#GoodBar #history #truecrimeIn this episode we feature a return guest from 2021, Deb Berry, and we will discuss the 1970s fictional book and film Looking For Mr Goodbar as well as the actual case that was its inspiration and the reporter, Lacey Fosburgh, who covered it.

Travels With the Dark: Stories from humans in the “Limit-Experience”

This “special” episode is the first in what promises to be a series concerning real occurrences of human beings when they are brought into or more aptly, up against “limit-experience”, a phrase from French and German philosophers that attempts to describe in the most general way what human beings undergo when they are thrust into situations that push them to their limits and conditions of maximum intensity. While originally this was intended to be a series in the “True Crime” genre I wondered to myself if subject and theme could extended outward. It might not even only encompass the most negative aspect of human experience.I have been fascinated with the so-called "Goodbar" case yet I loved and knew about the 1977 movie and then the novel before I even knew that it concerned a real woman and her story - Roseann Quinn. It was genuine delight to talk with Deb on the subject and I honestly can't think of any better collaborator for this episode.Notes from our special guest, Deb BerryOn this week’s episode, we’re joined by Madame B (aka Deb) for a deep dive into the 1973 murder of Roseann Quinn, the case that inspired the Judith Rossner book “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” which was later adapted to the film starring Diane Keaton in a sharp turn against her previous role as Annie Hall and a young Richard Gere in his stunning breakout role. While the book and film have generated much discourse over the years, most of it has revolved around Quinn’s victimology, with little discussion of her killer, John Wayne Wilson, and his respective background, psychopathology and motives. So today, Mitch and Deb draw upon another book about the Quinn case, “Closing Time: The True Story of the ‘Goodbar’ Murder” by the late New York Times reporter Lacey Fosburgh, to explore the lesser-discussed aspects of the crime which occurred on the Upper West Side of Manhattan during the height of an era of cultural- and social upheaval in America. Set against the backdrop of the early 1970s with the forces of the sexual revolution and second-wave feminism behind it, the Quinn murder was a perfect storm of social, cultural, psychological and even religious factors that begs examination of this complex landscape and its relevance to the murder.More about amazing Deb:Madame B (aka Deb) grew up in Chicago during the 1970s when it was disco balls, Cubs games, deep-dish pizza—and the occasional serial killer hiding in plain sight as a birthday-party clown-for-hire. Like a lot of girls at that time, she loved roller-skating, “Laverne & Shirley” and “Donny Osmond” (and she had the purple socks to prove it). But beneath her feathered hair and Bee Gees T-shirt was a secret obsession she didn’t dare share with anyone—not her parents, not her teachers, not even her best friends: murder.In her public life, she swooned right along with her girlfriends over Leif Garrett and Scott Baio in issues of “Tiger Beat,” but in secret, she read “Helter Skelter” and devoured every detective show the ‘70s had to offer—“Kojak”, “The Rockford Files”, “Starsky & Hutch”, “Beretta”, “Ironside” and “Hawaii Five-0”, just to name a few. She came to see these shows not just as entertainment, but as something that held the key to understanding the danger that lurked right outside her door.Back then, being into true crime wasn’t just uncool—it was weird, creepy, and not a thing that girls (or anyone) are supposed to be into.

She believes you can dive into the darkest corners of human behavior without glamorizing or mythologizing it, and maybe even laugh about it now and then, as long as you know where the punchlines end.