didn't have two hours of micro cassettes with my lunch with Donna summer. Including ordering Chinese chicken salad, you know, if you listen to Donna Summer, and It was spectacular. And I digitized it as fast as I could. I had to buy a new microcassette recorder because the one that had been in the garage was dead. And I'm sitting there going, don't break tape. Don't break tape. Don't break tape. Don't break. I know that's, I'm

Brett Benner: 9:58

thinking in the tapes.

Frank DeCaro: 10:00

It's 25 years old. Please don't break. And it didn't. And I was like, you only have to play once. You only have to play once. Just keep going, keep going. So I digitized the two hours and culled from that all this amazing stuff. And then I went back and looked at the interview. And the stuff we used in the interview, or initially, because she was alive, and it was about her living in Nashville. It's all crap you don't care about now. So there was nothing of the, here's what it was like when we won the Oscar for Last Dance. Here's what it was like when I recorded Love to Love Your Baby. Here's, here's how I felt when they said I, I was homophobic because I made a joke about Adam and Steve. You know, so all this stuff was not in the interview initially. So the interview that's in the book with Donna Summer has never seen the light of day. So I'm thrilled that, that it's in there. And cause she is, even though Sylvester, God rest his soul, disagreed. She is the queen of disco, you know,

Brett Benner: 10:55

so that I would agree with you too.

Frank DeCaro: 10:58

And Sylvester might've been the queen of disco, but Madonna was really the queen of disco and, and, and rightfully so, because her albums are as artful as any rock as any album of any genre. I mean, their, her disco raise, you know, once upon a time, bad girls, really raised The bar for what disco could be you could dance to something that told a story and wasn't silly and Frivolous, you know, it was it had some grime. Oh my

Brett Benner: 11:27

god, McArthur Park. I used to live for last dance I mean, I remember like high early indicators spinning around in my living room.

Frank DeCaro: 11:35

Yeah. What could that possibly mean? No, I know. I, I, uh, I used to go to the Teen Disco. I don't think you're old enough. I, I went to the Teen Disco in Wayne, New Jersey in my Jordache jeans, which I, which of course I still have. And my Kiana shirts, which were those nylon y photo prints. Awful things and, we would go to the Strawberry Patch on Sunday afternoons and dance to Miko's version of The Wizard of Oz. Everybody remembers Miko's Star Wars, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, he also did a whole, he did a lot of albums, but one of them was The Wizard of Oz. And so there's this whole disco album of like, Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead and stuff. It's amazing. So I have

Brett Benner: 12:17

to ask, I have to ask you because you know, one of the things you do that's so fantastic as well in the book, beyond all these incredible interviews, you have all these amazing playlists. Now, did you make a Spotify playlist for the book?

Frank DeCaro: 12:29

Working on that now, everyone's yelling at me. I'm so like. I'm, I'm the Yutz who buys the CDs and DVDs and stuff. I'm still a physical media guy. But yeah, so I'm putting one together. Someone's like, you need, just need to recreate those lists as Spotify playlists.

Brett Benner: 12:44

I

Frank DeCaro: 12:44

think that is what I'm going to do to go along with it. Yeah. No, I just, well, you know, every time I listened to a lot of it and I listened to it, a lot of it on Amazon music. And. You'd hear something and then you'd be like, Oh, wait, is that on the list? And you'd run and check. And if it wasn't, I would put it in. So I made these, these, Disco playlists, but it also was to, to sort of just in the most concrete way. Say if disco sucks, how come there are this many good songs, you know, so it was like if there are hundreds I'm guessing disco sexist is wrong and it's stupid. So That that was really kind of why I wanted to do it and also you wanted to be about the music but it's easier to write and more fun to write about the Ethel Merman disco album. You know, it's the, the folly, the silliness is, is way more fun to write about, at least for me. Cause I, I think what's different about this disco book from the earlier ones is it doesn't push the tacky away. You know, it kind of embraces. The silliness as much as the whole enchilada, you know, because it's, I mean, I don't know if you saw during the Olympics Cerrone did a whole performance of Super nature, which is if not the best, it's not the best known disco song but it's one of the greatest disco songs and they did it with an orchestra in front of the Eiffel Tower and Here you are, you know all these years away from that song being and they're playing it as part of the Olympics and you're like, Oh, there's disco right front and center. And, it's kind of the artfulness is what you come away with. So it's not only that, but it's also, you know, and Margaret doing a disco album. It's just as much fun. So I, I really try to, Embrace both in the book. But that's my life. One of the most telling nights of my life. We went to a party at which they opened more Dom Perignon than had ever been opened at a promotional event. And then we went to McDonald's. And I'm real, I, that's the way I like to live my life. You know, I don't I really think you should be like this is the most fantastic campaign in the world. And now I'm going to go eat a Big Mac, because it's the greatest Big Mac in the world, you know, it's the Big Mac iest Big Mac ever, and I like to live my life like that, and so everything I do is kind of that mix of high and low, because they're boring without each other, you know, I think in life, I think you should eat a chocolate chip cookie and, and you should eat caviar, you know, I mean, not together, but, but, you know, I, I think that it's all kind of great, high and low, so.

Brett Benner: 15:12

Was there anyone that you wish you could have interviewed that you didn't get to?

Frank DeCaro: 15:15

Um, yeah, I wanted to interview Casey of Casey and the Sunshine Band. And it's funny, everybody who has, who knows him in any way, they're like, Oh yeah, that's not gonna happen. Which I think is, is kind of funny. And I would have liked to interview Barry Gibbs. But yet Casey, I was dying to talk to because he was such a heartthrob back in the day and they used to joke that, that disco groups would never have greatest hits albums, you know, they were like, Oh yeah, they're all one hit wonders. Oh my God. Casey and the sunshine band. It's like one after another, after another, So there was that I that I think he's he's sort of the one that got away for me

Brett Benner: 15:49

Let me ask you because you know, there's such a culturally kind of the impact of the time certainly I want to talk about Saturday Night Fever and just the massive impact that had not only kind of catapulting Travolta into superstardom, but also the Bee Gees and that album and everything about it.

Frank DeCaro: 16:09

I can't for people who weren't there for, or who don't remember it, the movie swept America and things moved slower in those days than they do now, but they also hung around longer and this movie opened and it is a great movie. There are a lot of disco movies. That are good, bad, you know, some of my favorite movies are just good. But these, this movie, rather Saturday Night Fever is a terrific, gritty, wonderful film with one of the most spectacular performances ever by a lead actor. John Travolta is luminescent in the role. He is, so sexy and moves so beautifully. And it is one of those, I mean, he's gone on to do other things, obviously, but it's, it's one of those roles that's synonymous with the person. And no one could have done it better. You know, it's, it's Marlon Brando in the Godfather. It's, James Gambelfini on the Sopranos, you know, as Tony Soprano, where you couldn't marry an actor to a part any better. than they did in Saturday Night Fever. His Tony Manero is, is amazing. I was shocked by the story that he almost walked off the set because they were shooting the dance scenes in close up, as if he couldn't dance, you know? And he's like, I learned how to do all these dances. He said, either you shoot this the way you would shoot a musical, or I'm leaning. And, and he got his way. And so they re shot the, the disco sequences. And, Thank heaven they did because you get goosebumps watching him dance. I mean, he's got the book to Danny Terrio who taught him to dance, you know, the guy who came up with the finger over the head, you know, and he was amazing to talk to, to get the insight there. And I talked to two women who danced with him. Fran Drescher, who was one of the first people to dance. I think she's the first person to dance with him at the movie. And, She had great stories. And then Donna Peskow, who plays the role, she's the one in the, in the pieced rabbit coat who comes, who shows up with the condoms and ends up getting, you know, raped in the car. You know, it's a harrowing role. Yeah. But she's so good in it. And, and she danced with Geralt. So she had lots of stories. It was fun talking to, folks like that, yeah, it swept the country. And people who had been in on disco since 1970 were like, Oh, great. Now it's over. You know, everyone's going to like disco now. And, and that was kind of that feeling of, Oh, our secret little thing. Is now going to be mainstream. And it did, I mean, there were, the movie came out, Disco Swept the Country. Every, every magazine, you know, from Newsweek on to Life, to everything was writing these disco stories. And people were going to Arthur Murray dance classes to learn how to do the hustle and hotels were turning their, their ballrooms into discos and, you know, every two bit little bar would, would put in a light. You know a disco ball and some lights and play disco music and everyone was going out and dressing up again. That was that was sort of how it also influenced fashion But yeah swept the nation the way hip hop has in the last 20 years where it's where you can't You can't separate the culture from the hip hop because it's just, it's so influential in so many different ways, you know? I mean, look at who we watch, I'm sure you watch, you know, as actors. So it's fed into everything. And, and that's what disco was like at the time. And it was also the first time that pop entertainment really proved. That people of color could lead the way, you know, in the biggest possible way, and women as well, you know, I mean, it was a huge, and people are like, well, there were girl groups, but those songs were not about being powerful women. These 70 songs, you know, they were powerful women's songs. It was, I will survive. It was, don't leave me this way. It wasn't, please, Mr. Please, or something. It was like, Oh, I'll, I'll survive. Do not worry about me.

Brett Benner: 20:08

Yeah. I am woman. Hear me roar.

Frank DeCaro: 20:10

Yeah.

Brett Benner: 20:10

Yeah.

Frank DeCaro: 20:11

But to Dan, but you could do that sentiment, but you could dance to it. Yeah. So

Brett Benner: 20:16

sure. Last week I was in New York or the week before it's all going so fast, but, we went to see Mary and, Have you seen it yet? I did. Okay. Well, it just made me laugh because when I was reading through your book, cause they had Ethel Merman as part of the pre show with one of the songs from her disco album.

Frank DeCaro: 20:34

Yeah. And that was kind of, you hear that and you're like, Oh, we're kindred spirits now. I gave her a whole page. I was like, oh, I gave her too, I gave her a whole page photo and a, and a writeup. No, it's just so funny to me that it is The strange, the two strangest disco artifacts to me are the Ethel Merman Disco album. People are like, oh, disco Duck. Hold my beer. You know, it's like, no, the Ethel Merman Disco Album, they recorded like 20 tracks, and I think only 9 I've ever seen in a lot of days, and you can't listen to the whole album. It is, it is just, It's her singing like she's still on Broadway and behind it's Thump, thump, thump, thump. It is, it is, it is so bad and so good and such delicious cheese. There's that, and there's a video for Cher, there's a, the greatest roller disco video ever. Is there's a Cher song called Hell on Wheels. And it is the gay, porn, drag queen, fever dream of your life. And Cher in exercise wear on roller skates. If you need to pick me, if you say, you look at election results and you're depressed, you just go and watch Cher in Hell on Wheels and you'll just be like, well, I feel a little bit better now. Yeah, it's, you, Is that

Brett Benner: 21:49

on YouTube?

Frank DeCaro: 21:50

That's my gift to you, yes. My gift to you is watch the Hell on Wheels video.

Brett Benner: 21:55

And listen to it. I'm going to link it. I'll link it below. I'll link it below for this episode.

Frank DeCaro: 21:59

It has, it looks like a gay porn film. It looks like Brokeback Mountain, whatever happened to Baby Jane. It's all kind of in, it is every camp thing you could possibly imagine. And it will make you, it'll make your nipples hard. You'll go out of your mind. You will just lose your shit. Cher used to give these parties in Reseda, which is like just for people who don't live in California. That's just a weird valley suburb. I mean, if you're like in Chicago, like what sort of, strange Western suburb, you know, Cher would go there and she would give these disco parties and every celebrity in the universe would go to these, these roller disco parties. in Reseda and then we saw her on the red carpet and she talked about it, we've asked her about it. We were like, you're going to think this is really weird, but can we ask you about this? I love this guy. And then she came, this was before she came out with DJ play a Christmas song, which she said, I want it to sound like Christmas at studio 54. That was her description of that. So it, it was really fun to hear that there she was in the suburbs with all these stars.

Brett Benner: 23:00

Yeah, you brought up Studio 54, which also is a big part of the book. And it's also just because it was such a significant kind of tentpole for the whole disco movement. It's kind of like the one thing where I wish that I had been older to kind of experience that just to go once. Do you know what I mean?

Frank DeCaro: 23:18

Yeah, the closest I got. Was, Sirius XM gave a 40th anniversary party hat studio with the original dj who's in my book, Nick. And he's a terrific interview. So I, and I had been in that space before, but it was really fun to, to go to that. But there's no way to recapture that because it was so much of its time. You know, the free love, the pre, the. You know, sex with strangers, of doing drugs because they didn't know they weren't going to be so bad for you, the city being, you know, such a garbage heap, and then you'd walk into this magical oasis, it's not the same walking from a A clean Times Square into a disco, you know, I mean, if you were like nervous that you might not make it to the disco because someone was going to rob you, shoot you and steal your purse and then you got there, you have to work for it. Got to work for it a little bit. When I got to New York in 88, we used to go to clubs that in those days, you're like, how did we survive? Because we would go to like Avenue C and 2nd street. I remember, yeah. And that was like, you know, where are you going? Where's the club? Beirut. You know, it was crazy, you know? That's exactly right. And you, and

Brett Benner: 24:31

You would leave at three o'clock in the morning and then you'd have to walk 10 blocks to even find a cab that would come that far.

Frank DeCaro: 24:37

And cause you didn't go out till 1130 at night. You never left. That's right. You showed up at a, at a door before midnight. Who were you? Some loser. Yeah. So it was. No. It was fun.

Brett Benner: 24:48

I used to go with my friends who were ensemble members and Broadway shows and they would do their shows and then we'd go home and everyone, you know, pregame and head out and start hitting things like, right. 1130 midnight that you'd go in.

Frank DeCaro: 25:00

Studio 54 was the, you know, Mount Olympus of disco. But places like that, or places that tried to capture some of that opened all across the country, you know, I mean, every town had its own wannabe studio, you know, or in spot. And, We went to the place in Chicago called Dugan's Bistro, and that was, we didn't even know it at the time, we just thought, oh, it's a gay bar, it's fun, but it really was sort of the studio, it was the club that everyone went to when they visited, you know, if Andy Warhol came to town, he went, if Cher came to town, that's where she went, and uh, and it wasn't that it was fancy, but it was the, You know, Chicago's in crowd, we would get our fake IDs and go, and I was there from like, 80 to 84, and we had no idea disco was over by any means, because there were all these new, wonderful dance, high energy songs that you could dance and they continued. It continued, and then by the mid 80s, it was, house was coming on strong, you know, In the book, I quote some of the early house DJs, out of Detroit, because I wrote about them in 87. And much to the dismay and the anger of the rock writer who was in charge of the music, because I wrote it as a style story, and he said it's not time to tell this story yet about house music. And I was like, if there are best of compilations on vinyl, if there are these box sets of discs, best of house, I think it's time. If you can do, if you can do a best of record, it's time. And one of the people I interviewed back that I quote again in the book said, the mainstream press is not afraid to be out of touch with what black Americans like, you know, So, that's part of it too, that I want, why the story needs to be told because disco was a watershed moment for. Queer people, black people, you know, all people of color and women. So now we get to tell that story instead of the rock writer who couldn't wait for the disco sucks movement to. To have a day, you know, to

Brett Benner: 26:54

take over.

Frank DeCaro: 26:55

Yeah. So now we're like, well, we're going to tell us the other thing that I didn't know is, you know, we, I love new wave music. It's not like I did, you know, I certainly, my allegiance became, went to new wave. But if you look at the coverage in Europe of those early new wave bands, they all talked about building on disco and that it was like, just go for the rest, you know, and when you hear something like, New Order's Blue Monday, you know, which is the most danceable electronic song. it is. It's depressing as hell, but it's also really dancing. So, it's kind of, it is disco for the rest of you. And, you know, we used to say punk was rock and roll for ugly people. And that's what made it great. So, anyway, I'm glad that Disco now has its rightful place in music history, and I hope I helped that along. I'm not the first to say that. Oh my God. You know, but I hope it helps.

Brett Benner: 27:46

Well, here's the amazing thing about the book is that not only is it just beautiful and it's so well researched and it's just so much fun, but, and I love that this is part of nonfiction November, but it's also what the holiday is just around the corner. It is like the perfect, perfect, perfect gift book. I mean, really, it's like you look at this thing and this should be under every tree in Menorah going.

Frank DeCaro: 28:08

I agree with you 100%, but I very much for saying it. My mother used to make Italian gravy, which is how we say spaghetti sauce in New Jersey. Gravy, she used to make the Italian gravy. And if it was delicious, and she, she spoke perfect English, she said, I said, how's the sauce? She'd say, it come good. Okay. When I look at this book, I say, you know, I worked really hard on it and it come good. So, I do like this book. I'm. I'm most proud. I mean, the first book got me my husband, so obviously I'm most proud of that. But of the, stuff that I've written that's pop culture oriented, this is my favorite. I think I, I think I've done a good job on, on this topic. But, you know, these books become what they want to become. You know, and you kind of have to let them be what they want to be. And then you have to let the baby go out into the world. I've been talking to another author who wants to do a memoir and I, that was what I kept saying to her. I said, you know, just, you know, obviously write it, but let it be what it wants to be and the arc of the story will present itself, you'll just kind of figure the puzzle out as you're going along and, and always know that you're telling the story that you have. You know, needs to be told, or if not needs to be, deserves to be told. And, I hope I shine a light on these folks who, who didn't get the respect, necessarily, they deserve. Because I think that's a feeling so many of us identify. I mean, you know, when people who know me for being funny on the radio, read something serious, and sort of express their shock that I have a brain in my head. It's sort of funny to me, but I think there are a lot of people where you get sort of, In your box and, they think, oh, you're funny, but you're probably dopey or, oh, you're, you know, oh, you're smart. So you can't be when you break out of your, your box and show them you can be funny and smart, mean and kind at the same. You can be a lot of things, I think that, as a writer, that's what you sort of want to do. You want to show that you can be many things And in telling the disco story I wanted to show that it could be many things that it could be A great song and it could be a totally stupid song and you can love both of them. I love that one of the songs Get up and boogie. That's right are the entire lyrics to the song get up and boogie. Okay It's like and they were oh my god, the rock people were so mad about that. That's kind of genius The whole, all of the lyrics are, Get up, and buggy. That's right. That's it! It's like, It's like, It's like, Oh, that's kind of genius. It's, it's just, What's the

Brett Benner: 30:48

bridge?

Frank DeCaro: 30:50

No, it's, You look at it, You're just sort of like, It's like, But it's, you know, It's just an Oreo cookie. Yes, but it's an Oreo cookie, And it's the most perfect Oreo cookie. It doesn't need to be Freshly baked out of the oven. You know, it's like, It's an Oreo, it's perfect. And it's like, you look at that song, it's like, Is it stupid? Sure! Is it like, you know, is it delicious? Oh, it's delicious! It's like, you know, so. I say embrace all of it.

Brett Benner: 31:12

Yeah. Well, congratulations. It is fantastic.

Frank DeCaro: 31:16

Thank you. I'm so glad you do this because, oh my god, you just, I, I just picked up Evie Audley's book because I, I met Evie Audley, the drag queen from RuPaul. And one of the pull quotes is, Amanda Lepore, the sort of trans icon. And she says, I don't read books, but if I did, I'd read this book. And that's really funny, but it's sort of like, Oh my God. It's like, there's a poll quote about not reading books. It's like, that's, if that isn't where we are in 2024, I don't know what, I don't know what it is.

Brett Benner: 31:46

I know.

Frank DeCaro: 31:46

Well, we're, we're preaching to the converted. Let me ask you this question. You're the book expert. Does, does an audio book count as much as, as if somebody actually sits and read it in your mind?

Brett Benner: 31:56

a hundred percent. I do a lot of books on audio because look, not everybody can, have the time to sit and read. And certainly with the way the country is right now, people's attention spans are so shot that sometimes you just need someone like in a car. Like I love her for audio book in the car. Absolutely. Yeah.

Frank DeCaro: 32:13

I like to go hide with a hard cover. You know, I like to go get met with a book and send me, although I am tempted to get Barbara Streisand's book is so heavy that I was having trouble reading it in bed, you know, it's really, it's, but if there's an intruder, it's good to keep near your bedside because Barbara could hit you. Yeah. It could be hit him in the head.

Brett Benner: 32:34

Yes. Or if you have to keep the door open, but listen, that book in particular, you need to listen to because there's a lot on the audio book that she does. That's not in like there's audio clips and her singing and that's not in the book.

Frank DeCaro: 32:48

A good 48 hours.

Brett Benner: 32:49

The audio is great.

Frank DeCaro: 32:50

Yeah. Okay.

Brett Benner: 32:51

Well, thank you, Frank. I love you. I adore you. I think this is so awesome. Go out, get the book. People, it'll be on my bookshop. org page. You can also get it through there. Buy independent if you can, but buy the damn book.

Frank DeCaro: 33:03

It's true. Yes. And, always remember authors get the same amount of money no matter how much you pay. So if you need to buy it cheap somewhere, knock yourself out. That's what I say. Just buy two. If it's really cheap, buy two. So anyway, thank you.

Brett Benner: 33:17

It's the holidays coming up. Thank you. All right. We will talk soon.

Frank DeCaro: 33:22

Bye. Thank you.

Brett Benner: 33:22

Bye.